Merry Christmas from Grenada! Yes, Grenada. If you can remember the old Credence Clearwater song lyrics, “Stuck in Lodi again” and replace Lodi with Grenada, that sums up our last 10 days. We have had many facts proven the past 10 days. The first fact is that Sally’s head will not explode if she is stuck in Grenada past December 15th. I told Bill when we got back from our trip to the States that we had exactly until December 15th to get out of Grenada or my head would explode. Well, it’s December 26th and my head is still intact so the exploding head hypothesis was proven to have no scientific evidence behind it. We have been stuck in Grenada testing the fuel tanks. Our engine system on Galt is pretty straightforward. Fuel delivery systems are designed so that they form a vacuum which moves fuel through the system and thus, the engine runs. You put fuel in the tank, the fuel pick up line sucks up the fuel and sends it in to the Racor filter. The Racor filter takes out any water or impurities and then shifts the fuel to the fuel pump which moves the fuel through the engine and then the leftover fuel recycles out of the system back into the fuel tank to be reused. Simple theory. Until it’s not. On day 1 of the test, we encountered our nemesis…the dreaded air bubble. If there is any breakdown in the system that allows an air bubble to enter the cycle, the engine will stop running. The Racor filter has a transparent bowl on the bottom of it so you can check for air bubbles which makes them easy to see. So, Bill tightened all the connectors and bled the system. Bleeding the system involves filling up the Racor filter with fuel, using a pump to move fuel into the system and then checking valves to insure fuel is flowing. Of course each valve requires a different size wrench to check it so that just adds to the adventure. Once bleeding was complete, we decided to run the engine for one hour because our theory was, if it could run for an hour, it would run forever. As the countdown to the hour progressed, the engine chugged along happily. Minute 55, chugging. Minute 56 and 57…chugging. Minute 58….glub, glub , glub. Silence. Neither one of us wanted to utter the words but the words “air bubble” hung silently in the air. Like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray must relive the same exact day repeatedly until he gets his life right, the next week progressed exactly the same. Bill would tighten screws, change fuel lines, put additional fuel in filters, disassemble and reassemble the Racor all with the same repeated result. I would be on the internet researching possible causes that we overlooked. Bill even read the engine manual….which claimed that bleeding the system was never necessary because any air bubbles would be forced out naturally from the system. At this point, we could not even get the engine to start, much less purge itself of the evil air bubble. After the manual’s nonsensical claim, we voted to go the purveyor of all knowledge ever known to man….Youtube. There was one guy who made a two minute video and in his video he said, “Be sure to open these two bolts and bleed them or your engine will never start.” Sure enough, Bill bled those two mystery bolts and the engine started right away….and so did the air bubble….just floating around like a tornado in the Racor system….taunting us with its’ evil swirl. Finally, Bill and a local Jack-of-all-trades tried bypassing the entire system except for the fuel tank. The local guy bravely picked up the fuel hose and sucked on it. I watched in horror waiting for diesel fuel to come pouring out of his mouth but he simply shook his head and said, “No fuel” which was the most logical thing we had heard in days. No fuel. We knew we had fuel in the tanks but I stubbornly stuck my head into the tank to double check. Yes, fuel. At this point, Bill voted that the issue had to be with the fuel pick up line in the tank but it seemed unlikely since we were having a universal issue with all the tanks. Bill texted the guy who fabricated our tanks, “We are having an issue with the tanks. We think there is a flaw in the fuel pick up line.” We waited for a response. Ping…..then Bill read the following words….”What fuel pick up lines? I didn’t put any in. I thought you would do that.” Fact number two: engines will not run without a fuel pick up line. Fact number three: Bill’s head will not explode when faced with utter stupidity but it was really close. So now, we wait until Tuesday when the local stores reopen and we begin the hunt for items to fabricate a fuel intake line. So, the fuel tank saga day 145 continues.
