December, 2010

The first week of December was uneventful, with daily dives and visiting with neighbors. Then, on December 6^th, our dinghy outboard wouldn’t start. A little probing showed there was no spark. I had power to the capacitative discharge ignition (CDI) module but none out of the coil. The motor being only a few months old, I called the Bonaire Budget Marine store. They asked me to get the dinghy to a dock and would have their mechanic probe it with his meter. I rowed it into the marina. The mechanic checked all of the leads and determined that the CDI module had failed. He said Budget would supply a warranty replacement, which would be shipped from St. Martin as soon as possible. I asked a neighbor tow me back out to the mooring field and to Wight Skye. 

We were stranded on our own boat. Well, not quite. Cruisers are a friendly and helpful fraternity. Neighbors offered us rides to shore if we needed to go. On the 13^th, a week after the breakdown, our replacement CDI module still hadn’t arrived. I got paranoid and ordered one over the internet from a Maryland Tohatsu dealer with instructions to ship overnight to our daughter’s address She’ll be flying down to Bonaire on the 18^th and could put it in her luggage. By the 15^th, Jack and Fred, S/V Denali Rose, offered us the use of an old Evenrude 4 horsepower outboard. We jumped at the opportunity to get off the boat, walk on dry land, buy some groceries, and make other preparations for our daughter’s visit. 

Our daughter, Michelle, and her friend Beverly, arrived on schedule, December 18^th. In their luggage was the new CDI module, and I had my outboard running in a few minutes. Our warranty replacement didn’t arrive until the 21^st. Glad I got one from a US dealer.

Over the two weeks of the girls’ visit, we showed them much of the island with our rental car. Unlike the most of the rest of the Lesser Antilles, most of Bonaire is composed of uplifted reef. Only in the northern end did basaltic material erupt to the surface. The core of the island is strongly folded and faulted rocks of volcanic origin, along with silica-rich sediments and turbidites. This intrusion and faulting activity occurred during the Lower Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago. Above these rocks are fossil reefs, uplifted at the same time, and visible today everywhere on the island as white, sandy soil, low limestone cliffs and the iron shore along the windward side. About a quarter mile west of the leeward shore is another island, uninhabited, and barely above sea level. It is named “Klein Bonaire” and comprises 2.3 square miles.

The island is low and flat everywhere except the northern end. Much of the southern part is less that six feet above sea level. The highest basaltic peak in the northern end is 781 feet. Bonaire is less than 24 miles long and is 6.8 miles at its widest part. Its area is about 111 square miles, equivalent to a square 10 ½ miles to a side.

The climate is arid, averaging 19.31 inches per year, falling mostly during the November and December wet season, with a minor second wet period in July. The extremely porous fossil reef and sandy soil allows rainfall to soak away rapidly leaving less than 10 percent of the island with soil suitable for crops and gardens.

By the time the girls arrived, I had selected a particular snorkeling circuit of about a half mile, starting from Wight Skye, heading north along the reef edge to the rock jetty of the marina inlet, loop around and head back toward Wight Skye over the shallow sand flats of the foreshore. It’s hard not to resort to superlatives in explaining just how rich in numbers and variety of fish this particular place is. It’s a fish magnet. Probably, the North Atlantic Equatorial Current that splits and sweeps westerly around Bonaire meets here, concentrating plankton. Also, something about the marina rock jetty is very attractive. Perhaps it’s the protection of the hollows among the great stones. Great schools of Creole Wrasse flow here in the late afternoon to mate. Clouds of Brown and Blue Chromis are always here gulping up plankton. The big predators come in here, probably to snack on Chromis and the small Wrasse. With a scum of algae on the rocks, there are always large numbers of Parrotfish and Blue Tang grazing. Mix in Jacks, Chub, Tarpon, Morays, Schoolmasters, Grunt, and you’ve got most species found scattered on the reefs all concentrated right before you. The sand flats have the excavators: Goatfish, Mojarra, Bonefish, Trunkfish, working constantly to dig, blow holes, pump sand and strain out a meal. The flats have numerous isolated brain and boulder corals, several of which are cleaning stations. Here the bigger fish arrive and ask for a cleaning by assuming a head-up position. Quickly, the cleaners come out and commence picking parasites and cleaning wounds. The cleaners are either gobies or young French Angelfish. There are numbers of Sharptail Eel, poking into holes and cracks, always attended by a Bar Jack hoping the eel will flush out a meal for both of them. The Yellowtail Snapper cruise around eating many things, but seem especially fond of the gametes floating in the water column right after a male and female of most any species mate, racing into the cloud of milt and eggs taking great gulps.

