Poker and Waterfalls (Grenada)

Still happily anchored in cruiser friendly Woburn Bay, Grenada.. our hop to Trinidad, for now, postponed. This delay is caused by a combination of concerning weather factors and really just loving where we are at the moment. More on the weather later no doubt.

Well after a night of celebration (driving up and down and honking their horns) Grenada has a new prime minister: Dickon Mitchell. I was pleasantly surprised by his first order of business - nothing of the usual politicians waffle about inflation, crime, immigration etc.

“Project number one” he said, “I want us to start planting the nutmeg plants, the cinnamon plants, because project number one is to replant all of the spices”

He’ll no doubt be embroiled in scandals and corruption by next week, but a refreshing opening statement none the less.

Having finished licking my wounds from last weeks poker losses and accompanying hangover, come Friday, I decide to give it another go. This time drinking orange juice all night and winning the tournament over at Whisper Cove marina. I excitedly return home and bore Chez with all the gory hand by hand details for the next few days - a fate I will spare you.

So.. back to the weather: The upcoming wind (due Tuesday night / Wednesday morning) is looming large in the front of our minds at the moment.

The weather here builds gradually from Africa, and as it heads our way the forecast gets more accurate as to where any nastiness might hit. At time of writing, there’s a front headed our way with predicted 50+ knot gusts, thankfully it’s not expected to develop into a cyclone at this stage (Edit: it remained a mere tropical storm). That level of wind isn’t something we’ve encountered previously. Our anchor is well dug into the muddy bottom here and we have a sloping shelf bottom rising to the mangroves behind. We’ll take the canvas down from outside in the next 24hrs then patiently wait to get lashed - ‘hunkering down’ is the new term of the week. One positive upshot of the forecast torrential rain is we can collect the fresh rain water and fill our tanks up for free. ....a fun activity that involves running around the cockpit with a saucepan catching the rivulets of valuable water pouring off the canopy - all this done in undies or less to avoid getting your clothes wet. We collected 15lts from one squall that came through last night.

It’s also a nice activity to cool you down. With the storm slowly building this week, the temperature has stayed around 30 and it’s a sticky strength sapping humid heat. I’m not looking forward to the upcoming storm by any means, but the cool clear fresh air that follows will be well received.

Tuesday morning finds us preparing the boat for the weather to come. According to the forecast on the cruisers’ radio this morning the storm has quickened it’s pace and should be hitting us at some stage this afternoon. After I’d taken our rubbish ashore, we took down the canopy and lashed any potentially flappy lines. Mid morning the sky is already ominously dark as we wait. After a nervous few hours, come 3pm the rain comes down hard and the wind rapidly rises to a howl. 10 minute waves of this continue throughout the afternoon and evening. Thankfully the weather front eventually headed more South than predicted; had we decided to dash down to Trinidad to avoid the storm, we would have felt it’s full force. We still have a night of heavy rain (enough to fill the dingy to paddling pool level) and lightening storms ahead of us, but hopefully not the damaging winds that were initially forecast.

It’s now Wednesday morning, last night was punctuated by fierce deluges and occasional flashes of lightening - for us at least, a fairly uneventful night. This was sadly not the case for all the boats in the anchorage. On the cruisers radio net this morning we hear reports of at least two boats who were hit by lightening overnight frying their electrics. Giving their location we realise they’re only about 300m away anchored next to Hog Island. Glad we avoided that fate.

...oh, and it’s cooled to an almost (but not quite) chilly 28 degrees - a refreshing respite from the oppressive heat which had been building up over the last week.

Enough with the weather.

In other news: On the jungly walk up to the local shop, there’s a an avocado tree fully laden with large ripening pears. They’re big - a large heavy handful each, I picked a couple, and they turned out to be the most perfectly ripe and delicious avos we’ve ever eaten - yum. There’s also an abundance of thriving mango trees and coconut and banana palms along the roadside - as I’ve said before: it’s a very lush island.

‘ShadeMan’ is a local bus driver who is a regular on the morning radio net - he runs a bus from the marinas to the bank and supermarkets. He’s always cheery, and has a lovely strong local accent, and finishes his transmissions with; “Have a wonderful day in Beautiful sunny Grenada” ..or on rainy days; “Enjoy the liquid sunshine!”. We called him up on VHF and booked a couple of spots on his bus.

