Up the next morning and back to the Anchorage for our private cat trip. It was pouring down rain and I was afraid my expensive day $600, would be ruined. I had brought a bunch of brand new children’s books from home to take to Erika’s for the Boaters for Books Program. When I asked the driver to stop at Erika’s, he stated that he had 6 children and that his daughter loved to read. Well, how could I not give them to him? I did, and he looked at them while driving to the Anchorage. We had Captain Barry and his crew from Capt.Yannis’ boats take us first sailing to Petit Tabac (where Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth were marooned), which my daughter was thrilled to set foot on Johnny Depp soil. We explored and got lots of beautiful shells. We then sailed to Morpion, which it poured the minute the dingy dropped us off. Stopped raining long enough to take some pictures. We ate lunch, same as previous day and then sailed onto PSV, where we took the dingy to shore again, for gift shop and pictures. Headed back to Union and had a great day. The crew was super friendly, knowledgeable and professional. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The group trip was so cheap, we decided we’d go again our 3rd day. The weather turned out to be bad, so the boat didn’t run. Our last day, the weather cleared out by 11am, so we thought we’d just spend the day at the beach at Big Sand. We walked a bit in the sand our first night of arrival, but never really got in the water. So, we all put on the sun screen, which is a pain in the tail. I can do myself in no time, but to do dad and daughter seems like it takes hours. He can’t reach his back, well, I can reach all my body parts, no one helps me, so I do gripe about that. The kid you know you have to do or you will end up with a sunburnt child and that would not be fun. So out we head to the beach. Well, it is nasty lots of broken glass and I don’t mean sea glass. I mean broken bottles with necks and lots of sharp pieces. I walk the beach take some pictures and we lay in the beach chairs and then head in as my daughter is bored is she can’t get in the water. During this trip I had planned on dining somewhere different for the 4 nights, but it seems we spent 3 nights dining at Big Sand for several reasons. Mostly being convenient, the food was not bad, service good and too tired to do much else. We did dine at the West Indies, which had a beautiful setting and décor/ nice owner and reasonable prices. I got a great grilled fish, steak ordered medium well and was more rare to med. Rare-still mooing. Once the food arrived no check backs for drink replenishment or to see if food okay. I had to go get the check from the group of 3 employees hanging out by the bar chatting. We wanted dessert and more drinks, but couldn’t get any attention. We decided to get the check and go back to Big Sand for dessert. Service was definitely crappy for such a decent looking place with what seemed to be a very nice owner. Our nightly ritual was to look under the beds each night for Carley the Cockroach, never with any sign of her until the last night. There she was a big a can be under the double bed, so I chased her around that apartment for 20 minutes. Under the couches, under the tv stand, under the trunk, under the suitcases, round and round and she was getting tired and slow. I finally got her and with a hard push of some folded papers out the front door she went and unfortunately, onto the balcony of our college girl neighbors whose front doors were open wide. I listened for screams, but heard none. I shut our door and stuffed a towel under the bottom. Big Sand was okay, but wouldn’t stay there again. My overall impressions of Union, it was a bit dumpier than I had imagined in the harbor area. It looked like one of the poorer/dirtier islands that I have been to. I had been warned, but someone had said it had been cleaned up. I did not go expecting it to be beautiful. I stayed there to use as a base for taking the day sails. The people were incredibly friendly. I was amazed. A lot of times, the friendliness doesn’t appear from the start, but Unionites (is that what they are called) along with the Grenadian people were the friendliest we have ever encountered on any of our island trips. I, too, am glad that we did not have Seckie take us out to all of the islands via his water taxi as originally planned. Some of the distances would have been too far and our bags as well as ourselves would have been soaked.
We laughed when we saw the small water taxis fly by. My boyfriend said he couldn’t believe I ever considered that as a means of getting to the Grenadines for day trips. SVG Air smooth rides and great service, meeting us at Barbados airport as promised. We travelled with 5 suitcases, a carryon a piece and two large suitcases. I thought for sure we would have to pay an overage for weight on our bags, we didn’t. Also, all luggage arrived with us, none left behind. We really got lucky with the weather out of the whole trip only our last day on Grenada was a wash out with only 1 hour of sunshine and the rest rain.