The girls stayed with us until the 2^nd of January.

November, 2010

November started as October ended: waiting for a weather window during which to sail to Bonaire. Following Hurricane Tomas and his unsettled after effects, an exceedingly powerful cold front blew down out of North America, remaining strong as it hit the South American landmass and the isthmus of Panama. The air piled up against the mountains and was forced east, creating west winds across most of the southern Caribbean Sea. This being the zone of Trade Winds, west winds only occur briefly as a component of a vortex. This current system, though, was a broad band a thousand miles long -- not a good time to contemplate a westerly passage. So, we waited.

For diversion, the original factory fresh water pump finally wore out. I had spares in storage. Rarely does anything go smoothly, though. The manufacturer discontinued the original model. The replacement had a slightly different footprint, so I had to cut and file bits out of the fiberglass sound-dampening cover for plumbing ingress. The small input filter had a crack in it, so I had to find a new filter and change the plumbing a bit. With the trip to the chandlery, it took the whole day. Our freshwater system does have a foot pump, though, and we still had potable water. On this day, vote counts showed that the G. O. P. and the Tea Party had won a majority in the U. S. House of Representatives.

Most cruisers have by now assumed that Tomas was the last hurricane of the season and are getting ready to leave Grenada, their summer home, just like it has been for us. On Thursday, November 4^th, we joined a potluck dinner with many other cruisers for one final visit with friends we may never see again, or at least not until next season. This same day, we got an e-mail from dear friends, Charles and Leslie, S/V Phaedrus, noting that they would be leaving Trinidad, bound for Grenada, and would like to see us if possible. They would arrive the following Tuesday or Wednesday. In the meantime, we took the bus downtown for one last shopping trip for new towels, some clothing, and to eat out one last time at our favorite Chinese restaurant.

By mid-week, the second week of November, the Trade Winds were reasserting themselves, at least lightly, in the southern Caribbean, so on Wednesday, the 10^th, we took the dinghy from Clark’s Court Bay to Petite Calavigny Bay to the nearest Customs and Immigration offices to get out exit papers from Grenada. At noon, we took the bus to the head of Prickly Bay and walked into the boatyard to “De Big Fish” restaurant to have lunch and a good visit with dear friends Charles and Leslie. Later in the day, we worked to get the boat ready for a passage. Joan secured all loose items belowdecks and I took down shade tents, deployed lifelines, checked the engines again, topped off the water tanks and deck jugs, and we took the outboard motor off the dinghy and hung it on the stern rail.

Early on the morning of the 11^th, we finished getting ready for sea except for the little window air conditioner. Lucky for me, friend Bonesy came around to wish us well and stayed to help remove and stow the window air conditioner. By 11:00 a. m., we cast off our dock lines and motored out of the bay and around the south end of Grenada. As we cleared the inshore waters, I hoisted the sails and we were bound for Bonaire. Our passage would be around 380 miles, so we were looking at around three days at sea.

It was not a nice passage. The winds were lighter than predicted, so we had to leave the motor running. I cannot carry enough fuel to make the entire trip under power, so was hoping for the winds to fill in at some point. A strong northerly swell was still running, caused by that powerful cold front. With little wind in our sails, we rolled horribly side-to-side much of the time. Also, it was hot! On Friday, twenty four hours later, we were off Blanquillas Islands and it was 92 degrees air temperature over 86 degree ocean water. The winds were so light and seas calm enough and the northerly swell abated that I dumped my four deck jugs of diesel fuel into the tank we had been using -- a good job to get over with when the boat wasn’t rolling. Friday evening, as we were nearing Los Roques, a terrible squall stuck with strong southerly winds and blinding rain. The squall set up southerly wind waves that collided with that northerly swell, causing horrible steep, blocky seas. It was over in a couple of hours, and gradually, the seas went down.

