Wednesday 21-March: Our day starts with breakfast cereal with warm milk. Uh-oh…that means the fridge isn’t working. Almost all boats with fridges have fridge problems. We have 2 fridges and a freezer, so naturally we get more than our share of issues. We had them all re-gassed in Lanzarote in Jan, and here we are, 10 weeks later, with a problem again.
Ashore, we quickly manage to find a refrigerant technician and arrange for him to come in the evening. Until then, Oana manages to squeeze all the essentials into the 2nd fridge. Glen starts to wonder how we will last across the Pacific if we can’t keep the fridges reliable for even 3 months. Maybe it’s time to refit them – but that is no small task. The fridge boxes themselves are firmly built into the galley furnishing, and the cooler coils are around 3 through-hull fittings that are all but impossible to get access to. Maybe we’ll just buy what we need to re-gas ourselves. Another item on the never ending to-do list!
Deferring the problem, we set off in our RAV4 to explore the west coast. After transiting Kingstown, the population again gradually tapers off as we head to the north of the island. Several bays are very pretty (Barrouallie, Wallilabou, Cumberland), but the black sand means the water looks more black than blue. Although some yachts are anchored there, none of the bays look particularly inviting.
As we drive north, at the very end of the road, it tails off into a dirt track that ends in a river bed. We can go no further. In the river and on the beach women are digging stones into wheel barrows and dumping onto piles of equally sorted stones on the river bank, for building materials we assume.
Next stop, on our way back now, is to see Dark View Falls, a series of 2 steep water falls surrounded by jungle with access via a bamboo rope bridge across a gorge. We are the only ones there, which makes it quite special. The last waterfall we saw in Grenada was mobbed with tourists from cruise ships.
At Wallilabou Bay we came across the original stage set for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl. It had been turned into a mini museum celebrating the film. Sadly, Keira Knightley was long gone 🙁
Then we try our luck up a side road heading inland. After passing a high village, the road turns into a single track dirt road which winds its way along the side of a valley with shear drops into it. This is real exploring! The jungle scenery around us is amazing. But just as we are getting to enjoy this off road adventure we realize the petrol is very low in the car. So we turn back the same way, eventually getting to a petrol pump in a village just as the empty light comes on.
After that, it’s back to Cloudy Bay to meet the refrigerant technician, Selwin. He re-gasses the fridge and seems very knowledgeable. He will come back tomorrow to also check the freezer. It’s windy and raining this evening, so we settle for staying on board and trying to finish the Bequia video. Tomorrow we plan to get up early and tackle La Soufriere Volcano hike. It’s 8km long and 1.2 km up to the crater. Apparently you must have a guide, but we don’t have time to arrange that – we’ll just go for it and hope we don’t fall into the molten lava at the top!