Motors, Mud, Meat - doing with and without

It’s been an eventful week (sort of), since the departure of our guests and our return back to Hog Island.

We survived the dinghy impeller malfunction, made it across to Le Phare Bleu marina, across the epic waves.  We arrived safe but sopped and salty, and then had the dinghy motor lifted and carried away in the wheelbarrow to the engine hospital. An hour later, she was as good as new. The impeller turned out to be a little star shaped black rubber thingy… amazing that it could make or break a motor!

We are just crazy enough to have volunteered for another hash – read mud, mud and more mud. It didn’t help that the skies opened unabashedly for the first time in weeks just as we boarded the bus, en route to Cabier Lodge where the Bastille Day hash was being hosted.  We worried about getting there alive as the windows fogged up, and our driver swerved and overtook cars in washed out roads, while the cruisers inside gasped and held on. We also worried about Shiloh out in the bay, left alone to face the rain and possibly some strong winds. (Secretly I was happy that I’d set up my little rain catcher and was dying to prove to JW that we could in fact catch a meaningful amount if it really rained.)

It really rained. But it was over an hour later when we arrived and it left behind mountains of mud and slime on the trails, for the huge turn out that set off and a couple hours later, completed the hike. 

The crowd heading off on the hike (notice my French colours!)

 The highlight of the day were the crepes on offer back at the lodge. What a reward!

Our boat neighbors and blogger friends at Zero to Cruising, who are definitely the fittest couple we know, took the French theme of the day to another level, sewed up some great costumes, proceeded to run 8km in them, and then deservedly won the prize for best costume!

The after party with Mike and Rebecca from Zero to Cruising

 And all of that led to today. The day we have been leading up to for so long, that we denied and many times lost piles of meat…. The day where we admitted that the freezer was more trouble than it’s worth.

This morning as we listened to the continuing pitter patter of rain on the newly waterproofed bimini, I decided it would be a ‘cooking’ day and headed over to the freezer to pick out some chicken to thaw. But alas all the chicken was already thawed. Along with the steaks and the sausages and the soggy buns I was trying to keep fresh.

A quick sniff told me that most of them had tipped the scale between ok and might kill you in a violent and painful way. So we had to toss everything. Again.

I had that deep down GRRRRRRR anger again, and really it’s just not worth the long lasting effects of stress. I left the world of traffic jams and work deadlines for a reason. No more GRRRRRR.

So after I chewed out JW on learning he’d turned the freezer down ‘ever so slightly’ as it was drawing too much power and necessitating we run the generator for hours every evening, I resigned myself to the loss of meat.

We realised we don’t eat that much meat anyway and if we do want to make something, we’ll buy it that day, cook it up and for dessert we’ll savour the sweet display on our inverter/battery charger, showing such low current draw. We might only have to run the noisy little red generator once every two days!

Boating life takes some adjustments.  Today we are at the second Laundromat, as the first we tried had a power outage.

It’s either hunt around or handwash everything, using up our precious limited water supply on the boat and hope the things will dry, hung along the sides of the boat, as the rain squalls come over one by one…

On the bright side, this marina has fast wi-fi, cold Coke Zeros, and we have left the rolling swells back on the boat for a couple hours.

A beach scene in Bonaire... more adventure awaits!

Our friends on Chaotic Harmony meanwhile, have headed off today on a three day straight sail to Bonaire, and it has me dreaming of all the places we have yet to see. The sailing we’ve yet to do. The plans we're starting to formulate. But those are other blog posts and for now, all the little hassles melt away.

Cleaning purging and dragging - fun and games at St. Georges anchorage

This week is supposed to be all about planning, organising, cleaning, preparing. We’re hosting a full family of guests on the weekend.

We took a trial run of where we’d sail and what we’d show our visitors, and all went well.

Now we’re back in Grenada, anchored outside the main city, St. Georges. At night you can fool yourself into believing there’s a huge metropolis out there, with all the lights. The truth is that it’s a sleepy little harbor town with a big boat yard and a cute little market behind a bustling bus station. 

