Travels with the Laa-Dee-Dah

Although Dorian missed us by miles the Bahamas weren’t so lucky. Abacos has been hammered and we’re just starting to see reports of damage. Considering Dorian was a Cat 5 when it hit Elbow Cay we’re anticipating there won’t be much left when it’s over. Now we wait to see if it hits the US coast and if so, where. Hopefully it will miss Myrtle Beach and Wilmington as we have friends and family there.

Today we were back to our regular weekly diving with EcoDivers. Such a great group of people!

 

We had a nice visit in the DC area with friends and family, got all the pesky doctor appointments done and have now been back in Grenada for a week. It took a couple days to get everything back in order but everything is now back to normal.

A special shout out to our boat neighbors Olive and Richard who were kind enough to take care of and spoil Isabella during our absence. She continues to amaze us.

One of the reasons to stay in Grenada for the summer/fall if not the main reason is hurricane season. Grenada is rarely bothered by hurricanes and so is deemed “safe” from an insurance standpoint to wait out the weather. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to pay attention tho. Grenada was hammered by Ivan  in 2004 so we continue our daily weather briefings. At the moment the first tropical storm Dorian is preparing to flash by north of us in what experts are cautioning may be a very active storm season.

Of course if something does spike to hurricane force and heads to Grenada we always have plan B. B for Bonaire which is about a 48 hour transit due west. And yes they have been hit by hurricanes before too but staying put and “weathering” a hurricane just isn’t in the cards for us. We’ve talked with people who have done that on a boat and they all say they wouldn’t do it again. So we’ll wait and watch and see what develops.

In the meantime the marina is getting quiet. Although there are a lot of boats here, people are thin on the ground. Seems like most people lock down their boats and head out elsewhere for the season. There is a hard core group of us here but several boats will be heading west over the next month or so leaving even fewer of us.

 

 

We won’t be posting for the next few weeks as we’re in the states visiting friends and family as we catch up on all our annual doctor visits.

But here is a picture of Isabella looking about as tragic as she can be protesting our departure.

July 23, 2019

As mentioned in an earlier post our boat is docked stern in sandwiched between two other boats. It gets quite tight and as the marina fills up it gets more interesting trying to fit boats in existing open slots. The catamaran that was on our port side departed and another, larger catamaran has arrived to take its place. Gary gets a kick put of watching the activity so much so that he generally grabs his drink, pulls up a chair and settles in for the entertainment whenever a new boat arrives.

We’ve been enjoying the diving each week and are on a schedule for two dives every Monday morning. On Wednesdays we generally play golf. Fridays are grocery/market day and once in awhile I’ll check out the seafood market in town.

One of our most recent dive trips took us to an underwater sculpture garden. It can be accessed either by snorkeling or diving so it’s a shallow dive but very interesting. Subject to surge and storms the sculptures move, get covered up, uncovered etc so it’s always evolving.

In between we clean the boat, work on the boat and laze around. We’ve been checking out the local restaurants, meeting new people and socializing with all the other boaters. Time is moving on rather quickly.

With the rainy season in full swing we’ve experienced a few big storms with thunder and lightening. The island just gets greener and lusher with more fruits and vegetables available each week at the local markets instead of relying on what is shipped in. Of course the golf course is really benefiting from the water. We’ve also picked up a couple additional golfers for our Wednesday game as our neighbors, Olive and Richard, enjoy a long walk too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are some more dive pictures!

Grenada is an agricultural island and we’re loving it. I have been spoiled for mangos for all time as it is currently mango season and they are amazing fresh from the tree. Avocados are coming into season also so we’re enjoying those as well. The local market blossoms on Friday and Saturday in St George’s so fresh produce is readily available.

We took the bus over to Silver Sands the other evening for dinner at the Asiatic restaurant. It’s a gorgeous resort if a little pricey but perfect for a dinner out occasionally. You can’t beat the view and the service was impeccable.

A side note about the buses. They run every 10 minutes or so and consist of a driver and a “herder” on a mini bus that seats 16 total. The herder is in charge of opening and closing the side door for access and handles the money for fares.He also corrals anyone who even looks like they might need a bus sometimes having the bus go around the block to pick up people. When you get close to where you want to get off just knock on the metal somewhere on the bus and it will stop at the next bus stop. Cost for the local parish is 2.5 EC or about $1 US. If you want to go to the next parish the price goes up about 1 EC. It’s a great hop on/hop off system and very safe. If you are the only ones on the bus they will take you directly to your destination for the same price. Some buses are in better shape than others and they all play music, usually local and really loud. The exception was the other day when I  boarded to the sounds of Celine Dion and then the Shirelles. I did compliment the driver on his musical taste as I was exiting!

Friday we took our third island tour and finished up our island overview by going up the east coast to the north and then back down the west coast.

