St. Georges, Grenada

12/17/2017

St. George's hillside

After launching on October 24, we went to Port Louis Marina in St. George's to continue preparations for our 2-3 day passage to Bonaire. It was also a good opportunity to have a regular boat school schedule since the routine had been disrupted by our travel to Grenada and time at the boatyard. We had two more sails to reinstall, radar to replace up on the mast, and many other work projects.

It was also a good chance to explore more of the island before we headed west. Last spring when we reached Grenada, we were primarily focused on the preparations for haulout and storage, and hadn't been able to do any touring. Grenada is a beautiful island, with incredible scenery and warm and welcoming people, and we were looking forward to more time there.

One weekend, we went to the large outdoor market where you can find anything from bananas to nutmeg to rum to watch repair. While Brian and Eoin explored the market and checked out the meat market, Kendall and the girls went to Art Fabrik, a batik studio and retail store in downtown St. George's. The array of beautiful batiks made into skirts, pillows, shirts, pants, dresses, notecards, purses, and many other items was quite overwhelming. Lilo, one of the owners, invited us upstairs for a demonstration of batik making. She walked us through the process and made a small piece for us to dye when we got back to the boat (we tried coffee, but it didn't stain enough, so we are planning to use some of the girls' hair dye sometime soon).

Another time, we visited the chocolate museum in downtown St. George’s. Grenada is widely known as the spice isle, producing nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, ginger, and turmeric. Unfortunately, in 2004, Hurricane Ivan decimated the nutmeg industry. Since then chocolate has replaced nutmeg as the number one agricultural export of the country. While visiting the museum, we were able to try our hand at grinding the cocoa beans, learn about the history of chocolate in Grenada both before and after European settlement, and most importantly, sample and buy some delicious Grenada chocolate products.