Life got quieter in Grenada after our guests, Kenny, Katrina and Ava flew back to Texas.  We busied ourselves with the usual boat-life activities for a week before I flew to NYC for a special visit with Amy. 

Usual boat-life activities include grocery shopping, of course. 

With grocery shopping, comes our usual stop at the smoothie shop where we show up with our metal straws and Ted makes us yummy smoothies with native fruits.  This year, I shared with him a concoction that I’ve been making on board Nancy Lu.

 

I call it a Watermelon Lemonade Slushy.  Ted said that he already had something similar in his repertoire, but it’s never been one of the offerings when we’ve been there.

The list of usual day to day boat-life activities goes on with cooking, repair and maintenance work on the boat, laundry, morning Bible study time and zooming in to a weekly meeting to discuss the week’s study, hashes on Saturdays, streaming our home church services on Sundays, and occasionally getting together with boat neighbors and friends.

Some departures from the usual during our last weeks in Grenada included

a few afternoons spent at the University Club, which we joined this year. It is right in front of where Nancy Lu moors in Prickly Bay.  Our membership allows us to swim in their nice, big pool (among other things) and offers a break from the day to day routine.  We took advantage of this luxury a few times during our remaining days in Grenada before we sailed north.

 

Although going to yoga classes is something I do regularly in Grenada, I’ve been limited to a studio that I like within walking distance.  With the return to the island of our friends, Nick and Amanda on S/V Ernestina, came the invitation by Amanda to join her for a class offered at La Luna, a resort in St. George’s.  They were renting a car at the time, and I felt perfectly safe riding with Amanda as she is British and accustomed to driving on the left side of the road! Surprisingly, this yoga session marked the beginning of the healing of a chest/shoulder injury that I sustained during a mooring mishap while the Emersons were here.  It was so painful that soon after it happened, I went to the St. Augustine Medical Center to see a doctor and get an X-Ray just to confirm no ribs were broken.

 

The evening before my flight to NYC, Mark hoisted me up the mast so I could rig up the halyard used to fly our courtesy flags. 

The morning of my flight, as Mark was hoisting the Grenada flag, I was inspired to use this opportunity to have my picture taken in the dress that I had recently bought for wearing at any occasion where showing Grenada pride was appropriate!

That afternoon, I was on my way to NYC as was “baby” daughter, Claire, to have a special visit with #1 daughter, Amy, and Marie!

The temperature in NYC was cold; although, there were beautiful signs of Spring in Amy’s neighborhood and visiting with her, Claire, and friends is always refreshingly Spring-like!

Before I knew it, I was back in the tropics  with one of those usual-boat-life grocery shopping trips on schedule for the next day. But the day after that, was another enjoyable departure from the usual.

We availed ourselves the use of Chico’s free bus courtesy of Meat and Meet at Le Phare Bleu Marina! Along with lunch and the delectable yummies at the village-like setting there, I enjoyed the pool and we bought plenty of good stuff at Meat & Meet that would come in handy over the weeks ahead as we sailed away from Grenada for a while!

The day after our Le Phare Bleu excursion, we were sailing on to Grenada’s sister Island, Carriacou:

We moored for the second time this season at beautiful, idyllic, Sandy Island!

And the usual Sandy Island fun began!

We snorkeled…

We checked out the “beach cairn garden” which had sadly been decimated by the weather since our last visit when we were with the Emersons!  My whale was damaged, but still fairly recognizable…

I made some changes, tried one tail choice, then another, and decided to go with tail #2.  We’ll see what’s there when we come back through later in the season.

We left an even less permanent mark on the beach before heading back to Nancy Lu that day.

More usual Sandy Island fun continued!

We enjoyed one of the most pleasant dining experiences offered in the Caribbean at Paradise Beach Club. The last couple of times we’ve gone, we don’t bother with wearing shoes no matter how dressed up we get because being ferried there from Nancy Lu involves hopping off into the surf and a short walk in the sand up to the restaurant…who needs sandy, wet shoes during a meal?!

Our favorite ferry pilot was Aaron who was home visiting from his current home in NYC where he works in Amy’s neighborhood!

The return trip from our lunch at Paradise Beach Club offered a perfect opportunity to get a good shot of Nancy Lu in a beautiful setting!

I also took the opportunity to have a little photo shoot so I could update my Facebook profile picture wearing the same outfit I was wearing in my last profile pic. but my current hair style. I have to say, my former MUCH shorter hairstyle was MUCH better suited for living on a boat!

After a few beautiful sunsets at Sandy Island, and

a couple more sunsets around the corner at Tyrell Bay, we headed further north to Bequia bright and early April 5.  I hope after perusing this 1st Bitty Blog Bite you got a good taste of what we’d been up to on Nancy Lu for just shy of a month since my last update. Bitty Blog Bite # 2 will follow shortly to catch you up a little further …