The east coast has some impressive views of the Atlantic as well as Grenville, one of the major towns on the island. To the north we toured River Antoine Rum Distillery which still distills rum utilizing a water wheel and equipment from the 1800’s. The only one in the entire Carribbean to still do this.

Because the process is extremely labor intensive they can only produce about 500 bottles a day and only have light rum. Dark rum has to age in barrels and they just don’t produce enough to do that. They do however produce a 75 proof rum and a 69 proof as well as rum punch in a bottle. You can’t take anything over 70 proof on an airplane out of here so the 69 is primarily for the tourists. Being on a boat we can take out whatever we want so we of course bought the higher proof as well as the bottled rum punch that is delicious.

The tour showed the cane being crushed and then the juice being funneled into holding areas where it is allowed to rest and then tested. The juice has to be between 16 and 18 percent sugar so once it is tested molasses is added if the sugar level is too low or it is diluted if the level is too high. It is then moved into huge open air concrete tanks to ferment before going to the cookers to distill down.

The end of the tour allowed us to do a taste test between the three different types of rum. You have to dilute the 75 proof rum with water in your mouth before swallowing or it will literally burn all the way and for quite awhile afterwards.

Then it was on to Grenada Chocolate Company where they process chocolate start to finish basically by hand. We didn’t get to see it actually being made as they take off Fridays but we toured the works and then bought way too many truffles to take back with us.

The northern most point for us was Sauteurs where our driver arranged for us to stop at a restaurant on the water for a delectable lunch of local foods. It was a buffet so we were able to try a large variety of foods all of which were wonderful. Except the breadfruit. The only preparation so far that has been edible for either of us was when I thinly sliced the raw fruit last week into chips and fried them. With plenty of salt they were very close to potato chips.

Sauteurs translates to “jumpers”. In 1651 the local Carib families elected to throw themselves off the 130ft high cliffs that line the coast there rather than surrender to the advancing French army. Leapers Hill was just above the restaurant where we had lunch.

We then took the long drive back down the west coast to St George’s. We now feel like we have a fairly good understanding of the island and history. There are a few places we still haven’t gotten to but we’ll be here for months yet so there’s no rush.

 

June 24th

Our next adventure took us up the west coast heading north and into St John’s and St Mark’s parishes to see a nutmeg processing station, Concord Waterfalls, Jouvay Chocolate Factory and Grand Etang Lake which is in the center of the island. We went as far as Victoria before turning inland.

We furthered our nutmeg education watching workers husk, sort and seal the nuts in large bags for export at the nutmeg processing plant. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the processing plant but it was very interesting. In the sorting section we were allowed to look over the shoulders of the workers and watch. One nice lady gave me a few nutmegs to add to my collection. At the height of the nutmeg production there were sixteen processing plants but now there are only four that are working. The others have been leased to individuals to operate as restaurants, stores etc. until the nutmeg crops come back to their full potential.

The nutmeg backstory is that 80 percent of the nutmeg trees were destroyed by a hurricane in 2004 because they are very tall trees with a shallow root structure. They are now at about 40 percent of the original production and increasing every year. Even so they still ranked at number two for worldwide nutmeg production.

Along the coast at Grand Bay we found the ideal seating area to watch the sunset. Apparently someone stops trucks with tires on the way to the landfill and adds the tires to this “stadium” area. This is recycling at it’s best.

Every year, a few weeks before Grenada’s Independence Day in February, the local paint stores give away free paint in the national colors of red, green and yellow. Each town uses the paint to create something be it a mural, signs or just painting something to look better and a contest is held to see who is the best. As a result you see the green, red, yellow paint everywhere. It really does look nice.

We drove up to Concord Waterfalls, one of the few that are accessible by car. The rest you have to hike into and it can be a 90 minute hike or longer depending on which one you go to. At this point we’re more interested in driving around the island and learning as much as we can. If we get bored later in the summer we may consider hiking but it’s doubtful.

In Gouyave, where they are famous for the “Fish Friday” street festival each week, it was interesting to see the shacks on the beach where the fishermen live next to their boats and then a few streets over, the large houses where their families live.

The Jouvay Chocolate Factory was a great experience and we came away with many chocolate bars and even some chocolate creme liquor which we taste tested last night. As Gary said it’s like drinking chocolate mousse. Chilled, it goes down easy. Good thing it’s only 20% alcohol.

There are three more chocolate factories on the island and our intention is to visit all of them.

Grand Lake Etang, one of three lakes, sits up in the mountains in the center part of the island. At the entrance there are Mona monkeys. Apparently you only find them here and in Africa and the locals are very protective of them. One in particular knows that the humans will bring him bananas and he gets up close and personal to get those bananas.

We climbed the hill for the lookout over the lake, a ten minute hike straight up the hill. The flowers are beautiful as this is the interior of the island and is not affected by the dry season.

