We are finally here in Granada and hopefully our last stop to wait out the hurricane season. Grenada, a spectacularly beautiful island, has lush green mountains, crystal waterfalls and fragrant spice trees that give the island its epithet “Isle of Spice”. There are more spices here per square mile than any other place on the planet! Cloves, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, cocoa, nutmeg and mace grow in abundance. Granada is made up of three islands: Grenada, twenty miles to the north Carriacou, and Petite Martinique. Granada, the largest, occupies 120 square miles with its origin being volcanic. It is 12 miles wide by 21 miles long. Currency here is EC dollars (Eastern Caribbean) with a fixed bank rate of 2.67 EC dollars to one US dollar.
Granada’s history has been lively, with early wars and revolutions. More recently Grenada transitioned to full independence in 1974. In 1979 a left wing coup by Maurice Bishop attempted to turn Granada into a socialist state. However, he wasn’t insulated from opposition and within his own ranks second-in-command Bernard Coard, his wife Phyllis and members of the army took Bishop prisoner in 1983. After a massive crowd freed him, an army group executed him along with half of his cabinet. Six days later 12,000 US marines along with Grenada’s eastern Caribbean neighbor (the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States), launched a “rescue mission” and were welcomed with open arms. 70 Cubans, 42 Americans and 170 Grenadians were killed in the fighting. Most of the US forces withdrew in December 1983 and a joint Caribbean force and 300 US support troops remained on the island for two more years.
If that wasn’t enough, in September 2004, massive hurricane Ivan blew through the island and did huge damage throughout the island, especially the rain forest. The three magnificent picturesque, 19th century churches of downtown St George’s, The Catholic Cathedral, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church and St Georges Anglican Church all lost their roofs. They are all in early stages of being repaired and rebuilt. The Anglican Church features a four sided clock tower that serves as the town’s timepiece and is all that remains intact on that church. Everywhere we went in Granada you could see the damage with some buildings and homes abandoned never to be rebuilt.
We settled into life here in Granada rather quickly. The day after we arrived we heard on the cruiser net, VHF radio channel 68, 0730 six days a week about a “Hamburger Night” at the Clarks Court Bay Marina and decided to go. Before that could happen “Brain Surgeon” John was at it again, working on the refrigeration. “Digger” Carol was doing her thing in the V-Berth again. By the afternoon everything was a go for our first adventure here in Granada. We didn’t know exactly where to meet everyone for the bus ride and didn’t see any other boaters around so we asked some locals and they said to take #2 bus for Woburn. Two #2 buses past us and we wondered if we would ever get picked up. Finally one stopped and we told them where we were going and they squeezed us aboard. The bus never went down to the marina and dropped us off 1 ½ miles away. We had to walk in the heat and John said “we are never doing this again”. I said “every day is a new adventure”! When we finally arrived we met lots of new boater friends which we would continue to see throughout our travels. After our dinner they got us on a bus going back to St Georges Lagoon. The next day we went into St Georges, which is the capital, walking again as was our mode. The harbor of St Georges is like something out of an old watercolor painting of a forgotten seaside village. There are two forts in sight; Fort George and Fort Frederick. It has old brick buildings and capped with old “fish scale” tile roofs, a reminder of long ago when the profitable journeys were outward bound, laden with rum, spices, fruit and the returning sailing ships would arrive “in ballast” of bricks. Off the Carenage there are winding, narrow streets high up and down the hills with massive amounts of cars, trucks and buses going this way and that.
It seems we are on the go again for on Friday night we went with a bunch of boaters to Gouyave for their famous “Friday Night Fish Fry”. The locals rope off two streets and set up their fish/food stalls with everything from fried fish, tuna kebobs, fish quiche, grilled lobster, macaroni and cheese, french fries and lots of other goodies. You sure couldn’t go away hungry from that place.
Sunday 6/28/09, John was back in “Brain Surgeon” mode tearing apart the fresh water pump and replacing it with a new one and still it wouldn’t work. He then took out the filter and it was clogged big time. He now has new famous words “I hate plumbing”. He put “Digger” to work digging out under the pots and pans locker to get out a new charcoal filter. It took two hours to put everything back together but the good news is we now have running water again. “Brain Surgeon” discovered that the old pump still worked and it was just the question of the clogged filter. Oh well, what can I say.
We decided we really like it here in the St Georges Lagoon, if only there was clear water. We have a supermarket, Island Water World (similar to West Marine), a Yacht Club all at our back door just a short dinghy ride away and town is only 4 blocks away. We also have the bus nearby so what more could we ask for.
Thursday July 2nd we took an island tour with some other boaters to Annandale Falls where we all went swimming under the falls. After our swim we stopped for lunch at the Belmont Estates and did a traditional lunch. After lunch we went and toured the River Antoine Rum Distillery which is an historical distillery where the process of rum production has seen little change since the 1800’s. It is the oldest functioning water propelled distillery not only in Granada but throughout the Caribbean. A giant water wheel crushes the cane, the dry stalks are burned to heat up the juice and large wooden scoops manually move the hot juice from one big cast iron bowl to the next as it gets hotter (they call these bowls “coppers” as the original ones were made of copper. We got to sample the rum at the end of the tour. One was 150 proof, one 80 proof and another a rum punch. After sampling everyone seemed to be walking straight lines and we continued on our tour to the Great Etong Forrest and you could see Grand Etong Lake “Crater Lake”. Cutty our tour guide had some bananas and a Mona monkey came out of the forest for them. He knew exactly what we had for him. Continuing our tour we went to a Nutmeg Processing Plant where they showed us how the nutmegs were processed. It was a long day but a very worthwhile tour and we were finally glad to be back to the boat and relaxing in the cockpit with our own rum drinks.
The rains are starting with tropical waves coming frequently. You have to carry umbrellas where ever you go. There is so much to write about so read the second part of the rest of our story about our stay in Granada which will be coming soon.

Stay tuned for more adventures from John & Carol aboard the S/V Sweet Caroline.