Week up to 52;Oct. 20–Nov 4 Some how we’ve gotten off on our week count over the last year. We must be up to week 52 because Nov 4 is the one year anniversary of leaving the dock in Oriental, NC. In the last year we’ve put 3,302 miles on the trip meter on the GPS, set foot in 11 different countries, anchored off of 4 other countries, used 5 different monetary currencies, and tried many fruits and vegetables we’d never even heard of before. Opus is still running well and looks great in her new coat of blue bottom paint. We’re all in good health, probably better than when we left. It’s still fun, so we may as well keep going.
One of the highlights of the last couple of weeks was attending Sim’s & Rosie’s wedding. They had a beautiful outdoor ceremony overlooking True Blue Bay here in Grenada. We’ve been traveling with Sim & Rosie for almost 6 months now and they feel like part of our family. It was fun to finally meet their real families from England.
After being here for over 3 months, we did the tourist thing and took and island tour of Grenada. Our guide, Cutty, told us about the country, the people, the politics and the fruits, vegetables and spices that grow here. Cutty is the same guy who sponsored the Oildown we went to a couple of months ago. He’s very proud of his country and enjoys sharing his knowledge. Some of the places we saw were Concord Falls, a spice plantation, a rum distillery, Grand Etang Lake and the Mona monkeys. Grenada used to be the 2nd largest producer of nutmeg in the world. Hurricane Ivan destroyed most of the nutmeg trees in 2004 and it will take another 10-15 years to get back to peak production again. As we traveled around the island, Cutty pointed out several projects that were sponsored by other countries. Sounds generous, but they were really bribes to buy Grenada’s votes in the United Nations on particular issues. (one country, one vote)
We’ve moved the boat a few times since our last update. After leaving Port Louis Marina, we went to True Blue Bay for easy access to Sim’s & Rosie’s wedding. Jim took Sim, his brother Dan and nephew Ben out sailing and fishing one day. No fish, but they had a good guys day out. We returned to Prickly Bay and then had the boat hauled out of the water for 5 days to paint the bottom and have some new nuts made for the propeller. The propeller has been held on by a jerry rigged fix of hose and hose clamps since George Town. We didn’t want to push our luck on that forever.
An update on friends: Rambunctious, with Kitty, Rob, Olivia & Sophia, left to head North. We’ll really miss them. Moon Dancer with Nell & Phil, who had already headed north, surprised us and returned to Grenada for a boat repair. We had more time to visit with them and Jennifer had a wonderful weekend sleepover on Moon Dancer (shopping, baking, bracelets, movies and more). Thanks Nell & Phil. Our friends Greg & Carol on Dutch Dreamer who have been struggling with boat repairs for the last month or two are looking relaxed and happy again. Greg got their engine and generator running smoothly again. Way to go Greg, all that patience and persistence paid off.
Week 47-48;Oct 5–Oct 19 Still in Grenada and still having fun. The last couple weeks Jennifer has had the most interesting activities so we’ll tell you about those.
Jennifer wasn’t invited to Rosie’s bachelorette party, so she decided to have her own party for Rosie. It was at a local bakery where they had stuffed chocolate croissants after a lunch of panninis. Jennifer and Rosie share a love for “pain de chocolate” and the stuffed croissants were as close as we could get to that here. While walking off their lunch, Jennifer, Rosie and Linda spotted a warehouse with a bright red sign that said “Clearance Sale”! They stopped and shopped and found a bunch of bargains. It was a good girls day out.
Jennifer had another special day out with her new friend Nell from Moon Dancer. They went to Annandale Falls where they swam in the fresh water pool at the base of the falls and even swam under the falls. Another stop was Grand Etang Lake, a beautiful crater lake in the middle of the island. The highlight of the trip for Jennifer was seeing the Mona monkeys. Nell was prepared with plenty of bananas to get their attention and it worked. The monkeys came out and climbed on both Jennifer and Nell and took bananas right out of their pockets.
Jennifer is still attending the steel pan drum lessons. They continue to drill on the C, F and B flat major scales and the chromatic scales. During a couple of the lessons Linda watched a local guy start to turn 2 rusty 55 gallon drums into a set of “double seconds”, the kind of drums Jennifer is learning to play. In Grenada, they still make the pan drums by hand. It’s quite a labor intensive art. The guy made it look so simple, but there was a lot of muscle and control that went into beating out the initial concave shape.
We left Prickly Bay, the anchorage where we’ve been for the last 2 months, to go back to Port Louis Marina for a few days. Jim used the time at the dock to do a lot of varnish work. (It really looks nice.) Jennifer got an art lesson from Becky on Altair and spent a lot of time in the pool with her friends. We all enjoyed spending time with our friends on Dutch Dreamer again. They’ve had some engine trouble, but Greg’s got things just about worked out now.