Homecomings: SXM to Grenada & Oz

 

Wednesday 23rd June, Quarantine, Room 548, Hyatt Regency Perth, Australia. 

Well here I am in hotel quarantine again. I’ll start with a quick summary to clear up any confusion. We finally managed to tear ourselves away from St. Maarten and sailed back to Grenada. I’ll be working in Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) for three months but there are no international flights into Tassie so I flew to Perth. Good old Fortress Australia is still insisting on the full 14 day hotel quarantine for everyone (except Prime Ministers) as soon as you touch Australian soil so I’m doing my quarantine here in Perth before flying on to Hobart. Karl has been left behind again in Grenada. That’s it, you’re up to date.

So. We set several dates for leaving SXM but the weather kept getting in the way so we didn’t end up leaving until the end of May. Bright side - Karl got to celebrate his birthday with yet another trip to the end of the runway and a visit to his two favourite beach bars (for the record - Driftwood and Mary’s Boon). Also, we got to see the completion of the lovely new dock at the yacht club after the unfortunate GO incident (see previous blog or YouTube). There was a final dinghy sail, a final couple of capsizes, a final (for now at least) Wednesday night on Heaven’s Door, some final good French cheese and affordable Champagne and a final couple of rum punches at the Yacht Club. Actually, one of the waiters at the Yacht Club wouldn’t let us go without whisking up a delicious concoction and sharing some farewell shots with us. I’m going to miss that place.

The wonderful St. Maarten yacht club

A birthday rum punch at Driftwood for the plane-spotting nerd

The final verdicts are in for the official SXM awards:

Best experience - being jet-blasted at the end of the runway.

Best rum punch - the Yacht Club.

Best beach bar - Mary’s Boon (very close competition but a winner in the end due to also having the best Margarita and best Ti Punch).

Best excuse for a beer - the laundry at Lagoonies is never quite ready on time and the bar’s right there.

Best three course three hour French lunch - Tropicana.

Worst bike - Island Water World free loan bikes.

Least responsible service of alcohol - Dinghy Dock’s weekend bottomless cocktails Boozy Brunch.

Most welcoming - the sailing school at the yacht club.

The view from our regular corner of the bar at Mary’s Boon

And then we were finally off! Back at sea again. So nice. 

Farewell SXM

Until the inevitable Caribbean “always bashing to windward and mostly against a current” thing happened. Seriously, there were times we had all sail up (including the staysail) in a good 15 knots of wind and were somehow only making 3 knots!!! How is that possible??? And then there were the stealth fishing boats. And the non-stealth longlines showing up on AIS just to terrify the life out of us. So a busy passage, give me long ocean voyages any day. And then just when it looked like we were facing a slow 2 knot plod over 20 hours to arrive in the wee hours of the morning.......the sun came out, the wind came up, the adverse current vanished, I was able to cook up a fantastic lunch and we had the most glorious last day’s sail and even arrived in time for sunset, hooning in at 7 1/2 knots (that’s positively dizzying for Grainne). That’s the Universe’s way of keeping you addicted you see. And arriving back in Grenada was just beautiful. We’d forgotten how big and green and very tall and sweet-smelling the island is. Just beautiful.

Beautiful Grenada welcoming us back with open arms

A perfect day’s sailing

We arrived on a Wednesday evening but despite promises of check in within 48 hours we didn’t actually get ashore until the following Monday (some combination of public holiday, weekend and nobody caring I think). So I only had a few days to walk down memory lane before flying out on the Saturday. We quickly hired a scooter and hit all the old favourites - the yacht club, Grand Anse beach, the IGA and of course the microbrewery. It felt weird in that it didn’t feel weird, like we’d never been away. It was very odd though to be sitting at the yacht club looking at the empty spot where Pauline Claire used to be (currently in Hawaii en route from Panama to British Columbia). At least Karl is safe from the weekly boys’ bbq this season. And we even explored some new places including two forts that Karl had somehow never visited before, so that kept him happy for a day.

