Bonnie & Clyve: Carriacou

These days, I find myself reminiscing on the glorious summer we had in Grenada. Billy is in the midst of his hardest term of school, and he barely has time to eat lunch and dinner with me every day. So, I abandoned him to go out to my sister’s wedding in October, and I stayed in Utah until Stephanie and Skyler’s wedding in November. It didn’t make sense to fly back and forth twice when airfare is so expensive and I’m probably more of a distraction than a help for him at this point. And did I mention we have been sleeping in separate beds? All of our friends are really worried about our marriage, but I promise we’re great. When I went to North Carolina with my family in August, Billy was all of a sudden sleeping like a baby. And then when I came back, he could not get a decent night’s sleep. I can take a hint, and so Billy started sleeping in the guest room. In our defense, we have a king-sized bed in storage in Utah that has amplified our love for each other, since we don’t even notice there is anyone else in the bed. And in Grenada we are forced to sleep in a full-sized bed, which is great…for one person!

I was in Utah for 5 weeks, which is the longest we’ve ever been apart, and hopefully this is the record that sticks. So, I’m finally reunited with my best friend who I was missin' something fierce, but I’m also the one who got the better end of the deal—Utah in the fall, yummy American food, and hanging out with friends and family. And I also don’t have to study from 8 AM to 10 PM everyday.

ANYWAY, I'm the worst at segues, so this post is about our getaway to Carriacou in the summer—when life was simpler, and our biggest worry was whether we should explore the beach or the jungle. Yes, I realize it’s almost Thanksgiving, but I need to remember this once in a lifetime trip by writing it all down.

I’m a planner. Billy finds it really cute about 25% of the time. The other 75% is filled with eye-rolls and freak-outs about me trying to control every second of our life. Billy doesn’t know what he’s doing tonight, let alone next summer. So, I secretly have a bucket list for every topic listed in my phone. CliffNotes version: I want to go everywhere in the world. Billy mentioned just yesterday that it’s an option for him to work in Dubai after residency, and they pay you a ton, so it’s a good option for paying off our student loans. I started jumping up and down and saying, “I would move to Dubai in a heartbeat.” He rolled his eyes and said, “I already know that. I’ve actually known about this option for a few weeks, and I’ve been debating whether I should even tell you since you’d get so excited about it.” And seeing the giddiness in my eyes, he added “Yep. I shouldn’t have told you.” He’s such a killjoy. I might have some sort of mental disorder, because I’ve only know about this for 24 hours, and I already know what neighborhood we would live in, and which vacations we could go on that were close to Dubai. Did I mention that he wouldn’t be done with his residency for at least 5 more years—maybe more? It’s really an illness I have.

I especially have a bucket list for while we are living in Grenada. I’m slowly checking everything off, but number one at the top of my list has been to go to Carriacou and the Tobago Cays. Carriacou is a smaller island that is still part of Grenada. And all I ever heard about this magical place is it’s where you can go to swim with sea turtles in the clearest water you’ve ever seen. So naturally, it’s always been my number one, because TURTLES!

We barely made it onto the 9 o’clock ferry to take us up there. We both love being on boats, especially with such beautiful islands and gorgeous water to see on our way, and so we stayed outside the whole trip. We had played beach volleyball with the missionaries the day before and got sunburnt for only the second time since living here—we have great timing. But we stayed on the top deck and watched the flying fish be disturbed by the ferry’s huge wake. I never knew that flying fish actually flew; I thought they just jumped in the air or something. Well, I guess they technically glide. Like a flying squirrel! We were lucky enough to not get seasick on the way up there. The school children that were on board with us didn’t have the same luck. Once we hit the open water, they were puking all over the place. Literally, everywhere. And then the ferry operators brought them up to the top deck to get some fresh air, but faced them towards the back of the ferry. As a girl who has thrown up in many cars in her day, the number one rule is to be able to see where you are going! So, the only thing bringing them to the top did was to add some puke to the upstairs.

