St. George's - We Invade Grenada

Well we are finally here, in the capital city of Grenada. On Thursday we made the 32 mile trip here and we had to make a slight detour around Kick 'Em Jenny, an active underwater volcano that lies directly on the route between Carriacou and the mainland. It erupted in both 1988 and 1989, so they've got a maritime exclusion zone around it. We like the name -- it sure sets it apart from the multitude of volcanoes out there named "Soufriere".

Grenada has the distinction of being one of the few nations that actually welcomed a US invasion (back in 1983 we helped put down a communist regime at the Grenadian people's request. According to a local guy we met today, Ronald Reagan is considered a great man here and no one says anything bad about him. I didn't ask him if the same rule applies to George W.) Our personal invasion of the country began with a reconnaissance of the local restaurants and a full assault on the grocery store (fantastic -- just like a US grocery store!). Sorry if I am always rambling about finding groceries, but you have to see what passes for a grocery store on some of the smaller islands to fully appreciate the convenience of the superstores we have back home and being able to buy what you want when you want it.

Today (Saturday) we hit the Grenada National Museum, which was kind of a hodgepodge of natural and political history. The exhibits were not in any specific order so it was a little random. They had the marble bathtub of the Empress Josephine (Napoleon's wife who was born on the French island of Martinique -- not sure why they have that artifact in Grenada and there was no explanation on the plaque to help us figure it out). After the museum we hit the Saturday Market, which is like a farmer's market on steroids. Along with the required fruits & veggies there were locally grown spices (Grenada is known as the "Spice Island". We saw lots of Ginger, but no Sporty or Scary). There were so many stalls we got confused and kept passing the same aisle, where a lady named Theresa kept saying, "You guys back again? Jus' tell me what you lookin' for and I find it for you". So we let her "find" us some tomatoes and bought some other vegetables as well. She then offered to braid my hair and also complimented the pigment of my skin but said if I wanted to get darker I should let her fix me up with some black pepper (she sold it by the bag). If I eat enough of it, it will "blacken" me up. I took a pass on the braids and the pepper -- for now...

Where we are:
Location=St. Georges, Grenada
Lat=12 02.539
Lon=61 45.297

Tyrrel Bay - Out of Africa

For the past week, Kevin and I have been standing on African soil...and rinsing it off our decks, and wiping it off the window screens. No, we didn't take a wrong turn navigating, it's actually dust from the Sahara that makes it's way across the Atlantic to the Windward Islands just so it can land on our boat and make a mess. Other cruisers had been telling us about this phenomenon and we thought they were pulling our leg, but in our weather report yesterday the forecaster mentioned that "Visibility may be reduced by haze due to atmospheric African dust" so it appears to be true.

Today was our last day in Carriacou, tomorrow we head for mainland Grenada. We went ashore for lunch hoping to score some more pizza from the Lazy Turtle (when we were there the other night, the calzones looked pretty good too). When we walked up the place was deserted except for one lady in an apron sitting upright at a table, fast asleep. I gently woke her and asked if the kitchen was open. "Not for pizza," she said. Disappointed, I asked her what they were serving, if anything. "Burgers and salads" was the reply. We decided to pass on the burgers and instead eat sandwiches on the boat. You could see relief fill the lady's eyes when she realized she could go back to sleep!

Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou

[Kevin's Post]Well, we're still hanging out in Carriacou trying to kill time until our dockage in Grenada starts July 15. We've got about 3 weeks left and only 30 miles to go, so we can afford to just be lazy. The anchorage here has free wifi so that is an added draw. We've been having a great time catching up with all the friends we made in Luperon and elsewhere along the trip. Last night Chuck and Barb on Tusen Takk II threw a big party on their gorgeous Kadey-Krogen 48. There aren't too many cruising boats out there that can accomodate 20+ guests. But theirs can. Comfortably. Very comfortably. Everyone brought delicious hors d'œuvres, and there was quite a spread. Amanda improvised some bean burrito bites using some tortillas we picked up and they turned out quite good. The rum flowed freely last night, a little too freely, and we were both feeling it this morning.

