Hydrofoil kite-surfer in Clifton Harbour, Union Island. Note the “fin” that keeps the board 3 feet above the water.
On Monday, April 20, we sailed out of Union Island’s Clifton Harbour for a glorious 7-mile sail to Carriacou island, part of the country of Grenada. We anchored in the big bay at Hillsborough. With just a few other yachts and a handful of local fishing boats, the bay was pretty serene, except for the endless squabbling of a flock of seagulls exercising squatters’ rights on a nearby skiff.
We dinghied ashore the following morning to check in, and found the tiny Immigration office having a busy morning, as the captain of a newly-arrived Danish Merchant Marine training ship had come in with about 100 passports for her crew and cadets. “Danmark” at 252 feet long, is a majestic 3-masted square-rigger. launched in 1933. She came to America for the 1939 World’s Fair, but stuck around afterward, as with the outbreak of WWII, concern regarding German mines in the Atlantic made it imprudent to return her to Denmark. When Pearl Harbor brought the conflict to American shores, Denmark offered to loan the ship to the Yanks. The US Coast Guard thought that this was a swell idea, and she became USCGC Danmark, a sail-training ship. After the war, the USCG procured a German tall ship, the “Eagle”, to use in USCG sail-training, and “Danmark” went back home.
The Danish sail-training ship “Danmark” carries 18 crew and 80 cadets
Danmark dwarfs the more petite Sand Dollar
Some of “Danmark”’s 80 cadets on shore leave in Hillsborough town
The following day saw the arrival of another square-rigger, the 3-masted tall ship “Picton Castle” (home port Nova Scotia), and our bay was now looking very Horatio Hornblower-ish. Built in 1928 as a Welsh trawler, this 179-foot barque carries a crew of 12 and up to 40 “sail trainees”. The trainees, of both sexes and all ages, paid for an around-the-world voyage (July 2014 to May 2015), during which they learn sailing skills and stand watches. They can opt for one or more legs of the voyage, or the entire trip can be done for $39,000 Canadian.
Picton Castle. Her galley is actually on deck, visible here between the second and third masts.
One morning they stepped a mast onto their tender (called a jolly boat), hoisted sail, and pottered about in the bay for a while. We were delighted when she made a close pass by SD; so close, in fact, that she made brief but harmless contact.
Some crew and passengers from “Picton Castle” out for a day-sail in the jolly boat
Close encounter of the maritime kind! We fended off without incident, and it made for a great photo-op!
We took a little mini-bus one day to the town of Windward on Carriacou’s NE coast. This quiet little village has long been the center of traditional boat-building, and there were several works-in-progress under the palm trees on the day of our visit, with the sweet smell of fresh-cut lumber in the air.
Boat being built the traditional way at Windward, on Carriacou’s NE coast
At Windward
The view NE from Windward, looking across the channel to tiny Petite Dominique (R) and Petite Martinique (L)
That Saturday, Hillsborough’s Main Street was the site for the second day of the Carriacou Maroon Festival, a 3-day event featuring traditional food, drums, stringed instruments and steel-pan music. (Maroon people are descendants of African slaves.) We’d been looking forward to some island music, but the actual event was something of a disappointment. The musicians and singers were entertaining enough, but they were all bunched up together under a modest pavilion-style event tent, in the parking lot of a bank. Attendees stood on the periphery in the full blaze of the scorching midday sun, squished together, 4 and 5 deep, which completely blocked the view for vertically-challenged Katie. Too much crowd and heat and glare for us, so we paused briefly and moved on.
SD’s captain, limin’ (hanging out & relaxing, pronounced “lime-in”) at La Playa Beach Bar in Hillsborough.
After 10 days, we took another mini-bus ride, this time to Tyrrel Bay, where Carriacou Marine has a tiny marina and a small but well-run boatyard. Adjacent to the yard is the Slipway restaurant, where yachties gather on Wednesday afternoons to play “train dominoes”. We had a terrific lunch, and when the meal service stopped at 2 pm, the domino games began. We newbies were warmly welcomed and were given some basic instructions, and we quickly became addicted to this easy-to-learn game, returning the following Wednesday to practice our still-marginal skills and strategy.
Fresh tradewinds had been blowing through the anchorage for days, and the katabatic effect resulted in big gusts howling down the mountains into the bay, heeling SD as she lay at anchor under bare poles. We experienced some rather inconvenient rolling when a swell worked its way into the bay, and with the winds predicted to increase, we weighed anchor. After an outstanding sail down to calmer Tyrrel Bay, we tacked our way into the anchorage and dropped the hook. Tyrrel was windy, too, but the bay is more protected, and the water was calm and swell-free.
Tyrrel Bay was home to a whole bunch of yachts, and whereas in Hillsborough we’d been one of 3 or 4, here we were in the company of two dozen other boats. A long clean sandy beach rings the bay, backed by shady clusters of machineel and almond trees. If we’re walking into the shops from where we’ve beached the dinghy, we can forego the hot asphalt of the little road, opting instead for a barefoot stroll on the sand, with tiny wavelets washing over our feet.
At the north end of the bay is a mangrove swamp, part of a protected marine park. No yachts are permitted in the mangroves, except in the emergency event of a hurricane. It’s perfect for a dinghy, though, and Katie enjoyed rowing in the peaceful stillness, reminiscent of the mangrove creeks of our home waterways. The pretty channel was wide enough for Ken to sail the dinghy downwind to the end of the run, and then tack his way back east to the bay. He often took the dinghy out for long sails across the big open bay, sometimes joined by a few other local dinghy-sailors. We are proud to say that Loose Change and her captain were the front-runners, performance-wise!
Swells are rare in the bay, and SD bobs quietly at her anchor, with seawater lapping gently at her hull. Overhead are heard the frequent calls of laughing gulls, named for the sound of their cries, rather than for their sense of humor. We toss them scraps of stale bread, and once one gull spies the bounty, he sets up such a ruckus that he is promptly set upon by the entire gull community. While it might seem altruistic for the initial bird to alert his compadres to the feast, the fact is that these birds are not into sharing, and when the throng arrives, they all commence to fight over the spoils. We can’t figure out why he who finds the treat doesn’t just quietly scarf down the goodies before the others catch on, but there you have it.
The hills ashore are dotted with homes and tiny villages, where big plantations once owned by French settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries have since been divided into small parcels of land. Descendants of the African slaves on those plantations now have little farms and gardens on that land, and some of them bring their produce to town to sell once a week, setting up roadside tables. We’ve had fantastic salads of arugula, romaine, and other lettuces, plucked fresh from the earth just hours earlier. As nautical as the bay is, so is the actual land of Carriacou pastoral. Sheep and goats aplenty roam at will, chickens cross the road (never mind why), and roosters crow at all hours. The rooster closest to our anchorage actually makes a sound less like a rural wake-up call than that of someone being strangled, but we give him points for trying.
We’ve had a terrific time during our month in Carriacou and made some great new friends, and now we sail for Grenada in a few days. Sand Dollar and her rigging are covered in a thin film of red Sahara dust, and all the Windward Islands are crying for rain. There’s precipitation in the forecast, and with a bit of luck, we’ll get a nice boat wash from Mother Nature real soon. Grenada is known as “The Spice Island”, and her spice and cocoa plantations and her rum distilleries are calling to us! See you there!
Cheers and beers! K and K
To see where we are, go here
