Underwater Volcano Avoidance and Spontaneous Spa Treatments.
Monday! Our first full day of Grenada and the Grenadines!
Rather than wake up and swim again in Dragon Bay, we moved up the main island of Grenada to Halifax Bay as we ate breakfast. The waters around Grenada proper have a slight green tinge to them while still being really clear. This is due to the outflow of the massive Orinoco River in Venezuela, just 70 miles away. I’ll insert a map here to give you an idea about where Grenada sits: very close to South America, at the far eastern end of the Caribbean.
Our swim system: Guides are in neon green caps with neon pink swim floats, guests in orange caps with neon yellow floats. We’ve been using swim floats for a few years now. They keep us very visible to the rare dinghy that buzzes nearby and to the folks back on our yacht that also keep an eye over us. So we’ve got one guide per guest this week. With only two guests and two guides this week (plus Zack who sometimes joins us on swims), we have a nice little group that stays together with ease, though Heather tends to stop a bit more than me to point out some wildlife, as she can actually identify it, while I often cannot. I often swim back to check it out. My first wildlife sighting this morning happened after my first five strokes, when a small green turtle swam below me.
For this swim in Halifax Bay, we headed toward a little island with a house on it. It looked wildly romantic with terraced porches on different ledges of the steep and lush terrain. Upon closer inspection, it looks like nobody has lived in the house on this tiny island for some time, giving the whole scene a wild, mysterious appearance.
The sponges and coral here are unbelievably healthy, large and robust. As filter feeders, they are an important part of the coral reef ecosystem. Heads down in search of colorful fish hiding beneath ledges made from ancient lava rock, we swam until we spotted an old beached shipwreck with trees growing out of it. As we neared it the water got cloudy and cool, likely a river outflow. We turned back and swam home to the yacht, cutting through the glassy surface with ease.
The country of Grenada includes about 1/3 of the Grenadine Islands, the other 2/3 being under the jurisdiction of St. Vincent which is another country altogether. Our goal this week is to get to the island of Carriacou and perhaps just beyond that to Petite Martinique in Grenada’s Grenadines. With Jason’s experience in this region, we’ll stop at a bunch of cool little islands along the way.
I like to report both the good and the bad here on this blog, and honestly there isn’t a lot of bad to report when you’re on a yacht in the Caribbean. Sometimes a guide or a guest gets a mild rash from sea lice. Sometimes we run out of bananas. This week, we’re having the occasional problem with our yacht. The battery on the generator went dead. A shower head broke. The drink cooler is not as cool as it could be. Our charter company, Dream Yacht Charters, has been generally attentive to these things, but the root of the problem, I believe, is that many of their yachts had little or no use for over a year at the height of the pandemic. Like any machine, boats don’t like to sit in one place, they need to be sailed and have their motors revved up to stay happy. We’re working out the kinks on this one. So after a prompt and brief visit from an engineer from Dream, we were able to depart Halifax Bay and set out on a three hour sail into the Grenadines.
Our destination: Round Island, the first (or last) Island in the Grenadines, depending on how you look at it. Jason advised that the trip might be a bit bouncy, so we all prepared for that in different ways: some finding a comfy spot on the bow for sightseeing, some (ok me) popping a Dramamine and sleeping on the stern for the entire sail. Along the way, Jason had to sail around an underwater volcano, rather than over it, adding to the drama of this wild place. Sometime during our sail, the water lost its Orinoco green tinge and turned into that Caribbean turquoise blue we are so accustomed to.
Round Island feels deliciously remote. Nobody lives here, and the forest is thick. There are rock ledges surrounding the bay we’re in, with cacti finding every crack. We are sharing this large bay with just one schooner - it looks like a vessel from another time. We planned a swim around the inside of the bay along an amazing volcanic, shelf-like reef, with lots of turtles, a spotted eel, big triggerfish, and plentiful trunk fish. We finished the swim at a black sand beach - the sand felt smooth as silk. We spread it all over ourselves, creating an impromptu spa experience. Laughs, smooth skin, this swim had it all. Once we got back, no one wanted to get out of the water, so we all buckled our buoys to the ladder and played around with a huge school of jacks and one lonely little trunk fish beneath the yacht.
Jason enjoyed a snorkel at dusk. He climbed aboard to dinner and a rowdy card game. At about 9pm we all headed to the bow as the moon set in a deep red sliver. As it disappeared, the stars came out by the millions. Shooting stars celebrated the day. A cooling gentle breeze will lull us to sleep tonight. Tomorrow, more wild adventures await.
Hopper