St. Georges port city, Grenada

Being here allows us to refuel, fill the water tanks, get cleaning supplies and provision food for the trip next week.

We’ve got to defrost the freezer, clean all cabins and heads (washrooms), get new sheets, floor rugs, service the engines, and finally seal the escape hatch windows.

That last items sounds a bit scary. To explain: Lagoon Cats, along with the clever design of engines under the aft beds, have interior, down-facing window/hatches in the same cabins, that provide a lovely view of the turquoise water below. Their true purpose however, is to open if and when your catamaran has capsized and you need to escape.

Standard older Lagoon escape hatch window in aft cabins

Now you might ask, why would we be sealing those up?! The simple answer is that they leak. Whenever we are out in big seas, salt water leaks in and creates a little annoying pool of water in our bedroom, on the side shelf.

New Lagoons have been designed with this bottom facing window completely sealed. There is an ominous looking hammer beside it, so there is no confusion as to it’s real purpose.

So, once JW agreed to put a hammer down beside these hatches, I agreed we could/should seal them up. I am trying with all my might to keep the visual of requiring these at any time from my mind!

So this morning started off quite productively. JW opened and cleaned the rims of the escape hatch in preparation for sealing with silicone. Then I stripped the bed, in preparation for JW to service the engine.

Minutes later he had lifted the engine cover board and I spun round asking,

“Where’s the sheets?!”

“You took them off just now…?”

“But I can’t find them?!”

We both spun round in the tiny cabin, into the hallway, bumped into each other 5 times, checking every crevice. Then JW joked,

“You didn’t throw them here on the side shelf, where that window is now open…”

“No!”

“Let’s check”

I peered down the hatch, but nothing. It seemed absurd anyway.

Then JW disappeared up the steps and stood out on the back sugar scoop (stoop) and called out,

“Yep. There they are.” He pointed off beyond the boat.

Indeed, wading deep and far behind us, but visible, my lovely turquoise bedsheets, donated to the ocean. I was so furious, frustrated, silly. (I knew we'd be able to laugh about this at some stage but certainly not now). I can’t believe I’d thrown them out the window literally into the sea!

After a slight altercation about who’s fault this was and whether they could be retrieved, JW donned a snorkel mask a mooring hook and jumped in. But they were too far and too deep, and no doubt to heavy to recover. So he hopped out, rinsed off and declared we’d just have to buy more.  We carried on with the chores. JW as before, and me with that deep down, biting my cheeks, stomping up-and-down, tearing things up kind of anger just below the surface …. GRRRRR

But as this lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to long lasting depression or anger, I’d arranged with my cool girl-sailor-buddy that we’d take the dinghy into the beach and go for yummy local doubles (chick pea flat bread with a chick pea curry filling). I could get the new sheets on the same trip.

But then, just as I was organising my backpack, I looked out the window and saw a formidable squall coming hard and fast across the water from the land.

“Wow!” I shouted and within a second, rain and wind had blindsided Shiloh. We ran around closing hatches and then watched as the wind tugged furiously at us and the rain pelted down like opaque sheets.

And we swung wildly on the anchor in every direction, as did the boats around us. But then some of them started to give in to the wind, their anchors had unhooked and were dragging. Some fast, some slow. Our friend’s boat Chaotic Harmony began to move swiftly toward another boat to our left. We called to them repeatedly on the VHF radio but they were not onboard. We weren’t sure what to do, but we couldn’t do nothing.

Then JW, dressed in only his boxers, jumped into the dinghy, wind whipping the waves up around him, I threw him the rope and he headed over to try and push the boat, to prevent it from smashing into the anchored one beside us. Other friends were also in their dinghies, headed fast toward the potential crash.

The family onboard the targeted boat ran up and down their deck with rubber fenders.

And just then, our friend arrived back, having seen the severity of the storm from shore, and he jumped aboard, started the engines and got the boat under control. 

