We are spending our last month of hurricane season in Carriacou this year as we have had such a good time here with the right balance of things to do with peace and quiet. We have had lots of walks around the island, lots of snorkeling, diving and nights out with friends.
Well the month started off with a tropical storm warning for "Matthew". It was forecast many days away so we had lots of time to think about our strategy and converse with other boats and locals. As time and the hurricane got closer we made up our mind to go into the mangroves. Not everyone did, two of our buddy boats sailed to Tobago, they were planning that anyway so just took the choice to do it. Several other boats went south to Grenada as the track looked like it was going just north of Carriacou. Some decided to do nothing and stayed on anchor or moorings.
So here we are in the sheltered mangrove bay just to the north of Tyrell Bay. The entrance is 13 feet deep into the first lagoon and around 50-60 boats did just that. We only draw 5 foot so we went into the even more protected second lagoon deep in the mangroves with again 50 or so boats. We tied 6 lines to the mangroves and 2 stern lines to a shore and back to the main winches.
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| Tied to the mangroves |
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| Our neighbors |
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| Local fishing boats |
Well after the storm was over we all started to escape the mangroves and the mosquitoes that got a bit much at night and kept us below decks at dark. The exodus took several days as the moored boats here were not in a hurry. Well Matthew did in fact spool up to a hurricane after passing us, having slowed down north of the ABC islands it became a Cat 4 hurricane.The end result was a lot of waves a few days later and a surge in the bay from the west of 4-5 feet. We were at anchor and had a pretty uncomfortable night. The waves were too rough for 2 docks which were destroyed by the swell which pushed over a foot of sand up on the beach to the sea wall and had waves crashing onto the beach road. We had it OK however as the hurricane continued toward Haiti they had it really bad with hundreds of lives lost to the destructive force of a major hurricane.
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| High surge in Tyrell Bay |
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| Waves crossing the beach road |
Well like all things cruisers do we called a pot luck to celebrate our near miss. Diane and Richard volunteered their home and even found some frozen lobster tails from a local we could buy so we had a wonderful feast to celebrate.
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| Harm, Richard, Chis and Devin |
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| A huge spread |
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| Very happy people |
We enjoyed a bit of Karaoke to end the evening, but learned not to let Richard participate as he is tone deaf.
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| Diane, Richard and Dave with Karaoke |
Well life quickly gets back to normal and we start off with a nice walk with Dave and Chis from Platina, we take a nice forest rail over to the east side of Carriacou and enjoy finding this abandoned cottage with beautiful word carvings in the trim of the doors, windows and roof.
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| Devin and Chis |
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| Cute cottage abandoned |
We have spent a lot of time with Richard and Diane of Lumbadive here in Tyrell bay as they participate in a lot of activities and host several for cruisers. So we invited them to Moosetrcks for sundowners and a chance to get to know each other better. We had a great time and shared many good stories of how we got to where we are today.
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| Richard & Diane |
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| Liz & Devin |
Towards the middle of the month we started to see lots more boats coming through and headed north for the season. We all have different insurance limits and these folks didn't need to wait until November 1st as we have to.
Well some good friends Morgan and Carmen arrived in the middle of Oct on their way north. We were invited over for some of Morgan famous sundowners and told them of all our activities and Carmen wanted to play fish with us and get in the water.
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| Carmen on our Lionfish hunt |
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| Beautiful Townsend Angelfish |
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| Spotted Drum |
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| Nurse Shark (5') |
We had the full moon dinghy drift as well and Morgan and Carmen joined us and 3 other dinghies for drift in the mangroves.
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| Morgan and Devin anxiously awaiting their sundowners |
Of course we have several more visitors coming in for the end of the month and we get several more walks with other crews.
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| A good view of Tyrell bay from a forest walk |
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| Some young lambs on the trial |
For the local Grenadian thanksgiving we went out to dinner at Tanty Mavis' restaurant with Richard and Diane but before that we all stopped in at Levi's bar to help him celebrate his wife's birthday.
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| Levi and Mary celebrating her birthday |
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| Lots of cruisers stop in for the party |
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| Thanksgiving feast by Tanty Mavis |
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| Liz and Diane |
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| Boys will be boys? |
When Serenade and Pinnacle arrived in we went for a walk in to Hillsborough, but decided to explore a mangrove trail around from Paradise beach rather than taking the road. It was a bit of trial and error but we found a way through and had a great walk.
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| The beach towards Hillsborough |
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| Gregg & Jo in the wreck we found on the beach |
Devin did his last scuba dive with Diane before we leave and had a few new species to add to his years list. As usual it was great fun and a very nice dive. Diane even got to stroke a sting ray while it was sitting in the sand.
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| Spotted Moray eel |
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| Balloonfish |
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| Goldspotted eel |
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| Beautiful Blu/Purple sponge |
Well our summer is at an end and we soon pull up our anchor and start to head north to explore the other leeward and windward islands. Our objective this year is not huge, just St Martin and back, we still think there is a lot we missed or would like to see again.
We hope everyone has had a great summer!
