2024-11-10 Touring Grenada, Underwater sculpture park, and off to Rhonde and Carriacou

Monday we took a half day tour.  We have toured around Grenada in the past, but never seen the Grand Etang rain forest - so that was on our list.  Tour was part drive and part stopping at some spot.  Our driver Dexter did a great job, and since it was only the two of us, we enjoyed talking about lots of local issues with him.

The Grand Etang rain forest is very pretty, and is a protected National park.  We went for a small hike on a very muddy trail and got to see a Mono monkey - which Kris bravely even got out the van to look at.  (Kris doesn't like monkeys -  had traumatic encounter when young).

Nice view of the harbor of St. Georges from atop the hill.  

Grand Etang park sign

The Mono monkey is not native to Grenada, but is now part of the "native" animals in the rain forest.  Only a couple of them will come close to humans - this one is 10 years old.

Hiking along a very muddy slippery trail.  

Our original plan was a longer hike, but with the condition of the trails, glad we did not, as they are still not completely cleaned up following hurricane Beryl, and with the rainy season, they are very muddy and slippery.  It was difficult to not end up on our bums in the mud - but we did it - couple of close calls though.

Dean talking with Dexter our driver at the Grand Etang lake

This is the lake from a stock photo, so you can see we were up at the top of the mountain.  We were lucky did not get rained on while on the trail.

We stopped at the Nutmeg museum, and learned about nutmeg processing - will never take that for granted again, and also at the Diamond Chocolate Factory - and yes, we bought some.

Ripe Nutmeg, ready to pick when it splits open.

The entire nutmeg is used.  The outer husk, the red covering (mace) and the seed (nutmeg)

Tour was interesting, except for our guide, which actually read every sign to us for a while.

After nutmeg, it was on to chocolate.

Green Cocoa pod

Pretty gardens at the Diamond chocolate factory

We sampled a few, but Kris settled on the 75% dark, and 60% with nutmeg.

After chocolate we headed to Concord falls.  Very pretty falls.

There are a couple of very deep pools at the bottom of the falls.

We could have gone for a swim, as we brought our clothes for that, but it began to rain, and rain, and downpour, and rain, so luckily we took shelter at a restaurant/shop near the falls and waited it out.

The downpour only lasted about 1/2 hour.

After the falls, it was back to the boat.  We spent a couple more days in St. George's.  Went out for a nice lunch, and took a bus for groceries and stocked up, as we know the next few islands won't have much since they were all hit hard by Hurricane Beryl.

After a full week in St. Georges we headed out, after a stop at the Underwater Sculpture Park.  Had a good time snorkeling, and saw almost all of the sculptures before the clouds came in and made the visibility poor, and the tour boats came in and crowded the area.

You had to dive down a bit to get a good view

One of the sculptures in the "Coral Carnival" group

Belair Dancer sculpture

Vicissitudes sculpture

Bench and selfie sculpture

After the snorkel, we headed north to Rhonde Island.  We have been there before, but Kris had wanted to hike to the north shore.  After a very rolly night, we looked for a place to take the dingy to land, but the rollers were so big, you would need to anchor out and swim ashore, that looked risky to our health as well, so we moved on up to Carriacou.  

Carriacou was hit hard by Hurricane Beryl, so interesting to see some of the recovery going on.  All the boats had been removed from the mangroves, but there was still a lot of debris in the mangrove branches.  More than half the boats in the boatyard were still in a state of brokenness.   About 50% of the homes looked to have a functioning roof and walls, but the rest still open to the environment in some fashion.  Two small groceries stores open in Tyrell bay which was great to see.  Not much else, think one restaurant is open here, but that is all.   

View off the main road, still a lot of trash and downed brush to clean up

Something completely destroyed still just sitting, with no clean up done

Tyrell Bay

Dump site

Inside one of the small stores that has had a good refurbishment after hurricane

Runoff creek, still clogged with downed vegetation

We were surprised to see our friends boat Melelana upright and floating.   Last time we saw it, it was upside down partially submerged in the mangroves.

Easy to see what was underwater, and what was not.

Our friends were insured, so the insurance company agreed the boat was a total loss,  the salvage company must have found a buyer for the hull.  Unfortunately, there are 3 boats like this in the harbor, plus several more with damage that had not been partially sunk all anchored or moored, but no one on them, no lights, and taking up a lot of the harbor.  Makes the harbor somewhat unappealing, and afraid that these boats will end up sinking in the harbor, or breaking loose at some point and ending up floating away, or on the shore somewhere.  Sad to see.    

We will move today to another anchorage, and hopefully do a little snorkeling before moving further north.