In a marina, you meet people from all walks of life. Our new neighbors are from Trinidad. Early in the week, they invited us over for a small gathering with their local friends for a “small bit of soup”. First thing in the morning, our neighbor brought out a cauldron and placed it on a special burner he had set up on the deck. The cauldron was easily 2 feet across and 2 feet deep. On a boat, there is very limited space so we are always having to choose between want and need. Want to bake cookies in the oven…need gas to cook dinner for the month. Want a 25hp dingy motor…need to be able to lift the dinghy out of the water without a broken back. Want a lobster trap…need a place to store the extra anchor. Evidently, a cauldron large enough to start a soup kitchen is a need on a boat from Trinidad. After smelling the soup simmer all day on the deck, we were definitely ready for a taste. We made our way over to their boat and were greeted by their friends. We were amazed at the different heritages of Trini people. They explained that their heritage included Scots, Irish, Indian (both from India and local natives), Chinese and African. At one time or another, all their ancestors had been brought to Trinidad as slaves or as convicts and over the years the cultures had blended into modern day Trinidad. It was fascinating to listen to their stories and we look forward to getting to Trinidad next year. The soup had been worth the wait and was filled with vegetables, all parts of pig and what the locals call “provisions” (high starch foods such as casaba, potatoes and squash). One of the Trinis explained that this type of meal was what the field hands ate after a hard day’s work. It was followed by rum cake that we all decided was actually an entire bottle of rum with a little cake thrown in for soaking purposes. At the end of the evening, our host scooped up bowls full of the leftover soup for everyone to take home and I’m pretty sure the magic cauldron could have still competed with loaves and fishes to feed the masses. We were very glad that a giant soup cauldron was a necessity on a boat from Trinidad!
By Wednesday, we were tired of being on the boat and even more tired of the fuel tank project. We took a vote and decided it was time for some fun! Our first stop was two forts that sat up on the hill above St. Georges, Fort Matthew and Fort Frederick. We parked the car and made our way up the hill to Fort Matthew only to find the gate locked and the fort closed “due to Covid”. The guard pointed us back down the hill to Fort Frederick where Covid obviously did not live because it was open. Ah, the logic of it all! After the forts, we drove to Annandale Falls. Compared to other falls we have seen, Annandale Falls was small but at least it did not involve a muddy hike through bug infested forest! We walked down a lovely paved path, through a bar and out to the falls. The water was crisp and refreshing and swimming under a waterfall is always a great day! Next stop, Grand Etang lake. Grand Etang was a lake that formed in the cone of the island volcano. While the lake was pretty, it did not hold much excitement….until we met the monkeys! They are Mona monkeys and were brought to Grenada from Ghana via slave ships in the 1800s. There was a “monkey man” who called the monkeys using a special sound and the monkeys came hopping through the trees in search of the goodies they knew we would have. In order to get the monkeys to come to me, I had to hold my right arm straight out with my palm facing down and hold my left arm straight out with a banana lying in my left hand. As soon as that banana hit my hand, the monkey jumped on my right arm and scurried up to my neck where he sat eyeing the banana and posing for his photo op. It took him about 2 seconds to decide the banana was safe and it took him even less time to grab the banana and drop the peel at my feet. They were very curious and the monkey man told us to never wear sunglasses or shiny earrings around them because we would never see them again. After the excitement of the monkeys, we made our way over to the town of Sauteurs to the Petite Anse Hotel. We were the only guests at the resort for the night so we had very personalized service. The highlight of the night was getting to actually eat dinner while sitting in the restaurant instead of having to take our order to go. It’s the small things in life these days! When we ventured out of our casita to go to dinner, there was a cat waiting for us at the door. Our hostess said his name was Tommy. From that moment on, Tommy followed us everywhere we went. I never thought I would find a cat that lived a more spoiled life than my mother’s cat but Tommy lives the good life. When we sat down for dinner, he jumped on my lap and proceeded to make me scratch his neck with not one hand, but both hands. Then, when our food arrived, he sat at Bill’s feet staring longingly until Bill fed him some of our tuna. We soon found out that Tommy would eat anything except for tomatoes. The next morning, Tommy sat with us at breakfast and ate more of my waffle and yogurt than I did. My dad has always said that when he dies, he hopes that reincarnation is true because he wants to come back as my mother’s cat. I am thinking that Tommy’s life at a resort by the beach is sounding like a good option as well! The following morning, we headed out to find the Crayfish Chocolate Factory. A couple we met the night before told us that we needed to go in search of this oddity and ask for “Kim, the British hippie”. Intrigued, we managed to locate the property and as a man with long gray hair wearing cargo pants and no shoes emerged from the trees, Bill stated, “You must be Kim the British hippie?” Laughing, the man confirmed that he was indeed Kim the British Hippie. Sensing that he may have found a captive audience for the day, Kim invited us to have a seat on his porch and the fun began. When Bill asked him how he came to be in Grenada growing chocolate, the response was, “Ah, I have lived a kaleidoscope of a life!” His tale started at the age of 16 in Britain in the 1960s