Another day, another country - Grenada

The pages of our and passports are filling up quickly with the stamps of customs and immigration and we're still in the Caribbean. Luckily we both renewed our passports before we left and we opted for the ones with extra pages in them.

Yesterday we cleared out of Saint Vincent in Union Island and cleared into Grenada in Carriacou all of 6 miles away. Grenada actually consists of three islands: Grenada is the southern most island in the Windwards and is 120 sq.miles; Carriacou is just to the north of it and is just 13 sq. miles whilst tiny Petit Martinique is just 586 acres (and most of that a steep hill). Carriacou is pretty much overlooked by the tourist business so we have discovered that it's friendly and just nicely scruffy in parts. Clearing in at the main town of Hillsborough was a slow process and the anchorage there was very rolly so we moved on to Tyrrell Bay in the SW corner where there's a sheltered anchorage full of live-aboards in some sturdy cruising yachts, with just a few charter boats as well.

We found a well-recommended (thanks to Christine & Peter on Oojah- it's good to stay in e mail contact with our ARC friends!) restaurant for supper last night (and lunch today!) called The Slipway which has converted the old woodworking shop of a now-defunct boat-builders in the corner of the bay. They have retained some of the old machines and converted them into interesting tables and bars whilst outside the old launching trolley and its associated winches slowly rust. The food was good and well priced and the setting lovely.

At least there s still some traditional boat-building going on here - we found a workshop with a beautiful little clinker-built dinghy nearing completion:

Today has been a public holiday here following this week's elections. The party in opposition for the past 5 years won a landslide victory and we heard a post-election 'thank you rally' breeze past the anchorage with the local minister shouting his thanks to the voters via a megaphone. They take their politics seriously here but, then, the relatively recent history of coups, revolution and US-led invasion makes you understand why.