TOURING GRENADA
24 July 2009
Greetings to all! It won't be long and Jim & I will be back home in Canada for two months (Aug.18-Oct 17th)! As mentioned in previous emails, Jim and I have had to race down the Caribbean Islands so that we could be out of the "hurricane box". Grenada puts us "officially" out of danger and that makes everything absolutely wonderful, safe and worry free- here we have no need for those red slippers or the Star Trek transporter (which is still high on the "Please buy for us list"). Its time to just sit back, relax, swim, tour the islands, meet the Grenada people, talk to other cruisers, read the sailing guidebooks, taste the rum, you know, adopt the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" attitude at last.
Yesterday, Tuesday July 24th, we joined other cruising friends and went on a guided tour of Grenada with Cutty - known as the best taxi driver and tour guide on the island. In no time, Cutty was showing us the sights of his country. We visited the prison where the prisoners must grow their own food and look after their own livestock, we drove by many small, well kept houses and schools and Cutty pointed out all the new roofs everywhere and then he shows us some Janet houses, named after Hurricane Janet which struck in 1955.......and then he shows us some Ivan houses, named after Hurricane Ivan which struck in 2004- HEY, WAIT A MINUTE- its time for me to pay a bit of attention to what the taxi driver is saying! Hurricanes here! This is no safe zone, but at least we are insured........hmmm, maybe we better review that policy...maybe they have Grenada in the Caribbean confused with Granada in Spain........
Hurricane Ivan was responsible for damage to 90% of all the buildings on the entire island of Grenada. Spice Island Marina was totally wiped out, including all the boats that were up "on the hard" for hurricane season. The devastation was so great at the marina that they just bulldozed all the boats into one big pile! (Grenada Marine, where we will be storing Emerald Seas, had no damage to any of their boats.) Grenada, known as the Spice Island, suffered tremendous economic hardships because their nutmeg trees were either destroyed of seriously damages. Before the hurricane they were the number 2 exporter of nutmeg in the entire world. Now they are struggling to re-establish the nutmeg trees and hopefully in a few more years will once again be a major exporter. We toured a nutmeg factory (one of the few remaining)- previous to Hurricane Ivan, they employed 109 people - now they only have 8 persons........The nutmeg trees only take a few years before they start to produce the nutmegs, and this year many of the damaged nutmeg trees are finally starting to produce. The Grenada people hope that no hurricanes will come their way for a long time- they say its "rare" to be hit by one at this latitude. We hope that is true, firstly for the sake of the hard-working and friendly people of Grenada and then of course, it would be nice for us and all the other cruisers that stay here for the hurricane season.
Oh well, can't fret about the hurricane stuff anymore, there is too much to see on the island. Huge, colourful caterpillers, flowers, waterfalls and monkeys. We visited the Rivers Rum distillery which was established in the 1700's. Here rum is made using the same waterwheel they had in the 1700's. The buildings were built by slaves and it felt as if we had stepped right back in time as we watched one worker loading the bundles of sugar cane onto the waterwheel driven conveyor belt and watched another worker pushing a railcart by hand along a crooked railway track. The juice from the sugar cane did not look very appetizing as it ran down the little, dirty ditches towards the big holding vats where the juice was boiled till it became concentrated. From there the concentrated juice was sent to large cement containers where it would ferment naturally for a few weeks. The fermented juice then was sent to the boilers where it would be boiled and the steam (the alcohol) would be collected, cooled and bottled. The bottling was done by hand from those big McDonald style drink coolers. The Rivers Rum is 76% alcohol or 151 proof and burns your mouth and tongue when you taste it and nearly kills you when you swallow it. Lucky for the rest of the world, the stuff is not exported, but consumed and enjoyed (or so they say...) by the people of Grenada. We can't even smuggle a bottle back with us to Canada because it is considered too explosive.
On Friday the 24th, a bunch of us (Derek & Cathy on Idyll Island, Terry & Barb from WW and Jean Pierre & Denise from Absaroque and a bunch of other crazy cruisers) took a taxi to the fishing village of Gouyave for their famous weekly fish fry. The taxi left at 5:30 PM and the drive took us along the west coast of Grenada. We enjoyed spectacular sunset views as we travelled up and down the steep roads and it wasn't long before we reached our destination. The villagers had cordoned off two roads and set up small stands so that they can fry up fish cakes, flying fish, snappers, plantain bananas and breadfruit. More importantly for some, there were stands set up by the rum distilleries. Here you could sample the various rums produced- they were very generous with the samples and no limits were imposed on the number of samples......Jim had a very good time! All of us survived the adventure and plans are in the works for a return visit soon.
Our anchorage here in Prickley Bay gets quite rolly at times. Its definitely not as bad as some other place we have "enjoyed" but it does affect sleep. Last night I heard a new kind of sound on Emerald Seas. It was a squeaky-squeak-squeak kind of sound. Whenever I tried to locate it, it would be gone. As Jim & I were laying in bed, nearly asleep, I heard it again and asked Jim what he thought it might be. "Its the frogs on shore" was his reply, followed by gentle snoring. I fell asleep too but a few hours later, during pee break, I again heard the sound of the "frogs". I lay in bed trying hard to fall asleep but the sound is now driving me nuts. Beside me is Jim, sleeping........I better wake him, this squeak thing is serious and if I am awake, then Jim should be too..........I asked Jim what he thought the noise was now and he said that maybe it wasn't frogs and perhaps the staysail might be causing the problem. I went outside and pulled the sheets and tightened the traveller. We listened and there was no more squeaking! Now both of us can get some sleep.
This brings me to my list of cruising downsides. Here are some of them:
-Sounds in the night caused by the boat rolling back and forth - could be a flashlight rolling, or batteries, tin cans, pot lids- whatever it is, the sound usually disappears completely when you are out of bed, trying to discover the source of the noise and put an end to it.
-Haircuts- the hair salons I have visited on our journey have been awful. All you need here in the way of training is "ownership of scissors". Prices are very cheap though, so maybe I should not complain about $4.00 Betty Davis haircuts which include bangs cut two inches above the eyebrows....hopefully they will be a bit longer when we arrive back in Canada. Jim on the other hand just asks one of the pretty cruisers to do his hair. Off they go to some place on the beach where his hair is cut for free and it looks great.
-Laundry- doing laundry on the boat is almost as much fun as doing it in a river and pounding the clothes on the rocks. In fact, a river would be better because then you have unlimited water, even if you have leeches and piranhas and anacondas to deal with.
-Showers - we use household spray bottles and no soap- can't waste water rinsing off soap, sweat or salt.
-Washing hair- more important than showers. I justify the washing of my hair by re-cycling the water. First I wash and rinse my hair, carefully collecting the used water in a 5 gallon bucket, then I use the water for the laundry, then I wash the decks. NO WATER is ever wasted on Emerald Seas when Jim is looking. (When Jim is not looking, I shower happily and waste water like there was no tomorrow...) Hey Jim just read that!!!
-Communication- when you are cruising, you learn that "port" sometimes means "starboard", "fast" sometimes means "stop", pointing in a certain direction can mean "safe direction" or it can mean "danger" or it could mean "wow, look at that turtle". It is very important that you be able to read each other's mind. Extra skill is needed to read Jim's mind.
Lucky for Jim and I, the upsides of cruising far outweigh any of the downsides. Neither of us would give up one second of our adventure so far -and believe it or not, that includes all the rough seas, squalls and long crossings. We are loving what we do and looking forward to many more great adventures together.