This year we returned to Grenada a little early in the season and three (3) weeks before our trip to Texas. Sean was waiting for us to help us prepare the boat for the next sailing season. As usual this involved a lot of varnishing of our bright work. I had a good idea about what needed to be done but as usual Sean (a.k.a.: “One more coat”) added some more detail to the job and of course he was right and just before we left for Texas the boat looked beautiful again; except for the swim platform of the boat that we had to take to a wood workers shop to repair a few large cracks in the wood that needed attention so that no real deterioration will take place. Dorothy and I cleaned out all the storage bins, took a good inventory of all the stuff we had on board and what was still needed. We gave and threw away quite a few items including clothing; however, the waterline of the boat did not visibly increase.

We decided to take our spinnaker off the boat and bring it back to Texas. We had not used it since we left Miami in December 2012 and did not foresee a lot of use during the next parts of our trip. It was our intention to use our stopover in Miami to store the sail in storage unit, but our tickets that we purchased in February did not allow this without a very big penalty. Our plan B was to take a road trip from New Braunfels, Texas to Miami after we completed all our doctors’ visits and at the same time inspect our condo that is still rented out. The closer the day came to start this trip the less attractive it became to me and then I got an offer from our friend Scott who lives in Key Biscayne to send the sail to him and he would drop it off at our storage unit. We did not hesitate to accept his generous offer and the quite reasonable shipping cost with FedEx Ground made it all very attractive. Thank you Scott we owe you big time!

During our boat inspection and other small jobs we took on we realized that our freezer/refrigerator did not keep its temperature anymore. We called a highly recommended technician living next to the marina to have a look. He worked on the system for 2 weeks without any results except that on some days it did not work at all. I called and e-mailed the company which sold us the system and we followed their advice, but still no result. So I called another refrigerator repair company in Grenada, but became very confused since the engineer of the company had the same last name as the technician who initially worked for 2 weeks on the system; he turned out to be his brother. We were very impressed with his approach to the problem, but on the day we left for Texas the problems were still not solved.

We did not only work during the three weeks we spent in Grenada before we left for Texas. We joined a group of cruisers on an island tour. Although we have toured the island many times before it always amazes us how beautiful Grenada is. The bus driver gave us a lot of information about the plants, flowers, vegetation, trees and of course the spices. After all Grenada is called the “Spice Island”. In 2004 a very strong hurricane “Ivan” struck Grenada killing a lot of people, destroying 90% of all the houses and buildings as well as the nutmeg plantations thus interrupting the production of one of the most important export spices. It takes at least 7 years before a young nutmeg tree starts to bear fruit and it was necessary to grow other produce to guarantee income for the estates and farmers. One of the success stories is the production of cocoa and organic chocolate. During the tour we visited one of the modern chocolate factories, but also the nutmeg sorting facility and of course the “River Antoine Rum Distillery”. This privately owned distillery, whose processes have changed little since the 1800s, is the oldest functioning water-propelled distillery not only in Grenada, but throughout the Caribbean. This distillery produces very strong 72% and 69% rum not for export but only for local use, but I am sure that we cruisers are part of this ‘local’ consumption.

A weekly tradition is the Friday Fish Fry in the town of Gouyave. This year it was special since it was celebrating its 10th year anniversary with daylong festivities on Monday June 29. We did not go on Monday but attended the Friday night fish fry during this celebration weekend. The town of Gouyave is on the north/west coast of Grenada and is reached by a narrow winding road along the coast. Since all the busses transporting the cruisers going to Gouyave were all overloaded, our bus had to go first to “Prickly Bay” on the south/east coast. We could not believe how many people were waiting in “Prickly Bay” for transport but an Old Dutch phrase says “Vele makke schapen passen in een hok” translated: “Many meekly fit in a loft”. We were sitting in each other’s lap squeezed in very tightly, but we had fun and we arrived safely in Gouyave where the most delicious seafood dishes and a lot of beer were waiting for us. As a few people wanted to return before the agreed time we had some more space on our way back. During the fish fry a few streets were closed off and vendors in food stands served a very wide selection of fish products with other fried vegetables and fruits. My most favorite is fried “Bread Fruit”. Bread fruit is a nutritious staple food that is cooked in many different ways such as boiled, baked or fried. You can for instance substitute bread fruit for potatoes in different recipes. At one of the street corners a Steel Band played some good “Pan Music” which is one of our favorite types of music in the Caribbean.

Sean showed us the progress he made on his home he is building. It is a slow progress due to the cost of materials and the fact that most of his jobs are in the summer during the hurricane season when most of the boat stay longer at anchorage or in the marinas to allow time for maintenance work. The project made substantial progress and it really looks great with a good design and some very nice details. Close to his home a small secluded marina is completely rebuilt and expanded to a very large facility. The name of the marina is “Clarkes Court Boatyard and Marina” and when you look it up on the internet you will see how large this development is. A large part of a hill behind the new marina is being excavated and a daily caravan of dump trucks is removing the material. The fact that this material is available for free shows the problem of economic development on this island. However, a new hotel resort on the west coast gets most of the material so hopefully this project will help the economic development of the island. This new marina/boat yard has large boat lifts and allows boat owners to do their own work so Sean has proposed to do the bottom painting of Island Girl at this location. After this visit we had a nice drive over the mountains in the center of the island and enjoyed the spectacular views of the woods with the different shades of green, the colorful flowers and fruits.

