“Life is meant to be lived and curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”  -Eleanor Roosevelt

Once Carnival was over, we hightailed it out of Hillsborough.  The anchorage was certainly convenient to town, but it was rolly and uncomfortable in the swell.  We moved to a storybook spit of land called Sandy Island, a picturesque crescent moon of sand and low trees and bushes.  We moored in the curve of the island and swam ashore to enjoy the pristine beach.  It was a quiet reprieve after the insanity of Carnival but a new adventure awaited us!

When we moved the boat from Hillsborough to Sandy Island, our spare gas jerry jug fell off the back of our boat.  Patronus runs on diesel, but our dinghy engine uses gas.  Without our spare jug, we only had what was in the dinghy tank, which, of course, was not much.  Chris took the dinghy out to try to find it in the giant harbor, but it was gone.  We felt nervous and unsettled about where we might be able to buy a new jug and get it filled.  This is the Caribbean, so you can’t just hop in your SUV and drive six seconds to the nearest Mobil.  Without a dinghy, we lose our connection to the land.  It wasn’t an emergency, because of course we could row, but we wanted to get it dealt with as soon as possible, and that wasn’t going to happen on deserted Sandy Island!

That night, we enjoyed the starry night and looked around as several other boats came to rest in the peaceful cove.  The kids presented their monthly book reports after dinner.  After checking on our position, Chris thought that one of the boats had moved.  We let another half hour go by and we both thought it had moved a little more.  We tried hailing him on the radio, but no one answered.  The waves and the wind had kicked up and we found ourselves in quite a quandary.

 

 

 

Do we lower our dinghy down (it is raised up on halyards at night to keep the bottom clean and deter theft), drive around in the dark, with a few last drops of gas left, and go over to the drifting boat to warn them that they are dragging?  Or was that just too risky to ourselves?  The boating community runs what used to be called “gentleman’s rules” (I don’t think there’s a new name yet, but I can’t abide by such terminology).  There is a bond between boaters that makes us compelled to help one another in trouble and drink together when we’re not.  Well, and also to drink together when the trouble is over.  We had “saved” a few butts already on our journey and we were surprised that we met with rudeness and  ingratitude each time.  I told Chris that the boat owners we had helped were probably embarrassed and it just came across as iciness.  But now we found ourselves wondering if it was worth sticking our necks out yet again.

We decided the risk to ourselves was too great and went down below to try hailing the boat again on the VHF.  No answer.  Thirty minutes later, we gave in and launched the dinghy.  Sandy Island is surrounded by jagged coral reefs and we didn’t want to know that we had an opportunity to help someone and didn’t, especially if the boat ended up broken up on the reef by morning.  I gave Chris a life jacket, the handheld VHF, two flashlights, and the keys to the dinghy.  I was so nervous watching him disappear in the darkness in heavy winds and rough seas.  He came back 15 minutes later and didn’t look happy.

He had driven out to find the boat and pulled up alongside.  He yelled at the top of his lungs to get the captain’s attention over the howling wind.  When the captain came up top, he looked at Chris with distrust and Chris had to shout to explain to him that his anchor had dragged.  The captain looked around and yelled to Chris, “I’ve been here the whole night.  I haven’t moved.”  Then he turned away.  This boat had been next to us all day and was now far back behind the mooring field.  Chris had to give up and come back.  He wasn’t happy that he had wasted the precious little gas we had left.

But lo and behold, by the time we got the dinghy raised up alongside Patronus and everything put away, we looked out into the darkness and saw the dragging boat.  He had turned on his engines and running lights, pulled up his anchor, and was leaving the harbor.  We had no idea where he thought he was going to go in the middle of the night, but we were happy that he had gotten his bearings and realized he had dragged.  I’m not sure what the lesson was there, but we do know that despite the fact that no one we have “helped” has said “Thank You”, we will continue to help our fellow boaters.  When things go wrong on the sea, they can go really, really wrong.  We see it as our responsibility to help others if we are able and have been the grateful recipients of this kind of help ourselves.

