MOODY BLUES, WELCOME TO GRENADA!

 St. George the capital and main tourist development of Grenada, is located at the SW end of the island.

     Flags welcoming us into the Lagoon. 

   St. George is said to have a French Mediterranean look. The language spoken is English, but its patois—jargon—is often very difficult to comprehend. Gene has a much better ear for it.   

Prayer flags? As you can see, the hills are steep in St. George. It is considered one of the most interesting of the Lesser Antillean towns.

Michael De Gale, a famous author.                     Arts & Crafts established in 1959.

“Popularly known as the Scots’ Kirk, this structure sits at the end of Church St. It was constructed in 1831 with assistance from the Freemasons. Two features for which the church is well know are its bell, which was cast in Glasgow in 1833, and it’s clock, which is very much an antique. Remembering its heritage, the church, on its 150th anniversary, held a ceremony in honor of the Freemasons.”

In this photo the church is 176 years old. (1833–2009)

No parking meters.                                        No rain, just hot sunshine.

Love the flags, not the easy to bottom-out curbs! / Fresh fish were for sale along this quay.

The town wraps around the old port of St. George called The Carenage.

Many old stone and brick buildings. After all, it was discovered by Columbus on his 3^rd voyage in 1498. He babtized it “Conception”. Later the Spanish sailors gave it the name of Grenada because its green hills  reminded them of Granada in Spain’s Andalusia.

Canadians aren’t the only ones with red doors. My bedroom had louver windows. They were easy to slide out (pre-Gene). 

Trippy.

Gloriously funky.

Local artwork. “Lively up yourself . . .” Pretty isn’t it?

Hummm. Phoenix isn’t the brand of tobacco I would have thought was Caribbean. See, so much to learn.

Street scenes. Grenada’s population is about 102,000. In St. George approximately 20,000 people reside.

Heads up!

Wild flower?

License plate.

Moody Blues left Union Island and 10–miles later sailed into Hillsborough, Carriacou, and dropped anchor. Moody Blues did not tie up to this gigantic buoy as the photo might imply!

As Carriacou is a dependency of Grenada and is considered a Grenadan Grenadine we were once again required to check into customs and immigration. Luckily we went in together (as we usually did), but at Carriacou’s immigration we learned that every person on a boat needs to physically check into immigration to fill out and sign a health card.

Two other captains checking in at the same time as us, had to return to their boats and retrieve any and all passengers. Needless to say it was especially a big hassle for the Mooring’s chartering boat with ten people on board. It meant two trips to and fro shore in the small dinghy.   

As you can see it’s the big ships that snag the big buoys. We gave the man above a ride back out to his ship in our dinghy. He was very nice and very hard to understand. The patois dialect is a mixture of South African, French, Spanish and English, and totally foreign to my English comprehensive ears. Gene somehow gets the jargon 100% better than me.

Above, Moody Blues is front and center. Carricou is 34 square kilometers (13 square miles). It is 8,560 acres and it measures 7 by 2 miles running north to south. Its population is 7,000 and it is the largest and most populated island of the Grenadan Grenadines. Running down the island’s center are five tall hill masses. The tallest is Chapeau Carre (not in the photo) at 290 m, which is 951.4435695538058 feet high!  

Pretty motor-sailor at the public dock.

Inviting?

This was a trip to have snorkelers swim by the boat.

As we had gone from Union Island a St. Vincent Grenadine, to Carriacou a Grenadan Grenadine, we hoist the Grenadan Grenadine’s flag.

Cheers! Here’s to another new beautiful West Indian country!

(This post is dedicated to Carl at San Juan Wireless for suggesting I use Google to convert square kilometers to square miles and meters to feet. Thanks Carl.)

What is so cool about Union Islands’ Anchorage Yacht Club’s revival is that it’s a great place for family and friends to fly into to visit us and sail on Moody Blues over to the famous Tobago Cays. The fact AYC is a small hotel with restaurant and bar in a gorgeous setting makes it perfect. Those with shaky sea-legs and grumbling tummies have a reprieve at the AYC.

No chance of getting bored here!

Great walkway with a turtle, mudshark, other fish pond.

Mudshark.

Yummy.

Fresh coconut punch by the bottle. Ask at the bar. Thank you. — NO, thank you!

(This post is dedicated to my girlfriends (not Gene’s!) in hopes they will visit us next season.)