By early Saturday morning, a nice southeasterly wind had developed and we put out all of the sails again and shut down the engine. We got in about sixty miles as the day passed. By evening, as we neared the Aves, the winds died completely. We left up the stays’l and started the engine again. By 04:00, Sunday, we made Lacre Point, the southern end of Bonaire, and passed into the relatively protected waters on the lee side. By the time we made Kralendijk and the mooring field, another terrible squall hit. It rained so hard, it was difficult to breath unless I held my head up near the underside of the bimini. With nothing else to do, I motored slowly offshore, waiting for the storm to end and enough light to find a mooring. (The entire shoreline of Bonaire, out to a depth of 300 feet, is a National Marine Park and anchoring is strictly prohibited.) 

We took showers and a nap. Upon arising, we took the dinghy to town and checked into Bonaire Customs and Immigration. Returning to the boat, we went for a snorkel in Bonaire’s beautiful clean, clear waters.

It was overcast and squally when we arrived. It didn’t change. We’ve been to Bonaire a number of times since 1992. It is truly a desert island, clothed in acacia and cactus. It’s always hot and dry. This fall, however, we were not to see much of the sun through the balance of November. It has been raining so often and so much that we’ve  only had to catch water running off the decks to keep the tanks filled. It appears that the equatorial conveyor belt of moisture has not finished migrating south. It should be over the equator and the edge of the southern hemisphere, but it’s still up here at 12 to 15 degrees north. On Thursday, November 18^th, we experienced a “reversal”, which occurs when a storm cell attempts to rotate into a tropical depression or tropical storm. By about 1:00 p. m., we could feel a serious westerly wind. It kept rising in strength to around 30 mph. Mind, we are moored on the normal lee side of the island in the open sea. If the wind reverses, we are moored on a lee shore with waves passing under the boat and crashing on the beach about 150 feet behind us. If a mooring line broke, we’d be on the beach in seconds. By about 3:00 p. m., the winds had reached 35 and I instructed Joan to drive the boat while I cast off the mooring lines. We called ahead and got a slip assignment in Bonaire’s only marina, Harbor Village, fully protected from the open sea by massive stone jetties. By dusk, the west wind had blown out and the night was peaceful. Early next morning, we left for our outside mooring again.

On Friday, the 19^th, we made it to one of the dive resorts that deals with cruisers. We bought our Bonaire Marine Park permits, made arrangements to have our SCUBA tanks refilled after each use, and did our checkout dive. We were finally ready to dive Bonaire! Even though the Caribbean reefs are in such poor shape, we are never disappointed in what we see. On this, our first dive, we chanced upon a big Hawksbill turtle that was digging up coral rubble and stones to gnaw off the crust of seaweed. Naturally, overturning the rocks exposed numbers of tiny critters for something else to eat. The turtle was accompanied by several big French and Queen Angelfish and a Rock Beauty, all waiting to pounce on something each time the turtle overturned another rock.

Other than the frequent rains and squalls, life in Bonaire has settled into a routine. We rented a car for a day of laundry and shopping. Most days, if the weather isn’t too unsettled, we dive in mid-afternoon. We eat out occasionally in one of the many fine restaurants here. Some old cruiser friends are here, and we get together for drinks or a meal or just visiting. There’s Tom & Bonnie of S/V TuJours, Clive and Margot of S/V Revid. There’s always boat cleaning, fixing, care of SCUBA gear, and the like.

The corals, already beat up, took a big hit this summer from overly hot sea temperatures. They’re mostly bleached out down to about 50 feet of depth. Many are still alive. Some will recover. Still, the reef is losing diversity. For example, brittle stars, formerly so very common you don’t even stop to look, are absent this year. There are no Queen Triggerfish left anymore. The vase sponges are disappearing. The infamous Lionfish, a Pacific Ocean species that escaped an aquarium in Florida, has now invaded the Bonaire reefs. I think the release of imported exotic plant and animals should be subject to capital punishment.

October, 2010

On Tuesday, the 5^th, I had my next bout of boat troubles. Bear in mind that we’re in a marina, plugged into the local electricity. That keeps the battery chargers energized, and we have no idea that our batteries have reached the end of their lives. We use four Group 31 absorbed glass mat (AGM) batteries in the “house bank”, and another as the starting battery. I observed something was wrong when I tried to start the diesel generator and nothing happened. These batteries were not quite four years old. I had expected perhaps five years out of them. Anyway, there’s nothing for it but to start battery shopping. The last set were from West Marine in Texas in early 2007. I was lucky to buy them using a friend’s wholesale account and paid $900. This time, I paid retail, plus Grenada VAT, amounting to a little over $1,600. The brand name was Deka, but they were identical to the West Marine batteries. The cost is one painful part of new batteries. The other is actually changing them. Our battery bank is located in a cubby beneath the quarterberth mattress. Each of the five batteries weighs 69 pounds. It’s cramped and hot and dark in there. I’ve got to carry them up the companionway ladder and out onto the dock, then carry the new ones back down, connect them, and clamp them in place.