Took the tender over to the dock at Clarkes Court marina to await pick up. Among the people hanging around the marina office was someone I recognised but couldn’t immediately place. This turns out to be Fred - a really warm and friendly Irish American guy who, two years ago, we’d been neighbours to on Dimitri’s cruiser friendly dock back in Zakinthos. Lovely to see him and his wife, Ita again - they also caught the shopping bus. We spent a nice morning chatting about our journeys to here (very similar), and plans for beyond with ShadeMan driving us through the well washed to fully flooded streets.

On Friday night I surprised myself by winning at the Whisper Cove Marina poker tournament again - that’s two weeks in row. It started early with a 5pm kick off. I lost out in the first tournament to Steve, the landlord, by playing too loose and too aggressively early on. Tightened up and won the second later game. With a beaming grin, I then drove the dingy home across the bay at midnight, singing the Len Barry classic ‘123’: “it’s easy... it’s so easy....like taking candy from a baby ”.

On Sunday, we caught up with Fred and Ita again to make up a four in their tender for the days activities.

There’s an organised dingy run around the bay for a local kids sailing charity. You pay an entry fee that allows you to pick a playing card at each of the five stops (bars) along the way - the person who makes the best hand by the end of the day wins a prize. It turns out to be a wonderful day; Sunny, not too hot, lots of people (perhaps 25 dingys) and a lot of fun - Chez came close to making a flush, but came up one card short. The winner, a nice fellow called Ray who I’d met at Whisper Cove, gave the winnings back to the organisers. It’s a good day all round. We dined out with Fred and Ita on Monday evening at Clarke’s Court - having pretty good pizza. They’re heading back to Boston, Ireland and California before coming back here for Christmas. They brought us a couple of bags of food and some wine from the boat which they didn’t want to throw away while they’re away. This is a regular occurrence for cruisers - many times back in Crete we have given or received goodie bags from people heading to the airport.

We haven’t seen much of the interior of the island yet - other than the occasional shopping trip into town, so rectified that yesterday with a day out to the National Park.

This involves two local buses - a form of transport we’ve grown to quite like - they’re small minivans with bench seats in the back, usually packed with locals, who greet you with a ‘good morning’ as you get on. You can wave them down from anywhere on the road, and pay the driver $2.50 EC - which is very reasonable.

Having taken the tender to the dock at Marina Cove, we took the short walk up to the main road and waited for 10mins or so for one to arrive. This whisked us into town, where we changed buses at the bustling bus station and began the winding climb out of town and up into the jungly hills to the centre of the island.

The visitors centre has the usual batch of pamphlets and a very helpful smiling lady who gives us some pointers on where to go.

After a stop at a lookout point that gave great views of the south coast we head down towards the waterfalls (or at least where we think they are).. They turn out to be a little further than anticipated, and the walk down, while a feast of green for the eyes, was a slippery muddy track that needed to be trod with caution.

We passed a couple of groups hiking their way back up - they assured us the falls were well worth the trek.

They were.

As we neared, the sound of the rushing water grew, and we began to get tantalising glimpses of sparking water through the foliage.

As the jungle drops away, we find ourselves in a steep rock sided oasis with the jungle trying to creep back in on all sides, two tempting pools lay before us fed from above by the gushing falls.

With the combination of the oppressive jungle heat and the exertions of getting down there we are both very glad to be dipping into the cool fresh (not salty!!) water.

...and we have the pace to ourselves!

We spend an hour or so splashing around and just enjoying the awe inspiring beauty of the place. From the canopy above, there’s slants of sunlight coming through, and these light on a flurry of small wispy white balls of fluff that are being dropped from a tree above ( they carry seeds on the air) These add a magical snow/fairy dust feel to the place. There may have been more wondrous places that I’ve been, but none spring to mind at the moment.

Refreshed and revitalised, we make the long trek back up to the road. Wearily cresting the last few meters we get talking to a smiling local called Yardie (or Kenneth as his shirt says) - he insists on cleaning our muddy shoes in his sponge and bucket setup.

He does a marvelous job and is rewarded for his trouble.. a very lucrative business you would think.

The next bus was soon whizzing us back along the switchbacks down to St. George, where we supermarket shopped before catching the next bus ‘home’.