Grenada for Hurricane Season

It was the 10th of June, the beginning of hurricane season in the Caribbean, so we were keen to keep heading south to be clear of the Hurricane region. The season starts in June and goes to November. Our plan was to find a safe anchorage in Grenada, where we could be protected or at least be far enough south to be able to escape out of a hurricane’s path.

From Union Island, we enjoyed a lovely 10 mile sail to Carriacou, the southernmost of the Grenadine islands, to check in to Grenada. There were several other boats at anchor in Tyrell Bay, but already, even from our anchorage we could see evidence of the damage that Hurricane Beryl had caused in July 2024. Hurricane Beryl was a cat 4 Hurricane with winds over 150 kms per hour causing severe damage to 95% of the homes, and including the hospital. Telecommunications and water services were destroyed, as was vegetation and much of the livestock.

The Customs and Immigration offices were very efficient, we were soon stamped into Grenada, so we could spend the afternoon visiting the town to see for ourselves the devastation left for these poor people, to try to rebuild.

After a couple of days, we got a perfect weather window to sail the 40 miles right down to the very protected southern bays on Grenada island. We chose Prickly Bay, where we could have taken a mooring for a small fee, but we are totally happy anchoring with our Rocna anchor in 4 to 6m of clear water over a sandy bottom. We soon found an anchorage amongst dozens of other cruisers, including several of our friends, some of whom date back several years while cruising in Indonesia during Covid.

It wasn’t long before I learned of all the fun activities like ladies’ coffee mornings, a choice of restaurants to suit all budgets, games and music nights, Yoga and Pilates classes, aqua aerobics, and swimming. Even shopping can be fun as, twice a week, there is a small shopping bus that comes around the different bays to take us cruisers around to the various supermarkets for our grocery shopping.

St Georges is the main town with a population of nearly 5000 and the population of Grenada 118,000. It is a pretty town situated around a very protected bay, with Port Louis Marina built in 2008 with 227 berths.
Fort George, built by the French between 1706 and 1710 overlooking the entrance to the harbour, changed hands between the French and the British several times until 1983 when it became the headquarters of the Royal Grenadian Police Force until 2024. It is now under renovation to become a tourist attraction.

Grenada has some excellent marine chandleries and all marine services, so it is the perfect place to get all those boat jobs done before moving on to the next season of cruising. The weather is hot (over 30 degrees C, 86 degrees F) and humid every day. Rain squalls pass over the island from weather that blows over the Atlantic, but we have not had the thunderstorms that tend to stay further north. Grenada, otherwise known as Spice Island, is such a lush fertile island, growing many of the tropical fruits, and famous for growing nutmegs, cacao trees and sugar cane used for making their famous rum. We are making sure to see as much as we can here between boat jobs.

The best way to see the countryside was to join the local HASH Harriers to go explore some of the more remote areas of Grenada. There is a keen group of locals who meet up every Saturday afternoon at some chosen location, no matter what the weather, and follow the paper trail laid by the Hash Hare during the week. The trails are often very challenging, especially after a week of heavy rain, which has been the case recently. But we love it. At the end of the walk there are beers and food available for all the hashers.

Our drive to these walks takes us through some remote villages where we get to see the local life and culture.

We were here in time for the annual Carnival which lasted for a week with Steel band concerts, public holidays and 2 full on evenings of Carnival parades. Such an amazing atmosphere all week where the local people go all out with costumes. One evening was the Jab Jab Parade where participants smeared themselves with old car grease as they paraded the streets’ Yuk!! We gave that one a miss, but we had a blast with the next day’s full on colourful parade, and steel bands with music and dancing in the streets until late into the night. It was a real family affair.

Unfortunately, it won’t be all rest and relaxation as this will be our last opportunity to prepare Mai Tai for our next long passage through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Ocean, and we have a very long “to do’ list for here.
Mai Tai projects: Stern Arch repair, New Auto pilot, Leaking water maker, sewing sunshades for the cockpit hard top, new wind generator, new engine raw water pump.

These are the jobs we have accomplished so far, so I will leave this blog here. The next exciting episode will include all our projects when we get hauled out next week.