We landed on Carriacou at about 11:30 AM and checked into our hotel—the Grand View Inn. We had a beautiful view of the town of Hillsborough, even if the hotel gave us some weird vibes. I asked for some shampoo later that evening, because I didn’t bring any (because most hotels provide it, right?) and they acted like I was asking for a full-body massage. The receptionist then brought me a half-used bottle of shampoo that I think might have been hers. Now, that’s either really great customer service, or really awful customer service—I can’t decide. Our last night there, we asked if we could get some dinner at the hotel’s restaurant at around 7 PM, and she said she needed more notice than that and she was really tired. And it was a holiday, so no restaurants or stores were open. Maybe I am just a high-maintenance American that expects people to do their jobs. My expectations need to be lowered.

On our first day there, we took a taxi over to Paradise Beach and relaxed and swam. We ate some lunch at Off D Hook Bar & Grill—this place could have been straight out of a Kenny Chesney music video. I ordered some fish, and the cook proceeded to walk to the ocean and reel in a snapper. He then fried it up for me—eyeballs, tail, fin and all. It was delicious; once I got past the sad look on the poor fish’s face. We watched the sun set and hung out with the owner. We told him of our plan to swim with the turtles the next day, and discovered that we were going out with his ex-wife. We later learned all about their divorce from all of the other Kayaks (residents of Carriacou) that we came across. In a town of 1,000 on a tiny island, there’s no such thing as private matters.

In the morning, we met our guide on the beach and made our way out to the Tobago Cays. We hit some rather large waves in a rather tiny wooden boat. I have a really hard time masking my emotions—you can quickly get to know me by reading my facial expressions. Our guide and her captain thought it was hysterical how wide my eyes would get as we would go straight up the front of a wave and straight down the back of it. I’m just glad I talked to my parents AFTER our trip, because my dad thought I’d want to know how many more shipwrecks there are in foreign countries because they don’t have the same regulations as the U.S. does. That’s just fascinating, Dad.

After about a 45-minute boat ride, we finally made it to the Tobago Cays (pronounced keys). The Cays are about 5 uninhabited islands that are part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. So, we got to another country without using our passports! Such rebels. They are marine protected areas. We dropped our guide off to set up our camp in the shade and to cook our lunch for us, and we went over to where the turtles like to swim. We snorkeled for an hour and a half and swam around with the green turtles and hawksbill turtles. I was the happiest girl in the world. We touched them, but then felt bad about bugging them, so just watched them in their natural habitat. Watching animals in the ocean makes me feel so close to God for some reason. We know so little about the ocean, and yet there is so much going on down there. Billy told me that he would pay millions of dollars (not sure where that would ever come from) to take a trip to space. You couldn’t’ pay me enough money in the world to go into space. The movie, “Gravity” was like a horror film for me—I was sweating and biting my nails through the entire move. But, I would pay millions of dollars to live in the ocean. Or just start a GoFundMe campaign to go to this place: http://www.poseidonresorts.com/

Anyway, we swam back to one of the Cays and went on a hike to find some iguanas. We probably saw 20 of them in our short half-hour hike. They are so crazy looking—especially when they would run away from us. They are definitely related to dinosaurs. We then went back to our camp to get some fabulous lunch. Really, I was expecting sandwiches, but our guide had cooked up some lobster, fish, chicken—and it was all so delicious. We lounged around in some hammocks she had brought while we waited for our food to digest. Then, it was back to snorkeling, of course! We snorkeled right off of where our camp was, and swam with lots of huge stingrays, and spotted eagle rays. Nobody had told us about the stingrays on our trip—we were only expecting turtles. But the stingrays were so beautiful to watch glide through the water. And they were massive, so it was a little bit nerve-wracking. We even saw some more turtles and some beautiful fish. Really guys, I think my version of heaven is under the sea.

We reluctantly headed back to Carriacou at around 3 PM. We stopped on Happy Island—which was probably the highlight of the trip for my hermit husband. This man, named Janti, who is probably 65 (maybe older—Caribbean islanders age extremely well, so it’s always hard to tell) piled up discarded conch shells to create his own personal man-made island. Talk about living off the grid—he gets all of his energy from solar and wind power, and he doesn’t have to pay property tax. He lives alone on the island in the middle of a harbor off of Fort Union (with the occasional lady-friend who stays over). He takes an occasional 15-minute boat ride to Fort Union to re-stock his inventory and to get fresh water. His home also doubles as a bar and triples as a marijuana distribution center. We stopped and ordered mango coladas and took a tour of the place. Janti loved me for some reason. He kept telling Billy, “you’ve got a good one, treat her right so you can hang on to her”. I had only spoken maybe 3 sentences, but Janti must be psychic or something. He is a hard core Rasta man and Billy’s personal hero.