Traveling abroad can be so mundane or so exotic. On October 8^th, while shopping at the IGA, I bought one of the cheaper packages of frozen fish filets. It was labelled “Banga Mary”. What is this, I wondered? A search on the internet revealed that this is the local name for a freshwater fish of the Drum family, inhabiting several rivers in South America. The commercial fishery is concentrated on rivers of Guyana. Neat stuff! On the 9^th, we walked a good ways to a creole cafe where we had stewed chicken, plantain, cou-cou, rice, and ginger beer.

About the second week of October, world grain prices went crazy and shot skyward. I had already marketed much of ’10 production, but still had some to sell. I watched grain quotes hourly, waited for tenant harvest reports to arrive, and gradually sold the balance of the year’s grain.

It appears the hurricane season is winding down, so I’m making preparations to leave. I’ve shopped for such essentials as inkjet cartridges, which won’t be available in the smaller islands. I’ve also bought a ream of 8 ½ x11 paper, as most islands only sell A4. I’m also making arrangements to have a diver clean our bottomsides, and for another fellow to polish the stainless steel and wax the topsides.  

Late October: With the (sort of) handy marina clothes washers, we stripped the beds and washed mattress pads, spare blankets and settee throws. On the 26^th, our friend Bonesy came and started polishing stainless steel and washing and waxing the boat. The divers came to scrub down the bottomsides and clean barnacles off the shaft and propeller.

Also on the 26th, the National Hurricane Center took note of a powerful storm situated on the Intertropical Convergence Zone about 500 miles east of Africa. On the 27^th, this storm was given the designation “Invest 91 L”. On the 28^th, this storm was intensifying and beginning to rotate. By Friday, the 29^th, this system had reached Tropical Storm intensity and was bearing down on the Southern Windwards -- us. After buying groceries, I deployed another three dock lines and moved Wight Skye about three feet away from the finger pier, so heavy winds and seas wouldn’t rub us hard against the pier. We also took down our shade tents and canvass and doubly secured all loose items on deck. We took the outboard motor off the dinghy and rowed it to shore, carried it into the mangroves and secured it with a couple of lines. By 5:00 p. m., Tropical Storm Tomas had become Hurricane Tomas. This added internal rotational speed gave him a bit of steering off to the right, and before midnight Saturday, Tomas passed over northern St. Vincent, with the dangerous quarter winds striking southern St. Lucia, about seventy miles north of our location. St. Lucia suffered nine deaths, building damage, flooding and mud slides. For us in southern Grenada, the passage of the Hurricane was sort of a non-event. We saw light winds and some rain. After the passage, though, we found ourselves in a feeder band and had a couple of days of winds in the thirties and twenties blowing right up the long axis of the bay.

September, 2010

During early September, a couple of those low pressure waves tried to become cyclonic while passing over us. We had some fresh winds, wind reversals, and torrential rains. It was during one of those heavy rains that I realized one, possibly two,  of our scuttle portlight frames was leaking, and of course by Murphy’s Law, right onto my bed. I spent the next couple of days prying apart the frame and cleaning away all of the old, hard, cracked bedding compound, and re-bedding these frames with new marine caulking. 

For a few days in mid-September, we had three great storms at once, Karl, Igor and Julia, spinning across the Tropical Atlantic, all thankfully five or more degrees of latitude north of us.

During the latter part of September, we oiled all of the cabin joinery. We like working with the wood finishing oil, having used it in two of our homes as well. The job is made harder by having to remove the bedding and mattresses from the two staterooms prior to oiling, and removing all of the books and optical disc albums from the bookshelves. We aim to oil annually.

