Monthly Archives: August 2013

Just like one can’t survive living in the burbs without a car, you can’t survive cruising without a dinghy. Nobody knows this better than us due to the Honda fiasco, when we found ourselves skipping adventures ashore and on the water, afraid that we wouldn’t get back to EV without a swim. I just wish that we hadn’t sunk a small fortune into the thing before we gave up and bought a new outboard. When the dink goes down it moves to the top of the priority list.

The dink, sometimes known as Cat Nip, has been self-deflating since Carriacou. She became a Deflatable the night we all piled in for a birthday dinner at the Lazy Turtle. Not the worst dock in the bay because they were all rickety featuring lots of sharp edges and nothing to block your dink from getting trapped under the dock as the tide rises, a cruising nightmare. Consequently most of us used small throwable anchors off the stern with middling results.

At some point in the evening we heard a pffffffft sound and said “what was that?” But then we say “what was that?” a lot. She’s been slowly shrinking ever since but at a ever-increasing rate. I wore out the foot pump, bought a new high capacity hand pump but the writing was on the tubes, as it were. It was time to get out the soapy water and find the leak. I don’t enjoy this but the slowly sinking feeling was getting to me. With the dink hanging in the davits I found no bubbles, but then a lot of the dink was hidden from me. Next day we could call the “Half Monty,” in the water being tossed about in the wind and waves, but still no bubbles. Another day of “Half Monty” and I’d had enough. It was obvious this would require the “Full Monty,” propped up on Hog Island beach right beside Roger’s ramshackle beach bar. Two unfortunate friends volunteered to help. In an effort to keep this short I’ll just say that by the end I had a very clean leaky dinghy.

I’d heard about a professional inflatable guy that used to build them in the Caribbean. He was next up. He throughly went over Cat Nip with still more soapy water while she was up in the davits. No bubbles, less money in the bank.

After the sailing regatta in Carriacou Mr. Inflatable and I beached the dink on the sands of Le Phare Bleu beach, pulled the Yamaha Motor, battery, fuel tank, and all the crap that I keep in her, got a little trailer under her and hauled her up to Palm Tree Marine for what can only be described as water boarding for inflatables.

Bubbles were found! A small patch was glued over the tiny nick but did anyone tell me he uses the slow twenty-four hour, no-inflation glue? No, they most certainly did not. While I was desperately trying to email Marce or our friend Mark to wend their way over to the next bay to pick me up Mr. Inflatable snuck past me and made for Woburn Bay, which leaves me with a long swim. Just then a guy I recognized from Burger Night at Bob’s started to get into his dinghy and declined to give me a lift because he was visiting a friend’s boat but said he’d send Mr. Inflatable back for me. I didn’t like his plan but beggars etc, etc.

As sure as his word, not ten minutes later Mr. Inflatable came putting around the corner in his beaten up old hard dinghy. When
he dropped me off at Escape Velocity he said he’d pick me up the next morning. Nice. He did and Cat Nip is back in the garage.

Fingers crossed, spin three times, spit twice, and hope the patch holds.

The day started peacefully enough. Marce was still nursing a wicked bad sore throat while I tuned in the cruisers net on VHF radio. I was particularly interested in the Carnival bus departure times because so many roads were closed for the Spice Mas that I wasn’t sure if the regular buses were even running. Standing in for Marce today would be my good friend Mark of Macushla.

As I was eating breakfast I started to notice horribly bedraggled looking cruisers putting by Escape Velocity in their dinghies. As a type we’re not exactly clothes horses but really. Dirty looking, paint splattered, exhausted cruisers. Ah…Jab-Jab! It started at 4am this morning and features dark devilish characters smeared with black oil, dark chocolate, some opt for the ever popular horned hat with a couple of chains with padlocks while throwing paint and all manner of nasty stuff over every one. I understand there’s a lot of hugging going on, which probably explains the appearance of the returning cruisers. We opted out after hearing the warning to wear clothing you never want to wear again.