A trip to Grand Anse with the new dinghy, Enzo

If you hang around under a tree long enough people come along and sell you mangoes and cocktails

Time to explore Fort Frederick

View down to St. George’s

Karl explores Fort Matthew

There was even an old bar and cafe down here from when it was a performance venue

And then, far too soon, it was time for me to summon all my courage, and a PCR, and brave some international flights again. Eeek!

My plane about to take off. I could see Karl and his scooter under a tree by the side of the runway filming it as we left

I hadn’t realised how distressing last year’s trip had been until I set off again and all the memories came flooding back. I was a bit stressy to say the least. It started off well enough, people seemed willing to give me boarding passes and my onward flights hadn’t disappeared by the time I got to New York. There I was, sitting at the gate at JFK actually starting to feel quietly confident. And then there was a boarding delay due to technical issues. No problem, I had hours up my sleeve to make my connection in Qatar. But then the hours passed, still no boarding. Nope, wouldn’t be making that connection after all. Some sort of balance between stress and sleep deprivation kept me on a fairly even keel all night until they finally announced the cancellation of the flight at 6am. Sigh. I should just stop flying. We were packed off to the Business Class lounge (those of us lucky enough to be flying business that is) for breakfast while staff busily started to rebook everyone’s flights. A few hours later, bageled and caffeinated, I had new flights and a night in New York. Alas the night in New York was completely wasted on me - there was no way I was tempting fate by venturing all the way into Manhattan - so I just pottered about Jamaica, Queens for a bit and then went to bed.

They have everything in New York it seems

Sightseeing while waiting (and waiting) for my flight

A nice little suburb, Jamaica, with a bit of West Indian influence to make me feel at home

The next day was.......my birthday! Happy Birthday me. How does one entertain oneself on one’s birthday at an airport? Well, you start by getting a birthday PCR (because of the delay my Grenada one was out of date). This was the most amazing PCR I’ve ever had (I know, sad). JFK terminal 1: World’s Best PCR. I registered and paid online, turned up and got swabbed, went for lunch and had the result sitting in my inbox before I’d finished eating. Amazing.

Happy birthday to me, Happy birthday to me...

Things are still pretty quiet at JFK

Then I thought I’d have a little birthday adventure and do some time travel back to the 60s and the original TWA terminal which is now a hotel. This was brilliant, it put a great big birthday grin on my face.

Entering the wormhole

Walkway across to the hotel

The whole place was fabulously retro and filled with the famous “Tulip” furniture of Eero Saarinen who was also the terminal’s architect. Interestingly he was also one of the judges who selected the winning Sydney Opera House design.

Birthday cocktail

And then it was time to give this flying thing another go. And this time it all went according to plan. The birthday indulgence continued with some pre-takeoff champagne and the glory that is the Qatar Airways business class Q Suite (just so you know, I’m usually a cattle class traveller but the only way to get into Australia with the numbers capped at the moment seems to be in a business class seat). 

Ah, I could get used to this

Maybe the Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Suez at the top of the Red Sea

I had a few hours in transit in Doha where the high life continued in the form of the amazing business class lounge. An oasis of peace and quiet. I had coffees, I had a shower, I had dinner in one of the restaurants and snacks and drinks in the other, I was waited on hand and foot with outrageously attentive service and I emerged completely and utterly spoiled. Now here’s an airport I wouldn’t mind getting stranded in!

Not exactly cramped in the business class lounge

And then I flew to Perth, got herded onto a bus with a police escort to the hotel, narrowly survived death by freezing cold ventilation on said bus (a ploy, I suspect, to kill either the Covid virus or all evil people who dare to arrive from abroad) and settled into my little cell. Team Kara have totally got this quarantine thing down now - my local supports, Martina & Alan, selflessly donated their coffee machine and Mary, veteran of last year’s UK debacle, arranged for the all important bunch of flowers. So I’m sorted. In fact, the weather forecasts for both here and Hobart are so terrifying that I think I might just stay safely locked up here in my climate controlled 24 degrees.

Arriving into Perth

Meanwhile, back in Grenada

Gráinne's new Anchorage

Karl dinner