It’s hot again, rains a fair bit.
Our original intention was to take Milu over to the other side of Grenada, moor by Port Louis, then take the ladies to Dragon Bay for underwater sculpture snorkeling via sailboat. That plan died when we couldn’t get Milu’s engine to run. We’re also returning the car today so we needed to decide how to maximize the car and get the girls to Dragon Bay. We got Christina, LPB’s office manager to charter them a boat tour to the sculptures – I will drive them there in the morning and they’ll get Vie, the taxi driver Bob recommended, to pick them up after. Meanwhile, I’ll return the car and try to figure out why Milu won’t start.
I drive them down to the Carenage where they’re supposed to get on “First Impressions”. Find a good parking spot, they look north while I look south. By the time I figure out the boat is not south and walk back towards them, I can see them driving away and waving. I get gas, drive back to Clarke’s, meet Ruth and return the car. She doesn’t notice the slightly damaged plastic stone guard so maybe it wasn’t me after all.
Hope she doesn’t read our blogs.
My day is pretty non-eventful, I dig through the boat’s wiring trying to find the problem while checking out YouTube HowTos. I eventually get to the starter itself which I know enough how to test and it won’t spin. Looks bad. I’ll remove it tomorrow morning (Saturday) and take it in to Horizon before they close.
Christy here filling in the day’s escapades with the ladies.
We board what we believe is our boat “First Impressions” for our snorkeling adventure. We settle in on the boat and then it leaves Port Louis. Once out of the port it’s only about a 10 minute cruise to Dragon Bay where the Marine Park with underwater statues is located. We get our snorkel gear together, get a bit of a briefing and into the water we go. A bit of a bottleneck as everyone is trying to enter at the stairs so some of us just jump in off the side. We’re in!
It takes a minute or two to adjust our masks and snorkel for comfort and good vision. Frank, a local, who we befriend and discover later has many talents, is our snorkel guide. He guides us to where all the different statues are. As someone who’s been here several times before on my own, I can appreciate being shown exactly where the statues are as they’re not always easy to find (although it can be fun guideless too as it’s pretty exciting when you find one all by yourself… sort of like treasure hunting). We all enjoy our snorkel and swim back to the boat. Back onboard we decide it’s time for a round of rum punch… ok it’s only 10 am or so but who’s counting… it’s noon somewhere!
At this point, we’re also told that we’ve gotten on the wrong boat by mistake… oopsy. We’re on the ‘cruise ship’ boat which is on a three hour tour and we were supposed to get on another boat (which is beside us now) for the “four hour tour”… cue Gilligan’s Island theme song here. After a bit of back and forth, we ask if it’s ok if we just stay where we are and they agree to go to four hours on this boat and all is good. After all, we’ve now got quite friendly with our main guide Frank, who we see is an expert free diver (he can hold his breath for several minutes as was shown when he dove down and sat on the bench beside the “woman on bench with her iPhone” sculpture posing for pictures for those that had GoPros/underwater cameras). Grail also chats up Frank and discovers he plays for the national Grenada soccer team and asks if she/we want to go to his soccer game on Saturday evening. Could be interesting?!
The boat then goes to our second snorkel stop, Flamingo Bay, and we have an hour or two here to chill, snorkel, have some “funeral vibe” mini sandwiches and talk with others on board. Brenda is right at home with one of the cruise ship ladies who has brought her knitting on board and they have a good chat. We snorkel here (the coral is better here and lots of little reef fish). Brenda, Emma and I snorkel/swim our way to the pretty black sand beach at Flamingo bay and have a walk on the deserted beach then swim back. Back on board and a few rum punches later, we are all happy and content and no sea sickness (not even Netty or Grail) the whole time for anybody (thank you Gravol and maybe even rum punch!).
Our tour comes to an end and we say goodbye to the crew when we are dropped off near Port Louis Marina.
We walk to the Port Louis Marina as we are still a bit hungry and hot so look for a nice cafe/restaurant where we can cool off and grab a bite. Grail and I wonder off and find what looks like a freshly built building where there is a pretty chic restaurant “Chez Louis” overlooking the water and a fancy refreshing looking swimming pool. We check out the menu and while pricey, we decide that it’s not too over the top and we deserve a nice spot anyway. We bring the ladies over and they prepare a table for us (the place is not busy at all so not sure why it took so long for this but we find out later that the place just opened not too long ago so, that will explain many things we are soon to discover…)
We order a few sharables (well what we think are sharable size lol) and after they arrive at our table, we all look at each other shocked at the portion sizes… particularly jaw dropping is the two miniscule fish tacos that are about half the size of our pinky fingers. Holy moly… how will this restaurant survive?! Grail who of course is very experienced in this area, complains to the server (a sweet local girl) who says she’d like us to talk to the manager about this and he is summoned over. Grail holds nothing back and gives him constructive feedback on the portion sizes vis a vis the prices… even for the chichi super yacht crowd, this is not going to cut it. The manager thanks us for our feedback and we pay the outrageous bill and then call Vie our taxi driver to pick us up.
The ladies chill back at LPB and Perry and I head back to the boat to freshen up for dinner which we decide to have a nice fish meal back at the resort. We all order the fish of the day, lion fish which is delicious and a delicacy here (even though the species itself is invasive here). We play cards in the restaurant and then it starts to rain, well pour. As it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon, Perry and I decide to stay over until we get a reprieve to dinghy back to the boat, so we set up a sleeping area on the large porch in villa 1.
It rains and rains and rains, sheet lighting too. This is the most we’ve seen it rain since we’ve gotten here. About midnight, still awake, I hear the rain stop. I wake Perry and we make a run for it in the dinghy back to the boat. Good timing. We settle in back onboard and only about 20 minutes later, we hear the rain pound down like we’ve never heard… and it doesn’t let up all night long. Our timing was impeccable.