There were eight of us from Mount Hartman Bay on Darries’ bus headed for the
east side of the Island for another tour. Our first stop was the Clarke’s
Court Bay Rum Factory. It was just a little after 10AM but after a tour of
the factory it was important that we taste the rum. There were about a
dozen different types to try and some we had to make sure of the taste by having
a second sample. By 10:30AM we were back on the road again. Our
second stop was De La Grenade Industries Ltd. (WWW.delagrenade.com),
where the nutmeg syrup, guava and nutmeg jams and jellies, seamoss and mauby are
made as well as orange and grapefruit marmalades and molasses. It was a
little late for breakfast but we had enough samples for a good size snack.
Our next stop on the tour was the Bay Gardens, which is an informal botanical
garden that is huge. We walked through the garden for quite a while and
made it back to the bus just before it started to rain. We stopped for
lunch at an old sugar mill in La Saggesse.
After lunch we drove to a town just before Grenville and hiked for a little way to see the Mt Carmel Waterfall. Everyone was picking up nutmeg on the way to the falls and on the way back we found a banana plant (they are not trees but really a very large plant), that had been blown over. There was a good hand of bananas (a hand has many bunches of bananas), so the guys got out their trusty knives and cut the stock. Another bit of information I have learned about bananas is that each banana plant only produces one hand of bananas. When harvesting, they cut the whole plant down and one of the new shoots at the base will grow into the next plant and produce more bananas in about six months. If they don’t cut it down it will die anyway.
Just outside of Grenville we stopped at a little Bamboo factory. It was
almost like a straw market but all of the crafts made here are constructed from
bamboo.
Our next stop was at Grand Etang Lake, which is a large fresh water lake on Grenada. The Mona monkeys showed up to eat a few bananas that we put out for them. We then drove through the rain forest and headed back to St. George’s and eventually home.
A Tropical wave was supposed to pass through and bring a bit of rain.
The wave probably went through but there was no rain, in fact it was a beautiful
day. However, almost everyday with or without rain is a
beautiful day
here. We went with Jim from Sitara to a place in True Blue Bay where the
local fishermen bring their catch. They had some beautiful looking fish
there but we were after lobster. Rick and I bought 2 lobsters that were
about 2 pounds each. Jim bought double that. We paid $10EC a pound
which is about $3.75US a pound.
Rick and I went to the Caribbean Gift and Craft Show, which was held in Grenada this year. It was an extremely interesting show and could easily be compared to the One of a Kind Show that is held in Toronto each year. The 200 artists came from many different islands and countries in and around the Caribbean. Every booth was unique but some that impressed us the most were the Haitian booths. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world and the artists have used old steel drums to create wonderful outdoor metalwork (Caribbean Steelcraft), that would be a hit in any country. We purchased a couple of small beautifully made wooden items from Medina’s Furniture in Belize, WWW.medinasfurniture.com. I bought a few pictures from Image Design Inc. in Dominica. I would have like to have bought a lot more. The Dominica Export Agency had a lot of different items on display (WWW.dexiaexport.com). There was a separate building allocated to the fashion industry. Lilo from Art Fabrik in Grenada won the award for the best booth of the show. I bought a dress from Cleopatra’s Collection, which is the second outfit I have that was designed by her.
Most of the artists or companies did not have web sites. One lady from
Jamaica (Ivelyn Harris of Nanny of the Maroons), told me that she comes down
from the mountain into town once a week to pick up telephone messages. She
is so remote that she can’t have a telephone. Here are a few more we sites
that you might find interesting:
WWW.starfishoils.com WWW.larimarfactory.com WWW.catgen.com/morocreations
We enjoyed the Gift Show so much that we returned and bought a few more things.
We went into town today to pick up a few things at Island Water World and Ace Hardware which are right next door to each other. We had first stopped at the Internet Café and then continued on to do our shopping. I’m not sure why, but the visa lines were extremely slow all week. Today they were just not working. We didn’t want to try and get to an ATM and back to the store before they closed at noon (Saturday), so we just asked them to hold our bags and told them we would return on Monday. No Problem.
We met Andreas and Danea at Boulangerie for lunch.
We went to church with six other cruisers in the bay. Audrey and Elmer who are neigbours and regular domino players invited us. They are here in Grenada as Missionaries with the Lutheran Church.
Rick went into town to pick up the things we had tried to purchase on Saturday. I cleaned the boat and did some hand laundry.
Rick stripped the teak in and around the cockpit. I baked a carrot cake for a potluck luncheon planned for tomorrow. I grated a few too many carrots so rather than waste them I made some coleslaw to have with lunch. No one showed up for dominos today so we just relaxed and read until happy hour.