I’m leaving out detail of social activities and outings as being rather mundane, except to add that we ate at the wonderful Flag Restaurant a couple more times and made friends with Ken and Lynn of S/V Silverheels III, Canadians, who spent an afternoon with us giving us tips about sailing and visiting the Bahamas. We made friends with John and Patti of S/V Anhinga, a couple from the Annapolis area, with whom we shared common Maryland experiences. We also enjoyed a couple of lengthy visits with Frank and Tini, S/V Wildcat, from Holland. Frank was a banker and shared his insights into the world banking crisis and its consequences.

Sometime during September, the upper waters of the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Seas have reached 87 degrees and higher. Joan and I went snorkeling again and found all of the corals shallower than about 20 feet had bleached out and died. Actually, the old brain corals seem toughest. Some of them had bleached but appeared still to have living polyps. Every year since we’ve arrived in the tropics we’ve observed widespread coral death and reef deterioration. We must fear for the very survival of this ancient and once-beautiful reef system.

August, 2010

August brings excitement for us. Our younger daughter, Michelle, is flying to Grenada to be with us from August 3 through 13. She teaches nursing at the Kearney campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Her fall term starts as she returns home. She arrived on time with all of her luggage in the evening of Tuesday, August 3^rd. On the 4^th, we took her to St. George on the bus to eat at our favorite restaurant in Grenada, if not the whole world, Flag Restaurant, run by Sichuan Chinese. Even after living in Hong Kong and China for months, we still think this may be the best place in the known Universe. Most of the staff can’t speak English, but one, a delightful young lady named Li Song-Song speaks English very well and translates for us. After dinner, we walked on through the Stendall Tunnel to the big open-air market so Michelle could take in the experience. She bought lots of spices, herbals, some clothes, and enjoyed visiting with the stall proprietors. 

On August 5^th, we all joined one of the commercial island tours so Michelle could see the rain forest, the spice plantations, the rum distillery, the spice processing plant, and island scenery, the same tour we had taken in June.  On August 6^th, I made Joan and Michelle visit in the boat while I studied grain markets and made another incremental sale of 2010 crops -- crazy marketing year.  Later, I took Michelle on the nearby forest trail through part of the Grenada Dove preserve. We crossed over the bridge to Hogg Island for an additional walk there. We returned to the boat, showered, and got ready for another outing to the town of Gouyave (pronounced “gwav” with a long “A”). This is a small town on the north coast that claims to be the fishing capitol of Grenada. Every Friday night, they close off about a half mile of downtown streets. Vendors set up booths and serve every kind of Caribbean fish and shellfish imaginable, along with side dishes. It’s quite informal. What you buy is wrapped up in a scrap of paper or in a dixie cup and you eat as you stroll to the next booth. It’s also quite cheap. It’s all delicious and I only regret I can’t hold as much food as in my youth.

On Saturday, the 7^th, we made an attempt to go snorkeling with Dive Grenada on the southwest shore. There was a squally storm with a wind reversal and they cancelled their trip, so we went back to our bay and took the dinghy towards the mouth of the bay where the water is mostly clean and took Michelle snorkeling here. At this point, the surviving reef critters looked a little better. The new corals were growing and the tang and parrotfish had grazed down lots of the invasive seaweed. 

On Sunday, the 8^th, we hired a taxi for the afternoon for a private tour. We wanted to show Michelle Belmont Estate, where they grow cocoa trees and process the beans. By the way, they are also certified organic and have a number of vegetable gardens for supply their restaurant, with the excess going to the St. George market. Later in the day, we drove to the north end of Grenada to Sauteurs Bay, and the site of Carib’s Leap. It was here on a 100 foot cliff that the last Carib Indians chose to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff rather than be enslaved by the French occupiers. From this cliff, you can look north over the patch of sea where Kick-em Jenny is erupting. Beyond this lies the islands of Carriacou, Union, Mayreu, and Petit St. Vincent. On a very clear day, you could see all the way to St. Vincent.

On Monday the 9^th, we gave Michelle a very long dinghy ride. From Clark’s Court Bay, it is possible to reach the Hogg Island anchorage, Hartman Bay, and Petit Calivigny Bay, all without going out to sea. The mouths of these bays all lie protected behind the great fringing reef of Grenada. Even in death, the reef still protects the inner bays. We had a real naturalist’s day, cutting the engine at times and paddling right into the mangroves to watch and photograph herons and egrets.

