Beautiful Grenada

  Today I took a tour of the island from a fellow who really knows the fauna.  He would just stop by the side of the road, hop out and grab a plant to show us.  At one place, we stopped and walked out into a small "plantation" which contained cocoa, coffee, cloves, cinnamon, oranges, and some other plants I can't even remember.  They grow them all together because they are more resistant that way.  And the fruits - bananas, mangoes, papayas, sapodilla, soursop, avocados - so much fruit that a lot of it falls on the ground and rots.  I have never seen such a bountiful place!  We swam in a waterfall, visited the rainforest, toured a cocoa bean processing facility, where they ferment and then dry the beans before they are shipped out to be processed into chocolate, and visited an amazing rum factory that still does things the old way.

The Flamboyant Trees  are in Bloom All Over the Island

Believe it or Not, These are Cocoa Beans

Grenada has So Many Flowers I Can't Keep them Straight!

In a Land Without Our Crazy Tort Laws, You are Actually Encouraged to Jump in the Waterfall

Monkey at Grand Etang Reserve

 The Monkey on My Back

 

This is Actually a Working Waterwheel which Runs the Cane Press at the Rum Mill

The Cane Press

 They Remove the Squeezed Out Cane Plants in this "Rail Car", then they are Dried and Burned to Boil the Cane Juice

Oh, by the Way, Rivers Only Sells this Rum Locally, and it's 150 Proof, so You Couldn't Bring it on an Airplane if You Wanted To.

Cuban Aircraft Stranded at the Old Airfield after the US Intervention - Handyman Special!

Frangipani Caterpillar

Cricket, Anyone?

   The cruisers' version of cricket is a lot like backyard softball...but, I'm still getting accustomed to those Brits ;-)

Hashing

  Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending my fist "hash".  It's a tradition which combines a brisk hike with socializing, food, beer, and a bit of that oh so odd British humor.

  More about it here:

http://onin.com/hhh/hhhexpl.html

http://www.grenadahash.com/

  Over 100 people showed up for the run/hike, a wonderful mix of cruisers and local Grenadians.  You actually pick from three distances, labeled "runner", "long walk" and "short walk".  Since it was Bastille Day, the French hosted the event, painting French flags on everyone's faces and encouraging everyone to wear red, white and blue, and giving a prize for the best costume.  I even saw one cruiser hashing in a French Maid's outfit!  We received our course briefing, followed by the French contingent signing La Marseillaise. Then with shouts of ON ON! we all streamed down the trail.  Some people run, some hike fast, and some just walk. The courses is marked by small piles of shredded paper and is laid out to maximize mud and adventure, and it also is designed so that there are several false trails leading to dead ends which require backtracking to find the right trail.  This course started along the ocean shore, then along pastures, through vegetable plots, small banana plantations, rain forest, and stream crossings.  I was lucky enough to spend about half the hike with a local Grenadian who educated me about the wild foods and medicines all around us.  He says he hashes every week, and I hope to see him next Saturday.

  So, after we make it back to the start, it's time for food, beer, and music!  In addition to the more standard fare of barbequed chicken and fish, the French prepare and serve crepes in honor of their day.  The "virgins", having completed their first hash are given a certificate and a beer shower, which I manage to avoid almost completely.  The leader of the French is forced to kneel before the British hashmaster and chug a beer while being doused with three more (a Carib is a terrible thing to waste) because before the run, he had forgotten the words to his own national anthem!  And that reminds me, don't ever wear new shoes to a hash - trust me, just don't ;-)

  Sorry I don't have any pictures, but it was pouring rain on the way there, so I didn't bring the camera.  The "bus" ride was interesting.  We packed 15 cruisers into a minivan and then stopped in town to pick up a couple more people.  An adorable seven year old boy was tucked in next to me.  He talked the whole ride and showed me his first loose tooth.  After the hash, he showed it to me again, this time taped to a napkin - he had knocked into a branch and found the tooth on the ground.  The funny thing is, he goes so fast that his Mom can't keep up, so he just calls her on his cell phone when he gets back to the start.  And yes, the Tooth Fairy does come to Grenada.