The next morning, we waved farewell to Anything Goes.  They were heading back to Grenada so that Maggie could take her proctored math exams, which had been set up at the college there.  We planned to meet up with them in the Grenadines in a few days.  After snorkeling, kayaking, and enjoying this pretty island, we headed around the corner to the popular Tyrell Bay, which was filled with cruisers and permanent liveaboards.  We got some laundry done and I continued a two day cleaning spree on the boat.  Chris set out to get a new jerry jug and gas and returned three hours later after taking a bus all the way back to Hillsborough.  We laughed thinking about trying to take a jerry jug full of gasoline on a bus in the US!  We had a great dinner out at a local restaurant, and met some great people.

The next day was perfect for a hike of the area, including a trek up to the Chapeau Carre peak.  It ended up being much longer than we had anticipated and crankiness abounded.  I wonder how long it will take us to realize that our kids really don’t like hiking?

 

We changed the general attitude by making a game out of finding a restaurant for lunch.  We had heard about a cool place called Off the Hook, which was on Paradise Beach.  We used our honed navigational skills to find it: walk down hill till you see sand.  Here’s what we found:

1. They didn’t actually have fish (did you notice the name of the place?!)

2. The beach was beautiful.

3. It was the longest lunch in the history of midday meals.

4. The bathroom was an actual outhouse with no running water.

On the way back to Tyrell Bay, we stopped at a bakery for fresh bread and walked down the street to buy produce from the local street vendors.  Avocados are still out of season, but I keep asking anyway.  You never know.

One of the boat boys in the harbor offered to give us a tour of the island, so we set it up for the next morning.  Simon picked us up in his Suzuki Samurai.  It was a tight fit to say the least.  Before we left the parking lot, Simon bought a bag of conch from a fisherman and threw it in the back of the Suzuki for dinner that night.  It stayed there.  ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  I laughed, remembering how I used to literally run into the house with my bag of perishables first when returning from the supermarket, practically throwing the food into the fridge lest it had gone bad in the 1.5 mile drive home from Stop and Shop.

Simon drove us around while telling us a little about the island and a lot about the upcoming elections.  Simon and Assassin (from Grenada) were on opposite sides of the fence, so it was fascinating to hear their different points of view.  Knowing nothing of Grenadian politics, we listened more than talked.  We did ask enough questions to clear up the whole Grenada-Cuba thing.  Apparently, it wasn’t at all the way it was presented to us in the US.  But since I have less than zero interest in talking about politics, I will not go into it here.  Suffice it to say that Grenadians we met say they were very happy to have the United States come and do whatever it is they did, and still hold Ronald Reagan and all US presidents in high esteem.

Simon brought us to the Customs and Immigration Office so we could check out of Grenada (we planned on leaving for St. Vincent and the Grenadines the next day).  I have mentioned before that we have had a surprisingly easy time with checking in and out of countries on our trip.  When doing research for our trip, we had read horror stories about corrupt officers who charge extra fees and pocket it.  We had also heard about officers searching boats and imposing fines if you don’t show them the respect they expected.

We were starting to wonder if this type of experience was found only in the southern and western Caribbean.  Nope.  Alive and kicking in Carriacou.  The officers did not charge bogus fees as far as I could tell, but they were slow and nasty.  They didn’t look up from their papers and took as much time as they possibly could to do every transaction.  I stood there and started to fume inside while waiting my turn.  The officer was making a passport for someone.  From scratch, apparently.  He was cutting out the pictures, gluing them onto various pieces of paper, wiping off the excess glue, blowing on the glue, stapling the papers together, checking off some boxes on the papers, and I have no idea what else.  The kicker was that the man getting the passport had left and said he would come back tomorrow for it.  Argh.

We finally got on our way and stopped in Windward to visit the shipbuilder.  How cool is the name of that town?  I would like to live in a town called Windward someday.  The man we met had been building ships on Carriacou for his whole life.  This one was beautiful and we were invited to climb onboard to check it out.

 

 

I loved seeing the cracks in the wood planks, which were being filled with braided cord and caulked shut.  I find this aspect of making a boat waterproof absolutely enchanting.

 

 

As a bonus, the ship was being built on the first bona fide black sand beach we had encountered all year.  Lots of islands had boasted “black sand beaches” but most were just beaches with sand that seemed dirty.  This beach was breathtaking.  The sand was jet black and super fine with flecks of silver and gold shining in the sunlight.  I searched around for a baggie so I could take home a sample for our sand collection.  I finally found one.  It was stuck into a tree stump and had some dead flowers in it.  “That’s weird,” I thought. (Anyone out there as naïve as I am?)  I picked it up and was about to dump the flowers out when Chris yelled at me to stop.  Apparently, I was about to wreck someone’s afternoon “chill out” time!

