Overall

Grenada is very lush green environment that will grow anything with the rainfall ranges from 2m in the hills to 1m at sea level. The temperature ranges from low 20 – low 30deg C.

We found Grenada a very colourful country where the flowers are bright and beautiful colours, their houses are painted brightly, and then they further decorate all the buildings for Independence day. However, all these colours seem to happily blend in together, so here are a few examples.

Firstly, there is the town of Saint George and Surrounds.

Grenada Independence Day

The trip was shortly before Grenada independence day celebrations so everyone was dressing up their houses and villages. Usually, there is a prize for the best dressed town but this year the celebrations had been toned down due to covid gathering limits, however, most places were still decorated as can be seen from these few photos.

Shops and Roadside Stalls

Houses

Almost all the houses built from concrete blocks, and often the second storey fis built first. Later, when they have the money they fill in the lower storey and use it for their family or rent it out as a flat. Balustrades around decks are very decorative on the front side, compared to often fairly plain sides and back of houses, with contrasting or stronger colours used for detailing.

Bigger Houses

Mid range houses

Smaller Houses

Houses cobbled together and run down

Plants and Fruit

Grenada is very lush and green with a reasonable rainfall all year and volcanic soil, so they can grow almost anything. Many of the fruits and trees that ave been imported were for cash crops. The range of plants is fascinating and everyone is happy for you to go along the roadside and pick fruit from the trees.

Here is a list of the fruits, vegetables, and various other commercial plants that we saw during the trip. I will only put a few pictures up as you can look up the others online. Also, some of these plants we already knew and others were new to us, so these we were often given to taste. One of the most fascinating was how there were nutmeg and cinnamon trees everywhere.

Spices:

Bay leaves, Cinnamon, Cloves, Coriander, Lemongrass, Mace, Nutmeg

The Nutmeg tree is an amazing tree which can initially fruit when it reaches 8 years, fully matures at 20 years, can fruit for 60 years, and grow to a height of 20 meters. The dried and ground nutmeg is used for flavouring within the culinary industry including the manufacture of nutmeg ice-cream, nutmeg rum and rum punch. Also, Nutmeg oils and butters, are made from the seed, and widely used in the food, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.  Additionally, the outer pericarp is used to make jams, jellies and syrups. The red membrane— mace— is used as a seasoning. Then, outer shell is often used for mulch in all the gardens including around the marina. The seed is also on the Grenadan Flag. Some interesting business facts in this article foryou. https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2020/02/23/nutmeg-grenadas-black-gold-is-on-the-cusp-of-resurgence/?sh=19debc443f28

Grenada’s cinnamon is highly valuable because it is True Cinnamon, originating from Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) from the Cinnamomum zeylanicum tree. This spice is more valuable and much healthier that the commonly found “Cassia”. https://spicegrenada.com/true-cinnamon/

Fruit:

Breadfruit, Banana, Chenet (Guinep), Cherimoya, Cherry, Cocoa pods, Coconut, Coffee, Damsel, Golden apple, Gospo fruit, Grapefruit, Guavas, Jackfruit, Mammee Apple, Mandarin, Mango, Papaya, Passion fruit, Pineapple, Plantain, Pomegranate, Pomerac, Prickly Pear, Sapote, Soursop, Star fruit, Sugar apple, Tamarind

The Cocoa tree grows pods on both branches and trunks. When the pods are ripe the seeds are sweet and can be sucked like lollies. If the cocoa is used for chocolate it must be dried first( see links on the chocolate chapter).

The mangos and the avocados have many different varieties on the island, not just one so they fruit at different times. You eat whatever is in season.

Vegetables:

Avocado, Asparagus, Aubergines, Beans, Calabash, Pumpkins, Pigeon peas, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes

Other:

Cashew nuts, Almond, Walnuts, Loofah, Cotton, Mahogany, Sugar Cane.

Flowers

Chocolate Factories

We visited two chocolate factories. The first factory and the oldest is called “The Grenada Chocolate Company”, which was very manual and had mostly been shut down during covid. https://www.grenadachocolate.com/

The second was where we had lunch at Belmont Estate.https://belmontestate.net/cocoa.htm. It was bigger and more commercial. Orientated to busloads of visitors.

The hair of one of the waitresses was spectacular. How your hair is done is very important here with many adults having extensions. The girl children all have their hair plaited beautifully for school and as one mother with three daughters said – she plaits their hair every day and it usually takes an hour each morning before school. Nails are another fashion item with everyone who can, having them as long as possible, varnished or gelled.

Rum Factories

We visited only one rum factory, of the many, the River Antoine Estate. The water came from a stream above it and ran over a huge water wheel which drove the sugar cane crusher. The liquid was then heated with wood-burning fires under the vats fired by the dry remnants of the sugar cane and local wood. The following are a few photos. Here are a couple of short video s showing more of the water wheel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7A0Gcy6YYI , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6bD_BqCR-4

Annadale Waterfalls and Grand Etang Topical Rain Forest

Between the rain and various stops for fruit tasting and rum and chocolate tasting we also saw the Forest Park and Annadale waterfalls(one of the many up in the hills). We would have liked to stop at two others but ran out of time.

Grand Etang Topical Rain Forest

The rain forest is definitely as stop on the tourist route as you can see from the welcoming committee.

The Forest Parkcovers 3,800 acres and is on the central mountain range above the 100 feet contour line and is best known for the diverse range of plants and animals. The Grand Etang fern is unique to this part of the world and is protected.There are also historical sites in the park dating back to 1700. The park not only has local animals and plants but also imported. There is quite a group of monkeys but we did not see any as it was a wet and rainy day. There is also one Austrailan rainbow gum on the way in to make the Aussies feel at home.