St George's, Grenada

  We finally finished getting the arch repaired, and we are back in the wind generating business.  It required a two night stay in a marina, which wasn't too bad, with hot showers and a pool - So this is how the other half lives!  Judy needed a health certificate in order to fly home with Spike, so she called the vet to come to the marina while we were there.  Yes, they make house calls here - in fact, he only charged EC$60 (about US$23!).  While he was looking over Spike and the paperwork, I noticed a woman and two kids hanging out on the dock and asked if they were his family - he said yes, so I said bring them aboard!  I gave the kids the tour and entertained them below while the grownups talked in the cockpit.  Seven year old Christopher especially liked watching the bilge pump work, of all things ;-)   Judy and Kathy Anne really hit it off and she invited us to go fishing the next day.  I had to stay and help reinstall the newly welded arch, but there was no reason why Judy couldn't go.  They caught quite a few "butterfish".  They have no worries about Ciguatera in Grenada - apparently, there isn't much here, so they eat every type of fish, reef or pelagic.

  Today we finally had time to stroll and shop the markets in St George's.  It was very interesting to walk through a tunnel that had one way auto traffic and two way pedestrian traffic (with no separation) and into busy open air markets full of $1 bootleg videos (yes, I bought a few, and no, I'm not feeling guilty about taking food out of Johnny Depp's mouth ;-).  And then, best of all, the spice and produce market.  There are no cruise ships this time of the year, so Judy and I stand out quite obviously from the crowd.  Which makes us very popular, because the already outgoing vendors know that we don't know the value of any of the produce, and that we are probably quite poor at bargaining as well.  Quite true, so we came home with a bunch of mangoes, avocados, spices I can't even name, and 'fig' bananas (WAY better than Cavendish, which is just about the only type available in the USA - in fact, every Cavendish banana is genetically identical, similar to the Bartlett pear), but both us and the vendors were quite happy about the deal.  Prices can be quite expensive for some things here, but they are very cheap for the produce which is grown on island - and they can grow just about anything!

Kathy Anne and her friend Shawn, who owns the wooden fishing boat

Shawn hamming it up

From Fort George - a lot of history here, some fairly recent - this is where Maurice Bishop was murdered (executed) by the coupists prior to the US intervention in 1983

The view from the fort into the harbor, or the 'Carenage', as it is called

The Market

With Teresa, the Spice Lady - Grenadian people tend to be very friendly, and Teresa loves to give hugs!

Look at that pair of mangoes!

Down to the Little Latitudes

  I like ocean sailing, I really do.  Just not at night.  Why do things always go wrong at night?

  We get ready to leave Statia, taking advantage of a forecast for east winds (not the ESE that prevails this time of the year) and no storms.  Also, the moon is past half full, so that means we will have it for more than half the night, then brighter and longer the next night.  I row the dinghy in to clear out and give Spike his final walk.  While I'm gone, the Coast Guard (Netherlands?)  stops at the boat and wants to see the ship's papers.  Judy tells them that I just took the paperwork in to clear out.  They tell her not to leave until they come back to check it.  I get back and finish getting ready to sail, still no Coast Guard.  After trying them unsuccessfully on the radio we haul anchor and leave at 10 AM.  (We'd probably still be there waiting.)  I'm figuring on a 54 hour trip to Grenada, and I want to arrive before dark on Saturday.  We are taking the "shortcut" inside the arc of the Lesser Antilles. This way we won't be going to wind, and should be able to sail the whole way, between a close reach and a beam reach.  We've just run out of time for exploring this year - Judy needs to go home for her business, and I want to get the boat settled in for hurricane season.  Next winter we will take our time and stop at each island on our way north - we may not even make it to the Virgin Islands, there is so much to see and explore down here!