when he “hit the road with four dollars in one pocket and a bunch of LSD in the other pocket”. From there, he hitchhiked his way to India and back. When he “settled down” he married and raised his kids on the road. In Kim’s words, he “never had worked a job” a day in his life. He traded skills and bartered his way around the world. When life on the road became too difficult due to “government nonsense”, he and his family bought a boat and sailed to Venezuela. He then proceeded to load his boat with over 12 tons of rum which he smuggled to Carriacou, Grenada. When the local customs guys offered to buy all 12 tons of the rum instead of arresting him, he knew he had found his home at last. When he moved to mainland Grenada, he bought a piece of property that was “nothing but overgrown cocoa plants”. It took him six years to clean up the property and then he decided that he could figure out how to make chocolate. Again, through his own ingenuity, bartering and the kindness of others, he pieced together the equipment needed to make chocolate and “that was that”. When we asked to buy some chocolate, he brought out a huge one pound bar of chocolate that represented Kim perfectly….simple, straightforward and bigger than life! Having regained some of our sanity during our time away from the boat, we returned to find that the window guys had completed the window project so that was one project done! I finished my bathroom paint job and Bill replaced several outlets and fixed my bathroom light so we felt quite accomplished. The fuel tank project is what it is at the moment. Until next week, may your life be a kaleidoscope! ***More pics on the Pictures Tab
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Hi Everyone!
I apologize that there is no formal blog this week. We have been on lockdown again so there is not much to report. It is hard to make painting a bathroom and hooking up fuel lines an exciting read! We hope to be able to go get the final fuel line for the first tanks tomorrow morning and then run the tank test tomorrow. If it works and if we can get out of jail, we also hope to make a trip to the north side of the island this week but we are at the mercy of the Stupid patrol so we shall see! Have a wonderful week and I hope to be back in full swing next week! (The covid zombies evidently are rampant in Grenada this weekend and next from 5pm Friday to 6am Monday but not during the week when you can go about your business as usual….pure logic once again) As we sit locked down on the boat in Grenada for the Stupid, we began to look back on our adventure over the past year and discussing all the highlights and wonders we have seen. Sometimes, counting blessings is the best way to counteract wanting to go on a rant so I have chosen blessings instead of ranting this weekend. It is hard to believe that we bought the boat two years ago. The learning curve has been steep and I am very proud of us for our resilience through all the adventures, setbacks and challenges. We calculated that in the year we have been out of the US, we have had about ten days that could be defined as “rough days”. We learned lessons from those days and definitely credit the “good days” to those lessons learned. The most important lessons we have learned are to always listen to your gut, do not challenge Mother Nature because she will always win and be sure to tie everything down on the boat or it will go flying at the most inopportune times. We know now that if we follow those three simple rules, life onboard usually goes pretty smoothly. As we were reminiscing about our past year, I began to categorize our adventures into “The Best of….” classifications. So, here we have the winners for the Best of Galt awards for 2020-2021. Best Welcome: West End, Bahamas. Pull up to the Immigration and Customs dock where a bartender is waiting with a cool drink and there is a hut where you can buy the “Best conch salad in the Caribbean”. We have yet to find a salad that can beat it so we are going with it definitely lived up to its claim! Most Expensive: This award also goes to the Bahamas. While you would love to stay longer for the bluest waters in the world, the $65.00 a case of beer cost as well as the exorbitant fuel and food prices definitely makes you think twice! Friendliest People: A tight race for this win because so many of the islands are friendly but we gave the award to the people of the Dominican Republic. Not only were they always smiling, they also were very patient with our attempts at Spanish. Best Airbnb: Tropical Casa Laguna located in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. While we have stayed at many beautiful places, this condo in Cabarete took the award because it was located directly across the street from a multitude of beach restaurants and also had a pool with a swim up bar. Hard to beat that combination! Best Food: Hands down this award goes to St. Maarten. With an amazing array of restaurants ranging from pizza to high end eats, St. Maarten is a dining delight. Where else on an island can you find Creole, Italian, French, Indian, Middle Eastern and classic American all on the same street? St. Maarten also wins for best bars and best happy hours! Dumbest Covid Restriction: This award was a tough one because there were so many to choose. Was it the beaches in Grenada that were only Covid-free from 6am to 10am daily or the multitude of islands that Covid only emerged nightly at 7:01pm? We finally had to give this prestigious award to the US Virgin Islands’ Honeymoon Beach. Where else could Covid live on the beach bar tables that were on the beach but not on the beach bar tables that were one step away on the gravel path? Little did we know that sand was such a Covid magnet! Best Tour: We had a tie for Best Tour because we just could not make a choice between the Belmont Estates Chocolate Plantation in Grenada and the Indian River tour in Dominica. At Belmont we gorged ourselves with chocolate all day and on the Indian River we gorged ourselves with Pirates of the Caribbean. Just too close to call! Most Unique Attraction: Beer