Rounding things up in Carriacou

Rounding things up in Carriacou

Sunday 19th - Monday 20th May 2024

There was one more anchorage that we wanted to explore before moving on from Carriacou. So after a quiet night at Sandy Island we dropped the mooring and headed round to the south coast of Carriacou and motored a couple of miles into stiff winds and short steep waves to a channel on the west side of Saline Island. This idyllic spot has room for 3 or 4 boats to anchor on the edge of a rapidly shoaling sandy bay. The current here is really strong, in the order of 2 knots or more, and unfortunately, we were the 4th boat to arrive, so we ended up anchored in a less than ideal spot. We felt that we were solid where we were, but if the current reversed with the tide (which it can sometimes do) then we might find ourselves perilously close to the reef. However, because of the other boats there wasn’t room to move further back. Snorkeling directly from Cotinga was an incredible experience. We saw two fairly small Green turtles almost immediately, followed by a medium sized one a few minutes later and then a truly enormous one after that! They were all in shallow water (~10 ft deep) and didn’t seem to be the least bit bother by us. The water clarity was excellent and we had wonderful views of them feeding on turtle grass on the sea floor. Moving on to explore the fringing reef we saw lots of fish, including a Flying Gurnard and two White-spotted Filefish. The corals looked in good shape, reinforcing our impression that the snorkeling in Carriacou is some of the best we have encountered. However, because of the strong currents this location is a bit scary. If we come back in the future with friends we will try and do a drift snorkel with one person in the dinghy tracking the others. With mixed feelings, we opted not to spend the night at Saline Island and headed back to Tyrrel Bay to sleep.

Today we planned to go to shore and get some laundry done. However, when we arrived at Ziggy’s laundry it was closed. It turns out today is a National holiday for Whit. So we made some extra fresh water using the water-maker and did some laundry by hand. We did manage to get a few groceries and in the afternoon took a dinghy ride into a lagoon adjacent to the Bay  that is sheltered on all sides by mangroves. Boats are not allowed to enter the lagoon except when there are storm warnings (it would an excellent hurricane hole), but we did see several boats that were tied up to the mangroves and had either been abandoned or sank. There were some good photo opportunities. 

We have created a jobs list of things we need to get done before we haul out in two weeks time and we have started to work through some of them. One conundrum is how to keep our boat batteries fully charged if there is no access to shore power? We do have a generator and have signed up with a company to look after Cotinga while we are away, so maybe they can run that. But another option is to get our solar system up and running. We haven’t bothered with that in the past because we need to run the engine anyway for the refrigeration, with a direct drive from the engine to the compressor. We do have one large flexible panel and we are pre-wired for solar. However, The panel is so old I think the overall output is really low, but it may be enough keep the batteries topped up whilst we are away. Anyway, for the first time since we have owned the boat, we have the solar system up and running and do believe it is generating some power.

Tomorrow morning we will head south for the main island of Grenada. The PredictWind forecast is good and it should be a pleasant sail (famous last words … !). We do have to take a dog-leg route to avoid the exclusion zone around the underwater volcano “Kick-em-Jenny”. A large gas vent from that could spoil your whole day!

Mike

The beautiful Saline Island anchorage. The currents are very strong (2 + knots), which makes the snorkeling a little scary.

The anchoring room is quite limited. We would have liked to be 100 feet further back, but we would have been right on top of the catamaran.

Gloria prearing to pull up the anchor, with the deck-wash hose in hand, pumping salt water to wash the chain and anchor. 

A selection of abstract shots of boats in or near the mangrove lagoon. This sailboat had sunk

The stern of the sunken sailboat

A sunken wooden skiff

This could be a painting of the moon rising above the water, with hills on either side and clouds above the horizon ... but it's actaully the stern of a blue wooden ship reflected in the water.

One hull of a large commercial catamaran ... apparentlty no longer in use

Ships hulls reflected

Ditto