Our driver, Rawl, continued to amaze us with his extensive knowledge of flora and fauna. Apparently his grandmother was responsible for much of this knowledge as she would take walks with him and ask him to name the various plants. He taught us how to tell the difference between banana, plantain and bluggoe trees without seeing the fruit. It has to do with the color on the edge of the leaf stems.

We continue to play golf and the course is starting to “green up” with the advent of the rainy season. It should look really nice in a couple weeks.

Diving was a grand adventure on Wednesday. Our first dive was a wreck dive called Shakem. Apparently a ship was coming into Grenada with a load of warm concrete and got caught in a storm a few years ago. The ship floundered and the cargo shifted resulting in the ship now lying on the bottom of the ocean in about 100 feet of water. As we dropped onto the wreck I was watching my dive computer to make sure I didn’t descend too quickly. When I looked up I was staring into the eyes of a large (3′) hawksbill turtle. Usually when we encounter turtles they swim away as soon as they see you. This one was totally unconcerned and just stayed there with me so of course I reached out and touched his shell. Now I can say I’ve petted a turtle in the water. Of course this was the one day we didn’t bring our underwater camera so no pictures to document this incredible experience. Guess it will just have to be a “Kodak moment” in my mind!

Our second dive was at Northern Exposure which was a shallow reef with lots of corals and fish.

On both dives we entered the water in sunshine and came up in pouring rain making it a little chilly moving from one site to the next. EcoDivers has turned out to be a really good group to dive with and we will see them once a week for the rest of the summer.

Now that we’ve settled into the marina and squared away the boat we’re looking for things to do. We played golf at the Grenada Golf and Country Club and have a month to month membership that is all inclusive. It’s a nine hole course and if you want to play eighteen holes you simply use different tee boxes for the second nine. You are required to use a caddy and we lucked out with Sam and Kelly who couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. Especially since we haven’t played golf since February.

Then on to some diving with the local dive shop EcoDive. Again we’ve purchased a package of dives so we will be busy for the foreseeable future diving and playing golf every week.

We have found a great driver, Rawl, who really knows the island and have embarked on a series of half day excursions to learn about the island and it’s inhabitants. We’ll do one a week until we feel we’ve seen it all.

Our first trip was last Friday and we concentrated on the southeastern part of the island from St George’s south and inland to the spice company.

Grenada is comprised of a series of parishes. which harks back to the early catholic influence. Religiously it’s a very diverse people with about 15 different religions being practiced; everything from Catholic to VooDoo including Muslim and Rastafarian. Religious freedom is celebrated here and everyone gets along just fine. They could be poster children for the rest of the world!

The schools are a series of public and private with kindergarten, primary and secondary. There is a large university in the south with the emphasis on medical both human and veterinary. They are now offering course work in other majors such as business administration as well.

Grenada is the second largest producer of nutmeg in the world and spices are huge here. We took a tour of the local spice company and Gary was amazed at the range of spices used for medicinal purposes. The walkways on the outside tour were covered with crushed nutmeg shells rather than the mulch we’re used to at home.

One of the really interesting things we learned was how to harvest cinnamon. They cut down the cinnamon trees and peel the bark away. Then someone scores the trunks about every foot and the next person bangs on the bark with a glass bottle (Coke was the preferred choice). Then using a sharp blade the inner bark is peeled away in sheets to be ground into what you find at the market.

I had never really thought about where pepper comes from and was surprised to see it growing on bushes. We learned that the various colors of pepper are just the different times it is harvested. Green for early pepper, then pink, white and finally black.

We tasted tamarind right from the pod off the tree (a sweet/sour flavor) and smelled a variety of herbs. Of course no tour is complete without stopping at the visitors center to purchase spices. I came away with cinnamon, bay leaves and a fish seasoning I’m anxious to try.

We then headed to Calabash Resort for a great lunch by the water and back to the boat.

Next week we head north to the chocolate factory. Gary can’t wait!

May 26

We cleared customs in Clifton Harbor on Union Island and slid over to Petit St Vincent for the night. They are supposed to have spectacular snorkeling there but because of the boat traffic and strong current we decided to just have sundowners on the boat and admire nature.

The next day we motored over to Tyrell Bay on Carricaou Island for a couple days. Carricaou is part of Grenada so it was the last time we needed to clear customs and immigration for awhile.

There is a wreck in the bay about 200 yards from where we anchored so we grabbed our dive gear and jumped off the swim platform for a remarkable, shallow dive. Lots of fish, the biggest lobster I’ve ever seen (too bad it’s not lobster season) and a huge sea cucumber.

We also managed to do a couple dives off the point with Raquel from one of the local dive shops. Because we wanted to dive in the marine park we were required to go thru a local dive shop instead of diving off our boat as we usually do. These were also drift dives and we really needed someone in a chase boat so it worked out well and was a fun day.

