Grenada

Tin Tin left Peake Yachts at 16:30 on Wed 5th December and motored round to Scotland Bay and dropped anchor for the night it was glorious to be making progress at last.

The following morning we set off at 04:30 under a clear dark starry sky. And then had a fast sail north to Grenada arriving reefed hard down in sudden 40 knot squalls and rain. As we dropped sail we discovered that the engine wouldn't start.
We quickly hoisted sail again and tacked up until we could make our way safely into Prickly Bay to drop anchor (using skills from a Cornish childhood.

On Friday morning we cleared Customs and Immigration at 11:00 and then, finding that no engineers were available to help, we bled the diesel line and cleared air from it, solving the problem.

Ashore I hired a car and we spent Saturday and Sunday exploring the island. In the north we found the airstrip with two Russian marked aircraft wrecks, remnants from the American invasion to oust the Cuban «advisors». It was poignant to see the bullet holes in the metal and then to find an A4 sheet pasted inside mourning an American K. I. A. on 25th Oct 1983.

We continued northwards to a village called Sauteurs (or Leapers on different signs. ) where I sat on the jetty and sketched the cliff from which besieged Caribs leapt to their deaths. It's topped with a fine church, and on the beach below brightly painted fishing boats with big outboard motors are bombing at moorings or drawn up on the sand.

Grenadan villages don't seem to make the most of their sea fronts. Very little in the way of cafes or restaurants on our trip round unlike Barbados where some villages had places attractive to tourists, with funky beachside bars or cafes. We stopped in various roadside bars and eventually in Houyave on the West we found a local restaurant which served macaroni pie, fish and chicken.