G is for Gorgeous, R is for Rain ...

If I were to do an acrostic poem of Grenada, no doubt it would start with G - is for Gorgeous, R - is for Rain ...

Bobbie G and I are at the Grenada Sailing Festival for the 19th annual running of this colorful regatta. Today's races - Day One - form a giant boomerang from charming St. George's Bay on the Caribbean side, around Pt. Salines to Prickly Point on the Atlantic side; and later, back.

The western segment of the course is sublime but the other side is insane. The chop combined with rain squalls make for a serious bad hair day, and as the fleet rounds the far mark we tuck in to True Blue Bay to dry off a bit, feigning a taste test between local beers (Carib beats Stag 2:1).

There is nothing shy about colors in the Caribbean and even the spinnakers are brilliant. As we rejoin the fleet a chorus of fuschia, royal blue, dayglow yellow kites are screaming down on us. Even the tubby old cruisers are surfing, their sails wing and wing, and I imagine how much they must be loving racing in the Spice Islands.