Clever Nomad

l'll warn you readers: as the days went by, our picture taking became less and less. We were lulled into the rhythm of vacation and relaxation, and consequently our trip journaling suffered. But we still got a few great shots of both Grenada and Tobago. This will be the most boring of all the segments, because we opted to take it easy on Grenada.

I've harbored a strong desire to see Grenada for years now. I've had many travelers tell me it's a lovely place, and the book "An Embarrassment of Mangoes" certainly plays up Grenada as one of the author's favorite places in all of the Caribbean.

I knew we'd be tired by the time we reached Grenada, so we planned for a beach day. I thought we'd walk around St. Georges, check out the Carenage (touted as one of the most picturesque of all Caribbean deep water ports) and taxi over to either Magazine Beach or Morne Rouge.


One of the Summit's sister ships, Millennium, was in port with us that day. It was odd watching our mirror image ship pull in alongside us, but very cool. These folks were on a 10-day Southern Caribbean voyage, so I admit a tad bit of jealously towards the passengers aboard.

Upon disembarking the ship, I was somewhat surprised at how developed Grenada's port facilities are. This island clearly wants cruise ships, and has spent a considerable amount of resources building a large indoor shopping area attached to the port. You must enter through this shopping arcade to get to St. Georges, and I imagine this area is good for business.

We dodged the many aggressive trip hawkers as we made our way to town. Once on the streets of St. Georges, we encountered several friendly folks: one who proudly told us about the country's independence celebration a few days prior, and another who helped us out with directions just because we looked lost.

After walking up what must be one of the steepest hills in the Caribbean, we found the Carenage. I'm not sure what I was expecting... I thought there would be more shops lining the waterfront or something. It is a picturesque town in some ways, but somehow not what I was expecting. No worries. We found a taxi driver and hired him to take us to Morne Rouge for a morning of relaxation and rest.

Morne Rouge is a gorgeous beach, just past Grand Anse. I did notice there is a large pipe feeding into the ocean at one end of the beach, near the Gem Holiday Resort. We steered way clear of this end of the beach and opted to set up shop for the day a good distance away.

We rented chairs for around $10 for the day, and promptly took beach naps under the shade of one of the many large trees that line the beach.

Here's the busy end of the beach...


And here's the view from our chairs...


After napping and reading for the entire morning, we ate at one of the two restaurants on the beach, at the Gem Holiday Resort. I wanted chicken roti. Truthfully, the food was just okay. I kind of wish we'd opted for Magazine Beach because the restaurant there is supposed to be one of the best on the island. But, no regrets, the day was relaxing. That was our objective.

There is a ton to see on Grenada, including rainforest, waterfalls, history (especially from the coup and US invasion during the Reagan administration) and monkeys. By making this a beach day, we did miss out on seeing much of what Grenada has to offer, but we were tired and this was vacation! I loved our beach day. After a passing downpour, we jumped on a water taxi back to St. Georges.


We returned to the ship mid-afternoon, and chose to hang out on our balcony and around the pool instead of in St. Georges. As we sailed away, we opened our bottle of Veuve purchased in San Juan and celebrated another beautiful day in the Caribbean.