On Tuesday, the 10^th, Joan and Michelle took a taxi downtown to see the parade that culminates the last days of annual Carnival. They got pretty good spots to watch and photograph the people and their costumes. I’m a real old scrooge and stayed home to take care of grain contracts and irrigation fuel bills.

On Wednesday, the 11^th, we all took the bus to St. George. First, we stopped at the Lagoon and walked to a grocery, where Michelle bought a supply of Grenada hot sauce (it’s made with Scotch Bonnet peppers and is about the hottest in the world. A dried Scotch Bonnet is a Habernero.) Next, we caught another bus toward downtown, where we ate again at Flag Restaurant. Superlative! After dinner, we walked on through the tunnel to the downtown market where Michelle finished buying her souvenir spices and flavorings. After we returned home, we finished the day with another snorkel near the mouth of our bay.

On Thursday, the 12^th, I took Michelle for another long walk through the Grenada Dove preserve, showing her different parts accessible by the trails. I finally got to show her the endangered dove this time, too. It’s such an eery feeling to spot an animal that looks so ordinary at the time, but is so exceedingly rare and precious. As I stated earlier, there are estimated to be fewer than 100 individuals left on Earth. This little nature preserve is their last refuge. Since I walk in this forest all of the time, I see them frequently. Anyway, after our walk, I took the dinghy to Woburn for carry-out roti again. For the rest of the day, Michelle snorkeled near the marina and I took care of farm business.

On Friday, the 13^th, Michelle’s last day with us, we took her along on our regular Friday shopping trip to the IGA at Grande Anse. For lunch, we took her by dinghy over to Petit Calivigny Bay to a restaurant in Le Phare Bleu Marina. During the afternoon, she packed for her trip home. On the morning of the 14^th, we all went by taxi back to the airport to send Michelle home again. Lovely time.

With the sudden vacuum left by Michelle’s departure, Joan became a little maudlin. To me, it seemed a bit excessive. Within a couple of days, we realized Joan was sick. Meanwhile, phone calls from Michelle revealed that she was sick as well. Checking symptoms on WebMD plus a doctor’s visit reveal that both Michelle and Joan had likely contracted Dengue Fever, probably on the day they went downtown to watch the Carnival parade. While it can be seriously life threatening, it’s usually not so during the first episode. In general, each time you get it, it’s more severe. Death usually results from bursting capillaries and internal bleeding. Joan and Michelle were overtly sick with flu-like symptoms, along with some extremity pain (amongst natives of the Caribbean, Dengue is also known as “Break-Bone Fever”, due to the extreme bone and joint pain) for a couple of weeks or so. Following this period, they felt pretty good but tired rapidly after attempting any activity at all. Back home, Michelle had to skip her first week of teaching. Here in Grenada, I did most of the cooking and housework, and Joan couldn’t even go out for Friday shopping with me for two weeks. Gradually, they got better. Michelle went back to the campus and her job. Joan went back to her usual boat activities and outings. 

During all of this activity, I’m watching the weather, every day, sometimes hourly. This is the peak of the hurricane season.  All the time, throughout the year, low pressure waves form in the tropics, above or below the equator, and flow as a band or conveyor belt around the world. This will be hard for my friends from the mid-latitudes to grasp, but at these latitudes, we don’t have “highs”. All we ever have are “lows” or the interval between lows. Nearly all of the lows are linear. They don’t spin counterclockwise. They’re referred to as low pressure waves or ridges. As the barometric pressure goes down, they may attain the status of low pressure troughs. Within them, you’d find squally winds and heavy rain. As they pass over the western coast of Africa, they generally continue on as they are. If the sea is very warm, above 83˚ F, and atmospheric conditions offer subdued vertical shear, these systems may begin to rotate and strengthen and are termed “tropical depressions”. When the embedded winds reach 34 knots, the NOAA National Hurricane Center in Miami designates them a Tropical Storm gives them a name, and they become a “named storm”. This is already serious for us because our hull insurance deductible doubles for claims of damage by a named storm. However, once at tropical storm status, these storms often continue to harvest energy from the over-warm ocean below and increase to hurricane strength. If at sea, we might possibly survive a Category I hurricane. Anything stronger than this will surely sink our boat and kill us. This is why we spend part of each day studying the weather. It’s also why we’re berthed in the headwaters of a sheltered bay. We take it deadly serious. Being in Grenada, we actually pray that the storms will spin up soon after leaving the African Continent. Once they’re spinning, another natural phenomenon, Coriolis Effect, will inevitably cause the spinning or cyclonic storms to veer to the right as they proceed west. This takes them further and further from our latitude. The further west they begin to go cyclonic, the higher the odds that they may strike Grenada. So far, it hasn’t happened. We have experienced two tropical depressions attempt to turn cyclonic while they were directly over us. It’s caused lots of squally wind and heavy rain, but no life- or boat-threatening conditions. Some time during October through December, the conveyor belt moves south, the sea cools down, and the season ends. 

