Mystic Journey: Carriacou

Well, Cheryl got us to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. We seem lately to be getting into anchorages that have a layer of sand over a hard bottom or a layer of sand with weed cover, both the type of anchorage that requires great diligence to "conquer". Tyrell Bay didn't disappoint us. Although we seemed to set our anchor, when we dove the anchor we could see that the hook had not really dug deeply into the bottom, rather that it had gone under the roots of the weed bed. Rather than try to find a more sandy spot we decided to let lots of rode (chain) out and let it do the work it is supposed to. As it turned out, it was more than adequate in spite of some very blustery (and high wind) squalls that passed through. We didn't seem to have this trouble last year as we visited all the islands as newbies. Maybe ignorance is indeed bliss!!

Carriacou belongs to Grenada and has two main towns, Hillsborough and Tyrell Bay. It is very laid back and the people are quite friendly. Doyle's book quotes a man who says "People does like it here, we move nice wid dem as we does wid each other - no corruptions or hatreds, all is one". It is said - and I know it is true about the gas stations - that it is an island with over one hundred rum shops and only one gas station. The signs over the liquor shops are cute - we are licensed to sell spiritual/spirituous/intoxicated/intoxicating (take your pick) liquors.

We had gotten some really great baguettes from a store in Hillsborough when we had stopped there overnight so as a way to explore we decided we would walk back there from

Tyrell Bay and get some more. The entire trip took us about 5 hours plus an hour spent in Hillsborough. There were lots of ups and downs on the trip there as we took the road route. Typical island vegetation but we could see that the rainy season was just starting as there were lots of dry spots and yellowish leaves. On the way back we decided (on the advice of the lady with the great baguettes) to take the beach route and this was much more enjoyable. We were able to walk over halfway back along the beach, with a brief trip along a forest/jungle path when the beach access was cut off. By the time we got back to the boat it was swim and rest time and we both slept well that night.

The next day was mostly filled with many spells of torrential downpour and we were just as happy to take the day as a "do a little boat work and lots of reading day".

On the day prior to our long expedition we had walked up a road that we had noticed the last time we had been on Carriacou with Randy and Aleitha but had not explored. This one led up to a school and then off into the interior. Since it was quite warm on land because of no breeze, we chose to take a smaller side road that was supposed to take us to Cassada Bay. Where it finally took us was into the mangrove forest on a dirt road that looked like it had been plowed very roughly once upon a time and then abandoned. At one point we came across a bunch of buildings that looked like they might have once been a resort but was now being used as a farm. There were goats (there are always goats) some cows and some horses. We decided that it probably belonged to someone and was in use so we decided to skip that. Nothing exciting on this day's journey but we got good exercise and enjoyed exploring, as we always do. Cheryl here - not exciting but interesting - on that relatively short walk we saw four graveyards. We spent some time walking through the biggest of the four. What I found interesting was that we saw no headstones for children. Most of the headstones were for elderly people. Since this was an older graveyard and some graves were from the early 1900's, I would have thought childhood mortality would have been higher.

Last island exploration took place on Sunday. We thought since we had gone in one direction on the main road and had also explored the only significant side road off the main road, that we

would head in the other direction. I won't stretch this one out. Good exercise, lots of goats, some sheep this time and at the end of the road, pig pens that obviously were not subjected to regular cleaning. Since it had rained so much one particular day and we had had showers almost every other day after that, the roads were quite muddy so we didn't get to the absolute end but it was fun. Always good to get back to the boat and swim and laze though. We had decided to leave on Monday so when we got back we couldn't immediately jump in and cool off. We first did the "get ready for sail' chores that need to be done and raise sweat (in Cheryl's case cause a "glow") like take the dinghy motor off and raise the dinghy etc etc. Then swim, laze, watch Mash, SG1 and an episode of NCIS - we traded for the 4th year of NCIS recently. No actually we didn't watch NCIS - we played crib so we could inscribe our crib board - a tale for another time.