Since we've had a bit of time on our hands, and not a whole lot to do I've been making a few improvements to the blog which you have probably noticed. The filmstrip on the right shows thumbnails of the 50 most recently uploaded photos. Some of these never appeared in the blog, so keep an eye on those. I'm in the process of converting all our videos to YouTube, and eventually they will all appear in the widget on the left. Probably the coolest thing though is the yellow track which now appears on the Google Maps inlay. This shows our route through the islands since January. The track is a pretty accurate representation of the boat's path, it is not just straight lines between the anchorages. So zoom way in and check it out.

Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou

Yesterday we arrived in Tyrrel Bay to be greeted by a whole group of other boats that we met way back in Luperon. Although we all chose different paths/speeds through the Caribbean islands, we all met up here at the same time. Funny. We got together for pizza and beers at the Lazy Turtle and had a good time catching up.

Barb and Chuck ("Tusen Takk II") arranged an island tour today, so we piled into a van along with Nick and Deanna ("Caribbean Soul"), Paul and Ginette ("Sol Magique"), and Jim and Amanda ("Adventure Bound"). Our driver Thomas took us around the island for the next three hours. By now we are used to hearing all the medicinal uses for various plants on these taxi tours, and today was no exception. Sometimes we feel like we've heard it all before already. But today we learned a new one: apparently if you suffer from asthma, you should pour coconut milk into a tall glass and then toss a small lizard in there. Leave him in there to thrash around for 10 minutes (no less!) and then rescue him. Afterwards you can drink the milk when you start having an attack -- supposedly the milk is infused with adrenaline from the lizard's struggling (it's probably got a little lizard pee in there too, for good measure). I'm not sure if you could call it a "cure" but if I had asthma I would probably will my body to stop having attacks just to avoid having to drink the nasty lizard milk concoction. Eww.

Where we are:
Location=Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou
Lat=12 27.443
Lon=61 29.121

Hillsborough, Carriacou

As of today we are cleared into Grenada, our home for the next five months. We haven't actually reached the island of Grenada yet; it's still about 30 miles away. But Carriacou (CARRY-a-koo) is part of Grenadian territory. According to our guide books, the name Carriacou is a Carib word meaning "island surrounded by reefs", but I'm pretty sure they must just be making that up because we've already been to lots of islands surrounded by reefs so why aren't they all called Carriacou?

After clearing in with customs & immigration we looked around for the supermarket. We did our last major provisioning in Puerto Rico and we're pretty much out of everything. Our guidebook says that the grocery store here is pretty well-stocked, but we must have hit them on a bad day because there wasn't much out on the shelves. I was hoping to buy some eggs but wasn't able to. Oh the store had plenty of eggs, its just that they are displayed in big flat crates with no lid and I didn't bring a container to put them in! Silly me. One thing we have always been able to find -- no matter how remote or tiny the island -- is Pringles. We rarely see any other American name brand chips, but somehow there is always at least one variety of Pringles available. Although this store didn't have any unsalted butter, cream cheese, or even sandwich bread, they still had four flavors of Pringles: Original, Sour Cream & Onion, Cheddar, and the tastier-than-it-sounds Pizzalicious.

It's pretty quiet here in Hillsborough. When clearing in at Carriacou you are required to anchor here. Most yachts check in here and then immediately head to Tyrrel Bay a few miles south of here. But we're lazy and not in much of a hurry so we'll just stay here tonight and maybe head down that way tomorrow.

Where we are:
Location=Hillsborough, Carriacou
Lat=12 29.182
Lon=61 27.470

Petit St. Vincent - Finders Keepers

The last few days were rainy and squally so we just stayed put in Union Island and barely left the boat, actually. Kevin had downloaded a bunch of old arcade games from the internet so we wasted a lot of time playing those. I keep seeing the blocks of "Tetris" falling down in front of my eyes as I try to fall asleep at night. I think that might be a sign to lay off the video games for a while.

We checked out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines this morning and for once the customs officials were not surly! It took us by surprise but the customs agents on Union Island were by far the friendliest we've encountered. The guy made a few jokes and asked us how we were enjoying our Caribbean trip. Then he gave us our clearance and didn't even charge us anything. If only all customs agents could be that nice.

We motored the five or so miles to Petit Martinique (which is actually a part of Grenada) and hit their fuel dock for some diesel, and then we motored half a mile over to Petit St. Vincent (which is still part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines) to anchor, since the holding is better here in soft sand. In fact it's so sandy that there's not much to see while snorkeling, which is why I noticed a pair of sunglasses resting on the bottom in about 8 feet of water. I dove down and when I'd rinsed them off I found out they were Ray Bans without a scratch on them. Cool -- new sunglasses!

