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Our First Visitors On Board!

We welcomed our first visitors aboard Ocean Song.  Jim’s sister Lynn and our nephew Bryan flew from North Carolina to spend 10 days with us. We were overjoyed to have them.

They arrived on a Wednesday afternoon.  We arranged for a taxi to meet them at the airport and bring them to Port Louis Marina in St. George’s Grenada.  We have come to appreciate, and rely on Joel for our personal taxi service needs.  Jim and I had moved  Ocean Song a few days prior to a mooring field just outside St. George’s Harbor.  After settling up with Joel, we loaded up Opus (our dinghy) with the four of us, and their luggage, and made our way to the boat.  The dinghy was loaded down to the max with 4 people and 6 pieces of luggage!  Of course one whole duffle bag was full of stuff just for us!

Cruiser’s joke about having an understanding with potential guests, that provide a “mule” service when they come to the boat.  This means one duffle bag filled with ‘gifts’ for the hosts.  This ranges from small boat parts to new credit cards and food treats like North Carolina pecans!  For us it was Christmas in October!

The next morning, we left for a sail north to the island of Carriacou.  This is the northern most island in the country of Grenada.  We set the sails and let out the fishing lines with hopes of a fresh catch for dinner.

While there was no fresh catch, we did have a nice sail up to Carriacou.  Upon arrival at Sandy Island we set the anchor, jumped in for a swim then settled in for the evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning  Bryan and Jim set up our hookah system to do some boat bottom cleaning.  I donned my snorkel gear and set out to scrub the water line. The current was strong and made it quite difficult.  We managed to get about half of the hulls done before having to stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent the next few days spending time on the beach, in the water and exploring the town of Hillsborough.   Jim and Bryan did a scuba dive off Sandy Island.  Then we upped anchor and made our way to the Grenadines.

 

We had fun snorkeling with the turtles at the Tobago Cays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jim and Bryan had another good scuba dive off of Petite Tabac at what is now known as World’s End Reef. This is where they filmed the famous bonfire scene in Pirates of the Caribbean.  We enjoyed a beach BBQ with fresh lobster, chicken and fish.  One of the interesting things about the Tobago Cays is that the shopping comes to you.  The locals come to your boat with offers of fish, baked goods and tee shirts.

 

We got off the mooring at the Tobago Cays and made the quick trip back to Union Island to check out of the Grenadines before heading back to Grenada.  With the formalities of checking out completed, we decided to take a quick tour of Union Island.  We hired a taxi driver to take us around to island.  He was a young man (about 30), but had grown up on Union Island and knew a lot of the history, as well as current happenings.

He took us to a place some call “the bridge to no-where”.  A failed development that has a long trail with two suspension bridges connecting Union Island to Frigate Island.  It was going to be homesites with a marina and man made lagoons.  Many environmental groups and the local government have worked together to make this an eco trail, and restore the habitat that the failed project harmed.

Our sail back to Grenada was quite the send off for our guests.  We were hit with a heavy squall.  We had been surrounded by clouds all day and finally our luck ran out and one caught us.  Of course the boat handled it well.  We had reefed our sails in anticipation, but had to put one more reef in and we were able to do that with Bryan’s help manning the lines with me while Jim was at the helm.  Bryan has caught the sailing bug!  He seems to be a natural at it.  Lynn has always loved sailing. Both Lynn and Bryan are welcomed back anytime!