Friday 16/2 was our first full day here at Saint George's and we decided to explore the town before picking up our new solar panels.
After the dinghy ride to the Grenda Yacht Club which took about 15 minutes from our mooring outside the harbour, it was about a 20 minute walk around the inner water front and up the hill north of the harbour, to the edge of town.
The harbour was attractive and bustling with activity - with small local trading boats being loaded, fishing boats preparing for their next trip, and tripper boats taking on tourists. All in all, the harbour's economy seemed to be in pretty good shape in stark contrast to the scenes at Bridgetown, Barbados.
Some of the streets had a distinctly English south coast feel about them - this for example could be Ramsgate or Dover.....
A number of colonial era buildings had been kept in good repair adding to the feeling that we were in a thriving port town...
Up the hill, we came to the church pictured at the start of this post. If you look closely, you will notice it's damaged. Here's why...
After the church, we headed for the fort at the top of hill. Unfortunately for us it was swathed in scaffolding and netting undergoing maintenance, but this was also another indication that the island is being well cared for.
Unfortunately we missed the island's celebrations of it's 50th year of independence from Britain a couple of weeks ago.
By all accounts the celebrations were a great success with visitors being made most welcome. It seemed there was little bitterness directed towards Grenada's ex colonial rulers. Quite something given the idland's tumultuous history of oppression by those rulers (click the short history link).
Thus far, due to making the installation of our new solar panels our priority, we have not explored much of the island, but from what we have seen, Grenada seems to be thriving despite challenging times.
After looking round Fort George we descended the hill into the bustling town and found ourselves in the market area where we went in search of a much needed cold beer.
We were immediately hailed by a local good natured 'hustler' - a sort of self appointed independent waiter who had 'attached' himself to one of the market's food and drink joints. He waved us to a table and took our order for beers over to the counter. It was clear from his interaction with the counter staff later, when we ordered food, that he was indeed acting independently and making his income soley from the tips he received from visitors like us. It clearly suited the vendor who received a marketing, selling and waitering service completly free of charge and of course he earned his living! I had to admire his enterprise and somehow he seemed to encapsulate the spirit of the island.
He probably had a good day because in addition to yachty cruisers like us wandering around as potential unsuspecting victims of his craft, the cruise ship Britannia had docked and the town was in receipt of a glut of a rather different type of cruiser. Readers may remember that Bonny had had a close encounter with Britannia a few weeks ago off Bridgetown, Barbados, when drifting smack bang in front of her as she approached the port. Becalmed in the early hours of a morning with, thanks to the skipper's carelessness, a rope wrapped round her propeller, Bonny was, for a time, "not under command" and at the mercy of Britannia's officer on watch.
During the course of our lunch two couples who were passengers from Britannia were also ensnared by 'our' waiter and placed on our table. We chatted to both of them for some time and thoroughly decent types they were too.
Both couples were from the UK. One couple were, as it were, repeat offenders, but becoming less enthusiastic with the type of holiday; the others were on their first cruise, but they too had concerns about the cruising modis operandi.
They both found the very limited amount of time they were able to spend ashore a major frustration. Typically a cruise ship travels between destinations overnight and docks in the morning. Passengers then have the day to explore before having to return to the ship at 5pm. All well and good if visiting a very small island, but they have no chance of exploring an island like Grenada in that time.
On the occasional longer passage when the ship is underway during the day, cruisers of 'modest' means (of which I took our lunch companions to be) find themselves competing with one another for the various on-board attractions and facilities.
Both couples were uneasy about the pricing structure of the typical cruise too. Broadly, there seem to be two types of 'all-in' package. One is all you can eat, the other is all you can eat and drink. The drinks apparently add an extra £800 to the price and both couples - even the one including an ex army man with 30 years service - had concluded there was no way they could drink that much on board!
Their primary concern though, was that this covered all meals for every day of the cruise, thereby disincentivising cruisers from spending in the local economy (we had previously heard from Teacher Annie on Canaoun, that cruiser visitors there even came ashore armed with packed lunches). Fortunately, it seems that some cruisers at least had the means and 'appitite' to forgo their 'free' lunches.
After our excursion to town we collected the new solar panels from the Chanderlry and returned to the boat. The task of fitting them would commence the following day.
The people in the last picture do not appear to be enjoying each others' company much or the venue, for that matter. It describes our current fascination with devices rather than with each other or where we are. Sad, really...
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