Happy Summer Solstice!

Where we are:
Location=Petit St. Vincent, SVG
Lat=12 32.058
Lon=61 23.084

Union Island - A Quiet Week

We've been waiting all week here for two packages to be delivered -- one with two months' worth of mail, and the other with the brushes for the wind generator. As luck would have it, most boats have been stuck where they are due to gusty winds this week, so we probably would've been here a while anyway. But we paid for a week of internet access so it's been nice -- Kevin has been fussing around with the blog and we were also able to check out the news and see what's been going on in the world. By "news" I really just mean "fake news" since Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" is our go-to source for the top stories. I find the news to be a lot less depressing when they make it look ridiculous. Can't wait for the 2008 election to get into full swing!

We went into town today for lunch and to hit the produce stand and found both our packages were waiting for us. Of course winds were holding steady at 24 knots as we dinghied back to the boat (a wet ride) so its wasn't ideal conditions for trying out the new brushes on the wind generator. Also we got back just in time to prevent an escape attempt -- the laundry that I'd hung out to dry this morning was struggling to break free of the clothespin shackles. Anyway the wind has calmed down now and Kevin is happily reassembling the wind generator. It looks like the winds might let up a little at the beginning of next week so we'll check out of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and head for Grenada.

Union Island - Genset fixed!

[Kevin's Post]The genset lives. I guess we were premature in saying that it was toast. I took a look at it this morning and discovered that the main belt between the diesel engine and the generator had sheared off all its treads and was slipping. It didn't squeal like a slipping belt usually does so I didn't suspect the belt until I saw the mess of shredded rubber under the engine. It made an ungodly noise, we thought the engine was in it's final death throes for sure. Fortunately we had a spare belt, and after an hour of knuckle scraping putting it on, the genset is working fine (for now). I'm not sure what caused the belt to shred, hopefully it was just because it was old. Aren't you glad you don't have to make your own electricity?

Union -- Happy Island

A couple days ago on a whim I gave both Kevin and myself a haircut. Kevin's looks good despite the fact that we could not find the comb and had to make do with a vent brush. No matter, it still ended up looking like a reasonably fashionable hairstyle. Given that Kevin's main accessory is a baseball cap, I think he'll be fine. I was not so kind to myself, since I didn't even bother using the brush and instead just grabbed a fistful of hair as I cut straight across to make some hideous bangs. Hello??!!! What on earth was I thinking? I haven't had bangs since 1989. In retrospect, apparently I was thinking that I wanted to look like the Spaniard in The Princess Bride --- "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya...". Uh-huh, those kind of bangs. Yeah. Cool.

This afternoon we met Mary and Jon from Tabascocat at a very unique bar for happy hour. About five years ago, Janti (a local from Union Island) decided to gather up the refuse of the sea (old conch shells, old tires, etc) and with it he built a conch shell island (held together with cement, of course) just on the edge of Newlands Reef. On top of the artificial island he built "Happy Island", a bar where the drink choices are as follows: rum & coke, rum punch, or beer (if you're lucky and it's cold). We had the misfortune to arrive about three minutes after Janti, so the beer was warm, but he did have ice and he served some pretty strong rum punches and even stronger rum & cokes. We enjoyed our sundowner drinks and had a nice evening watching the sun set.

Union Island, SVG

[Kevin's Post]We left the beautiful Tobago Cays this morning after 3 nights and headed a few miles south to Union Island. The Tobago Cays are supposed to the be most popular anchorage in the Caribbean because of the beautiful water and the great snorkeling. Ironically, it looks just like the Bahamas which we left 1000 miles ago. One of the islands here was featured (pictured) in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film where Jack Sparrow was stranded after walking the plank. The whole Tobago Cays ares is a marine park and they charge $10 EC per person per day in order to keep people from staying forever.

Hurricane season officially started about 2 weeks ago, and we are just barely south of the line where our insurance requires us to be -- 12 degrees 40 minutes. We are seeing tropical waves every few days and it rains pretty much every day on us, but only for 5 minutes at a time. So every few hours we have to run around closing all the hatches and ports only to have the sun come out a few minutes later. We have ordered some parts for the wind generator that are being shipped here to Union Island as is our mail. So we'll probably be in the area for at least a week.

