Pitufa.at

We wanted to hike up Mount Qua Qua, partly because Lonely Planet recommends it and partly because of the cool name… So we took a minibus up to Grand Etang Forest Reserve only to discover that dozens of buses from a cruise ship had arrived before us. Stalls had popped up because of them, musicians, traditionally “decorated” ladies–far from the peaceful area we had been looking forward to. First we were thinking of immediately going back to St. George, but then went on to the trail up Mt. Qua Qua. It turned out to be a lovely and even lonely walk–it seems “cruzaders” only make 10-minute walks around the parking space. The hike up Mt. Qua Qua took us about 2 hours and rewarded us with stunning views over the Grand Etang crater lake and to both the west and the east coast of Grenada.

Today we went to the veggie market and then the fishmarket in St. George. However, we forgot two basic things you should bring to an island fishmarket: a bag (you don’t want the leaky ones you’re given there) and small change (the change you get there might well be covered in fishblood ). Anyway, right after we got back Christian did some belly-scraping (not his own, but Pitufa’s, which is full of barnacles) in the company of our new pet: a slender suckerfish that has been living under our boat for the past few days. He’s about 60 cm long, very curious and not shy at all. He catches the barnacles right from under our hands while scraping–slightly scary considering that 4 fingers would easily fit into his broad mouth … But he’s cute and friendly, feeding on everything we throw over board. He loves catfood leftovers, freaked out when I cleaned the tuna from the market, but spit out the rice I served with it

We’re still in Prickly Bay, doing lots of jobs on the boat and I’m also working as a teleworker on an e-learning program for a company in Graz. It’s just the right time for earning some extra money for the kitty box–we’ve already spent two monthly budgets on spare parts for Pitufa and we’ll soon have to haul her out to do a new anti-fouling and some paint jobs. The new shaft and rudder for our hydrovane Wayne Vaney arrived at the airport last Thursday, spent a relaxed Easter-weekend in the local custom’s warehouse, but today we managed to get hold of the parts.
Prickly Bay is a bustling anchorage and a good place to catch up with old friends and meeting new people. We’re always eager to listen to other cruiser’s experiences, collecting info on cruising areas and ideas for interesting places to visit.

Our guests have left this morning–it’ll take them 24 hours to get back home… We had a really good time: we visited the Seven Sisters Falls in the rainforesty interior of Grenada, tasted loads of delicious dishes at Fish Friday in Gouyave, went sightseeing in St. George and spent a few relaxing days anchored off Calvigny Island. Grenada is great to get around, cheap minibuses take you anywhere (without the waiting times we got used to in the Cape Verdes, Suriname and Tobago), it’s safe and people are friendly and welcoming wherever you go.

We’re still in Prickly Bay (Grenada) installing newly acquired gadgets. Today we bought yet another inverter–this ends a 3 month power-tool-free period on Pitufa (even though we managed to do all kinds of repairs during that time using manual drills, manual saws, etc. we even managed to solder by heating up the soldering iron on a blow torch ). Additionally we’re doing a thorough spring-clean, partly because it’s spring and partly because tomorrow my Mom and my brother + girlfriend will arrive here

We’ve spent the last 2 weeks waiting for our liferaft (remember our encounter with the fishing boat in Suriname?) to be serviced. We had to ship it to Trinidad for that and it disappeared unaccountably on the way for a week, which left us quite worried and stuck in the rolly anchorage in Store Bay. Today it finally got back from the service station, so now we’re free to head on (after clearing out with immigration and customs in Scarborough) on Monday.

We’re still in Charlotteville in the North of Tobago waiting for the swell to get lower, because our next planned anchorages (Bloody Bay and Englishman’s Bay) are less protected than Pirate’s Bay. Even in this big bay the swell makes living aboard Pitufa a bit uncomfortable, especially Leeloo hates it when the boat is rolling. Additionally the inverter has broken down, that means no power tools can be used on the boat and all maintenance/upgrade projects are resting at the moment. We were quite annoyed at the beginning, but now we actually enjoy this involuntary idleness, feeling like tourists on holidays
We went to see the carnival in Scarborough last week (colourful, loud, chaotic), did some hiking in the surroundings of the bay (beautiful rainforest, but quite sweaty), a BBQ on the beach and snorkeling.