Ups and Downs in Paradise!
Thursday
December 3, 2009
Well....time is going by fast! Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! We shared our Thanksgiving with about 50 other cruisers...not all necessarily American either! I made a dish of "sweet potatoes".....which is not the "normal" orange potato that Mom used to make with butter and brown sugar and let cook all day....but they were white, a little sweet, but I added the same butter and brown sugar! Jim made a cherry/rhubarb crumble cake for dessert. They both were pretty good, if I have to say so myself.....but there were tables of food that each cruiser/couple brought and the turkey was donated. It was held at a local restaurant, De Big Fish, which is a great place right at the base of Prickly Bay on the South Coast of Grenada. It was nice!
Jim and I have been doing alot of hiking/walking. Our first hike was up to Mt. Qua Qua
which is halfway between St. Georges and Grenville. We took a bus and got off at Grand Etang.....where there are monkeys that climb on the fence and take candy and bananas from the tourists. Of course, they weren't around the day we were there! Our climb up Mt. Qua Qua was nice
, but hot and muddy and alot of razor grass cutting my arms!!!! 
Not the most pleasant hike we've ever done. But the views from the summit were spectacular!
Another hike was to the Seven Sisters waterfalls. Again, we took the bus to Grand Etang, no monkeys, then walked down the road to the entrance of the path to the Falls. We met up with Kenny, a machete-wielding local Grenadian
, that gave us a few tips on how to have a safe hike! It was great to be back in the jungle/rainforest with zillions of heliconia 
, bamboo trees and lizards!
We visited the bottom two of the seven sisters. 
We started to walk up the path to go further and the local guide told us it was closed. Not really sure why, maybe not enough rainfall....and rumor has it that once you go up you have to jump down the Falls to get back down! So.....we just swam a bit at the base of the waterfall then walked back the path. 
We grabbed a beer at the local shop (where the monkeys were supposed to be), then hopped back on a bus to go home.
This past Saturday we went "hashing"! Jim has been doing hashes all summer.....they have one every other weekend here in Grenada. They take you to all parts of the island and set up a course for you to follow by shredded paper
....thru the jungle
, over mountains, over streams, and then finally back to a little town to drink beer and rum! It was pouring down rain as we were waiting for a ride in downtown St. Georges, but slowly people started to show up and then a bus from the University came by to drive us to a town, Walker, to meet up with the other hashers and start the hike. There are runners and walkers....not sure how you could have run this course, but there are rules with the hashers. They set up the course, but you have to follow the shredded paper laying on the ground....but sometimes you miss seeing it and you're no longer on the course! So....you yell......R U.....and if someone is on the right course, they'll yell back....On On; but if they aren't sure, they yell....Checking; but if they find they aren't on the right course, they yell....On Back.
So.....with that, off we went. Of course at one point Jim and I were at the head of this pack of people and we missed the turn and went a little far out of the way......so someone yelled On Back...and we all turned around and headed back to the correct course. This is in a jungle, climbing under fallen trees, climbing over rocks to cross rivers, walking thru banana fields and finding fallen nutmegs! But....it's a blast and a great group of locals, ex pats, University students and a few cruisers. I received a certificate that I am no longer a Virgin hasher.....but avoided the traditional pouring of beer over your head......yeah for me! We got back to Bees Knees about 2100 that evening.....great time!
One day Jim and I decided to see the island by bus! So....we hopped on a bus to Grenville....passing Grand Etang again and guess what!!!! There was a huge monkey on the fence as we drove by!!!! No pictures, but he was pretty cute! We continued on the bus to the Rivers Rum factory, had lunch and went on a tour of the rum making process....all by manual labor! Then we hopped back on a bus to go to the nutmeg processing plant. The plant used to employ about 150 workers to keep up with the supply of nutmeg.....until Ivan destroyed the island/trees in 2004. Now they employ 8 people. They still have nutmegs being dropped off by the bag full by local farmers....they still process the nutmeg, but not the mace because they just don't have enough. Again, this is all done by manual labor! Amazing! Grenada was one of the three leading nutmeg producers in the world before Ivan.
We took the bus to Sauteurs, on the North end of the island.....walked around, had a beer, then hopped on another bus to come back home to St. George's. The road along the coast was blown out by construction crews, accidentally, so the ride home was about 3.5 hours....which normally would have been two hours! But we did get to see more of the island!
The buses are a whole story in themselves.
Jim wrote an article about them and submitted it to the magazine, Lattitudes and Attitudes, and will be published at some point. But....the Grenadian bus drivers have to be the best drivers in the world! They zoom.....never have seen a speed limit sign.....and they pass other buses and cars and trucks on these little windy roads.....just with a little beep of their horn as they round the corner to advise anyone or anything to get out of the way! The buses are vans and sometimes they have a conductor....a guy that sits in the back by the door, collects the bus fare, keeps the passengers squished together by moving people around as some get on and some get off; they spy anyone walking within a half mile that might need a bus....then the driver will either pull over or back up down the road to get the person! No one usually talks on the bus, no one says good-bye or thank you, but they occasionally greet everyone when they enter the bus by saying "good morning or afternoon". Really an excellent transportation system. You can catch a bus almost anywhere....and usually one will pass every few minutes! There is a bus station downtown St. George's....which is a trip in itself. You walk into the station, find the correct bus number that you need, hop in and wait. The bus won't leave until it's full. But we've never had to wait very long....but it does get hot until the bus starts moving! The other thing is that the fare is really fair! It varies according to the length of the trip, but from the anchorages to downtown, it's 2.50 EC....which is about 93 cents US! The most we've ever paid was 6 EC....but that was the long trip home! So....not bad, huh? It's our way of getting around the island and having a great time doing it!
So......those are the UPs of Paradise. But....it's not all fun and games! Jim and I flew in to Grenada on the evening of November 11th. Bees Knees had been docked at the Grenada Yacht Club which is in St. George's. Great location, great people and fair prices! We stayed there for a few days then headed out to anchor right outside the lagoon of St. George's, on Monday, the 15th. Another great anchorage, clear water, dinghy distance to the yacht club and the Carenage of St. George's. The day before Thanksgiving we moved around the coast to Prickly Bay, to be closer for the Thanksgiving event there. We noticed the autopilot wouldn't work. After many diagnostic tests by Jim, he deemed it to be a computer issue in the course computer.....needing to be sent back to Raymarine. So.....we decided to purchase a new autopilot and wait until we're back in the States to get this one fixed.....then have a spare that we always thought we should have anyways. So.....after a few thou....we bought the new autopilot and got that hooked up and....magic....it works again!
We bought some anchor chain over the summer and it's rusting! Jim's contacted the company in Ft. Lauderdale and they're willing to replace it, but won't ship it! So....not sure what we're going to do about that! A couple of days later, we started having some plumbing issues.....I won't go into detail.....but it involved taking out a hose and replacing it. As Jim was doing that he was crouched under the head sink and I heard some more swearing! The handle to the thru hull had torqued off! Luckily it was in the closed position......we'll deal with that later. But when Jim went to turn on his computer after dealing with those issues, his hard drive failed!!!!!! Then I found a bug in the refrigerator!!!!! I killed the bug and fed it to our pet gecko.....who ate it in five bites. Jim recovered his hard drive. This morning the plumbing is working again!!! Whooohoooo! You're just lucky I didn't take any pictures of all of this!!!!! So....we don't have much planned for the rest of our stay in Grenada!
We did take a break from our projects on board last night and went to a talk by a couple, the Lowries, on a 1935 sailing vessel, Lista Light, who are doing seabird studies in the Caribbean. They're visiting alot of the islands at different migration times and counting bird, eggs, etc. over a two year period. They're working with EPIC and I'm sure you can google that to find out more.
Our new plan is to sail to Carriacou, then the Tobago Cays and Bequia. We may shoot up to St. Croix from there, stop by St. Thomas for Jim's much deserved and needed cheap rum, the on to Culebra, Puerto Rico. We are planning, in jello, to be in Maine by the end of May.
Bye for now!
December 3, 2009
Well....time is going by fast! Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! We shared our Thanksgiving with about 50 other cruisers...not all necessarily American either! I made a dish of "sweet potatoes".....which is not the "normal" orange potato that Mom used to make with butter and brown sugar and let cook all day....but they were white, a little sweet, but I added the same butter and brown sugar! Jim made a cherry/rhubarb crumble cake for dessert. They both were pretty good, if I have to say so myself.....but there were tables of food that each cruiser/couple brought and the turkey was donated. It was held at a local restaurant, De Big Fish, which is a great place right at the base of Prickly Bay on the South Coast of Grenada. It was nice!
Jim and I have been doing alot of hiking/walking. Our first hike was up to Mt. Qua Qua
which is halfway between St. Georges and Grenville. We took a bus and got off at Grand Etang.....where there are monkeys that climb on the fence and take candy and bananas from the tourists. Of course, they weren't around the day we were there! Our climb up Mt. Qua Qua was nice, but hot and muddy and alot of razor grass cutting my arms!!!! Not the most pleasant hike we've ever done. But the views from the summit were spectacular!Another hike was to the Seven Sisters waterfalls. Again, we took the bus to Grand Etang, no monkeys, then walked down the road to the entrance of the path to the Falls. We met up with Kenny, a machete-wielding local Grenadian
, that gave us a few tips on how to have a safe hike! It was great to be back in the jungle/rainforest with zillions of heliconia , bamboo trees and lizards! We visited the bottom two of the seven sisters. We started to walk up the path to go further and the local guide told us it was closed. Not really sure why, maybe not enough rainfall....and rumor has it that once you go up you have to jump down the Falls to get back down! So.....we just swam a bit at the base of the waterfall then walked back the path. We grabbed a beer at the local shop (where the monkeys were supposed to be), then hopped back on a bus to go home.This past Saturday we went "hashing"! Jim has been doing hashes all summer.....they have one every other weekend here in Grenada. They take you to all parts of the island and set up a course for you to follow by shredded paper
....thru the jungle, over mountains, over streams, and then finally back to a little town to drink beer and rum! It was pouring down rain as we were waiting for a ride in downtown St. Georges, but slowly people started to show up and then a bus from the University came by to drive us to a town, Walker, to meet up with the other hashers and start the hike. There are runners and walkers....not sure how you could have run this course, but there are rules with the hashers. They set up the course, but you have to follow the shredded paper laying on the ground....but sometimes you miss seeing it and you're no longer on the course! So....you yell......R U.....and if someone is on the right course, they'll yell back....On On; but if they aren't sure, they yell....Checking; but if they find they aren't on the right course, they yell....On Back. So.....with that, off we went. Of course at one point Jim and I were at the head of this pack of people and we missed the turn and went a little far out of the way......so someone yelled On Back...and we all turned around and headed back to the correct course. This is in a jungle, climbing under fallen trees, climbing over rocks to cross rivers, walking thru banana fields and finding fallen nutmegs! But....it's a blast and a great group of locals, ex pats, University students and a few cruisers. I received a certificate that I am no longer a Virgin hasher.....but avoided the traditional pouring of beer over your head......yeah for me! We got back to Bees Knees about 2100 that evening.....great time!One day Jim and I decided to see the island by bus! So....we hopped on a bus to Grenville....passing Grand Etang again and guess what!!!! There was a huge monkey on the fence as we drove by!!!! No pictures, but he was pretty cute! We continued on the bus to the Rivers Rum factory, had lunch and went on a tour of the rum making process....all by manual labor! Then we hopped back on a bus to go to the nutmeg processing plant. The plant used to employ about 150 workers to keep up with the supply of nutmeg.....until Ivan destroyed the island/trees in 2004. Now they employ 8 people. They still have nutmegs being dropped off by the bag full by local farmers....they still process the nutmeg, but not the mace because they just don't have enough. Again, this is all done by manual labor! Amazing! Grenada was one of the three leading nutmeg producers in the world before Ivan.
We took the bus to Sauteurs, on the North end of the island.....walked around, had a beer, then hopped on another bus to come back home to St. George's. The road along the coast was blown out by construction crews, accidentally, so the ride home was about 3.5 hours....which normally would have been two hours! But we did get to see more of the island!
The buses are a whole story in themselves.
Jim wrote an article about them and submitted it to the magazine, Lattitudes and Attitudes, and will be published at some point. But....the Grenadian bus drivers have to be the best drivers in the world! They zoom.....never have seen a speed limit sign.....and they pass other buses and cars and trucks on these little windy roads.....just with a little beep of their horn as they round the corner to advise anyone or anything to get out of the way! The buses are vans and sometimes they have a conductor....a guy that sits in the back by the door, collects the bus fare, keeps the passengers squished together by moving people around as some get on and some get off; they spy anyone walking within a half mile that might need a bus....then the driver will either pull over or back up down the road to get the person! No one usually talks on the bus, no one says good-bye or thank you, but they occasionally greet everyone when they enter the bus by saying "good morning or afternoon". Really an excellent transportation system. You can catch a bus almost anywhere....and usually one will pass every few minutes! There is a bus station downtown St. George's....which is a trip in itself. You walk into the station, find the correct bus number that you need, hop in and wait. The bus won't leave until it's full. But we've never had to wait very long....but it does get hot until the bus starts moving! The other thing is that the fare is really fair! It varies according to the length of the trip, but from the anchorages to downtown, it's 2.50 EC....which is about 93 cents US! The most we've ever paid was 6 EC....but that was the long trip home! So....not bad, huh? It's our way of getting around the island and having a great time doing it!So......those are the UPs of Paradise. But....it's not all fun and games! Jim and I flew in to Grenada on the evening of November 11th. Bees Knees had been docked at the Grenada Yacht Club which is in St. George's. Great location, great people and fair prices! We stayed there for a few days then headed out to anchor right outside the lagoon of St. George's, on Monday, the 15th. Another great anchorage, clear water, dinghy distance to the yacht club and the Carenage of St. George's. The day before Thanksgiving we moved around the coast to Prickly Bay, to be closer for the Thanksgiving event there. We noticed the autopilot wouldn't work. After many diagnostic tests by Jim, he deemed it to be a computer issue in the course computer.....needing to be sent back to Raymarine. So.....we decided to purchase a new autopilot and wait until we're back in the States to get this one fixed.....then have a spare that we always thought we should have anyways. So.....after a few thou....we bought the new autopilot and got that hooked up and....magic....it works again!
We bought some anchor chain over the summer and it's rusting! Jim's contacted the company in Ft. Lauderdale and they're willing to replace it, but won't ship it! So....not sure what we're going to do about that! A couple of days later, we started having some plumbing issues.....I won't go into detail.....but it involved taking out a hose and replacing it. As Jim was doing that he was crouched under the head sink and I heard some more swearing! The handle to the thru hull had torqued off! Luckily it was in the closed position......we'll deal with that later. But when Jim went to turn on his computer after dealing with those issues, his hard drive failed!!!!!! Then I found a bug in the refrigerator!!!!! I killed the bug and fed it to our pet gecko.....who ate it in five bites. Jim recovered his hard drive. This morning the plumbing is working again!!! Whooohoooo! You're just lucky I didn't take any pictures of all of this!!!!! So....we don't have much planned for the rest of our stay in Grenada!
We did take a break from our projects on board last night and went to a talk by a couple, the Lowries, on a 1935 sailing vessel, Lista Light, who are doing seabird studies in the Caribbean. They're visiting alot of the islands at different migration times and counting bird, eggs, etc. over a two year period. They're working with EPIC and I'm sure you can google that to find out more.
Our new plan is to sail to Carriacou, then the Tobago Cays and Bequia. We may shoot up to St. Croix from there, stop by St. Thomas for Jim's much deserved and needed cheap rum, the on to Culebra, Puerto Rico. We are planning, in jello, to be in Maine by the end of May.
Bye for now!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!
Ah, "projects!" I would have been upset too with all of the little things that needed to be repaired but at least you have it figured out now.
Let us know if you're going to be late to Maine so we can plan our 'up north' trip.
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