Where we are:
Location=Union Island, SVG
Lat=12 35.780
Lon=61 24.831

Tobago Cays

Solstice in the Tobago Cays

Tobago Cays -- Turtles

The wind picked up last night and even though the reefs kind of protect the anchorage from the waves it still was a little bit choppy. A lot of the other boats left, so now there are only 10 boats in the anchorage here. As the afternoon wore on the wind died down a little and the sea calmed down so we lowered the dinghy and went over to the beach. They have the area roped off so that boats don't anchor in the grass where the turtles feed. We snorkeled for an hour and were amazed at how close the turtles would let you get. They must be used to snorkelers by now because they basically ignored us while they munched on the grassy bottom.

We are still eating the mahi that Kevin caught off the coast of the Dominican Republic. We froze a bunch of filets and I think we are down to the last couple. Kevin is firing up the grill as I type. Yum.

Tobago Cays, SVG

You say to-bay-go, I say to-bah-go...seriously I have no idea which one is right; I've heard locals pronounce it both ways. The Tobago Cays are one of the most popular spots in the Caribbean for cruisers. They are a group of uninhabited islands that are surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped coral reef. We anchored in a sandy patch within a stone's throw of some big coral heads. Standing on the bow, we can see waves breaking on the reef just a few hundred feet away. We did a bit of snorkeling and saw a good variety of fish -- including a ray (not sure what type) that kind of followed us around for a bit, until Kevin tried to video it. As soon as the camera was rolling it swam away. The water here is really shallow, only about 8 feet deep so most of the time we swam around patches of coral that nearly skimmed the surface. Viewed from the boat, the brown patches of coral really stand out from the shallow turquoise waters.

In other news, our diesel generator has kicked the bucket. It is pushing up daisies. It has moved on to greener pastures. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-genset. Yesterday while we were running the air conditioning Kevin noticed the generator's voltage output dropping from 120 (normal) to around 100 (too low to run most appliances). So he turned the AC off and the voltage shot back up to normal. So he turned it on again and a god-awful noise started coming from the generator compartment. The diesel engine was shaking and rattling so much you could feel it throughout the boat. We are not sure what is wrong, just that the generator cannot handle any kind of load. So no more air conditioning or washing machine or even charging the batteries. Sigh. The AC and washer/dryer are luxuries, but not being able to charge up the batteries is the real problem since our wind generator isn't working either. So the batteries only get charged when the sun is out or we are motoring between islands. We've been having a few cloudy days here and there so I am crossing my fingers for more sun.

Where we are:
Location=Tobago Cays, SVG
Lat=12 37.741
Lon=61 21.345

Bequia - Dive Adventure

We've been quite the social butterflies the past week. Seems almost every night we have had people over to our boat for dinner or happy hour, or have met someone ashore for dinner and drinks, or have gone to someone else's boat. Last night our friend Mary made a fantastic lasagna and we joined up with Dave & Sue on Pirates Hideout to spend the evening on Mary & Jon's boat, Tabascocat. We had a fantastic time with those two couples and since we're all stuck here until the weather lets up (it's been blowing hard and outside the harbor the waves are pretty rough) we'll probably all get together again sometime this week.

We did a two tank dive this morning. Most of the dive sites in Bequia are too far to get to by dinghy so we made the decision to go with a dive shop that had been recommended to us. Laury from Bequia Dive Adventures arrived right on time to pick us up at the boat. Judging from the waves crashing on the rocks along the shore as we pulled up to the dive site, we're glad we didn't attempt it in the dinghy -- conditions were too rough even for the Beast. The first dive, called the Boulders, was really cool. There was so much going on I didn't know where to look. It's the kind of dive you wish you could do three or four times in a row, so you can spend time hovering and watching the minute details of the sea life. The second dive was a drift dive which is where the boat drops you off in one place and then the current propels you forward and the boat picks you up downstream at the end of the dive. It was kind of cool to just be pushed along by Mother Nature (kind of like being on an undersea people mover) but it was a little hard to maintain control and I kept bumping into Kevin's fins and getting kicked in the head! So it took me the better part of the dive just to learn how to slow myself down. But once I did I was able to take some photos (I was carrying the camera for the first time ever) and I also managed to snap the rare photo of Kevin in his scuba gear.

