February 29, 2007 - March 3, 2007 - St. George's Harbor, Grenada

You know, I never thought I'd be in Grenada. Vanuatu, sure. Beveridge Reef, definitely. But the island that Reagan invaded in the 80's? Not even on my radar screen. I arrived here with very few preconceptions about what it would be like.

We've found a place that reminds us a lot of Bermuda. The people are very friendly, if a bit formal. The women my age are all dressed in clothing that appears to be tailored to them. It was almost enough to make me miss my work wardrobe (I already miss my shoes. Every. Day). We cruisers stick out, not because of our skin color, but because we are so shabbily dressed compared to the local population.

The morning after our first night anchored outside, we noticed several boats leaving, so we scooted into the harbor in search of wifi and a non-rolly anchorage. We scored on both counts.

We spent a few days in St. George's harbor (it even has the same name as the harbor in Bermuda) restocking our depleted provisions and wandering around the place. St. George's was basically demolished by Hurricane Ivan. In the few years since, they have done a terrific job with the rebuilding, although there are several churches that are still without roofs.



After an initial unsuccessful anchoring attempt where we ended up too close to "Metal Guru" (clearly we are going to lose any close contact battles with hulls of the steel variety), we upped anchor and found another more open spot to drop the hook. Only after we were settled in did we notice that the plotter showed us directly over the former Grenada Yacht Services docks. As there were boats on all sides of us, we made the assumption that the piers had been removed in the hurricane cleanup (hint: never assume in the Caribbean). So lo and behold, the couple on the boat behind us were upping anchor to leave for Aruba just before sunset when they discovered that their anchor was stuck. He put on his diving gear to check it out, only to discover that their chain was wrapped several times around a piling. In this picture he is standing on the steel piling, just a few feet off of our transom and maybe 4.5 feet under water. If either of us had hit it, we would have done damage to our hull or worse prop or rudder.


Diving to retrieve your anchor in a murky harbor has to be one of the worst ways to begin an offshore passage.