After breakfast Rick stripped a little more teak while I made cream cheese
and salmon roll appetizers and iced the carrot cake. I’m sure glad I baked
yesterday because we had an all day heavy rain that required all hatches and
ports to be closed. In-between rain squalls about 1 PM we walked over to
Audrey and Elmer’s house. Pastor Jim was there and joined us for lunch but
he left afterwards with Mark (the other Pastor), his wife Rene. Sharon and
Gary from Elusive baked lasagna. We now refer to Elusive as Exclusive
because they can’t seem to get our boat name right. He has renamed us
Wind-Song III. Pam and Roger from Matin D’or, made salad. We all
brought appetizers and wine. After a great meal we got into a fun game of
dominos
which took us to well after happy hour. In fact it was 7:30PM when
we returned to the boat.
The ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) is definitely quite active. We had at least 6 to 8 inches of rainfall overnight accompanied by a lot of thunder and lightening. We had originally planned to spend the day lounging on the beach with Sitara but the gray sky and clouds encouraged us to make other plans. We spent most of the day working on small projects in the boat until happy hour.
We headed into town today. First we stopped at Fedex to send a package home. Then we hit both Grand Anse and Spiceland Mall to buy ingredients for our Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner, which is this Monday. We returned in time to put the groceries away and head in for dominos, followed by happy hour and then the Friday night barbecue.
There was a beautiful wind all last night and it continued all during the day. It was definitely too strong to be called a breeze and it kept the boat a nice temperature with no flies or mosquitoes the whole time. I took advantage of the conditions and cleaned the boat throughout without glowing (remember men perspire and women glow). Rick tried to remove the steering wheel so we would have more room in the cockpit for guests.
It was another perfect day in paradise. Rick worked all morning still trying to remove the ring of the wind vane from the steering wheel. Galvanic corrosion had fused the two together and he had to leave it unfinished at 2 PM when it was time to head over to Hog Island for Roger’s Barbecue. We stopped by Sitara and picked up Danea. Jim and Andreas had decided to hoist the sail on their dinghy and sail over to Hog. We left the Barbecue early because I had agreed to meet MA from Blithe Spirit at the Rum Squall Bar during Happy Hour. MA and her husband Laurent flew to Barbados for a one week vacation and just returned last night. It wasn’t long after we got back when the skies opened up and it rained solid for almost an hour. We were stuck at the bar the whole time. When we returned to the boat we called Sitara to make sure they got back ok because they had removed the motor from their dinghy earlier in order to sail. They were aboard and said they flew back in the dinghy with a great wind behind them.
Happy Thanksgiving and for the Americans, Happy Columbus Day. I started cooking right after breakfast. We had the regular turkey (with dressing and cranberries), potatoes, yams, sweet potatoes, turnip, carrots (cooked in maple syrup), and brussel sprouts. I didn’t make pumpkin pie because Sharon offered to bake a pumpkin cake for desert. Sharon and Garry from Elusive and Andreas, Jim and Danea from Sitara joined us for our Thanksgiving dinner. The weather was great with a beautiful breeze that cooled the boat quickly after turning off the oven. We were even able to sit in the cockpit after dinner with no mosquitoes. It rained after everyone left but we didn’t care by then.
Cindy from My Way arranged a wine tasting party for 2:30PM. Darries
provided two buses to transport 26 yachties to the lady’s house in St. George’s.
We didn’t taste, we drank (free), 7 different South African wines. If
anyone had any doubts as to whether they liked a particular wine, their glass
was topped up again. In the end I think we each drank a bottle if not 1-½
bottles of wine before returning to the boat. It was a lovely afternoon
that included bread crackers and cheese. The price was right and the wine
was good so almost everyone ordered at least a case. We ordered one of red
and one of white. It was after Happy Hour when we returned but no one was
interested in any more to drink or eat by that time.
Today was my debut as Net Control for the Grenada Cruiser’s Net. It went well but I don’t think I’ll make a career of it. Rick and I went to town in the morning and visited with immigration to extend our stay in Grenada for another 3 months. I can’t believe that we’ve already been here for almost 3 months. It was no problem and took less than 10 minutes. We stopped at a few stores afterward and eventually finished in Spiceland Mall where Darries picked us up and returned us to the boat in plenty of time for dominos.
This morning Rick took the dinghy to the beach to give it a good cleaning. While he was gone I started sewing our Halloween costumes. I can’t say what our costumes are yet because it’s supposed to be a secret and too many of our friends down here read our web site.
