Jules
06/05/2012, Woburn, Grenada

Two and a half weeks since Tony left for Indonesia and not much happening. We heard from a friend of his who said his hernia is apparently getting bigger but he's adamant that he'll rely on traditional medicine rather than go for an operation. It's no longer our problem, and there's not much we can do, but we really hope he sees sense soon otherwise things could go horribly wrong.

James still isn't back; he's apparently been to eight funerals since he went to Union at the end of February. Considering there can't be more than 3000 people on the island that's an awful lot of his friends and relatives who are dying ... Mike reckons staying there is a danger to the island and he should leave asap. We should hear tomorrow if he's coming back next week, or not.

I guess we should just be enjoying the peace and quiet while we're on our own but it's difficult to relax when you know there's just so much still to do. We had hoped we'd have started with the decks by now but don't seem to have the enthusiasm at the moment. Things aren't helped by the problems we're having trying to get paid for the work we did for the freighters. They were all over us when they needed our help but now we're getting the Caribbean run around and Mike's constantly on the phone trying to come up with solutions and sort it out.

Jeff's friends, Alex and Gavin, arrived from Canada and we've spent some time with them. Mike took them out fishing last Sunday but unfortunately they didn't catch anything, apparently they even had trouble catching the mooring buoy when they got back!

Our friends Stan and Cora are back from Bequia waiting to leave their boat in the mangroves when they go back to Germany at the end of May. Lots of people are starting to haul boats and leave now the hurricane season is once again upon us and the weather's warming up.

Robin from Bequia also turned up last weekend. He was supposed to be delivering his plasma cutter for repair, only he flew into Grenada and then realised the company it had to go to was in Trinidad. He spent a couple of nights with us on the Buzzard though which was nice.

On the Saturday we took him out to the monthly Victoria Food Fair, which is a bit like the Gouyave Fish Friday but not only fish. We went on an organised(ish) tour with Jeff and his friends, Phil from Beothuck, and a few others from the anchorage. It wasn't the most successful trip we've had. The maxi picked us up at 5.15 pm and, after a making a 30 minute detour to pick other people up, and then going through the St. George's rush-hour, we didn't get up there until 7.30, and when you're crammed in the back of a maxi a two hour journey is an awful long time.

One of the main roads was closed off but the stalls weren't even finished setting up which was our first inkling that it might be a later night than we'd imagined. Followed by the fact that the driver said he'd be back at the maxi any time from 11.30 to 1 a.m. Given that yatchty midnight is 9 p.m, and us oldies are no longer used to such late nights, this wasn't a welcome development.

We wandered off to explore but the pounding music was just a bit too much for us. On either side of the 15 foot wide road there were banks of loud speakers stacked 10 feet high and three feet deep, and the beat was so strong your whole body vibrated and your heart jumped as you passed them. A hundred feet further on there was yet another bank pounding out different music, and on and on up the whole length of the street.

We got to the end of the road, turned down the main street and found a quiet pool bar next to the police station, which is where we stayed most of the evening. We did make one foray out for food, which included iguana, crab, manicou (possum I think), cow-face souse and various other delicacies that were all over priced and under-served. The only thing I could stomach was fried breadfruit.

By 9 pm we were all ready to leave, except Phil who wanted to listen to the steel pan band. At 9.30 we braved the vibrating street once again, getting hustled by the crowd who were all letting their inhibitions go with the music and gyrating to the beat and each other. We found the maxi and then spent an hour trying to round up the rest of the travellers, just getting one on the bus as another went to get a last minute beer. Eventually we headed out around 10.30 and were back just after midnight; the real midnight.

It was quite the experience though and obviously very much a local affair with families dancing and meeting and letting the kids run free. Not quite sure what it would have been like at 2 in the morning though.

Last Wednesday the SV Irene, an old Baltic Trader, came into Hog Island. The boat has been trying to set up a trading route between Europe and the Caribbean, bringing wine and olive oil here and taking rum back. They hosted a wine tasting and tapas night which went down well, apart from the fact that Mike doesn't like wine, not good wine anyway.