The Devil Mas is supposed to disappear by day break so the crew can clean up the debris and the Fancy Mas can rule. We can only hope that’s it’s over by the time we get to St. George’s.

We have a dozen or more boat bits to somehow get to Woburn Bay, Grenada, plus planning a lightning trip to Florida for a post surgery checkup, all to be accomplished without anything approaching reasonable connectivity.

We do research when we have a little throughput on our “coconut wifi” which costs like real wifi but seldom works like real wifi. If we’re going to be located in one phone system for a while we buy a sim card for one of our unlocked iPhones for that particular system. We’re currently on Lime here in Grenada but the point I’m trying to make is that there are no short term contracts so every one-room shack that calls itself a business, and there are thousands, has a sign or two tacked to a wall that says top-up with Lime or Digicell. There are lines everywhere with people waiting to top-up.

We’ve never been able to do this electronically, probably due to our sketchy wifi but judging from the number of people queing at the topping up stations I’d hazard a guess that it’s seriously flawed. While trying unsuccessfully to reach my doctor’s office in Florida — how about an email address? — I discovered that we had a balance of $1.57EC on our iPhone and although I was supposedly using a toll-free out-of-country phone number, Lime was having none of it.

Okay, Escapees, new code time. LPB. = launch, pump, and bail, which is the drill for going anywhere in the dinghy these days. I covered the quarter mile distance to the quay at Lower Woburn quickly in the dink and started up the hill towards the Hang Over bar, which is an 8-foot by 8-foot shack stuck out high over Woburn Bay. I seemed to remember a Top-Up Lime sign on a wall up there. There’s a sign, yes, but they haven’t done top-up for years…But? Never mind, they never take down signs in this neck of the woods. She pointed me back down the hill to a white house that I hadn’t noticed on the way up. She thought they did Lime Top-Up. After shooing a chicken or two and stepping over a dog that I wasn’t sure was dead or alive I raised my fist to knock on a plain white door with no sign when a voice from behind a partially closed door rasped out, “he’s not home, he’s getting his hair cut for Carnival and picking up more Topping Up Cards, be back In a half hour.” I may look like a tourist but I know what that means in the Caribbean. No soup today!

Back down to the dink, LPB, back to Escape Velocity to keep Marce apprised that it’s going to be trickier than we thought, wheeled around and soon tied up to Lower Woburn’s quay again and headed resolutely down the hill this time, past the colorful hand painted “Rumors” sign, advertising a vegetarian eatery on Woburn’s waterfront that hasn’t been there for five years. I stopped in at Nimrods, an 8′ by 8′ bar shack that has a Top-Up Digicell sign out front. Yes, they still top-up Digicell, no they don’t know where to top-up Lime but you just go straight down de road and you find somebody. I’ve been down this road before but I will not go back to Marce empty handed. About two stifling hot miles later a “Snackette” came into view, no sign but maybe they’re as bad at putting up signs as they are at taking them down. I queued up in the top-up line and $20E later my phone instantly buzzed with a confirmation notice. Sometimes the magic works. If you can call this magic.

Watching the storm roll in.

Soca, emanating from several parties around Woburn Bay, is echoing across the anchorage this evening but you can catch Calypso and something called Groovy in the mix as well. It must be Carnival. Soca is a kind of Caribbean trance music that is played frenetically all night long at incredible volumes and while constantly speeding up the recordings. It features car horns honking out the soca rhythm along with a collection of catchy but strange sounds with a DJ yelling at the revelers to Partay Better…or with more enthusiasm…or something, I don’t know. I wish I could give you a sample of the lyrics but I cant understand them. I think one popular ditty says over and over that you know I got de big balls… well you get the picture. Its beyond me why it has to go on until 4:30am. Sometimes they just don’t stop at all. They use trucks whose flatbeds are piled up with the latest incredible sound equipment and plug it all into some seriously rickety electrical grids. it seems to work for them and I can personally vouch for the volume.

