Friday, 23 Feb: Scooter day today! After breakfast Glen dives to the anchor to make sure we are set to leave Cloudy Bay home-alone for the day. He placed a coke bottle next to the shank on the seabed, so that he can spot any movement. Normally we don’t leave Cloudy Bay alone for too many hours when on anchor. And this new anchor, an Ultra from Turkey, we don’t have full confidence in yet, ever since we spotted Cloudy Bay drifting out to sea while we sat and sipped cocktails with Emma on a beach in Greece last year.
At 9am we pick up the scooter. But the key is not working correctly so there is a while till we get a new(er) scooter. Odd, no paperwork, she doesn’t even look at Glen’s license. Clearly a low-key rental with price to match. But the newer 125 scooter seems fine and off we go, Glen with a simple scooter helmet, Oana with a bright yellow construction hard hat. This is safety in the Grenadines! We go around the island in an anti-clockwise direction. In a day we should see it all as it’s only 8 miles long by 3 miles wide.
No need to hunt for the smaller “national” roads here – they are ALL small single track roads and some just dirt tracks. Just as we like it. After a quick stop on the south coast, where we ride through a 1/2 built house and onto the terrace for a view, we head to Mount Royal, the highest point. The road runs out at a big radio mast, clearly where all the islands communications pass through. The rusty gates are broken and we ride right through and up to the mast. Then we spot there is a ladder up the mast to a viewing platform. So yes, up we go. And we are half way up when we realize just how high this ladder is! At the top the cheeky duo get an amazing 360 view of the island, surrounded by reefs and the brightest turquoise water we have ever seen. Back on the road we find that like Romania, dogs love to chase bikes. We have a few near misses with nasty biting teeth getting a little too close for comfort.
As we ride along the main (dirt) coast road on the windward side we spot graves among the tree next to the beach. An odd yet peaceful place with the graves so close to the beach and the trade wind gently blowing through the shady trees which are overhanging them. A nice place to be laid to rest.
Further north, at Windward village they are famous for still building traditional wooden boats. We find one such boat half built but no one working on it. Locals tell us they have run out of materials, for the time being. Like most of the villages we pass through, it’s like a time warp into the past. We even see a young guy riding a donkey.
As we pass back through Hillsborough, the main town, we escape our first rain shower by having a cool beer in a bar overlooking the beach. It’s no glamorous affair, but serves the purpose to keep us dry.
Back at the boat before dark we plan to have our usual late lunch then go on the scooter in search of local night life, given it’s a Friday night. But as the sun goes down it starts to rain, with strong wind squalls up to 30 knots, then the next minute, no wind at all. But this is no normal quick shower. The sequence repeats every 5-10 minutes late into the evening, and we end up cozy on board, not venturing out.