We got back to Carriacou and went back to our hotel to freshen up. We decided to go eat at Bogle’s Round House, which was a lot farther walk from our hotel than we were told. We got a little nervous on the dark streets—it was so quiet and if we were murdered, no one would hear us scream! Luckily, no one tried to murder us. Carriacou is even safer than Grenada, but I’m a little bit afraid of the dark. I need streetlights. We finally made it to the restaurant, which is like a little hobbit house with gorgeous views of the ocean. And our dinner was FABULOUS. You know a dinner is good when you’re freaking out about how delicious the carrots are. They were the best effing carrots I’ve ever eaten. I had a shrimp curry that was divine. Billy had a steak that was decent, but I honestly think we are giving up on steak here. The beef is not good quality and so no matter how skilled you are, you can’t really do anything to make it better. Or worth the $40 you pay for it. Our dessert was also finger-licking good (I go to KFC too much). I don’t normally like to give a play-by-play on my blog, cause I know how boring that can be, but my food was so good that I still can’t stop thinking about it 6 months later. The restaurant’s owner and chef have since moved back to England, so the place is shutdown until further notice. So for those of you that haven’t been there before—it sucks to suck.

The next day, we took a boat over to Sandy Island. It’s really just a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. All of our Grenadian friends said we HAD to go to Sandy Island. They also told us not to eat any wink-eye jacks (a type of fish) because they will make you fall in love with the next person you see—which could be Billy or could be our waiter. We were already sunburnt from our long day at Tobago Cays, so in hindsight we should have avoided Sandy Island. It’s literally just sand, with maybe 2 midget trees. I guess Hurricane Ivan knocked out all the trees that used to be there. We had the place to ourselves, so we walked around it and then settled under the one palm tree that would give us shade. Billy watched birds all afternoon while I tried to read my book. It was kind of hard to do when he was giving me a play-by-play of which bird was doing what. Sometimes, I think I could see him getting into weird hobbies when we’re older—like bird watching or putting model ships together. Only time will tell. We spent the afternoon there and then had kind of a heart attack when our ride to the ferry didn’t pick us up on time. OK, really only I had a heart attack—control freak, remember? We ended up making it, but I probably would not recommend Sandy Island to anybody—it’s just like any other Caribbean beach, but just kinda hard to get to.

It’s crazy how going to a different island can feel more like a vacation. Because we live in Grenada, we take it for granted—we know the good, the bad, and the ugly. But being a tourist in a different spot is actually still glamorous, and we need that kind of a break or change in scenery every once in a while. Wah, wah, living in paradise is so hard. I’ll shut up now. But we loved Carriacou and are definitely hoping to make it back before we leave this rock.

***For anyone wanting to go, we went with Isle of Reef Tours. Ask for Alison, she was amazing.***

View from our hotel

No caption needed

Cuter than Kenny Chesney

My lunch from Off D Hook Bar & Grill. They weren't kidding when they named the place.

Paradise Beach

Off D Hook Bar & Grill, Paradise Beach

My model face rivals Gisele's

Bogle's Round House--best dinner around

Just swimming with a spotted eagle ray

Baradal Turtle Sanctuary, Tobago Cays

Iguana Island, Tobago Cays

Not sure where he learned the hand-on-hip pose, but I like it

Our guide, Mojo, would just grab the iguanas by their tails. Grenadian badass

It was kind of the dry season, so the iguanas were all brown and white to blend in with the trees

Iguana hike. Can you even believe that water color?

Billy didn't wear shoes on our iguana hike, and the ground was blistering hot, so I gave him mine if he would carry me. This summer was the heaviest I've ever been, (damn you, Snickers!) so it was no small feat.