Prickly Bay in the Spice Island

We have to slow the boat down to sail into "Prickly Bay" by daylight. By 6:30am we are well-anchored right next to "Stormwitch", along with about 40 other boats in the good-sized bay.
After three weeks in Tobago, three more in Trinidad, we are now in a new country.The flag is bright red, yellow and green, with a nutmeg included in the design. Flying over houses, painted on cement-walls you see the flag everywhere. They're more flag-y than the Norwegians!

Clearing in, no problem.the seven-year old daughter of the customs desk official is drawing on forms, behind the "Immigration" sign. Hard to keep a serious expression as we all kid around with the new immigration "officer".

The Bay is boardered by low bushy hills with pretty coral pink, red-roofed houses. This year they have roofs. The double whammy of "Ivan" and "Emily", the 10 month apart hurricanes, whipped off all the roofs here in 2004 and 2005. (And, if you recall, this mini-state of 100,000 souls was invaded by the US, Reagan's troups, after the Cubans started building an airport here, in '83)
We've gotten a warm welcome here, as elsewhere. And we notice that the people here are friendly, proud of their country and mostly optimistic, in the face of a long stretch of re-building ahead. Not only did the roofes blow off of houses, churches, factories, but the rain forests were blown down. The tallest trees tumbled, leaves were swept off. The result resembled a burnt-out forest. Their national symbol and product, the nutmeg, suffered. 90% of the trees are destroyed. And a new grove takes 6 years just to start reproducing. "Ivan" did that. And as the rebuilding was just getting underway "Emily" knocked them over again.
They're getting off their knees again. We hope that this hurricane season will pass them by. It starts in May.