Saying Goodbye to Statia

  It's nice being able to see St Kitts and Nevis for all of the first day, although downwind of St Kitts we lose the wind for a while and have to motor sail for a couple hours.  Then it fills back in in less than two minutes, and we have smooth sailing into the night.  The moon sets about 1AM, and shortly after I'm in the cockpit when I am alerted by the autopilot off course alarm.  I take it off auto, and find that I can only move the helm to one side.  I immediately check the autopilot ram arm, under the aft bunk, since these are the same symptoms we had when the ram malfunctioned while we were sailing with Brandy and Aaron.  Fortunately, everything is fine there.  Then I go back up, make my way to the stern, and shine a light down to the rudder, while holding the dinghy away, so that I can see between it and the transom.  There's the problem - a line is caught.  I shine the light over the dinghy and get a big surprise - a couple of plastic balls with line trailing out from them - we are stuck on this ???? whatever it is, and we're not moving.  We are 50 miles from the nearest land in 5000 feet of water - what is this thing doing out here?!?  It's absolutely maddening, but we are stuck, dead in the water, and now taking seas on the stern.  Somehow I manage to get the sails down, even though we are dead downwind.  At least it's not howling, and the seas are only 4 to 5 feet.   Next, I need to get the dinghy off the davits and out of the way, so that I can try to cut the line.  The waves are hitting the dinghy, and before I can get it launched and safely to the side of the boat, a weld cracks on the new arch for the windmill, which is attached to the davits.  I guess that wasn't such a good design, after all.  I strap and brace the broken joint with lines, and it holds.  By the time I get the dinghy around to the side, it is almost fully swamped, with the gas can floating around.  I stay harnessed to the boat while I step into the dinghy to bail it out - it's going up and down about 4 feet in relation to the boat.  And it's dark out.  With that done, it's time to try to free the boat from the line.  I tie a knife to the boat hook, but it's very quickly apparent that that's not going to do anything.  I will need to hold the line in one hand and saw with the other.  Which means I'm going swimming.  Not in the dark.  We go to bed for the hour left until daylight, stuck on a stupid buoy with a bunch of writing on it that appears to be attached to the bottom, 50 miles west of Guadaloupe.  At dawn, I put on wetsuit and harness, tie myself to the boat, go down the swim ladder off the stern, and quickly get away from the boat.  Luckily, the wind is down to 9 knots with 3 to 4 foot seas.  I swim over to the buoys and cut the line there.  The boat immediately starts drifting downwind, but the motion is much smoother now that it's moving with the waves, and I'm able to go down and cut the line off the prop, which is where it was hung up.  Fortunately, it was not wrapped around the shaft at all.  Then, it's back on board, haul the dinghy onto the deck, deflate and strap it (the way I should have done to begin with, but I'd been getting away with it on the davits as long as I removed the motor first), then raise the sails and get under way again.  What a nightmare, but six hours after coming to a halt, we are back on our way.  I still have no idea what it was - best guess is a derelict fishing line.

  The wind gets very light during the day, causing us to motor sail for a few hours.  It fills in abruptly before evening.  Just before I'm going to pull in the fishing line for the night, we get our only hit of the passage, and I start pulling in the hand line.  It's a midsized Mahi Mahi!  I know that because I saw him quite clearly when he jumped clear of the water.  Which was when he spit the hook out.  Damn, it sure would have tasted good.  We reef both sails before dark, and it's a good thing, too, because just after dark the wind blows at 25 knots for 3 hours, making the boat heel too much and making me wonder if I'm going to need to reef again, but it finally lets up and the rest of the night is uneventful.  The last day of sailing is quite smooth once we get in the lee of the Grenadines, and we can see them well before dark.  Once again, we have to motor sail for a couple hours during the afternoon.  So much for the consistent trade winds.  Due to our unplanned delay the first night, we make port at night, but it's under a bright moon which is high in the sky, and we drop anchor just before 10PM.  Time for a drink!

We put up this lee cloth on passages, so that we can sleep without rolling out of bed.