I stopped in time for dominos but Rick kept working. This was the second day in a row I absolutely wiped everyone at dominos. I’m on a definite winning streak.
We had set the alarm to make sure Rick got up early. He picked Jim, Andreas and Danea up in the dinghy and had them ashore in time for their taxi at 6:45AM. They were headed off on a three week vacation in Mexico.
I worked on our costumes again in the morning and Rick sanded a little more teak. No one played dominos today but everyone met at the Rum Squall Bar for Happy Hour. Gary made dinner reservations and arranged a bus for a gang of us at True Blue for the evening. It was Friday night, which is Mexican night at True Blue and we hadn’t been there for a while. It was a lovely evening and the food was very good.
It was another beautiful day. Rick sanded and I sewed in the morning. We both played dominos in the afternoon. My winning streak is over. Rick and Audrey were in the lead on and off throughout the game but Rick finished victorious. It was his first win.
I gave the Halloween costumes a few finishing touches but after that we spent the day working on the water maker. Rick had ordered a new membrane housing, which had arrived weeks ago but we hadn’t had a chance to unpickle the water maker and install the new housing. The end caps on our old one had been leaking a bit. By the end of the day, we had installed the new housing but the pump was misbehaving so we decided to leave it until tomorrow.
We received a call from Elusive and Serendipity on the VHF telling us that Moonrise (Tom and Carol) were on their way back from Margarita Island with alternator problems and may arrive late. It was after dark when we could hear Moonrise on the radio and they had decided to anchor just outside St. George’s for the night. We had a parade of dinghies planned to light their way through the reefs but they decided to wait for daylight to head into Mt. Hartman Bay.
Marta would have been proud of the Cuban fried plantain I served with dinner, I mention it because I know she checks the web site once in a while and she taught me to cook plantain properly.
This was the first day using Henry’s Laundry service. They were more than an hour late picking it up but the people at Moorings told me this was unusual he is normally very prompt.
We finished working on the water maker and everything appeared to be ok except that the water production was still a little lower than it should be. We sent a note off to Spectra and left everything as is for now.
9AM on the dot and Henry returned the Laundry. 9:15AM we were on the bus to St. George’s for groceries and to run a few errands. When we returned to the boat there was just enough time to put the groceries away and get to the Rum Squall Bar for dominos before the rain started. It rained all afternoon with some of the squalls very menacing in appearance.
It was a busy morning. I think I now have a new job every Wednesday as
Net Controller 0730am. The Net finished just in time to help Dancing Fools
tie up at the dock. Once on dock we had to stop and talk with Moonrise and
Midnight who are also at dock with us now. Lenora and David from Midnight
are Canadian friends of Sitara who arrived in Mt. Hartman Bay last week.
At 10AM we met Darries who took 12 of us to
the north end of the Island to see the petroglyphs left by the Arawaks and
Caribs hundreds of years ago. Then we drove on to Levera Beach where we
spent the afternoon. We had a pot luck
picnic and then a swim inside the
reefs.
We awoke to a very overcast sky, rain and high winds. There was a tropical wave going through and according to the weather forecasters the effects of this one might be felt for a couple of days.
A lot of the boats at anchor canceled their plans for the day and stayed aboard. We decided to go into town to do a few things. In the afternoon the skies cleared quite a bit so while there, we killed time by going on our own little walking tour. We stopped and bought a couple of barbecued cobs of corn from one of the street venders. A little later I bought a crab cake from a local who was selling them to a few taxi drivers who highly recommended them. It was very spicy (not hot), but good. It was served in a crab shell. We worked our way up to the Market and then to Fort George for a great view of Carenage and then strolled back down finally stopping at the Nutmeg Restaurant for a refreshing Lime Squash. Lime Squash is like lemonade but made with limes. I have even made it on the boat because it is so refreshing.
It’s Thanksgiving Day in Grenada. The Grenadians do not celebrate a
harvest type of Thanksgiving. Their Thanksgiving is a public holiday
commemorating the 1983 Caribbean and American military intervention in Grenada.
People wear poppies.
We took the dinghy and went to Woburn for an all day regatta and family day. The optimists were racing on one side of the bay and the workboats were racing right in front of us. When the first heat was finished everyone stopped for lunch. The Island View Restaurant offered barbecued chicken and salads for lunch. We stayed until the large steel pan band had played for a while and the workboats were well into their second heat. It was after 3PM when we heated back to our own bay.