JW up on the bow, the guys rectifying Chaotic Harmony's drag

 At the same time the boat on our right side came sliding by Shiloh, headed out to sea. I called and called the boat name on the VHF radio, but to no avail – the owner was not onboard.

Another friend of ours in a 60ft catamaran was dragging out to sea a bit further away. The rain and wind continued beating the anchorage.

SV-Amarula, dragging out to sea

 I stood, wet and powerless on Shiloh’s back deck, looking at the chaos around me.

Then the boat on our right stopped bobbing away. Their anchor must have caught again (hopefully not on ours!).

I phoned the friends on the 60ft cat, and they had their situation under control.

JW and a couple other friends were onboard Chaotic Harmony and were attempting to re-anchor in a safer place.

And finally the rain softened to a patter. I checked our GPS over and over to confirm – we hadn’t dragged. Not this time.

So, the fun and games were over for the morning. JW arrived back, like a little wet rat. Dripping, drained.

My dream of doubles will have to wait til tomorrow. The sun will have to shine. I have to get up on the canvas bimini with a roller and apply some waterproofing. And I need a dry sunny day.

But there’s got to be an excuse to wait until tomorrow to clean the other cabins as well.

I think it’s time to call a Scrabble tournament with my yachtie-gurlz.

Chocolate and rum - touring like a tourist in Grenada

It's been a hectic week - lots of cappuccinos, island tours and beach cafes. Rough rough.

Art Fabrik - a sensory delight and store I wanted to live in. All hand made in house batiks.

This has been a 'get to know Grenada' through the eyes of a tourist week. We visited quaint, delicious little curio and clothing shops.  I tried to take more photos, breathe in the colours, the rich emeralds and shocking fuschias. My senses were sharp, raw.

We finally made it to the organic chocolate factory. The universe willed it to happen and we easily gathered a group of cruisers, hired a driver and a van, and set off on a chocolate/rum road trip.

Our driver Cosmus is 78. He's been driving on the island forever. He is pretty much the only driver who takes the sharp mountain turns at a reasonable speed. He doesn't have a death wish, and we don't either, so it worked out well. It took us two hours of hills and valleys, clouds and sun patches, close calls around bends to arrive, but we made it to the Belmont Estate in one piece.

We pre-empted the whole tour protocol by visiting, buying and eating the treats from the gift shop before taking the tour, but it was worth the sin. Dark chocolate cashew clusters, melted in our mouths, on our fingers, and down our chins as we were called over to learn the process.

Sadly, like most agricultural industry in the Caribbean, the Belmont Estate first ran on the sweat of slavery. The big tree at the entrance was a gathering point, where slaves were called using the huge bell that still sits on the bottom branches. For punishment, slaves were hung from it's branches.

After this eery and unsettling story, we are led into the huge barn to see how the chocolate is made, as it has been for centuries.

Chocolate starts as beans inside the white fruit of these cocoa pods:

The beans are dried for seven days and then are laid out in the sun, where they are trampled on from time to time, to spread and turn them.

Walking on the beans.

The beans begin to lose the smell of fermentation and feet as they dry, and begin to take on the rich smell of chocolate.

Cocoa cocoa everywhere! Beans drying in the sun.

The Belmont Estate is fully certified organic and all product is processed completely in-house, no beans are sold or exported before they become cocoa powder or chocolate.

Some of the cocoa beans, ready to be sent down the road to the chocolate factory.

When the dried beans are cracked open, the little nibs inside can be eaten raw or roasted. The Grenada Chocolate Company makes a bar with the crunchy roasted nibs - it's absolutely amazing.

Needless to say, we bought and munched a few of these.

The Estate has recently stopped tours from visiting the actual chocolate factory, so we couldn't see the beans being roasted and blanded into the paste that makes the rich dark chocolate that I've fallen head over heels in love with. Maybe it's better. I might have wanted to stay forever.

Instead, we bought more chocolate and visited their restaurant on the hill above the estate. We watched the magnificent sky turn in seconds from sunny and hot to windy and grey and then open the taps from above. I was actually chilly for one of the first times since arriving in Grenada.