We continued on our tour, visiting the airport and the ruins of an old lime factory (the fruit, not the stone).  We stopped again to visit the produce ladies and headed off to the boat to make conch fritters and conch chowder from all the lambi Chris had caught back in Grenada.  I bribed everyone into helping me finish cleaning the boat by promising to make Doughnut Muffins the next morning for breakfast.  It worked.  Thanks to Wendy for her recipe!  Feel free to try it if you have dishes that need washing and some spare kids to do the work…

 

 

Doughnut Muffins

Made on 2/16/13

Reese: “Super Duper Awesome Cool!  I want them for my birthday breakfast!”

 

 

 

For Batter:

¼ C butter

¼ C vegetable oil

½ C sugar

1/3 C brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 ½ t baking powder

¼ t baking soda

1 – 1 ¼ t ground nutmeg, to taste

¾ t salt

1 t vanilla

2 2/3 C flour

1 C milk

For Topping:

3 T melted butter

3 T cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, oil, and sugars till smooth.  Add eggs, beating to combine.  Stir in baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla.  Stir in the flour, alternating with milk.  Begin and end with the flour.  Spoon batter into greased muffin pan, filling the cups nearly full.  Bake 15-17 minutes.  Cool a few minutes, then dip each muffin in the melted butter and then into the cinnamon sugar.

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”- Oliver Wendel Holmes

 

February 9, 2013

Today, we have begun to sail north.  North.  Away from the Equator.  Away from South America.  Towards home.  Home is still a long way off, but philosophically, this turn is a game-changer.  We are no longer sailing away into the sea.  We are on our way back.  What a difference it has made in our mindsets.  Grenada was our southernmost destination.  We accomplished what we set out to do.  But it was symbolic and big to turn around, even with the many fascinating ports that lay ahead of us.

CARNIVAL!!!!!

Our next port of call was Carriacou, an island just north of Grenada that is part of that country.  Carnival season had been in full swing since we were in Dominica, but now it was time for the real Carnival celebrations and we had timed our itinerary to land in one of the few places that celebrate Carnival in April (Dominica, Carriacou, and Trinidad).  Other countries celebrate in August.

We pulled into the unprotected harbor of Hillsborough but Chris was feeling sick.  He had a fatigue that hit him like a ton of bricks and he couldn’t move for three days.  He would attempt to get up and eat something, but would only manage to drink a cup of tea and then collapse back in bed.  It was awful to watch him feel so sick and Chris missed the entire Carnival celebration.

Wendy and I went into town when we arrived in order to scope out the scene.  The town appeared to be a bit rougher than many of the islands we had visited.  The stores were a little on the down and out and the people didn’t strike us as open and welcoming at first.  The town was clearly getting ready for Carnival.  Every store had piles of giant speakers outside their doors.  Some had as many as nine speakers on each side of the road.  Wendy and I tried to look cool, but it was all we could do to not put our hands over our ears like a couple of old fogies.  The sound literally pushed against us as we walked by the speakers.  You know that Bose advertisement, with the guy sitting in front of his stereo, listening to the music as the sound pushes his hair backwards?  It was like that.

 

I don’t know why we were surprised, but we couldn’t find anyone or any signs to tell us what the schedule was for Carnival.  We knew it incorporated three days of various events, but we needed to know the times and locations and all that.  As our friend Dave says, “This is not possible.”  Most people gave vague answers, like “The jouvert starts at around 5am and then the parade starts.  Just follow the music and you’ll find it.”  FYI, the jouvert started in the middle of the night, after the Calypso contest ended.  And the parade didn’t start until 5pm the next day.  This kind of thing went on all three days.  We finally just started listening from our boats for the music to get louder and we would head in an hour after that.

Here are a few things we learned about Carnival, aside from the fact that having six children very much decreases your chances of getting into trouble:

 

Jouvert: also known as Jab Jab.  This is a party that starts early in the morning.  Everyone comes out in all kinds of outfits, from torn up clothing to creepy costumes.  Everyone covers themselves in paint from head to toe while dancing, singing, and drinking.  By the time we arrived, at the late hour of 7:45 am, there were as many people passed out on the ground as still standing.  It was quite a scene.  The drinking was a little over the top.  Many people had not gone home after the calypso contest the night before and were three sheets to the wind, as we sailors like to say.