Bequia turtle sanctuary

Baby turtles at the Bequia turtle sanctuary

posted by SSB

Bequia - Turtle Sanctuary

"Pirates Hideout" and "Tabascocat" had arranged an island taxi tour and were kind enough to invite us along. Bequia is not that big, only seven square miles, and our driver Gideon said that the tour would take no more than three hours. Our first stop was the Hamilton Battery. "Battery" is just a fancy way of saying "fort" and you know how we feel about forts. But there were great views of the harbor and we snapped some good photos of all the boats at anchor. Other stops included an old sugar mill that has been turned into a pottery studio/art gallery, a hip beach bar called Moskito (the seats at the bar are all wooden swing chairs hanging from the ceiling), and a walk along the beach near the tiny, tiny airport. The runway is so short that they had to put the landing lights out in the water on tall telephone poles.

Our favorite stop was the Old Hegg Turtle Sanctuary. It's run by a retired fisherman whose life's mission is to rescue the endangered Hawksbill turtle from extinction. The hawksbills lay their eggs on a nearby beach and when they hatch he brings some of the babies to the sanctuary where they spend the first four years of their life safe from fisherman and predators. Once they are big enough to fend for themselves, he releases them. The sanctuary itself is kind of a big barn with several large pools of turtles grouped by age (there was even a bowl containing an itty-bitty baby that was only 3 weeks old. So cute!). There were about 200 turtles in all, including an eleven-year-old (they can live to more than 100 years old) that the owner keeps as a pet. She loves to have her back scratched and when I reached down to pet her she was so happy that she started splashing her flippers against the side of the pool. We really enjoyed the place. Considering that turtles are overfished and many are killed before they reach breeding age (25 years old) it is inspiring that one guy is doing what he can to make a difference. (Any animal lovers should stop reading here.)

On the other side of the spectrum is the whaling station. A handful of Caribbean islands still allow whaling in their waters and Bequia is one of them. However they are allowed to take only four per year during the months of February to April. This year they only got one, a humpback. The interesting thing is that they hunt the whales traditionally, in small open sailboats with harpoons thrown by hand. When they have the whale they tow it behind their boats back to the whaling station, where they process it for use by the islanders. We didn't tour the whaling station because it is located on a small cay only accessible by boat. Gideon's father used to go on the whaling trips so he was very informative about it.

Bequia - Mexican Standoff

Walk down the aisles of any grocery store in the States and you will find tortillas. Maybe they'll be by the bread or in the ethnic foods section; you might have to look hard but you'll find them. But the last 3 or 4 countries we've been through seem to never have heard of tortillas. I thought we had plenty in the freezer so on impulse I invited two other couples over to the boat for enchiladas without double-checking. Lesson 1: always check the inventory. Lesson 2: you can't make enchiladas without tortillas. But apparently you CAN make tortillas, according to my standby cookbook "How to Cook Everything". You don't even need a fancy machine like they have at Chevy's (although it helps). Of course the main ingredient is lard (didn't have any of that on board) and it is helpful to have a rolling pin to make them nice and thin (didn't have one of those either), and it's also time-consuming (you can only make them one at a time if you haven't got a big griddle) but they turned out somewhat resembling tortillas. Actually they were more like large round crackers. Ole!

The next step was to acquire some fresh veggies for the enchilada sauce. Bequia has a local farmer's market so we headed there to load up. We walked in and were immediately accosted by the absolute pushiest vendors we've ever seen anywhere. I started to buy things from the least pushy lady but while I was talking to her I was just surrounded by guys trying to get me to buy pineapples, mangoes, passionfruit and everything except the ingredients I needed for enchiladas. Not sure how it happened but somehow Kevin and I got separated (we were the ONLY customers in the marketplace with a dozen vendors working us both over). I look up and I see that Kevin is trying to make his way back to me but a really persistent man won't let him through. Kevin got pretty angry and I honestly thought it was going to come to blows as Kevin kept forcefully saying "I'm just trying to get back to my wife!". They were relentless, but we managed to get everything we needed. So all the ingredients came together and the meal turned out well. We spent a nice evening with the two couples from the other Mantas ("Pirates Hideout" and "Tabascocat").