Dive Fest - Carriacou & Grenada

The Grenada tourism board has arranged a week long diving experience and with all the dive shops in the association participating with great offers Devin had to enroll.

Getting started we have to celebrate Josh's birthday, he is a very young 24 today.

Wreck dive #1 - Westsider

Devin taking video

A lobster in hte wreck

Richard leaving the wreck

Richard my instructor didn't see the barracuda behind him

A lovely Angel fish

Deep growth on this wreck

Wreck dive #2 - Rose Wreck

A port was left open, I just had to.

Tickling a sting ray, harder than it looks to get close up

A moose salute

Reef dive #1 - Sisters Rock

Lovely Sponges all over the rocks

Lots of lobster in this park area too

A spotted Eel

Celebrating dive fest

Reef dive #2 - Something Special

A wonderful shallow reef dive

A crab in a sponge

A lovely cowfish

A banded butterfly fish

A Thompson Angelfish

A nice contrast in fish colors

Environmental dives & Land Clean-up

Banded shrimp in a sponge

Our beach clean up collection, a lot was collected

Lion Fish Hunt and BBQ

Devin caught one of the bigger Lionfish on the wall dive

Our dive group

A lot of Lionfish cleared from the reef and ready to eat

Preparing the fish, Devin got plenty of practice

Visit to the other dive business

The night time BBQ of Lionfish

A great time for all

We had a wonderful week diving with Lumbadive, Richard and Diane made teh week absolutely spectacular. If you ever get to Carriacou you must go diving there is so much to see and the water is so clear most of the time. Lumbadive are highly recommended if you do.

Advanced Open Water

Well this year we have three months in Carriacou and Devin decided it was time to complete an AOW dive course with Lumbadive which is a PADI instructor school. it will allow Devin to go deeper and be safer so it seems like a great time to get the additional education.

Devin did the online course reviews and they were all pretty easy multiple choice exams at the end. So with those under his belt and the required book knowledge it was time ot get the practical part in.

Richard was my instructor for the 5 disciplines we had to do. It was all great fun and very educational. Devin knew a lot about Mountaineering and Navigation on Land and on te Sea surface but quite lot changes once you go underwater. For a start GPS is not available, so you do it the hard way.

An artificial reef project

Richard my Instructor

It was also very enjoyable and Devin especially loved the wreck diving part and the underwater search and recovery which could prove necessary in our cruising.

Our wreck dive

Wreck inhabitants

At the end of the course Devin even had a chance to help Richard relocate some moorings in the bay, after finding them first of course.

My badge of completion

Thanks Richard for all the experience it was awesome.

Carriacou Regatta

The regatta week starts for us with the Carriacou Children's Fund annual Auction. A lot of cruisers donate items as well as locals and businesses to support keeping children in schools by supplying meals, tuition fees or uniforms. We also volunteer at the auction to sell items from the tables, its a few days work in set-up, selling and tear down, but all in a great cause.

After the hard work, it's time to play. Our good friends Russ and Lisa have entered Uproar for another regatta and as a past crew member I was honored to be invited again to crew on Uproar. Well the Carriacou regatta is not as competitive as Antigua but just as hard fought by those that attend. We had great starts as usual and Russ took the lead in every race again! We had a really tight finish with the first race a a much larger ketch caught us near the line, they don't point as high as Uproar and Russ steered a beautiful battle to the line get us over the line first even though they owed us time on handicap. These were truly wonderful races and a lot of fun.

Of course the steering should work before a race!

A lot of looking back

A relaxed helms woman and her dog

Rail Meat

Champagne to celebrate

A winning Crew

A very happy post race party

Uproar, Russ and Lisa first in every race.

Carriacou

We love Carriacou and you could almost say it is our summer home. We have a lot of regularly scheduled events like: Noodling, Children's Swimming Lessons, Dominoes, Mrs Lucky's Saturday BBQ and many diving opportunities. It seems to feel very friendly in Carriacou so we enjoy running the VHF net as well to let visitors know all about activities in the bay.

Noodling classes run by us in the bay

Warrior, on of a few boat boy's offering services in the bay

We have several walks normally and know a lot of great trails on the island. One of our first was with Bruce, Anna and David. We walked the valley behind Tyrell bay and were invited to a local lady's house to enjoy the views. She wanted some good quality photos of the view to help sell the vacant building lots they have and Bruce gladly obliged.

Kiss a frog anyone?

He was pretty big and one of many.

Anna, David, Liz and Devin

Great views from a local garden

Island Rocks thanks to Lori

Our walking group

We had a few more walks in August with fellow cruisers but somehow it seems this year less walkers are in the bay and we have not gone out quiet as much.

Well the races and the Carriacou Children's fund auction are coming up so time is getting busy.