One group of men, covered in tar-like shiny black paint were dressed in costumes that were scary and quite, um, provocative.  At one point, one of them came up to us (you know, our group of 6 children and 4 parents).  He was thrusting his hips at us and laughing .  When I looked down, he had a giant, fake “addition” sticking out of his fly.  Not wanting them to see, I turned to the kids and spun them around quicker than Vanna White with her letter tiles.  Cheeky Kate looked up at Craig and said, “I already saw it.”  We still laugh over that whole scene.  So Jab Jab = drinking, loud music, paint, and inappropriate costumes.  All before 7:30 in the morning.

 

Next time I’m marching with them!

Parade: We went back to the boats once we realized that Jab Jab was too much for the kids.  We weren’t sure when the parade started, but we didn’t want to miss it.  We had lunch and kept our eyes on the town, but it seemed pretty quiet.  Apparently, everyone had gone home to rest (pass out).  We went in at around 1pm and walked around, looking for a good spot to watch the parade.  We checked out some of the stores, spoke to a restaurant owner about how to make Oil Down (the national dish) and finally found a nice, shady spot at the turn in the road.

We saw children milling about in their parade costumes and, at a roadside food stand, we met a few women in full costume, complete with glitter, sparkles, and max. cleavage.  I totally wanted to be one of them.  We waited and waited and waited some more.  The kids were very patient and created a game using bottle caps that they found on the street.  I ignored the fact that we didn’t have access to soap and water for the next three hours and pretended that they wouldn’t be putting their hands in their mouths at any point.  See how much I’ve grown?  Finally the parade arrived.  Band after band of people marched by in all kinds of colorful costumes.  The music was great and everyone was happy and dancing in the streets.

We met a great family from Australia, on a boat called s/v Moana Roa.  They had just moved on their boat a few weeks earlier, so we had a great conversation with them about getting used to life on board and especially about those first tough weeks of boatschooling.  Their kids jumped in on the bottle cap game.  Apparently, it hasn’t taken them long to figure out how to make friends as a “cruising kid”.

Shakespeare Mas: This was perhaps my favorite part of Carnival.  All year long, the men of the island practice reciting Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.  At Shakespeare Mas, they dress up in colorful costumes with a stiff, protective cape.  They pair off in the middle of the street and begin to recite the play, each taking a part.  If someone misses a line, he gets beaten with sticks on the back of his “protective” cape.  I’m not sure who came up with this cute little game, but it was fun to watch.  The men played their parts with passion and gusto.  They took their beatings with pride, and when each pair finished, there was laughter, smiles and hugging between the two. (The children of the town had their own Shakespeare Mas, minus the beatings.  I didn’t make it over to watch them as I was enthralled by the grown-up version, but the others said it was very cute.)

Again, I will let the pictures do the talking.  If you are as fascinated by the joy and culture of Carnival as we were, I hope you will visit the website of s/v Anything Goes and check out Wendy’s story and pictures from Carnival (click on the Threekidsandaboat link in the left margin of our website).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Tour of Grenada Continues…

We drove through the country, listening to Assassin’s descriptions of the various areas while he filled us in on the details of the upcoming elections.  There are two major political parties in Grenada. This was not hard to remember, as signs, banners, and tshirts were everywhere you looked.  It seemed to us that many people were very politically active and that certain villages preferred one party over the other.

We arrived at the Concord waterfall, which was tall and had a delightful pool beneath it.  There were several craft stands along the road, so we had to use our duck, confuse, distract, and avert techniques to get past all the men trying to get us to buy their shell jewelry.  Once at the entrance to the waterfall, we needed to pay an entrance fee and walk through a gift shop to get there.  This was a far cry from the natural beauty and remote nature of Dominica.  We had hiked for an hour in the wilderness in Dominica to get to a waterfall.  Once there, we felt like the only people in the world, and it could have been the year 1589.  Here, our bus pulled up right along side it and the focus was on making money as opposed to communing with nature.  Apparently, I’m not quite over Dominica yet, because what kind of person complains about a waterfall?

 

We ignored all of that and enjoyed the view.  All the daring ones in our group jumped off the high ledge into the water.  I enjoyed swimming behind the waterfall and getting that fullness of air in my lungs.

