We are back in Grenada after our 3 months sojourn in the UK, Antwerp and Amsterdam. We owe a big thanks to our pals Charlotte and James for letting us base out of their lovely riverside flat in Inverness while in Scotland.
Gorgeous view of the River Ness from the apartment in Inverness
We really have to pay it forward with the cruising community after Charlotte and James’ generosity and Julie and Ken introducing us to the housesitting service that let us stay abroad for so long without breaking the bank (and letting Mary get her dog fix – and cat and chicken fix).
We left England to spend a considerable amount of time in Scotland, starting off with a bang in Edinburgh. Arriving just in time for the Fringe Festival, lauded as the world’s largest arts festival. Everyone should head there for it at least once. You can walk around the historic city and drop into a comedy show, theatrical, music, film, or any number of other performances whenever they strike your fancy.
Next up was a trip to the highland capital city of Inverness. The Scotland highlands reminds us of Tahoe with conifer-covered hills and mountains and open countryside. Except here there is the odd abandoned castle off in the distance. We’ve seen enough old castles and manors to last a lifetime, but we love learning about the history and occupants of each one. The Scotland National Trust does a great job of preserving the history as well as the buildings. And to Pete’s delight the Whisky trail led him to single malt Scotch heaven.
When we finished with our house sits, we set off to explore the western shore of northern Scotland. Driving the North Coast 500 was a trip on the beautiful open roads. Just be sure to bring your cojones because the roads are narrow, often even single track, and twisty with blind corners. Oh, and with sheep roaming free. The roads and weather were so gorgeous Pete wished he was back on the Ducati. We made it all way round from Loch Ness up to John O’Groats (we had to go there just because of that name) and then back to Inverness to catch our breath.
Our trip didn’t end here, but our camera did. Sadly hundreds of photos were lost to the technology gods. So you’ll have to imagine and hopefully see for yourself one day the exciting city of Glasgow, Northern England, Wales, Antwerp and Amsterdam. Here are a few snaps from the phone.
It was the perfect break from 3 years on the boat and definitely a much needed change of scenery, proving to us that one can even get tired of tropical islands and variety is indeed the spice of life. Bring on Season #4…
Grenada has got it right. Without a giant tourist infrastructure and without subsidy from a European country that views it as a vacation playground, Grenada maintains a fairly high standard of living on its own. Agriculture vies with low-key tourism to keep the local economy humming. The many cruisers about are not an insignificant part either, and the country caters to them as well as any other island we’ve been to.
We’ll see the ones we missed on our way back up. Here we had great pizza and tried our first lionfish meal (for our non-boatie friends, lion fish is a voracious invasive species that is decimating Caribbean coral reefs because it eats everything and nothing eats it – so these islands do everything they can to limit its expansion). If you see lion fish on the menu, give it a try. 
They are thin and slimy and Mary thinks they were the cause of a stomach bug I suffered from a few weeks later. They don’t hold a candle to 
Since numerous sailing web sites warned against corruption among officials, we were a bit hesitant to stop in Luperon, but recent reports had suggested they had cleaned up their act and we decided to chance it. The adventures started immediately as we took a stricken vessel in tow at 3 am in the morning and brought them 25 miles to the entrance to Luperon harbor.
Most of our pictures have a small caption embedded in them. But this simple picture has a story that we have to tell. There was smoke and the sound of drumming coming from this little settlement. Danny, our guide at the Citadel – well not really a guide, but a guy who attached himself to us and through persistence proved valuable to us – informed us that it is voodoo being practiced. He told us that one time a man brought his cow to the voodoo priest to be sacrificed. The priest told the man to do it himself. The man thought he was stabbing the cow with a machete but he was really stabbing himself. He was under a spell and thought he had a cow with him when he was actually alone. It was a creepy story.
Sailing on Neko 