But all things come to and end and we finally headed to St George’s Harbor on the main island of Grenada. We anchored out for a few days to check out the marina before taking the boat in as we were going to be docking in a whole new way.

We’re staying at Port Louis Marina. Usually when we dock we sidle up to a dock, throw the lines off and can jump on and off the boat with no problem. Port Louis poses a slight problem for us tho. In order to maximize the number of boats at the dock everyone has to pull stern in and tie off to a mooring bouy on the front and a couple dock lines off the back or aft at the dock. The marina sends out a couple guys in a small boat to lead you in to your slot. They attach the bow lines and move the bouy out of the way to allow you to back into the slip.

It’s a european docking system and if you do this all the time you have a passarelle or gangway that connects your boat to the dock to allow easy access on and off the boat. Unfortunately for us we’re ‘Mericans and our boat is not equipped in this fashion and it’s too big a step up from our swim platform to the dock for me. After a couple tries Gary found a small step ladder that he tied to the back so I can just step over to the dock. That works.

The other issue with docking like this is that we are sandwiched in like sardines and you can literally climb from one boat to the next. So we’re going from anchoring out and not having close neighbors to being on top of each other. Guess we’ll get to know our neighbors really well over the next 6 months!

Over the next week or so we’ll be cleaning the boat, getting a few things fixed and setting up a delivery system so we can have things imported from the states while we’re here. We’ve already taken an hour cab ride around the harbor to figure out where things are, get groceries and several trips to various hardware stores. We’ve located the nearest KFC and pizza shop as well as the local golf course so things look good.

It’s an interesting next step in our adventure.

Travelling around Union Island we spotted Chatham Bay which looked like a really nice anchorage but there were no boats. Kind of eerie. So we kept moving around to the south side to Frigate Bay where the kite boarders play. We tucked in with about 6 other boats but again the rolliness was more than we wanted to deal with so up anchor and back to Chatham Bay.

Unfortunately when we pulled the anchor up it was twisted on itself and we couldn’t pull it all the way up. After talking about it we decided to drop the secondary anchor when we got to Chatham, set it and then drop the primary straight down so Gary could dive on it and try to resolve the problem. We have a hooka just for working on the boat that serves well as an air source while under the boat. With Gary in the water and me on top fetching tools and lowering them over the side it didn’t take long to get it fixed. We then pulled up both anchors and reset the primary. The secondary anchor works well but it is rope instead of chain so doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence for any extended anchoring. This is something we will fix in Grenada as the primary anchor doesn’t have enough chain for some of the spots we ran into this trip. So we’ll purchase 500 ft of chain for the primary anchor and move the 240 ft we currently have to the secondary anchor and we’ll be set for most anything.

 

This place gets a blog entry all it’s own. We’ve been here nine days which for us is a long time. Admittedly the first few days I had the flu and don’t even remember. But it definitely went uphill from there. It’s a large, quiet bay with some bbq shacks and a small resort. Boats come in and out every day to anchor. Some only stay overnight, some for a day or two and then there’s us.

We’re in no hurry as we still have over a week to get to Grenada. The other day we decided to take a cab over to Clifton on the other side of the island. They said it would only be a 20 minute ride. We said it would be fun and we needed an atm, a small grocery and somewhere else to eat lunch.

The cab showed up and it looked like something left over from a Mad Max movie. No seat belts, no interior door handles, the upholstery was in shreds and we thought “what have we gotten ourselves into?”

Trusting people that we are we got into the cab. After 20 yards we realized that there wasn’t a road up the rather large hill to the top of the island but a trail and we were going 4 wheeling!

Well it was 20-25 minutes to the top where we intersected the main road. Whew. The main road is wide enough for 1 ½ cars, no guard rails and quite a drop off. When we got to the edge of town our driver pulled off and said we needed to get out. What? After a little interrogating we realized he wanted us to get into his other vehicle, the “town” car. This one was newer, clean, a/c and a working radio. This is what we rode into and around town in. Much better.

We did our errands, had lunch, rode back out of town, changed over to the Mad Max vehicle and proceeded back to Chatham Bay. When we got back to the trailhead it was a steep drop into the trail with no visibility. I admit I closed my eyes. Our driver said he makes that trip at least once a day and up to five times a day in season. I doubt my body could take that but he was young and a very competent driver.

When we first arrived I jumped in the water with my snorkel gear to check the anchor and found a galaxy of starfish under our boat, some as big as two feet across. When I snorkeled again four days later they were no where in sight. Where did they go I wondered. Well today we did a dive off the back of the boat and we found them again. There are probably 3000 different species of fish and they are VERY friendly. We’ve also seen quite a few big turtles swim right by the boat.

So it’s been an interesting nine days but tomorrow we leave and head to Clifton Bay to clear customs and immigration and on to Grenada.