Our 2016 travel season is finally on! It began with an adventurous week sailing in Grenada & The Grenadines with our good friends Conan and Michele. This would be the first time for us chartering a monohull and doing more “challenging” sailing – compared to chartering cats in the BVIs. But before the sailing trip began, we stayed for two nights in an amazing suite at the True Blue Resort. The resort is also where Horizon Yacht Charters, our charting company, is located.
The resort was gorgeous and definitely worth the premium price. We arrived late at night after a long trip from Detroit (and Indianapolis) so we barely had energy for a quick meal at the resort restaurant before we crashed. The next day we woke up to an amazing view of True Blue Bay.
After a relaxing morning it was time to start getting the trip ready. The key challenge was provisioning. We had decided to do our own provisioning to save money (the charter company provisioning is always more expensive). We could have bought the food online and have it delivered to the boat for a small fee, but our experience in the BVI is that often what you get is not really what you order. So we decided that we wanted to have full control even if that involved a trip to the grocery store.
Before the provisioning trip and while organizing our gear, Nestor realized he forgot to bring his handheld compass. Technically, we would be fine without it but Nestor is a Sailing Boy Scout and the idea of sailing without that one piece of navigation gear was not in his plans. So we began a search for possible places we could get one and quickly found out that Budget Marine was just a short 10 minute walk from the Marina.
But a big CLOSED sign is what we encountered at the door of Budget Marine. It was Saturday at 3pm and apparently they close at 2pm. Luckily there was a Beer Garden next to Budget Marine so we drowned our sorrows on a couple of lagers before embarking on the provisioning trip.
The taxi cab to the Real Value IGA supermarket took less than 10 minutes. The driver decided to wait for us which facilitated our return. We made a quick stop by the ATM to get some EC Dollars and then entered the large American-Style supermarket. We provisioned for the entire week for 4 people, which resulted in one overflowing cart and a couple of small carts. Prices were slightly higher than at a regular Kroger and the fruit/veggies were limited to what was in season -no avocados 🙁 .
We finished the day by organizing our groceries in the hotel and making the passage plan from the Marina to Grand Mal, where we would stay our first night.
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