From Belmont we headed to the oldest, traditional method rum factory in the Western hemisphere - at River Rums.

The wheel that crushes the sugar cane has been in operation since the 1700's and was imported from Scotland (JW loved that little piece of trivia).

Sugar cane being fed up the wheel where the liquid is removed.

The waste material is then used for the fire to boil the rum.

Workers moving the sugar cane waste into wagons to be brought down below.

We were led through ancient stinking rooms, where vats of a brownish red muddy looking liquid is hand spooned along, boiling like a giant witches brew. Spiders and cockroach carcasses lie drunk and dead around the vats. I wondered how it was possible that I loved the end product of this filthy process!

From here, the distillation and purification process began.

The end product, a clear white elixir, was offered to us in tiny quarter ounce cups. I still remember the simultaneous burn internally and shiver on my extremities. We were asked if we'd like to buy a bottle but we all declined. I don't think any of us could have survived a whole shot of that!

We ended the tour with an impromptu visit to a roadside fruit and veggie seller. The place called to us as we drove past, and Cosmus happily stopped for us to snap a few photos and buy some fresh fragrant fruit.

Cosmus and Andrea

We arrived back at the marina exhausted and full of chocolate and bananas. Our eyes dozed from sensory overload. Our noses sensing the familiar water life smells, leaving all the tropical red earth and the pungency of it's fruits behind.

We closed our tourist eyes and rum-lined nerves calmed. We slept well, rocked by the waves and wind of spring time in Grenada.

Checklist for the practical cruiser

“Have you got the headlamp?”

“Yes, have you got the VHF radio?”

“Yep. You got the camera?”

“Affirmative. Have you got our waterproof phone?”

“Let me check. Yep. Is the mast light on?”

“Just doing that. Let’s turn the freezer off while we’re gone.”

Ok, and did you close all the windows? Hatches? Bring in the outdoor cushions and our shoes?

“Ok, done. Did you bring a towel in case we get soaked?”

“Got it. Pull up the dinghy, let’s go.”

This is the routine each evening as we head out for one social event or another. I barely remember the days when we would be heading out in a car, not worried about rain or seaspray. Days where you didn’t need a radio in case your dinghy motor doesn’t start and you drift off somewhere… Days where you didn’t need to find a way to save some energy to give the batteries a break…

But those days didn’t allow for massive rainbows and black ominous storms so beautiful you can barely pry yourself away to get the camera out.

Those days didn’t include new adventures, to Nimrod’s roti shop for some local grub and a walk in the hills. But today includes that and I can’t wait. I think I’m salivating. We’re on our way now. Roti post to follow.

Rainy Thursday

Half an hour ago I was on my feet, flittering between rooms to close the hatches against the downpour above. Warm water trickled down my face and arms. Now I lie dry and warm and cozy in our little cabin below.

It’s a Thursday morning. I know this because the Cruiser’s Net broadcast it on the VHF system a while ago. They also reminded me that it’s cooking class day at True Blue Bay in the afternoon. Nothing else is pressing.

Months ago on any given Thursday morning, I’d have been sitting at my desk, tackling hundreds of e-mails, fighting the incessant fires of accounting and service delivery problems, and planning to face the bumper to bumper, hot honking black fumes traffic of Accra.

Now, as the pitter patter of rain on the window hatch above reminds me of all that uncaptured water, I’m thinking we’ll need to measure for our makeshift rain catcher and head back to the hardware store at some point for a tarp.

Wondering how much bailing we’ll have to do if the dinghy is full of rain. Hoping with relative confidence, that the sun will come out with a force later to dry our towels and outdoor cushions.

All my thoughts converge and hover above me, but for now Shiloh lulls me with the gentle ocean waves and the sound of rain. It might be 9am by now. It might be later. Coffee can wait, the plans for the day can wait. For now my eyes are closing, JW lies beside me, his steady breath a familiar comfort. And I am savouring the moment.