swilling pigs on St. Croix. No explanation needed. It just speaks for itself. Best Rum Experience: Toppers Rum tour in St. Maarten. Thirty samples of rum in two hours. Also no explanation needed. Best Beer: Without any competition, the Dominican Republic wins for its 22 ounce bottles of Presidente for $1.00. A far cry from the 10 ounce beers for twice as much found in most of the other islands. Most Beautiful Anchorage: Los Haitises National Park in Samana, Dominican Republic. Who doesn’t want to spend a few days in Jurassic Park minus the man-eating dinosaurs? Beautiful! Most Beautiful Remote Island: Big Sand Key in Turks and Caicos. It saddens me that most people in the world will never experience this tiny slip of island. It felt like the edge of the world and is one place I will never forget. Those places are the best of 2020-2021. We can’t wait to see what next sailing season brings! Since I am sure you can’t survive the week without a fuel tank update, I will leave you with the comfort of knowing that the starboard side tanks are in place! Testing will commence this week so fingers crossed that the fuel flows happily into the engine! Until next week….take a moment this week to count blessings and give a few awards of your own. The next time you walk into Home Depot, I want you stop for a second and look around at the amount of stuff one Home Depot holds. Then, I want you to walk over to the hardware section and find a screw. Hold that screw in your hand as you take in the number of screws on that one aisle. Ponder the millions of people it took to get that screw into your hand. First, there was the inventor of the screw. For those of us who are constantly working on a boat built in 1982 Taiwan, we bless the inventor of the Phillips head screw as we curse the flathead screw guy who obviously never had to use his own invention. After invention came the funding from a bank. Then, there was the engineering team. Once engineered, someone had to locate the raw materials that were made by another team in a factory that was kept running by a large group of machinists who ordered replacement parts from another factory designing and making those parts. Then, the screw had to be manufactured and packaged in packaging that had also been designed, engineered and produced by yet another group of people. Following the labor comes the shipping. That screw arrived by either plane, train, truck, ship or all of the above. Last but not least, the store worker had to unpackage and stock that screw into the correct bin. That screw in your hand is one amazing item! Even though that screw may have been designed, engineered and produced out of America, the fact it is in your hand along with a million other options for screws in that one Home Depot is 100% American. Now that you have partaken in my exercise of awareness, come along with me on our journey this week in Grenada….
We began the week by making a list of hardware and fittings that Bill would need to attach to the fuel tanks prior to installation. There were a variety of things needed including screws, elbows, Ts, valves and a variety of tubing. With our list in hand, we headed over to Island Water World which is our go to place on the island for most things ‘boat’. As we began to look for parts, we found a few things that we needed but not all. To continue our hunt, we headed over to ACE Hardware followed by TrueValue Hardware then Budget Marine. Each store had one to two of the items we needed. To make the day even more adventurous, the credit card machines on half the island were not working so we had to run to the ATM to get enough cash for our purchases. Exhausted, we took our pile of gems back to the boat to determine what we had and what items we were still missing. Bill began placing the fittings and then mapped out what pieces we were missing and what were some alternative pieces we might possibly be able to use. Back in the car, back to Island Water World, back to the hunt. As I found pieces that were the correct measurement, Bill would take a look at them and say, “Nope. That one is a female, we need a male fitting” or “Nope, that one is flare and we need a regular”. As one of the store employees approached us to help, Bill asked when the next shipment of parts would arrive. The employee thought for a minute and said, “We just put in the August inventory order. That means it will arrive on the freighter that comes in at the end of October”. Swell. Needless to say, waiting until the end of October was not an option. I am pretty sure that once we get the fuel tanks assembled and installed, the fittings may rival those on the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future. Our next Grenadian challenge this week was how to watch the Georgia v Clemson game. Bill has not seen a UGA game since we left the states. He usually follows them on the computer as the Dawgs are playing but no live action. One of the other boaters went on a mission this week to get the game. On Wednesday, he announced he had engineered a way to get a Tampa station so we were all set for the viewing party. We planned our snacks and were ready to go. On Thursday, he announced that he had been cut off from the Tampa station by forces unseen. Not to be deterred, he began again. By Saturday night at 8pm, we were all sitting on his boat watching the game. The signal generally cut off about every 10 minutes but with a little work, we managed to see the entire game. The funny part is that the other boater who worked so hard to get us the Georgia game was a University of Florida graduate. Only in Grenada would times be desperate enough for a Dawg and a Gator to sit on the same boat and watch a game together thus proving that world peace may yet be possible. As you can see, it has been a week of missing the conveniences of the States. As we sat watching the blinky tv, we all raised a beer to the fact that while living in paradise has it challenges, we would not trade it for all the screws in Home Depot. |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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