By our fourth month in Grenada, it was beginning to feel like home. We had developed a bit of a routine: Sundays, we attended church and usually went to lunch at Cilantros or Spice Affair afterward. Mondays were for grocery shopping. On Tuesdays, the kids met Pastor Ib for Bible class while Brandon and I had lunch at Knife and Fork. Wednesday evenings were for wing night at Grenada Yacht Club ($.30 each). On Saturdays, we’d usually visit the local produce market in the morning and then find somewhere new to explore in the afternoon.
We enjoyed Grenada’s beautiful water almost daily and always had a fresh supply of tropical fruit and coconuts aboard. One thing was for certain: the longer we stayed in Grenada the harder it would be to leave.
It was time to decide whether to continue to the Panama Canal and across the Pacific as planned or head back to the States and spend another season in the Caribbean. I have been very anxious about navigating through the canal and then spending an entire month at sea crossing the Pacific. But, I also have very little desire to return to the US anytime soon, so I put my fears aside and we booked our canal transit for March 13, 2024.
We spent part of November preparing for the long trip to Bonaire. Because of the high humidity in Grenada, our freezer had begun dripping condensation into the cabinetry in our salon. Brandon disassembled the cabinets and added insulation to prevent the condensation. We also spent a couple of days reinstalling our sails, repairing our mainsail bag, and replacing some of our running rigging (ropes). We stocked up on spare parts, including a new windless (lifts our anchor) and transducer (reads our speed and depth).
The kids made Brandon a cake for his birthday, followed by dinner at Grenada Yacht Club.
The rest of November was spent enjoying the company of friends we would have to part with soon. We spent lots of time with Pastor Ib and his lovely wife Rachel, who may be the kindest and most generous people we’ve ever met. They invited us over for lunch and swimming, taught the boys to play 3-card and dominoes, spent an afternoon on our boat for the boy’s first communion, and invited us out for Thanksgiving dinner. He took the boys for a day sail on his boat and spent so much of his time driving us to various places around the island and sharing fascinating stories. He is also a talented author and gave me a copy of his book: Island Mysteries – The Dead Came Knocking. If you enjoy a good murder mystery, you can purchase it and the sequels here on Amazon.
We also had to say goodbye to our friends aboard S/V Koinonia, who we’ve come to know well since meeting them in the Dominican Republic. We saw a movie with them at Movie Palace, shared many meals, and our kids spent so much time playing together. Unfortunately, they will be heading north, despite our best efforts to convince them to head west with us!
There were many other farewells as we prepared to leave on November 28th. The last one was to Green Man (Martin), who also happened to be the first friendly face we’d encountered when arriving in Grenada. He gave us a huge bag of fruit and a jar of his homemade hot pepper sauce. We have been truly blessed to have these wonderful people in our lives these past four months. The goodbyes are the hardest part of boat life.
