Jobs done, it's party time in Grenada

August 23, 2025

I still have to pinch myself some days to realize what a beautiful place the Caribbean is. The above photo is from my sunlounger in Le Phare bleu (The blue lighthouse), a bar where all the yotties gather on a Wednesday afternoon for $1 wings, 1 Caribbean dollar = 27p, and beer. You can see the pool, then on the other side of the coconut trees is a small beach with a dinghy dock and small marina and in the distance you can see the reef at the south of the island. Quite a stunning view.

There is also Hog Island which is a great venue for yotties, bars on the beach, you don't have to lock your dinghy and always something going on. We went to a jumble sale one day and I got a spare prop for my dinghy for a fifth of the cost that Yamaha would sell 'em. We played skittles.

We had lots of fun with Joe and Vicci there.

One Sunday at hog island a great band where playing. Again all the yotties and the locals gathered to drink and dance. They sounded amazing, the clip doesn't do them justice. Just as the band were finishing a giant peel of thunder proceeded a very refreshing downpour.

There are a lot of Yotties hiding out here in Grenada from hurricanes. In fact a lot of them haven't moved in years. It's a great community for us to meet up, swap advice and get boat projects completed and have a drink.

Then it was time to move on to Curacao, 400 miles to the west. a 4 night downwind sail. We were nervous because we hadn't moved in 2 months but the boat was in a very seaworthy condition with all jobs done. So we had the bottom cleaned again and set off. Night 1 - Took us a few hours to get the sails rigged correctly. We were a bit out of practice with getting our downwind pole out. But after a bit of tweeking we were running downwind with the speed of many antelopes. It was hot so it was underwear sailing even in the middle of the night. The sunsets were amazing

So for the first time the stars were blazing. We rolled back the bimini and I spent all my watches looking up. We were heading west and being close-ish to the equator meant we were travelling along the celestial equator. On the left were the stars of the southern hemisphere and the right the northern hemisphere. So for me the southern stars are all new and I was learning lots of new constellations. My new favourite, Scorpio the scorpion with the brightest milky way I have ever seen nearby. It was glowing and if I didn't know better looked like clouds. I was lying there thinking, here I am sailing across the Caribbean sea at night in my underpants under the clearest skies I have ever seen. Not like what I am used to in Kielder forest, fully spammed up in winter woolies with pocket warmers to stop your hands freezing and dew heaters to stop your telescope from freezing. I saw 2 of the most amazing meteors. The first was a slow moving orange/red fireball that looked like the Martians were landing and the other looked like a bright emerald green blob of molten metal. Beautiful. No moon until late into the morning which was joined by Jupiter and Venus another lovely sight.

The watches flew by as did we and all was going great until the second night when the lightning started over in Venezuela. I have never seen so much lightning, all night long there were continuous flashes, not so scary as when we sailed from Puerto Rico as they were at least 80 miles away but still we didn't want them heading our way.

And before we knew it we arrived in Curacao. 400 miles down the road and a world of difference. It was like being back in Europe, specifically Holland but with a South American twist. The first thing I noticed was not many American and Canadian flags on the boats all Dutch, German, Norwegian and British. I think this is because a lot of people sail up and down the windward islands and don't go east as getting back from say Curacao to Grenada would be bashing into the weather. So if you are here in Curacao you are either doing the eastern Caribbean, Costa Rica, Mexico, Columbia or going through the Panama canal. So we are here until the end of hurricane season, December 1st then heading to Cayman for Christmas turkey with Tim and his family. Curacao looks very cool for now though.