 

We had the place to ourselves right up until the end, which was wonderful.  After we changed, we had to walk past the vendors again.  The men making jewelry and sculptures were all very nice, but it is just not possible to buy something from everyone, and it still makes me feel uncomfortable to have to say “No, thank you” several times while they make their best attempt to persuade me.  Luckily, many of them are simply very nice people, and when I stay open to making a connection, I am usually rewarded with a smile, a great conversation, or even just a moment where our eyes meet and that twinkle tells me that we really see each other.

 

We were ALL looking forward to our next destination: the Belmont Estate.  You are going to pretty much hate us for this, because ALL they do at Belmont is make chocolate!!!  We headed straight to the restaurant for lunch and were treated to a lovely Grenadian buffet lunch.  The outdoor covered seating area was breezy and comfortable with beautiful views of the surrounding hillsides.  The food was wonderful, but the chocolate cake for dessert was amazing!

We walked around the building to start our tour and were handed sample cups of hot chocolate.  Yum!  A table was set up with fruits and vegetables commonly grown in Grenada.  We felt very local checking out the table and seeing that we knew almost all of the tropical produce and had cooked and eaten most of it.

Our tour guide was a sweet young woman who showed us around the estate and walked us through the process of turning cacao into chocolate.  I found myself wondering over and over again how in the world the ancient peoples figured out how to do this.  There are so many steps, and if you skip even one, you would not have an edible product at the end, much less one of the tastiest ones the world knows.  I have often wondered this same thing about wine-making, beer-making, and flour, amongst others.  It’s no wonder one of the shows I find most fascinating is “How It’s Made”!

Drying platforms slide under the building when it rains.

The cacao processing starts off with a malodorous step that surely should have stopped any long ago inventor in his or her tracks.  The cacao beans are put in covered bins and allowed to ferment.  The smell is horrific.  After weeks of being turned and mixed, the beans are taken out and laid on platforms to dry.  Here’s the thing.  Grenada is a lush Caribbean island with tons of rainfall.  It would take the beans forever to dry if they just sat outside.  The invention they devised to handle this is very clever.  The platforms were put on wheels, which were set on rails, which ran right under a building.  When the rains started, plantation workers of old would run outside and push each giant platform under the building.

 

We get to walk around on the beans, just as the plantation workers did years ago. It was fun for the kids, but I connected with the hard work that those long ago slaves and workers had to endure.

 

While the beans dried, workers would walk around on them to “polish” them.  We could not ascertain why, because the following steps negated any benefit from having cute little polished beans.  The beans are then put through a number of other steps, including going through grinder to make cocoa butter with a by-product of cacao nibs (kind of like the pulp).  At this point, I might have stopped listening, because it is such a long process and I just wanted to get to the part where they make the chocolate!  As you know, various recipes can be utilized to make dark chocolate of various qualities, milk chocolate, cocoa powder, and more.

Here was one time we didn’t mind stopping in the gift shop on the way out.  We purchased several bars of chocolate made by the Grenada Chocolate Company.  My favorite was the sea salt and dark chocolate bar.  The kids like the 60% Dark Chocolate bars.

 

The rest of the plantation was interesting and we saw huge palm trees, monkeys, turtles, and more.  Unfortunately, I was being eaten alive by mosquitos and had to hide out in the van while the rest of the group explored.  Olivia got her braided hair too close to the monkey cages and one of the little scoundrels pulled her beads off and tried eating them as a snack.  Kate, undeterred, got close as well, and one monkey got a hold of her bangs and wouldn’t let go.  Olivia and Kate handled the excitement well, but Porter was traumatized and “never wants to see the monkeys again!”

 

We had one more stop on the way home: the Grand Etang caldera, which is a collapsed volcano.  We had thought earlier in the week that we could do a big hike to this popular spot, but we never made it.  Assassin said he could get us right up to the edge of the crater, which used to be a volcano.  We were so tired that we drove up, walked to the edge, snapped some pics, and piled back into the van.

The end of the tour

It had been a great day exploring this huge island country.  Assassin kept up a running commentary about all the villages we drove through, but our questions started to dwindle and it was pitch dark out by the time we pulled into the marina parking lot.  We had seen enough to know that we had only scratched the surface of what Grenada had to offer.  Our time in Grenada had come to an end, for Carnival was starting the next day and we needed to get to Carriacou for the party!

A few last pics: