A Bit a Dis, a Bit a Dat

Current Location: Clarkes Court Marina, Grenada

We've been back here now for around three weeks. I keep meaning to write something and then the moment passes.

The hurricane we were all worrying about eventually decided to bypass Grenada but as you will have heard Matthew certainly did not bypass Haiti and surrounding countries. One of the worst hurricanes for ten years and there are still emergency boats going up island taking supplies of sails, ropes, canned food and water to Haiti.

Anyway, back to my flight out. Gilly, you will remember had already flown out. Here's what I wrote to Gilly at 3am in Port of Spain, Trinidad's departure lounge.

I am currently the ONLY person in the departures lounge at Port of Spain!

So, I woke up at 5.15am to find that my phone was flashing. one message, from WestJet. Ah, that'll be my flight confirmation. Is it hell - it's only a cancellation!!! Wake up very quickly. Creep into Hugh and Linda's study and ring WestJet. No reply. Try again - I'm through. Just getting ready to crap on 'em when they tell me they have booked me on the 10am BA flight via St Lucia. Wake up H and L, confirm they can take me to Gatwick three and a half hours earlier than planned, slurp down a cup of tea, have a shower and off we go. As it happens we are there in plenty of time.

Uneventful flight (no upgrade - boo) and we arrive in Trini at 4pm. It then takes me two hours to go out through Immigration and Customs and back through customs after I have checked in for my Caribbean Airlines flight. Not least because they gave me a boarding pass for a different person and a different flight [I almost arrived this evening at 9pm as Mr Broomfield]!

Also, as usual, my debit card has refused to give me any local currency so I am going to VERY hungry by the time I get to P (or CD?) tomorrow.

Since our arrival much of the time has been spent chipping, grinding and painting. This does not make for interesting blogging so here's what we've been up to in between.

Yoga at the university is a regular Monday outing with Jack and Fizzy, followed up by beers and pizza at our favourite Port Louis restaurant.

Yoga at St Georges University

I had to slip in a couple of 'work' pictures. Here is our Cuban welder, Carlos, preparing a small rusted area for a new piece of steel. Carlos spends most of his life in Grenada earning money to support his family back in Cuba. His English is pretty good and we had a good laugh with him. Like many Cubans he is extremely well educated. He trained as a vet specialising in cow pregnancies. But opportunities once qualified are few so he had done a bit of welding with his dad as he grew up in Cuba and came over here to practice his trade. A very good welder he is too.

Welding up the hole in the cockpit

VERY, VERY hot below. On fire watch as the welding is completed.

On the next boat to us are Hazel (UK) and Jeff (USA). Hazel bought this pretty boat, a Sweden 37, in Florida. The idea was to sail it back to the UK. Somehow they started cruising down the islands and won't be returning across the Atlantic for at least another year or two. Amazingly they met Wendy Scott-Jupp our friend from Christchurch UK, at a hash in the new forest during the summer.

Our neighbours across the garden fence. Hazel and Jeff on Susimi.

And then we were off on another hash of our own (Google Grenada hash for more info). This was a special on a boat. We left The Carenage in St Georges at 2.30pm with 250 hashers aboard. Southwest to BBC Beach (why?) and then a steep climb up into the hills, along the ridge, down to the coast and back to the boat along the beach. Everything got a bit messy after that with large quantities of alcohol being consumed, dancing on the lower deck and peace and tranquillity on the upper deck. A great day out.

The view back to St Georges the capital of Grenada

Some of the greatest dreads on the island!

Pre-messiness

Messy

Wife, happy to be back on the water

Annoying boat (it turned 20 seconds before passing in front of the setting sun)!

Next day we were invited to a party on the beach with local friends. This turned out to be a fine outing. One of the highlights was the sound system consisting of two car batteries, a solar panel (not connected to anything even though there was a solar controller installed), random pieces of wire and three very large speakers. The batteries lasted for about 3 hours before slowly reducing in volume until the rain started and we all went home.

Very important job. Sorting out the sound system.

Cultural exchange. 13 year old cruising kid Lily feeding 16 day old baby whilst Mum supervises.

 Meanwhile the dinghy started leaking....twice. Donal the local Irish dinghy fixer fixed it the first time but it has just gone down again so we are waiting for him to reappear with 'options to move forward'.

More dinghy problems. Still not fixed.

Today was Thanksgiving Day in Grenada. Why? Nobody seems to know but it is a national holiday anyhow. Across the water outside the famous Taffy's Bar the local children had their regatta and fun day. Great entertainment. We still can't understand the broad Grenadian patois but there were traditional boat races, beer drinking contests for the older participants and swimming competitions. But best of all was the Breathtaking Contest for under 12s. This consisted of a marshall counting 1, 2, 3 Go. On Go each contestant took a deep breath and ducked under the water. The winner was the last one to surface and boy did they want to win. Fantastic entertainment for the spectators. We briefly ventured into the rum shack set up for the event to see if we could get a fizzy water for Gilly to drink. All they sold was rum and weed! The air was heavy with the pungent smell of marijuana.

Thanksgiving Day. Regatta and party for local Grenadians.

Wow. See what a hard life this all is!

Tomorrow will be an interesting day too. We have decided to sell Petronella (if we can out here) and buy another boat on which to continue our travels westwards. You can see P's advert here. If you know anyone who might be interested in her do let me know!! We looked at a Stevens 47 last week and tomorrow it's a Hylas 47. A bigger, more complex boat than Petronella but with more comfort as we look towards the future. Here's a link to this one. We're in no hurry though. We'll just see what develops.


Oh, I forgot Trafalgar Day. There are quite a few ex naval types here both living ashore and on boats. Last night we were invited by some of them to celebrate Nelson's famous victory over the dastardly Frogs. Most of the other guests seemed to be millionaires living in smart houses along the south coast here but after a few beers, and compulsory rum, everyone got on just great. The head of Grenada's coastguard was there (in fact the evening was hosted by Jean, the widow of Jim and the guy who originally set up the coastguard here). Also in attendance a former Harrier Jump Jet squadron leader from the Falklands, several retired businessmen and Wally, the local glass bottomed boat owner who married a rich English girl following a brief affair after she came out for a holiday!

What else? We went to a salsa dancing lesson. Well,I say we went for a lesson. Gill and Fizzy had a lesson. Jack and I just watched and admired the sinuous and youthful scenery. A couple of musical evenings too. Jack is becoming an accepted member of the scene here along with Country Dave and his friends. Robin, on a catamaran here accompanied us in the bus to Secret Harbour along with Dave and Alicia who are helping Robin under the Workaway scheme. In fact David happens to be founder of Workaway which puts hosts and volunteers in contact with each other. They are working on Robin's boat in exchange for food and a sail once he launches. There are over 200,000 members of Workaway now at $20US per person. Nice work if you can get it! For those of you that remember Computex, my home exchange site, this could have been me if I could just have kept it going for another year or two.

Right, I've spent the last two hours writing this for you whilst sitting next to the marina office being bitten to death by mosquitoes. I hope you appreciate this devotion to duty.

Good night.

John