Exploring under the Caribbean sun – our stay in Grenada

It was a rainy Wednesday morning when I came on deck because of signal K. All of us were so excited – in a few minutes we would arrive in the Grenadian harbour. When the ship finally lay in the bay, the sun came out and we were so happy about it! Having arrived in our harbour, we had breakfast on deck and we greeted our new crew members Kolja and Alexander, who had waited for us on Grenada. Later we explored the harbour, wrote a Spanish test for our teachers in Panama and additionally, we had work to do on our ship, which meant for example painting the ship’s rail, cleaning the ship, storing new food or making an inventory of all the food we have stored. While one group was staying on board, the two others had some time to explore Grenada. Many of us called their families back home or visited the town St. George.

On Thursday, we visited the city together. After Christian had taken us to St. George with the rescue boat and the dinghy, Urs told us a lot about the town in his presentation about the city and led us through the streets. After the ‘guided tour’ we explored St. George by ourselves in little groups; we visited places like the market with its special fruit and spices, and tasted many things which are typical for Grenada, e.g. the Grenadian cocoa. In the afternoon we had the farewell-dinner for three members of our crew – Felix, Yvonne and Uli, who had to fly home. Some of us played theatre and we had a lot of fun. On the one hand it was a very nice evening, but on the other hand it was a bit sad, too. The next day – Friday morning – two groups were working on the ship and the other one could go on land. In the afternoon we changed our chambers – as you can imagine, that was a lot of trouble and chaos… It took a lot of time until all of us were done with moving into our new cabins, cleaning them and decorating our new bunks. In the end all of us were very tired – we had so many new impressions of Grenada and all day we had experienced so much! The following day was exciting, too.

A few days ago we had been divided into three groups and had to plan an excursion by ourselves. Each group had its own section; group one was in St. Andrew, group two visited St. David and group three went to St. John. In group one, we visited the Seven-Sisters-Waterfalls, which were very beautiful. It was impressive, the rainforest with its plants and streams. We hiked through the rainforest for a few hours until we saw the first waterfall. I was fascinated by the beauty of the nature there! We also met some friendly Grenadian people at the main waterfall and they helped us find the right path to the other waterfalls. When we found a waterfall which was a bit hidden, we had a lunch break and swam in the refreshing water. Our group also had a very nice team spirit and we got along very well. During our excursion day we had our first “Solo” – half an hour just for ourselves to think and to enjoy the nature. It was a very nice day in our little group and after our taxi driver had brought us to the harbour, which wasn’t that easy because he wanted more money in the end than was part of our agreement, we called our families at home for the last time. Today was Christmas Eve and of course all of us wanted to speak with parents, grandparents and siblings at home! We would celebrate Christmas on Sunday the 25th and before we could do that, we had to leave the Grenadian harbour because we wanted to anchor in another bay next to the isle. It was a special Christmas atmosphere – not like Christmas at home, but really nice too. After a long evening with theatre, music and a delicious dinner, we fell into our bunks very tired with many beautiful impressions of another Christmas.

The following day, Monday morning, we trained for the person overboard-manoeuvre and afterwards, we cleaned the ship and got ready for leaving Grenada. The sea was calling us again and we were excited for our next destination – Panama!