Emancipation day falls within carnival time but I can’t imagine what else they can do to celebrate. Our waitress at Whisper Cove happy hour was walking around in a trance last night and said she hadn’t been to bed in days. it occurred to me that the number two minibus drivers, not normally known for their sobriety, are probably in similar shape. Should I be concerned? I don’t know.

What is it with the French? They seem to embrace this bohemian life style whole heartedly and end up more native than the natives but why do they persist in anchoring in our cockpit? I mean why, with all of Woburn Bay to choose from, would you sidle up to another boat at anchor and drop the hook dangerously close, creating stress for everyone. Although I confess they don’t seem to feel the need for a little breathing room as much as we do.
After anchoring in our cockpit they immediately hopped into their dinghy and disappeared, leaving us to watch their boat sail back and forth at anchor. Escape Velocity would never sail around like that, unless there was a contrary current, then all bets are off.

After finding our number two batten trying to jump ship we scheduled a spot of sail gear maintenance only to find our boom universal in pieces. Another close call! We decided we needed help in getting a new one to Grenada in a hurry. We’d heard about a young woman who consolidates freight shipments in Miami and does all the leg work for you then quotes a single price for the part delivered in your hand. As you know this is a big improvement over what we’ve been through recently with customs and shipping agents, so with fingers crossed Sherri has the job. We found her office in a building on the cliff face opposite EV right next to the Hang Over Bar which, oddly enough, is cantilevered out over the cliff face and is definitely homemade, but even Frank Loyd Wright got it wrong using poured concrete at Falling Water. In a few weeks we’ll let you know how Sherri did.

I spent most of yesterday making a big pot of mole sauce. I’m only blogging about it because I’m amazed that the recipe I used has 28 ingredients and I had all of them on board except one and I just left that out. I did add several other ingredients as I tweaked the flavor, and I didn’t have Mexican chocolate but used Grenadian chocolate which is very bitter so I added a little honey. That’s probably not kosher but the mole tastes great and most of it’s headed for the freezer in meal-sized packets. This is not something you want to make too often. It took me hours to clean up the kitchen!

We’ve also been enjoying popsicles made with any kind of fruit juice in reusable plastic freezer molds. And we’ve started making sorbet and ice cream with local fruits. Last week we had a delicious soursop/ginger/lime sorbet with cocoa nibs and this week a creamy mango coconut ice cream. Sorry, no photos. We were too busy eating it.

We’re not generally souvenir shoppers and I don’t know many cruisers who are. When you live in a small space there just isn’t room to put anything that doesn’t serve at least two functions. On the other hand we like to have some remembrances of places we visit. We haven’t really bought anything so far except boat parts and provisions, so when we saw the Art Fabrik company we thought this might just be a place we can pick up something for the boat that’s also a souvenir of Grenada.

The first time we went to the shop they told us we could go upstairs to see how the batiks are made….but not today; it was too late. A week later we went again and couldn’t go upstairs because….we don’t know why. It wasn’t convenient. Finally, on our third try we could go out the back door and up the stairs to see the women in the tiny workshop handpainting designs in wax on finished garments and lengths of uncut fabric.

I’d hoped the designs were traditional Grenadian or Caribbean but as it turns out they’re just out of the head of the owner, a transplanted Californian. They’re pretty, though, and the colors are definitely Caribbean. All of the designs are hand painted in wax by a couple of local women who obviously enjoy the work and do it beautifully.

After the designs are painted they go downstairs for dyeing, then this man recovers the wax and prepares it to be used again. Some designs are multicolored and go through the whole process a second time. The finished batiks are hung to dry in the tiny courtyard. Gorgeous!

All of this work does not come cheap, but we felt the end products were fairly priced. We splurged on a set of napkins for Escape Velocity. They’ll be a little bit of luxury for special dinners aboard and a reminder of our time here in Grenada.