We could not find a good facility to repair my scuba dive regulator in Grenada so I decided to wait to dive here and take the regulator to the USA for repair and inspection. But the small swimming pool in the marina gave me the opportunity to swim my laps every morning. My son Robert purchased a guest membership for a month for me in “Resolute Fit” a part of the “Resolute Health Hospital” in New Braunfels Texas and I use this guest membership to swim my laps at 5:30 AM every weekday in this brand new aquatics center. After my laps I use this beautiful facility to shower etc. with endless hot water, a treat that we miss as cruisers. This facility is only 2 miles away from the campground where our son parked his motorhome for us to use. I make the trip in the Ford F150 pick-up truck that will be the car for our grandson Jack when he turns 16 on July 31. My Facebook friends have seen the picture of Dorothy sitting on the hood of the truck with boots and hat borrowed for our daughter Dominique and I included the picture in our blog. We love Texas and it was so good to see that the rain in the spring not only filled the lakes, creeks and rivers but turned the country side nice and green again after so many years of severe drought.

Our doctors did our health checks and are very happy with the results, so we are ready for another sailing season. All these doctor visits took nearly two weeks of our stay in Texas, but we still had time to be with our family, grandchildren and visit friends. Justin will be 22 in September and he works as a financial consultant; Colton 18, just graduated from High School; Kristin 17 is a senior in High School and member of the varsity swim team. She currently has a summer job as a lifeguard. Jack who will turn 16 on July 31 spends every free minute at the “Texas Ski Ranch” to learn new and to enhance Wake Boarding tricks while competing in the Professional Division. Max 12 is also spending all his time at the “Texas Ski Ranch” working on his tricks to catch up with his brother Jack while competing in a non-age related “Semi Professional Division”. Katelynn 11 is still so young and innocent loves to sing and dance and makes me happy every moment I see her.
We visited our friends Kurt and Kitty on their beautiful property and they surprised us with a “Shrimp Boil” that included sausages made by Kurt from deer and hog meat hunted on their property. We also visited our friend Jim who besides being a very busy medical doctor is developing an olive orchard on a 170 acres property south east of San Antonio. At the same time he is building a home, barns and an entertainment area for parties and weddings. The old cattle tank is now a very nice pond with two windmills along the shore built by his parents our dear friends Pat and Jim. Our neighbors from Medina Lake Robbie and Wayne moved to an assisted living facility in Leon Springs last year. It is a beautiful wooded area with the actual spring in front of their home. The son of a long time Dutch Friend moved from Dubai to Dallas in June. He worked for 10 years at the world famous ski resort in the desert “Ski Dubai”. He will help develop and manage a similar resort in Dallas. We met his wife and children for the first time and it was great to see this very successful man again who we know since he was born and we saw him growing up on those occasions when his parents lived in the same locations in the world as we did. We had a wonderful lunch with my City of Austin former co-worker Paul, his wife and young son Alexander in the most rustic restaurant Gristmill in Gruene along the Guadalupe River. After our lunch Dorothy and I went to the Gruene Dance Hall and listened to some good old Country and Honkytonk music and watched the dancers. This brought back memories of the good old times when we visited the Country and Dance Halls and learned the Texas “Two Step”. Courtney, a friend who we had seen for the last time when she was babysitting our beloved dog Sheba in 1997 met us for diner in a very nice Mexican Restaurant in Selma a city with a bad name for being a speed trap on IH35. It was so good to see her again after such a long time and we promised not to let time slip by again. During our traditional Thursday night visits to the “Texas Ski Ranch” to watch the boys competing, we met many of our friends whose children are competing or spending a lot of time in this beautiful facility that has so much to offer to the children out of school.

We had wonderful time with our children and grandchildren, had great informal dinners together and had a most fantastic farewell dinner in a very nice restaurant in downtown New Braunfels. The food was excellent but the company was even better. We left each other on the street where our cars were parked and it was a sad feeling to see our family drive away. Dominique and Kristin drove us the next morning to San Antonio Airport leaving New Braunfels at 4:30 to catch the 7:00 flight to Dallas. From Dallas we flew to Miami and after a stop-over of 4 hours to Grenada. All flights were delayed for various reasons, but the longest one was in Miami where the co-pilot did not show up for work! We arrived in Grenada at the airport that was decorated “carnival style” and we were welcomed by a “Steel Band” playing our favorite music and each passenger was offered a “Rum Punch” or a bottle of water. George our taxi driver and his wife were waiting for us and drove us to “Port Louis Marina”. Island Girl looked great thanks to the care and hard work of our adopted Grenadian Son Sean and we were very happy to be home again.

We need to do a lot of installations of repaired and newly purchased parts repaired and complete a few other projects. Carnival is in two weeks, so we have a busy program before we will leave for Bonaire to start our trip to the west Caribbean and hope to report our progress in our next blog.
Please Note: We have posted with this blog two picture albums:
1. Our Yearly Visit to Texas
2. Working and Playing in Grenada