I had my last dentist appointment (for a few weeks anyway). They attached the back of my loose tooth to the two adjoining ones which has hopefully stopped its wobble, although it took me a while to get used to what feels like a gob of chewing gum stuck to my teeth. Now I'm just dealing with blurred vision, caused by astigmatism I think, and a right shoulder than keeps going into spasm for some reason ... oh the joys of aging!

Yesterday we were supposed to be sailing from St. George's back round to Hog with Jeff but Mike decided the FA cup final was more important. Then we got over to Island View to watch it and it wasn't being televised. Still, at least he did get to see the Chelsea v. Barcelona match the other week which was quite the event.

We still haven't given up on getting some time off the boat but until James gets back it's hard to organise. At this rate it may well be straight to Canada a the end of May.

Love to all ....

Comments [2]

Jules
22/04/2012, Woburn, Grenada

All quiet(ish) on the Buzzard. Tony left for Indonesia last Wednesday after refusing all offers to help him get sorted out here in Grenada. We ended up taking him back to the hospital on Good Friday and although the doctor reassured him that he was not in any danger he remained adamant about going back. One thing that was quite poetic/funny was the doctor he saw at the hospital was a 26yr old female, very much to Tony's chagrin. When Mike was dismissed from the translating duties (like having to put 'bowel movement' into something Tony would understand) the doctor asked him to remove his clothes and lay on the table ... the look on his face was priceless, especially given his strong chauvanistic tendencies ................ LOLOL

Anyway, there was not a great deal we could do about it in the end, just pay for the ticket and wish him the best. Can't see that we'll ever meet again.

James has, finally, been in touch and may be back next week, or not as the case may be, so we're on our own. It makes for a calm boat which is good, and we're still managing to get a few jobs done, but unfortunately it also means our few days off the boat, has had to be put on hold.

My tooth is still not sorted and I had to go back for an emergency abscess draining and more antibiotics (the only side-effect of these being photo-sensitivity which made my toes go pink) BUT, fingers, pink toes and everything else crossed, it does seem better and hopefully when I go in the morning the hole in my tooth can finally be filled permanently. Then I apparently just have to have splints put on to check the mobility issue and it's done. I'm a little bit anxious about the cost as I haven't paid anything yet and I've had almost fifteen appointments over the last six weeks ... but I guess a front tooth is worth it.

We managed a quiet night out at Sep's with June and Jeff the night before June returned to Toronto. Just the luck of the draw that we really didn't get to spent much time with her this trip, but you never know we may get to see her in Canada sooner rather than later as Mike has to go back to re-new his driving license before September.

We helped organise a 70th birthday party on Hog Island for our friend Don on Easter Monday which was good and much appreciated, especially the cake I made. He's now in Trinidad painting the bottom of his boat, and Rudi is now in St. Martin looking for crew to sail back across the Atlantic with him.

Mike, Jeff and three others had a guys fishing/bilge pumping day out on the Buzzard last Friday. They took off around 1 pm and went out to the 12 mile bank, getting back just before dark. In amongst the beer and the rum they even managed to catch three barracudas and a tuna. I spent the day on Jeff's boat, in the rain. We seem to be having an awful lot of rain considering it's still the dry season.

Jeff kindly went down and cleaned the prop before they went out. Our friend Scott had gone done a few weeks before to replace the anodes, there being no sign of the ones we attached before we left the UK, surprise, surprise. While Scott was down there he took some video footage of the bottom. We have a scarily big eco-system living down there where we haven't managed to reach with the scrapers, and even our own resident crab colony around the intake valves. All quite beautiful; maybe we could start an in-house reef diving centre. Or maybe we have to start thinking about the necessity of hauling out ... no, that's even more scary!

We're still having outboard problems unfortunately. The 8 hp proved not only to be frustratingly slow and unable to plane but also a worse gas guzzler than the 25 hp. Mike switched them round again and took the 8 hp to get looked at. Apparently it needs a new diaphragm for the carbuerator and also a new reed valve, both of which have to ordered from the States so we're hurrying up and waiting on those.