Annadale Waterfall and Forest Park

Arrived Sibenik via the narrow Canal St. Anthony and past the spectacular Saint Nikolas Fort at the entrance on the SE corner. There are even red and green lights on the NE point on informing you whether there are ships coming out and over a certain size you have to ask permission to enter. We saw the red light and kept well to the side going up the chanel. Several ferries were coming out.

We continued on to Marina Mandalina( about 10 min by taxi out of town) otherwise you can go back into the town wall but we had a few jobs to do – see if we could find rigging wire for replacing the first reef, finding why the mainsail cars wouldn’t slide and fixing the leak in the dingy. Also some shopping for linen. Succeeded with the duvet covers at a large mall near by. Chandlery shops were shut so needed to wait till the next day for all the boat bits.

Took a taxi into the old town for dinner and walked up to St Michaels fort. Great view and we had managed to leave all phones and cameras behind so no photos!!! Very interesting town with four different sets of fortifications called the guardians of Sibenik- St Michael’s Fortress(built 12th century), Barone Fortress( names after Baron von Degenfeld who started the construction) and St John’s Fortress built 1646 during the Cretan war, and St Nicholas Fortress at the entrance. Could easily have spent a few days here. Had dinner at a little restaurant in the back streets and off back to the boat.

Morning it was up and onto the washing!! All the new sheets and our current ones and some sorting out of linen. Good to have no wind for once and flat sea. Hew was up the mast looking at the mainsail cars and could see nothing wrong then off to the chandlers for some lubricant and some glue for the dinghy repairs. Managed to get some Teflon PTFE spray – brilliant worked perfectly – latest magical thing from the chandlery so all sorts of things got sprayed.

Needed to go back into town to get our documentation extended and we had not seen the cathedral the night before so off we all went . Capitaneria was easy to deal with paid to extend our sojourn form so more money … and we asked about the the bridges etc and route up to Skradin. He showed us the map in the office and said the bridge should be ok and not to end up on a rock in the lake like other tourists.

The Cathedral of Saint James was built over 105 years ( 1431-1536) and is on the UNESCO world heritage list for the type of construction. The baptistery si also famous and incredibly ornate. The exterior is covered in sculptures of heads which local legend says are images of those in the town who would not contribute to the building of the cathedral!!!

Later that day off up the river to Skradin. What an experience!! Something quite different. Firstly we had to go under a bridge and then two sets of high tension lines. The bridge has a limit on it of 27m and we were up around 23 m. We thought it looked very close and headed to the middle but the bungy jumpers did not like the look of it either and were pulling up their ropes!!! then just get through that and there are two setrs of high tension wires that are not much higher.

All the way up the estuary are oyster, mussel and some fish farms. Very pretty.

Under another bridge and another set of lines and then we were into the Lake….. which has some very shallow patches even though it is huge. Down to 2m clearance at one stage.

Finally made it to Skradin and decided to tie up to a buoy since we were going to go further the next day and you had to do it in the park boats.

Went into town to look around and try and buy tickets for the morning but found they only sold them on the day, good park bureaucracy!!

Lovely park building and beautiful park of 109km2 of Krka river with 7 travertine waterfall barriers formed by limestone settling on algae and mosses.

White swans are everywhere here and all boats give way to them.

Got up early the next morning and off to the waterfalls the day was calm and no wind and so a beautiful trip.

The falls were beautiful.

Tried to go and find the boat for the next section of the river but very short of signs. Ended doing a complete circuit of the main falls and then had to walk up the same track again.

Finally found the track to the next boat which was actually up a road.

Got there and then off up the river for the monastery and the next falls. The Monastery is on an island and they apparently built it on a lump of rock and imported the soil from the other parts of the river. It is spectacular and so peaceful.

Departed the monastery after half an hour which was too short to really enjoy it all and went up to the next set of falls. Thy are very beautiful and the upper parts are called ” the necklaces”. We only had a hour there but could easily have stayed longer, but not part of the park scheme.

Took the boat back to the main waterfalls and walked back to the lower boat stop to take it down the river – what a change!! There were thousands of people there swimming, walking lounging around and the queue for the boat down the river was about 500m long. A shambles and it was boiling hot. I had really wanted to have swim on the way back but seeing all the people in the water put me off completely – oh for the morning! This is such a famous spot that it is on all the lists so go early.!! Talking to others in the queue it seems that they were put off by the number of people in the water as well.

Travelled down in the park boat to Skradin and then decided we would go all the way out and anchor in a bay at the entrance to Sibenik where the water would be clean and a new view.

Very sad to see the last of the area but I am sure we will come back. On the eay down we decided to treat ourselves to some oysters from one of the barges 10kn each unopened or 15kn opened. We decided we were travelling so wouldn’t open them but they took so long we almost left. While we were there one of the charter yachts stopped and bought a sack off them!!!

Reached a bay at the entrance and anchored well inside. Had our treat of oysters and prosecco – they were beautiful and worth every kuna!! Very nice bay but music from over the hill payed all night.

Rose early in the morning to go and have a look at Saint Nicholas fort but were told that it was under construction and restricted visits – you could only go by catching a boat at the town pier and only 4 boats a day with about 80 people on each. We were not going back into town to do that. That was a real downer so went for a swim, then saw some people collecting shellfish so went to have a look and found they were collecting mussels in a very restricted area that was shallow but had water flow coming in from outside under a walkway bridge!!. Not knowing the rules we decided to leave it. We departed and headed south.