Tough choice. Stay in Trinidad and explore more and eat more doubles and roti, or sail back to Grenada where there are many boats we’ve become friends with. We took into account our medium range plans and in the end left Trinidad Friday night. By noon Saturday we were cleared in to Grenada and anchored in an uncharacteristically calm Prickly Bay. Our friends were in Hog island and Clarkes Court Bay but we took the rest of the day to veg out, wash the salt off the boat and catch up on blogging, Twitter, email, the news and Facebook. And sleep. Both Jack and I slept through the night for the first time in recent memory on water as calm as a pond.
We had a leisurely Sunday breakfast, unusual for a Formula 1 weekend. That’s because the race this week was in the US and not Europe so we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and dinghy to whatever bar was showing it. In fact it wasn’t even shown live so we avoided any spoiler news until we could watch the tape delay screening at Clarkes Court Bay Marina a 6:30 pm where the usual suspects waited while Bob fired up his laptop and sent the SkySports stream to the TV over the bar.
Jack says he feels more comfortable here in Grenada, but looking around at our little band of international cruisers I can’t help but notice once again how insulated we are here from real life. These southern bays are populated by yachties and serviced by locals. I sense a great divide between the two, something I never felt in Trinidad. Granted, we didn’t get out much in Trindad, but I felt more warmth and openness and kinship from all the Trinis I had contact with. Maybe it’s just me. I like the Stones more than the Beatles. So sue me.
It’s good to see friends though, and we look forward to seeing the new friends we met in Trinidad when they make their way up here to Grenada. This is a crossroads. For some this is the end of the line and they head back up island from here, maybe back to the states for another season. Some are heading toward the western Caribbean, Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica. Some will sail to the ABCs, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, then to Panama and the Canal. And some, like us, will go north to go south. After a lot of discussion we’ve made a tentative plan to spend most of December in Puerto Rico and sail for Panama after the first of the year. In this life the saying goes that plans are made in sand at low tide so everything is subject to change.
We know there are serious goodbyes in our near future and for that we’re sad. But we’re ready for the next phase of our adventure.
Start me up.
I sense some family history activity coming. XO
Why Puerto Rico? Favorable winds from there to the canal, or to avoid going around Ven?
Several reasons. We missed it coming down and we both like the place; my family owned a sugar plantation in the early 1800s and I’d like to research where it was and visit the land; I have a lot of relatives there that I never met; and it’s USD, US mail and shipping, and good provisioning for later.
Subject to change without notice, of course!