Joan’s overt illness from Dengue Fever lasted for the rest of August. As a consequence, we stayed close to home. I took the opportunity to write numerous letters to friends and get to a few more boat jobs. The engine coolant cap started leaking. I found a replacement. I bought nylon strap and hand-sewed a custom-fitted hoisting harness for our new dinghy outboard motor. I added 3 feet of 3/8ths chain to the dinghy anchor rode and spliced in a new eye. I patched a leaking fender.

On August 30^th, Hurricane Earle, by now a category III, runs over Antigua, Barbuda, St. Maarten, part of the British Virgins and the US Virgins, leaving the first substantial damage of the year in the Lesser Antilles.

July, 2010

During early July, I continued my quest for a small air conditioner. Finally, I ordered a small GE unit, 6,000 BTU, window air conditioner from Sam’s Club in Miami. Their price was just $149. My daughter Michelle helped me find a “Less-Than-Container” shipper, Tropical Shipping, also of Miami. They send a boat from Miami to Grenada every Thursday. After navigating the intricacies of getting this item picked up by a local freight hauler from Sam’s Club - Miami, getting it processed for export at Tropical Shipping, getting permission from Grenada Customs to “add to (my) ship’s inventory”, paying Grenada VAT and Customs handling charges, paying Tropical Shipping, retrieving my new a/c via taxi, I finally started up my new window a/c on Tuesday, July 27^th. My total cost for the a/c, freight and all charges was $282.46. We’ve been living in sublime, mosquitoless, cool air ever since.

Probably the highlight of July, after the air conditioner, was a visit from some more very dear friends. First, let me stress that all the sailors we’ve met have been pretty nice folks. It’s sort of Darwinian selection out here at sea that real crabs would be shunned by the rest of the sailors and would not be well treated by the islanders. They would get discouraged and give up sailing. Even so, every once in a while, you meet people that are just a cut above the rest. They seem extremely intelligent and are interested in the same things you are, but bring a world of stories and anecdotes from somewhere else. We’ve gathered several such couples amongst our list of friends. These particular people are Ralf and Jenny of Johannesburg, South Africa. They sail a 45 ton, 62 foot steel ketch. Her hull is 10 mm steel plate. She was built to survive collisions with ice in the polar seas. Ralf’s career has been in electronics and computers, and he’s rigged this boat, S/V Imvubu, with a world of computer controls and redundant power supplies. He even installed an induction range in Jenny’s galley. Jenny, by the way, owns a software company specializing in insurance software.

We met Ralf and Jenny in Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad, last May. They left before we did and sailed north to St. Lucia where they met relatives from Africa and Europe. They stayed in contact with us by e-mail and planned their trip back toward Trinidad, leaving a few days to stop in Grenada to be with us. We took them out to eat once. We fed them in the boat once. We visited in each others’ boats several times. I took Jenny on a long walk through the forest and across Hogg Island. They were on a schedule and had to continue on down to Trinidad after a few days. 

The balance of July was mostly just work. I had a fair amount of business activity from home, and I watched grain market’s carefully to try to market the last of 2009 crops and make some incremental sales of 2010 crops.