Ron and Jeanne's heat exchanger went and Mike just happened to have a spare one down in our hold so he's been helping Ron reconfigure his system to incorporate the new one. I sometimes wonder what we don't have down in that hold, well except for the stuff we seem to need.

I still haven't finished the new blog site yet. I'm struggling to find a way to transfer the photo albums from this blog to the new one, without having to individually copy and paste all the photos, of which there are quite a lot. If any of you computer literate folks out there have any ideas please let me know.

Toby and Nellie are fine. There are quite a few young kids around Hog Island at the moment so Toby gets lots of attention and play-mates to help him dig holes. And we actually get to have a couple of beers without constantly having to throw sticks or coconuts in the water, which is a good result all round.

Love to all .... Don't be shy about commenting either !!

Comments [3]

Jules
05/04/2012

Well, two out of, how many(?) isn't bad.

We finally got the new generator on board and down in the engine room. Then the tool chest had to be taken out and the radiator had to come off the Lister so that it could be put in position. Which Mike, with the help of Tony and Rudi, did by floating it across the engine room on chain blocks. Mike then had to cut a hole through the deck-head of the engine room to attach the new exhaust ... no longer will we have water coming in and flooding engines, apparently.

So it's now installed and running, which is wonderful. It's not quite as quiet, or vibration free, as we would have hoped but at least it works!

We had to have Spanny the welder back for a couple of days to weld the exhaust on deck and a few other odds and sods, like welding up the passage-way door we never use and finally finishing off the overhead hatch on the bedsit door which has never worked anyway.

Unfortunately both the fridges we were trying to get fixed turned out to be NFG. Although we did find a small old one we'd had in the hold since leaving Maryport which works so at least we have something, and we've moved the beer fridge down nearer the galley so we can put food in there as well. So we are functioning on that front, even if not quite on all cylinders.

Mike did a much needed dinghy overall and stopped the leaks (it was like getting into a floating paddling pool every time we went anywhere). He also managed to get the Yamaha 8 hp outboard running so we've switched that for the gas guzzling 25 hp. It's frustratingly slow after the 25 but hopefully something that I can run once the initial teething problems have been sorted out.

There's still no news on the inverter, apparently the guy's waiting for parts, so lights out really does mean lights out (plus fan, and music, and anything else that needs power).

I've been going to the dentist at least a couple of times a week, including this morning, and am now on my fourth set of antibiotics but the infection still hasn't cleared and they can't refill my tooth until it does. With the last lot of antibiotics I developed oesophagitis which was particularly painful and worrying but which thankfully got slightly better once I started to take the Zantac ... I'm starting to feel a bit like a walking pharmacy which, after years of not having to take anything, is not a good feeling.

On another not very good note. Tony went to the hospital on Monday because he had a pain in his side and was feeling sick. It turns out he has a hernia. Being a typical Indonesian (and this really is a cultural thing) he thinks he's going to die (or at the very least never be able to have sex again). His first response was to want to go home, somewhat understandably I guess. Since then we've shown him videos and translated articles from the NHS website (thank God for the internet ... it really does have it's uses!), and we've also had Rudi talk to him about his experiences with hernias. He seems to have calmed down a little but is walking around feeling exceedingly sorry for himself. We'll go with him to the hospital after the holidays to talk to doctor about getting surgery done here, but ultimately if he wants to go we can't stop him ... well apart from the fact that he sent most of him money back to Indonesia already so doesn't have the airfare.

There was a fire on Hog Island last Monday night which was quite a blaze. It raged for well over ten hours and left a large part of the island under ash, but luckily it didn't make it down to Roger's Bar so that was ok. We also had some excitement yesterday when the customs came and impounded one of the local boats for drug-running and arrested the local drug baron.

Sorry it's not a particularly inspiring blog, oh well ... Wishing you all a Happy Easter, wherever you are and whatever you're doing.

Love to all ...

PS What's with all the weather ????

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