It started as another overcast day but quickly became very nasty with high winds and heavy rain. We only had one report of a boat dragging and that was in Prickly Bay not in Mount Hartman. Rick walked over to Budget Marine in Prickly Bay to buy some more Cetol for the wood just in case there may be some sunshine in the near future. I worked inside the boat during the morning. We both arrived at the Rum Squall bar just in time for dominos.
Times have changed. In Canada, Daylight Savings Time ended today but in the Caribbean there is no such thing. All of our friends back home in Ontario now get up one hour earlier than us. They are on Eastern Standard Time and we are on Atlantic Standard Time. The sun comes up here about 6AM and goes down at 7PM.
The strong winds continued throughout the day. Rick was able to sand some more teak but the rain clouds that appeared throughout the day prevented him from attempting to apply any cetol.
David and Lenora aboard Midnight invited us to dinner. They are Canadians from St. Mary’s Ontario. Lenora outdid herself by preparing roast duck with a cherry and pineapple chutney. Their boat is a Gozzard 44 and one of the most beautiful designs we have seen. It was such an enjoyable evening that we stayed up much later than we normally would.
We and just about everyone else went to town today. I had to look for Halloween treats because we have been forewarned that there will be dinghy loads of children visiting boat to boat.
We started the day by pulling the water maker apart again to check a few
things. The pump now runs for 30 minutes and then shuts down. Rick
has eliminated everything else and now thinks it may just be the water
temperature that is too warm which is causing the pump to overheat. We
finished everything and then anxiously stood out on the dock to wait for our
friends Bill and Huguette who are visiting in Grenada for a HAM radio contest.
Right on time they arrived at 11:30am and we went to the Coconut Beach
Restaurant on Grand Anse Beach for lunch. It was closed but no one was
very upset about that because it gave us an opportunity to stroll along the
beach and gab as we walked to the Boulangerie Restaurant instead.
When we returned to the Marina there was just enough time for Rick to put a coat of Cetol on the wood before happy hour.
Rick continued working on the wood. I know he loves sanding and
finishing even though he complains he keeps looking for more wood to refinish.
We went to an Oil Down today. This is a favourite Grenadian way of cooking and we were warned that there are good Oil Downs and very bad Oil Downs. Audrey who knows a lady who makes a good Oil Down, arranged for her (Cheryl and her daughter), to come and cook for us at her house. It had to be one of the very best Oil Downs available. Almost every one went back for seconds. An Oil Down is a complete meal cooked in a very large pot usually over an open fire. The ingredients vary but coconut milk is the essential ingredient in the dish. The layers in our Oil Down were; coconut milk, breadfruit, pigs tails, chicken pieces, green plantains, and Callaloo. There were spices and onion with a lot of garlic in there some where as well. Everything is steamed using only the coconut milk, no water. Ours was great. Audrey decided to make a special desert to go along with the meal. It was definitely a conversation piece, I won’t say much else about it other than it looked like kitty litter and was called Kitty Litter Cake but tasted fine. I’ll include it in our Recipe Collection.
Happy Halloween. I spent the morning preparing our appetizer for the party
and putting together trick or treat bags for the kids. At 2:30PM Joan from
Mainly, M.A. from Blithe Spirit and I started decorating the Rum Squall Bar.
It was pretty impressive when we finished. We had strung small little
pumpkin lights, placed spider webs everywhere and hung balloons and Halloween
pennants. Rick made himself busy setting up the stereo system. Just
after 4PM we saw the dinghy full of
little people headed our way so we hurried back to our own boats to shell out.
We received a Princess (Sam who finally lost her second front tooth), a small
wizard and a few pirates. When they left it was time to put on our
costumes and head up to the party. We went as a
couple of domino tiles.
The party was an outstanding success. The yachties came from all the
nearby bays and a few locals joined in as well. We had Ray Jason who is a
sailor, author and professional juggler. His flaming performance in the
dark resulted in a lot of oohs and aahs. Audrey our friend who live a
couple of doors away came as a clown with a pocket full of balloons she used to
delight the children. The adults came dressed as; a fly and fly swatter
(M.A. and Laurent from Blithe Spirit), a red and green buoy (Gord and Gillian
from N-aimless), two body builders, (Joan and Dan from Mainly), a Pirate and
dumb housewife (Tom and Carol from Moonrise), the SS Minnow ( Doug on Petrel)
and a Carnival girl and caveman (Lenora and David on Midnight). There were
many other really unique costumes but I can’t remember them all. Everyone
brought appetizers and desserts as well as a household gift for Gren-Save, which
is a charitable organization in Grenada.
The kids bobbed for apples and everyone else had lots to eat and a great time. There was standing room only the crowd was so huge.
