Friday, 9 Feb: The generator stopped again this morning after 45mins of running. Same problem, coolant over temperature. Once we finish with hire car tomorrow, Glen will need to focus on fixing it.
As we step in the dinghy ready for today’s adventures, Glen comments “All this rain water is so cleansing, the dinghy is always spotless”. One of the advantages of the frequent showers. But today looks clear for once so fingers crossed for a dry day.
Our road trip today takes us up the west coast and around the north to pristine beaches and interesting villages. But to start with, we have to negotiate rush hour through St.George town. It’s grid-lock, so we u-turn and take the long route in the surrounding hills to bypass the town. On the hillside, we are treated to a wonderful view down over the town and harbour. As we head north from St.George we pass through many small coves, each with a small fishing fleet, a gathering of colorful houses and complete absence of any tourist development.
A venture up a very narrow road, with shear drops into a ravine below, takes us to Concord falls, a waterfall into a blue pool. Very pretty but also a lot of tourists from the cruise ships, coming up by the minibus load.
Back at the coast, at Gouyave, we visit a nutmeg processing plant. It’s in a dilapidated warehouse using very old and manual techniques for sorting the various sizes and qualities of nutmeg. And they still ship in hessian sacks, hand stenciled for cities all over the world. Outside Gouyave we make a short but very interesting stop at the Dougaldston Estate, a working estate with boucans – buildings used for drying cocoa beans.
At the very north of the island we find the cute Petite Anse Hotel where we sip drinks, on a wooden terrace looking down onto the palm clad beach. In the distance we can see the Grenadine islands stretching to the north – they will be our next stop on CB. We meet a couple who are also on their own boat. They keep it in the Grenadines and have come out from their home in Dorset every winter for 10 years. They have a lot of useful information.
We pass through the northern town of Sauteurs that has “Leapers Hill”. This is where the last of the indidginous and canibalistic Carib people jumped to their deaths rather than be captured by the French colonists. The Europeans maybe a civilized race now, but they certainly have a history to be shameful of.
On the north-east corner we enter the Levera National Park which has beautiful and pristine beaches where the endangered leatherback turtles lay eggs Apr-Oct. Just south, at Bathway beach, we stop at a shanty bar run by a couple from Bristol! She makes a great rum punch, which we sip while relaxing in hammocks watching the Atlantic waves crash on the beach. Soon we realize we are very salty from the spray and we can no longer see through our sunglasses!
Late in the afternoon, at a small village called La Poterie, we come across what looks like a festival. Hundreds of people milling around and loud music. We stop to investigate. There’s a lot of cooking over open fires and they are laying banana leaves on the ground and putting food on them. Saraca is an African tradition dating back to slavery, and the food is laid out the original way the slaves ate. The Saraca festival is held the Friday before Ash Wednesday each year. Soon all the children are sitting down and eating while the adults look on. It’s a very nice atmosphere.
Seeing all that food reminds us that we haven’t eaten all day! So as it gets dark we decide to head back to the west coast, across the middle of the island, to Gouyave, where there is a “Fish-Friday” event. It’s a very dark and spooky drive on a tiny bendy road through thick jungle and up & over the volcano side. Made even more dramatic when the petrol light comes on! But we make it to Gouyave and find a petrol station still open.
The Fish-Friday is a much smaller event than the one we experienced in Oistins, Barbados. Only a few stalls set up, grilling fish, pawns, lobster and some meats. Just as we have finished our seafood spaghetti and coconut crusted pawns, we spot the same people whom we met last weekend, the crew from the luxury yacht Lady Bird. Soon we are all gathered again around a table and chatting.
Glen and Ross are discussing and comparing electrical and mechanical system between CB and their 65m yacht, Lady Bird. We have a small washing machine, they have 5 industrial sized. We have a small freezer, they have a walk in freezer room. Glen is proud of CB’s engine room but Lady Bird has a 2-deck engine room, and Ross says he can stand on an engine and jump and still not hit his head! We spend very little on food, they import all their food from Europe and fly it in at $20,000 per ten days! We run our generator for an hour each day consuming 3 liters diesel, they run theirs 24/7 burning $1000 per day. No wonder their yacht costs a cool 1/2 million a week to charter!!
By the time we are back to the boat it’s past midnight. So much for our planned early night!