On Christmas morning, we were awakened by a truck full of steel pan drummers rolling slowly through town playing “Feliz Navidad”. Luckily “through town” doesn’t take more than 20 minutes because Feliz Navidad seemed to be their only song. The marina restaurant hosted a “traditional” Christmas lunch buffet and we were curious which countries’ tradition they would follow. Grenada was historically a British island so we weren’t sure if we were getting British, European, American or Islander. Our first course was some sort of broth that did not seem to have much in the way of spices and was a bit bland so we assumed it was British. We asked one of the British diners if the soup was a British tradition and he responded, “No, I think it is from the islands. It is so flavorful!” which made us chuckle. Next, we took our ticket to the buffet and grabbed our plate. All the food was hidden under chafing dishes and the server would lift one lid at a time and put a spoonful onto our plates. We had green beans, carrots and broccoli, plantains, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, pigeon peas, corn casserole, rice, shrimp skewers, fish, ham and turkey with cranberry sauce followed by coconut cake or a brownie with ice cream for dessert. Luckily the pool was still opened so we could swim off the starch coma! We were joined in the marina by the crew of five huge, multi-million dollar yachts that arrived this week. Yachts that are 250 to 300 feet long generally have around 14 to 20 crew members. The majority of crew members are in their twenties. Fact number four: We are officially old because all the twenty somethings looked like they were 12 years old! Dodging the twenty-somethings-who-were-really-twelve-years-old that were sitting on the docks shooting selfies and talking on their phones, we strolled down the dock admiring the yachts and picking out which ones we would put on our Christmas list for next year. Given all the facts of the week, the one truly solid fact was fact number five: Santa should never be seen wearing a speedo. Fact number six: Once you have seen Santa wearing a speedo, you will never be able to unsee it. So, as Christmas 2021 draws to a close, I leave you with the image of Santa in a speedo floating through your mind….the image is forever burned into my soul!
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A new time in history has been developed. There is now BAA (Before ARC arrival) and AAA (After ARC arrival). In last week’s blog, I explained the expected arrival of 72 boats from Europe to our little marina in Grenada. We have renamed the ARC the Baby Brigade. I have not done an exact census but I would guess every boat that arrived had at least 4 children aboard ages 3 to 13 years. Since I am pretty sure kidnapping small children for free crew was outlawed some time ago I just had to determine that they are a really prolific bunch of folks! Prolific and very boisterous. Gone were the BAA days in the pool of relaxing and solving world issues. AAA pool life strongly resembles the scene in Caddyshack where all the caddies are invited to the private club for the day. For several days, we stared longingly at the pool and then walked sadly over to the showers. Alas, AAA showers were also now in play. Long lines behind squealing children playing in the showers. Don’t get me wrong. I love kids. I have worked with screaming, wild children for over 30 years. I could sit in a room full of them and not even bat an eye. However, retirement has fully settled upon me and now I just want to scream, “Baby Brigade! Get off the phones and get your children under control!” One day when the parents were no where to be seen, we contemplated trying to trick the kids into believing that the pool was closed for adult swim…but since we could not figure out which language they might understand, that we could actually speak, we plodded our way back to the boat in defeat.
Bill noticed one day that the ARC boats pulling in were being greeted by hosts with rum punch. What?! BAA we had not been greeted with rum punch! We had barely been greeted at all. He watched with growing envy as boater after boater cheered and toasted with their icy rum punches. One very late afternoon when we had outlasted the Baby Brigade and managed to find a corner in the pool, an official looking woman carrying a clipboard went walking past. Bill said, “Hey, where are our rum punches? We never got a rum punch.” She looked surprised and started flipping through her clipboard, “Which boat are you on?” Bill stated, “We are on Gone Galt. We are not with the ARC group.” She sighed and shut her clipboard preparing to move on when Bill went into full sales mode, “You’re from the Grenada tourism group, right? We’ve been tourists since July. We have paid the marina fees which pay the marina employees, we have eaten at restaurants, we have done tours, we have hired locals to do boat work. Don’t ya think we’ve earned just a little rum punch over the months?” Laughing at his undeniable argument, she walked away and returned a few minutes later with a tray full of rum punches. At least if he could not get in a shower, Bill had a rum punch victory for the week! Not all AAA changes have been negative. The biggest change has been with the marina restaurant. A typical night out at the restaurant BAA was the following: Walk into empty restaurant. Get scolded for not wearing a mask. Put on mask. Take temperature. Walk two feet to table. Take off mask. Wait for server. Wait, wait, wait. Give up and go to bar to order drink. Bring own drink back to table. Wait on server. Give up and walk up to bar to get menu. Wait to order. Give up. Walk back to bar and place order. Wait for food. Receive food which included only main item, no side dish or garnish. Eat. Wait for check. Give up. Go to bar to pay. Leave after listening to same terrible three songs on radio with bartender singing off key for entire dinner hour. Now, in our new AAA reality, we had the following experience: Walk up to bar full of people. Get scolded for not wearing a mask. Put on mask. Take temperature. Walk two feet to table. Take off mask. Server shows up immediately to take drink order. Receive drinks. Server lights candle on table. Server takes order. Server brings bread and butter to table. Manager walks by to check on us. Server brings large plate of food. Server brings new drinks. We