Good Morning,

Red sunbeams reach out to light up the old fort on Grenada. Built by the French, it stands guard on an inland harbor that could house the entire French fleet. Fought over through the years by British and French, the island has more spices than any other. Providing 1/3 of the worlds nutmeg..I took a water taxi to the Grand Anse Beach, and walked from one scuba stall to another, looking for the cheapest. Eco dive seemed to fit the bill so I booked two dives. As I went for my visa I relised that I had left it in the safe on the ship, O shit, going through my dive bag and pockets I came up with just enough cash for 1 dive. So it is and I got to dive on a wreck right there in the bay. Visibility was 90ft., with the boat sitting at 100ft., so with just me and the dive master, we did a quick decent to 75ft. and the fore deck of the old freighter. With no other divers on this trip, I had free reign to explore the ship from anchor to wheel house. There was a plethora of fish about and the predators were present as well. As we made our way through the galley to the wheel house, we came up the four steps only to stop dead looking at a six foot barracuda sitting there looking out the windows for his next meal. My photo is not very good due to the light through the windows, but this predator was bigger than me, however he never even gave us a glance as we backed out slowly into the galley. We might have gone below but between us I was the only one with a dive light, and the air was half, at 1500psi. So we continued through and out to the deck towards the aft section, with the big propeller and rudder finishing off at the stern. With less than 750psi left, we started the slow ascent stopping at 15 ft. for our 3 min safety stop. I broke the surface with only 450psi left, the norm is 500psi. so it wasn't too bad. I was more than a little pissed at myself for not having the cash/visa for my second dive, as the visibility was the best so far, but dammed it was a great one dive trip. With my last $3. in change, it was just enough for the water taxi back to the ship, and lunch.... Washing my gear in the shower, I changed and headed to St. Georges, the main town on this stop. It was evident that everything was broken, everywhere we looked, roofs were gone, and buildings laid to waste. I met up with Rod, Sherri and Bill, so we all walked though a long tunnel linking the old city to the tourist quarter. In the old section the devastation was even more evident, some folks had just a tarp for a roof, and many had only two or three walls to live in. We went to a local store to buy water but they didn't even know how to handle the Yankee bucks, using Caribbean money only, I walked out empty handed when the could not even change a $5usd. Rod and I then headed up to the fort, up top it was sad to see how beatup this old structure had become, however the view was more than spectacular. Sighting down the 8 pound guns, gave us a commanding view of the whole bay, making it easy to imagine the devastation them 8 pounders could do to any fleet stupid enough to get within range. But what a view, deep blue bays against the green hills, almost took your breath away. Sad to see, were all the churches had no roofs, but the bars all withstood the devastation of hurricane Ivan. Rebuilding will no doubt take years at the pace of repair we saw, mostly it seemed people moved on and just left the pile of rubble that used to be their homes. The water temp. according to my dive computer was 83degrees, while the air temp. must have been closer to 90degrees, and so it was back to the ship for cool drinks, showers, and get ready for supper. After dinner we boys retired to the fan tail for drinks and Cuban cigars, I tried a Baileys, but it just didn't go down well, and I left it sitting, switching to water or cappuccino for the rest of our trip. Darkness is complete at this latitude, like a light switch at 6 pm, then again at 6am. But man them stars,!!! WOW, also Saturn was in her finest, hanging low and bright off the stern of our 12 story moving luxury hotel . We all said goodnight, and headed below,well fed and content with another great day in the Caribbean..............till tomorrow......Andy