Grenada

 

Grenada is certainly not without many charms, the weather is warm and the water pretty clear.  There are beaches, mountains, volcanoes, water falls, and of course warm water and water sports.  Grenada is known as the "Isle of Spices" and with good reason.  It is the second largest producer of Nutmeg in the world (and its associated spice, Mace, which is the red vein like coating around the nut), as well as a producer of a wide variety of other spices.  There's no excuse for using old dried cinnamon sticks in your curry when you can get fragrant cinnamon bark still damp from the tree!

We took the advice of Daydreamer and checked into the country at a marina and enjoyed a nice lunch before setting the hook behind Hog Island.  There we found a bunch of kid boats and we stayed put for about two weeks.  Emily played on the beach or sailed around the small bay with about a dozen kids of varying ages.  We had the sail on our kayak and even Tom zipped around the bay. We exchanged schedules and agreed to meet for Christmas in Antigua if not before.

 

Again we rented a car for a day trip.  We crossed the island and got lost on St. Georges one way streets before heading north on the west coast.  We stopped at the Gouyave Nutmeg Processing Station for a tour. 

 

Grenada produces one-third of the world’s nutmeg and this is the largest of the 3 processing station.  We learned that most of the crop was wiped out by a 2004 hurricane and is just now coming back.

Our next stop was the Belmont Estates cocoa plantation.   The plantation provides the organically grown cocoa beans for the Grenada Chocolate Company as well as growing other spices and local products.  

 

Kim and I remembered it a little more than Emily did at age 8, but we enjoyed another tour and sampled chocolate tea and chocolate chunks.  The meal at the restaurant was as good as we remembered as were the hot towels served to wipe our hands before dining.

Following lunch and a tour of their animals and birds, we headed to the Mt. Carmel Falls, which is a stretch of river with two separate falls on it.  We made the winding trip through the foothills into the mountains where we got off at the trail head for the falls.  The walk is quite short and easy, and the path littered with mangoes and beautiful vegetation.  The upper falls are scenic and the water breaks up into a cooling mist as it cascades down more than seventy feet.  These are the highest falls in Grenada.

 

A short walk back up the path and a fork down the river takes you to the lower falls.  As falls they aren't as impressive - as you can see from the picture they are more like a long rock slide.  Our guide explained how to ride the falls from the top all the way down to the big splash in the pool at the bottom.  Emily and Dad made the trip once, but the muddy climb back up prevented us from going again.  It was cooling, however, and made the hike back to the car a little cooler.

We said our goodbyes to the kid boats and decided to seek out another anchorage on the west coast of Grenada which would break up the trip between Grenada & Carriacou.  We headed to Moliniere Point and Dragon Bay, just north of St Georges. We managed to take a mooring buoy and then snorkeled the Underwater Sculpture Park.   The park was created by sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor. Taylor′s aim was to engage local people with the underwater environment that surrounds them using his works which are derived from life casts of the local community.

“Vicissitudes” installed in 2007, at a depth of 14 feet is Taylor's most recognized work in the park, a ring of 26 standing children, holding hands and facing outwards into the current. The design took six months to make, weighed 15 tons in dry cement and was constructed to withstand strong currents and tidal motion. The ring symbolizes the concept of life's ongoing cycle and highlights the importance of creating a sustainable and well managed environment for future generations, holding reference to the ability of children adapt to their surroundings.

 

Although the visibility was very good (for Grenadan waters) some of the sculptures were difficult to spot. The ring of lifesize people, which looms up at you out of the gloom was quite spooky !   We saw the oldest ring first and several of the children had fallen over.  Later in the snorkel, we saw another, more recent ring and all were standing proud.  We toured the bay and saw several other sculptures including a mermaid, several faces, a praying girl and several smaller creations looking like Mayan artifacts.

We pressed on North at daybreak and stopped at White Island for a snorkel before going into Tyrell Bay in Carriacou.  There we will check out of Grenada and move north to the Tobago Cays.

Tom