sit and listen to the twelve piece steel drum band playing ABBA’s Dancing Queen (you really haven’t lived until you experience ABBA in steel drum) followed by the Bee Gees. Our server brings our check. We pay without issue and happily go for a walk on the docks. We are not sure where they have been hiding the AAA employees for all the months we have been in Grenada but they obviously sent them to charm school during our time in the States! Now that the end of the ARC week is approaching and the families are fleeing the marina, we are curious to see what the return to BAA status at the restaurant will be….we fear that Bill will once again become our server and our little candle will disappear into a distant memory along with the ABBA playing angels. We continue to get Galt spruced and ready to go while waiting on a good weather window to make the jump over to Carriacou. Fingers crossed that the waves settle down soon so we can get on the move! We are hoping that our slight delay may give us a little space between us and the Baby Brigade but only time will tell. I hope you have a wonderful week full of holiday cheer and just a little ABBA to brighten your day! Our vacation from our vacation life has come to a close. Our time away was another whirlwind adventure but we managed to squeeze in everything we had planned. We started with a week on the Mayan Riveria at the Vidanta Resort. As Bill will tell you, they do not usually let him into places as nice as Vidanta but we managed to spruce him up enough to get checked in without issue. Vidanta was made up of several resorts on one property. The highlight was definitely the pool which spread endlessly throughout the property. We were surprised how chilly 78 degrees felt to us now and the pool was very crisp compared to our bathwater pool in Grenada. We ventured out to discover Fifth Avenue which was a sprawl of restaurants and more junk for sale than one could ever want. The hawkers in Mexico have become much more clever than the last time I visited Mexico 20 years ago. Back then, they would follow you around and harass you until you finally broke down and bought something to make them go away. Nowadays, they spotted my Vidanta bracelet key fob and would say, “I was your waiter at Vidanta last night! Come, I want to introduce you to my cousin who owns this shop”….quite clever! I finally had to tie a scarf around my wrist to hide the fob because we had at least twelve “waiters” within the first ten minutes. The highlight of our Fifth Avenue day was lunch. Bill immediately spotted an appetizer called “fried cheese” which are two of our favorite things….fried and cheese. What was delivered to our table was a work of masterful engineering. It was parmesan cheese that they had somehow managed to roll into an elongated tube and deep fry. I swear I saw tears forming in Bill’s eyes as he ate it. Our next adventure was a long day to the Tulum ruins and Rio Secreto. Tulum was an ancient city located on the Caribbean. The ruins were still in very good shape and one could easily get the feel of the ancient city. Surrounding the ruins were a plethora of tourist trap vendors offering free shots of tequila so I was sure that I had my scarf wrapped around my fob again to avoid a new wave of long lost waiters and cousins. Rio Secreto was an underground river that flowed through a system of caverns that was discovered in 2004. We took a bus down a long, very rough road, donned wetsuits and helmets and proceeded into the cave. As we hiked through the cave, the water became deeper so we were swimming most of the time which was much easier than navigating the rocky cave floor. At one point, the guide has us all turn off our headlamps and sit quietly in the darkness of the cave. It was very peaceful but at the same time, the thought of being lost deep in the cave without light was a terrifying feeling. We rounded out our stay at Vidanta with more pool time, daily happy hours and some great food. We tried to play a round of golf but we were not allowed to play because we had no collared shirt….I told you we weren’t usually allowed in these fancy places! The final night in Mexico was spent at the Marriott in Cancun. It was another fancy joint and we had the added entertainment of a huge wedding taking place on the grounds that night. We watched as they erected a monstrous tent and hauled in massive amounts of food. At 11pm, we went to bed saying, “I’m sure they’ll call it quits soon” as the music blasted throughout the property. At 3:30am, they were still going strong! I hope the marriage lasts as long as the party did! The highlight of the next day was having the privilege of standing in line at Frontier Airlines for 90 minutes because we could not use online check in due to everyone needing to show proof of PCR test to get on the plane…do not get me started on this mess!
The remaining two weeks of the trip were filled with family and friend visits and lots of driving as well as knocking out all of our American food cravings including Chick-fil-a, Waffle House, The Varsity, my mother’s pimento cheese, Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms. All is well with the world now for another 12 months! We returned to Grenada without issue and found Galt to be floating happily at the dock. We have also encountered the arrival of ARC 2021. ARC is a group of cruisers who join together to sail from the Canary Islands off the coast of Northern Africa to Grenada in order to avoid the cold European winters. Our quiet little marina has been swarmed by dozens of boats and we were told yesterday that a total of 72 boats would docking over the next few days. Luckily for us, the Europeans seem to like the bar more than the pool at this time! The coming week will be full of last minute boat preparations and finishing off projects as we look forward to taking on a new season of exploring. Stay tuned for further details! PS: We have calculated that our total PCR tests for the year of 2021 have now exceeded a combined 30 tests….sigh. ***More pictures on Picture tab PSS: I just have to brag. Check out the Top Ten Finds Worldwide in Archeology for 2021. The Charleston slave tag was found by my daughter's team! https://www.archaeology.org/issues/451-2201/features/10183-top-10-discoveries-of-2021 |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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