Our last day in Trinidad was May 28th. At about 4:00 p. m., Joan and I walked to Immigration and got our departure papers, and then to Customs to pay our final bills there and get their clearance to leave. At about dusk, we cast off and motored out of Chaguaramas Bay with the Minnie B right off our stern.
This passage from Trinidad to Grenada, or vice versa, is usually begun at the onset of night. This allows the captain (me) to check out of Customs and Immigration during the last of their business hours, sail all night, and arrive in time to check into Customs and Immigration shortly after they open for business in Grenada. It’s not a rough crossing, but also not one on which you want to fall asleep on watch. About 45 miles off Trinidad is a major shipping lane used by all of the Panamax freighters and tankers coming from anywhere in the South Atlantic, or even the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope, pass on their way to or from the Venezuelan, Columbian and Mexican oil depots and the Panama Canal. There’s almost always the lights of at least one or two big ships in view, and sometimes four or five. This is also the rainy season, and your visibility may be reduced to a fraction of a mile in squalls. You keep your eyes alternately on the radar screen and the horizon at all times. You get lots of practice boosting the gain to see the squalls on the radar and then reducing it to see through the rain to the big ships. Luckily, our Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver is working properly this season, so we get icons of all traffic on our chartplotter screen as well. The AIS continually calculates and displays Closest Point of Approach (CPA), and Time to Closest Point of Approach (TCPA). On a dim, squally night, it’s just so comforting to know just how close that big ship is going to get in the next half hour, and if you might need to slow down or alter course. The only trouble I had on the crossing was that one of my deck level navigation lights failed and I had to rely on the masthead lights instead. I got soaked to the skin in the heavy rain squalls, but at 11 degrees north, it’s so warm, I just stripped and finished my watch in wet underwear. Joan relieved me at 3:15 a. m. I slept until 6:15 and went on deck to see Grenada a few miles dead ahead. By 8:30, we were anchored in Prickly Bay.
After coiling down, we took our boat papers with us in the dinghy and went to Customs, Health and Immigration Departments to check officially into Grenada. We stopped at a convenience store for sandwich makings and some rum. We went back to Wight Skye, bathed, snacked, had a little rum and took long overdue naps. (I should point out that during lengthy sea voyages, the crew gets into a rhythm of sleep and watch, but on short voyages, the physiology of sleep just doesn’t allow that to develop.) That evening, we met with Phil and Norma of Minnie B and another couple for some visiting. Prickly Bay, while a very convenient destination, is open to the south and quite rolly as the Atlantic swells come wrapping around the south end of Grenada and enter the bay. We determined to move the next morning to Clark’s Court Bay, open to the southeast, but protected by a wide and massive reef. On Sunday morning, May 30th, we put the towing bridle on the dinghy, hauled anchor and motored over to Clark’s Court Bay, scouted a little, and eventually anchored in a small side bay, Benji Bay, in 30 feet of water.
Grenada is an island country and sovereign state composed of the main island of Grenada and six smaller islands.2 It is the southernmost of the group of Lesser Antilles known as the Windward Islands, situated south of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and northwest of Trinidad and Tobago. The total land area is 173 square miles. The population is about 110,000. The capitol city, St. George, is considered in most guide books to be the prettiest city in the Caribbean Sea. The racial mix is 82 % black, 13 % mixed black, 5 % European and East Indian.
Recorded history begins in 1498, when the island was populated by Carib Indians. The first successful attempt to claim and colonize by a European power was by the French, who exterminated the Caribs by the end of the seventeenth century and established slave-based sugar cane production, similar to the pattern is most of the Lesser Antilles and Spanish Main. “La Grenade” became a very successful French Caribbean settlement with unusually rich soil and a very good natural harbor. Grenada was ceded to Great Britain with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. It was made a Crown Colony in 1877. It was granted full independence in 1974.
The second Prime Minister following independence, Maurice Bishop, promised to implement a system of benevolent socialism. He also made overtures to Cuba and the USSR for financial aid and possible military strategies. Not satisfied with the speed and progress toward total socialism, the Deputy Prime Minister, Bernard Coard, lead a paramilitary attack against Bishop and the sitting government. During the coupe, Bishop and seven ministers were murdered. Coard suspended the constitution and put Grenada under martial law.
Fearful of the spread of Marxism in the Caribbean Basin and the use of Grenada to support Central American communist insurgents, US president Ronald Reagan orchestrated a military invasion of Grenada on October 25th, 1983, using troops of the US Army, Jamaica and the Caribbean States Regional Security System. Eighteen members of the Marxist junta were arrested.
Grenada recovered rapidly following the demise of the of the junta, only to be devastated by a direct hit by Hurricane Ivan on September 7, 2004. Ivan was a Category III. Some 90 % of all island homes were damaged or destroyed. Thirty-nine people were killed. The following year, Hurricane Emily, a Category I, struck the island on July 14th. These hurricanes, especially Ivan, blew down most of the island’s nutmeg trees, reducing annual production by 90 %. Grenada had been the world’s second largest nutmeg producer after Indonesia. Besides nutmeg, the island also produces mace, cinnamon, cocoa, ginger and turmeric.
Like the other islands of the Lesser Antilles, Grenada is of volcanic origin, rising up out of the sea during eruptions resulting from the Caribbean Plate overriding the Atlantic Plate. Today, the island contains three easily recognizable calderas. The island volcanoes appear extinct, but just a few miles off the north shore, a sub-sea volcano is very active, erupting or quaking continuously. The new volcano, named “Kick-em Jenny”, rises from the abyssal plain to within 600 feet of the sea surface. Soon, it will likely create a new island.
Economically, the island nation is a mess. Following the loss of its export crops from the hurricanes, Grenada now lives on tourism and a few quaint cottage industries. It’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 110 %. GDP real growth is a negative 7.7 %. Thirty-two percent of families are below the poverty level. Inflation is 3.7%. Unemployment is around 35%. Luckily, its population growth rate is only 0.468%, ranking 196th in the world.
Even though the French have been gone since 1783, 53 % of the population is still Roman Catholic. The Anglican Church claims 13.8%. All protestants combined make up 32 %. The Rastafarians claim 1.3 %.
2. Information on Grenada condensed from Street’s Cruising Guide to the Eastern Caribbean, Martinique to Trinidad, by Donald M. Street, Jr. 1974, 2001. iUniverse.com, Inc., Wikipedia, and CIA World Fact Book.
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