Carriacou Island

We have Internet!  We are in Tyrell Bay on Carriacou Island.  There is an organization here, The Carriacou Children’s Fund, broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal to the harbor.  For a donation they will give you the password.  The money is used to raise funds for the school and the students.  It is a win-win, we get internet and they raise funds.

We spent a couple more days in Isle de Saints sightseeing and relaxing.  We joined Bob and Brenda form Pandora for a golf cart tour of the fort and the island.  The views from the fort and a variety of other locations were spectacular.  The fort is well maintained and set up as a museum of the island.  I only wish it had more information about the fort itself.  On Wednesday I decided to address our fuel situation.  We are down to about a third of a tank of diesel and I am not comfortable with running low.  We only carry 80 gallons.  The next bay over has a fuel dock for the fishing boats, it is only accessible from the water: no roads lead to it.  We took our three jerry jugs, borrowed another and a gas jug and motored around to the dock.  It is too small and shallow to go by sailboat.  Back at the boat we added the new fuel to the tank bringing us up to a half tank, enough that we can motor all of the way to Trinidad if we had to.

Thursday, the 30^th, we dropped the mooring and started our way South again.  We have several islands as options to stop but we wanted to get further along.  We figure we will stop at those islands next year.  Cori had her fishing gear out and caught a barracuda that we were happy to let go and a big Mahi that started stripping the line off the reel until he broke the line and left with the lure.  We know it was a big one when we saw it jump after the hook was set.  We really wanted that fish.  The winds were out of the southeast and in the afternoon switch around to the southwest with a lull in between that we motored through.  It was a little rough.  We sailed and motored through the night and then sailed on Friday.  The winds had shifted more from the east and we had a nice broad reach with the waves slightly behind us.  This is how we love to sail, later in the day it dropped again and we went back to motoring.  We were making between 4 and 7 knots and our chart plotter was showing that we would arrive at Carriacou around midnight.  We do not like arriving at night so we decided to change headings and stop at a little bay on St Vincent for the night.  It was the perfect location.  A black sand beach, high hills on three sides to protect from the winds, and we were the only ones there.  We also had a problem with the fuel again.  The priming bulb was collapsed and restricting the fuel to the engine.  We cut our rpm’s and it ran all right again.  In the morning I decided to eliminate the priming bulb and rerouted the fuel line.  So far it is working.

We left St Vincent early, we had not checked in so were technically not allowed there and set sail again.  We had another great day of sailing, the wind on the beam and following seas.  Cori had the fishing line out again and after catching and releasing another pesky barracuda she caught a real nice skipjack tuna.  We decided to stop at Mayroux Island for the night instead of going on.  We could just anchor for the night and if we didn’t go in we wouldn’t have to check-in.  St Vincent and the Grenadines are expensive to check in and out of and we didn’t want to pay.  We will do that next year.  Patrick, one of the local “boat boys” came out and tried to talk us into taking a mooring and visiting the restaurant and shops on the beach but we told him we had not checked in yet.  His advice was to raise the courtesy flag so it looked like we had and then we wouldn’t be bothered.   We ran the generator for a while and the water maker then settled in for a quiet night.

Sunday morning we took our time getting going since we only had about 15 miles to go.  We had stopped so that we would not arrive on Saturday and when we checked in we could say we arrived late on Sunday.  There is an overtime fee for checking in on the weekend.  As we were approaching Tyrell Bay Cori caught and landed another nice black fin tuna.  We are in tuna heaven.  We maneuvered into the harbor and around several boats and dropped anchor.  We were approached about going to a mooring but we are secure and comfortable where we are.  Since we were in early we got to watch the other boats as they arrived.

Monday morning we went to check in.  We had read several reviews in Active Captain about the anchorage and several have negative things to say about the Immigration and Customs officials.  Some of it is right.  When we arrived there was a lady mopping the floor.  She said that the others were outside in the patio area.  There is a television and we got some news but the main report was about the subway bombing in St Petersburg.  I asked a man in a pressed white shirt who I needed to see to check in.  I was answered with complete silence.  About five minutes later he looked up and said loudly “good morning” and stared at me.  It seemed I was one of those annoying tourists that forget to greet before starting with questions.  We had been warned of this in several guide books.  Once he had made his point he gave me the forms to fill out but we forgot to bring a pen.  Not wanting to ask him for one Cori borrowed one from another cruiser that was also filling out paperwork.  We all waited outside until the floor was dry.  One guy got chewed out for going into the office and tracking the floor.  Maybe they should have put a sign on the door telling us where to go.  They then started checking people in.  When it was my turn it turned out that I didn’t fill my paperwork out correctly but with a few changes it passed.  The problem then was I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or the Customs lady.  They had a constant conversation going with short interruptions to ask or tell me something.  Rather confusing.  Then it was time to pay the Customs lady.  Previous reviews had commented on and I have to agree that it seemed an imposition to interrupt her to pay our money.  And of course I didn’t have enough Eastern Caribbean money on me so she had to calculate the amount in US dollars.  It is easier to check in on the French Islands where I don’t speak French then to deal with these two people.  But we were in, passports stamped, papers filed and fees paid.  We won’t have to bother again until we check out in Granada.  We stopped at the restaurant next door to get the password of the Wi-Fi and then back to the boat to log in and get emails and start communicating with the world.  Later we went ashore to see what is there and find out where to catch the bus to see the rest of the island.

Today, Tuesday the 4^th, we had planned to take the bus to Hillsborough, the larger town on the island to check it out.  We got up and decided to do a boat project day.  Cori slept in and once our neighbors left I did a check on the batteries, topped them off and ran the generator and watermaker.  Since we have ample power while the generator is running Cori defrosted the freezers.  Once that is done they run for a long time getting back to temperature so it is best to do it when the generator is running and the batteries can recover.   For the rest of the day we will hang out here but may run into town for an ice cream.  The shop was out of it when we stopped yesterday but said they would have more today.

We plan to stay here for a few days then make the move down to Granada to get ready for the trip to Trinidad.  We hope to find several other boats that are making the passage so we can travel together.