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The islands of Carriacou, Petite Martinique, and Grenada make up a country.  The island of Carriacou has the northern port of entry at Hillsborough where the town pier is undergoing some serious renovation.  Cruisers had to beach dinghies to check in with customs and immigration.  OSHA would freak if they saw this site with workers wearing flip-flops, standing on wooden scaffolding inches above the water often sloshing on their feet as they worked with power tools, cords dangling in the water.

Leaving Hillsborough, we passed Sandy Island with its beautiful white sand and reef to snorkel. 

Tyrell Bay is Carriacou's more protected anchorage.  It has a small marina and haul-out facility.  The anchorage is huge and can accommodate many boats.  We are anchored to the rear of the tugboat in the center of the photo. 

As we walked the back roads, we saw concrete blocks being made by mixing cement by hand and pouring it into this machine which pressed it into blocks.  The day we passed, they had made four rows three blocks wide.

Our friend and sailing mentor Kathy Oberle is responsible for organizing and following through with the non-profit organization, Boaters for Books.  In 2003, more books were delivered to Union Island than their library could accommodate so we picked up a couple of boxes and delivered them to Tyrell Bay.  We were supposed to deliver them to Margaret Allen, a British citizen and retiree from the U.S. Postal Service in California, who had chosen Carriacou as her place of retirement.  She had begun a remedial reading program on Carriacou but had no books for the children.  She was off the island for summer vacation at the time of our visit so we arranged to have the books delivered to her.  We later learned her story, as described in her own words:   

I had barely arrived on the island when it became known that I
had teaching qualifications and I was pressed into service to
teach English and English literature at Bishop's College, one
of the two Secondary Schools here. I did this for four terms
as no other teacher was available. From that it became common
practice for students, young and old to come and ask for help
with English, prior to examinations. One year ago it was
decided that all the children in the primary schools would
automatically pass up to the Secondary Schools regardless of
their ability. My personal strong opinion is that this was an
utter disaster, however, that could not be allowed to take
away from the slower children that chance to learn to read and
I was approached and ask to organize a program for them. It
seemed to me that the place to start was in the pre-schools
and even in the nursery schools so we now have a basic reading
program going in the six primary schools and their
kindergarten branches. The program I bought in the U.S. is
called "Zoophonics" and the children learn to read by
associating the phonic sound of the initial letter of the
animal's name with that letter of the alphabet. At the end of
the first year some progress has been made. I do not yet know
how many non-readers will be coming up to the Secondary
Schools in Sept, hopefully less and less as the years go by.
Their needs are for Primary Readers. Books 1 and 2 such as
"Lucky Bear" which you included in this consignment. The
ex-patriots here are most supportive of the program for which
I am very grateful as grateful as we all are for the books so
generously donated by your organization. I was thrilled when
Susan delivered them to me today and will arrange for a
lockable closet in the library and a proper system of checking
them out to the students. Hopefully they will be the
cornerstone of the end of illiteracy in Carriacou. Now in my
81st year perhaps then I will have more time to continue with
the reason for my retirement here, to write. In 7 years I have
managed to get two books published and one more being printed.
They are available on the I/net at Barnes and Noble and Amazon
Books and being Caribbean based give readers an insight into
life on a small island.

Margaret with student reading to a visiting official

We encourage you to check out the link to the Boaters for Books website on our home page.  Any donations would be appreciated and, as you can see, will be well used.

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