Hurricane season has ended now and we are spending our last few days in Grenada waiting for a weather window to make a dash north “up island”. My mom and dad departed from Grenada yesterday after a wonderful one week visit. We had a fantastic week with them, very relaxing and it was great to see them. We did a full day island tour with Cutty, visited Grand Anse beach, hung out and played a lot of dominos and wizard, and surprisingly to anyone who knows my family, not that much Kaiser.

We are readying the boat now to return to the status of a navigable vessel, rather than a static Grenadian water installation that has been growing its own reef system. Bottom scrubbing, route planning, stowing for passage, prepping food for a possible overnite passage have been the activities of the day. Our plan as it stands now (and as always subject to change) is to take a weather window on Thursday and make one overnite passage all the way to Le Marin, Martinique, approximately 155 nm, of course we have fallback possibilities if the sea state does not cooperate, Bequia, St. Lucia. We are trying to stay ahead of, or manage if it becomes necessary, the Christmas winds which can descend anytime from November to January and consist of persistent north east winds in the 30 knot range and can sock you in wherever you are and you may not be able to move (or certainly not move north) until they decide to let you.

All told we have spent over 5 months here in Grenada, less the three week trip home. It is a wonderful island with a lot to offer, so to that end, the 10 things I love about Grenada, in no particular order, are:

1) Rain forest hikes – We have done a whole lot of hiking since we arrived here, to Mount Qua Qua in Grand Etang National Park, around the crater lake, to Concord Falls, to Seven Sisters, to Mount Carmel. We have swam under 4 sets of waterfalls and completed the notable hike of Mount Qua Qua to Concord falls which was 2 hours up the ridge of Qua Qua and three hours down the back (pretty steep in parts) to Concord falls.

2) Fresh produce and spices – We have been introduced to many types of fruits and vegetables that we have never tried or never even heard of, like soursop, sugar apples, sun lemons and 10 different types of mangos. We attended a cooking class and learned to make Tumeric Chicken, I also used the recipe to make Tumeric Goat with local meat from the island.

3) The morning cruisers net – from Monday to Saturday at 0730 on VHF channel 66i there is an organized “net” that is run on the VHF radio. It runs for about 30 minutes and runs down weather, cruiser socials, help wanted, buy/sell and local businesses. It’s nice to be in the loop on all that stuff in an organized fashion. Of course, at times it’s controversial with inappropriate stuff being said and type A’s butting heads, but that’s just entertaining and I for one am very appreciative that people give their time for the net to exist.

4) Grenadian Hash House Harriers – The local HHH chapter holds a “hash” every Saturday somewhere on the island. You pile onto a local bus with shoes you are prepared to go ankle deep in mud with and set off on a trail that has been set by one of the HHH members (called Hares) with 100 to 300 fellow hashers. You hike through villages, gardens, forests, rivers, private property, people’s yards on a trail of shredded paper, with some false trails along the way to attempt to lead you off the real trail in which case you call out in the vernacular of the HHH to attempt to find the real trail (“Are you?” “On On?” “On Back!”). After you have made your way back, you are rewarded with dirt cheap food and drink and music, beer is 3 for $10EC (which is $4CAD). Attending Hashes has been a great way to see many different parts of the island.

5) Dinghy Concerts – We attended 2 dinghy concerts during our time in Grenada. Everyone goes when there is a dinghy concert. They are held on Sunday afternoons. Everyone jumps in their dinghies and loads up a cooler with drinkies and snacks and we tie ‘em all off together and take in the live music for about an hour. Everyone passes around their snacks, and if you want a beer from the bar, you pass your money forward from dinghy to dinghy and the beers get relayed back, all the way back if necessary. If it gets too hot in the sun, just jump in the water.

6) Dominos on Rogers Beach with friends – We passed many a Sunday afternoon on the beach picnic tables with a couple of sets of dominos and some hard core dominos being played. Afterwards we take a dip in the water to cool off.

7) Just hanging out with friends – We have made so many great friends who we met along the way or we met here in Grenada after we arrived. There is always someone to plan a hike with, play cards with, have a few sundowners with, or partake in any other of the offerings of “Camp Grenada”.

8) Jazz and Poetry Nites at the Grenada History Museum – on the first Friday of every month, there is a Jazz and Poetry night held. It features musicians, both local and from cruising boats that get together and jam. It is very different every time with different musicians playing and always provided a great night out.

9) The local bus system – The bus system in Grenada works very well and is easy to use. “Buses” are simply vans that seat about 18 “comfortably” (I use that word loosely). The owner gets a license and gets assigned a route and that’s about as organized as it gets. There are no (well not many) bus stops, you just flag them down, but they will probably stop and ask you anyways, since they are hungry for fares. And the fare is $2.50EC, which is a buck. They will offer to take you off their route for a little extra. If you want to get up into the rain forest in the center of the island, you can take the bus into St. Georges to the main terminal, then hop the #6 bus to Grand Etang for $5EC ($2CAD). We have made ample use the bus system here!

10) Scuba diving – Guillaume and I took our PADI open water certification with Dive Grenada. It was spectacular, I would do it again tomorrow if I could, even the written exam. We did 4 dives as part of our certification, which included the underwater sculpture park. It was Guillaume’s first time diving and my second time.

So that in a nutshell was some of the best of what we took in during our time here. It feels kind of weird to be poised to leave here and resume the more transient life, where we spend a few days or a week or two here and there, but we are both looking forward to the change and to be moving again.