I should mention, too, that there’s continuing activity within the cruising community and adjacent marinas and restaurants. Joan and I partake of some of it. Here at our marina, in their Oasis Bar, Tuesday night is movie night, Wednesday night is hamburger night, along with live-performance music, either by Grenadians or talented cruisers and assorted Ex-Pats. Friday night is fish & chips night. Saturday night is potluck. Sunday afternoon is dominos. Several times this summer, the marina has sponsored cricket matches amongst the cruisers. There have been afternoon seminars on boat canvas projects, general boat maintenance, on cruising to Venezuela, on water painting and jewelry making. Other marina’s and restaurants have menu specials on scheduled nights. Every Tuesday and Thursday noon, an elderly Grenadian lady serves roti across the bay in Woburn, and we rarely miss this treat. I usually dinghy over and get them as take-out and bring them back to the boat to eat in air-conditioned comfort. Every Friday, a taxi operator brings a rather large bus to our marina where folks gather from all over Clark’s Court Bay and the Hogg Island anchorage for a trip into Grand Anse Shopping Center, where the IGA supermarket is located, along with a hardware store and a number of mall boutique-type stores and a bookstore. There’s a food court here, as well as several nearby small restaurants, so we always eat out along with grocery shopping. There’s a KFC here for us when we get a hankering for US fast food. For staying in touch with each other, the cruisers all over the island get together every morning except Sunday, at 07:30 on marine VHF channel 68 on the Cruisers’ Net. First, there’s security and safety massages, then marine weather forecasts, then a buy-sell-swap session, then a social calendar session, and finally, offers and advertisements from Grenada business serving the cruiser community. The activity I describe in this paragraph is ongoing. We can partake if we wish. Our marina has two washers and no dryers. About once per week, I do one or two loads of laundry. Joan usually hangs the clothes on lines I run between the shrouds and inner forestay. When it’s rainy, we hang clothes under the bimini or inside the cabin. About once every two weeks, we give each other haircuts. We’ve also completed sanding, oiling and buffing of all of our interior wood. So, in addition to the white sand beaches, the swaying palm trees, the rum punch, the tropical sunsets, the bikini girls, there’s a whole lot of plain domesticity to this cruising life.

June, 2010

Move into a marina, getting acquainted with Grenada.

After only a couple of days at anchor, it became apparent to me that my overhauled shoulder joint was not up to the rigors of life at anchor. It’s not all that much work, but does require the lugging and lifting of all fuel, water, groceries, laundry, and so on from deck level into the dinghy at sea level, or from the dinghy up onto the deck at about shoulder level. It just plain hurt. I decided to make the best of an indefinitely long stay in Grenada by staying in a marina. We agreed to a price at Clark’s Court Bay Marina, at the head of the bay of the same name. Our slip location is at 12˚ 00.644’ N by 061˚ 44.334’ W, for anyone who wants to find it on Google Earth. It’s a very nice marina, built to withstand all but direct hurricane strikes. It’s nestled into a National Wildlife Refuge, the purpose of which is to provide habitat for the critically endangered Grenada Dove. It is thought that there are less than one hundred of these doves left on Earth. Across the head of the bay is the small settlement of Woburn. If we take our dinghy across, this is where we can catch a bus into St. George. From there, buses may be used to reach all parts of the island.

A description of the buses: They are all twelve passenger Toyotas. They don’t operate on a schedule, however, we’ve never waited more than about 10 minutes for one to come by. They’ll pick you up regardless of passenger load out-island, but in town, at the bus terminal, they won’t leave until the bus is full, and I mean full! They have factory jump seats that fold down over the mini-aisle. Then, the drivers insert little foam blocks in what’s left and select kids with narrow butts to stuff into unbelievably small slots. Then they leave town. They drive like crazy, often reaching 55 mph on brief stretches between curves, even though the curves are all blind; there are people and dogs in the streets; there are impromptu watermelon and roasted sweet corn stands in the streets; the streets are narrow. It’s absolutely frightening, but gradually you realize, you never see an accident. We’re able to reach grocery stores, the main post office, the FedEx depot, two chandleries, many restaurants, the big open air market, lots of shopping, all by these buses. The fare is EC$2.50, or about US$0.94 per ride. The public buses are also the means of transporting children to school.

A description of food in Grenada:  Sadly, Grenada is no where near food self-sufficient. All of the canned and frozen food is from the US or the big South American countries. Much of the produce is Chilean or from the US. The island does have agriculture, and there are seasonal tropical treats. When we arrived, mango season was at its peak. Later came the watermelons and tomatoes and sweet corn. In autumn will come squash, sorrel and pidgeon peas.There’s usually local eggplant, okra, and onions. Another tropical treat is callilou, or leaves of the dasheen plant, that make wonderful soup. There’s a fair amount of chicken produced here, as well as some pork. Cows are rare. We can shop in a choice of several decent-sized supermarkets, or, we can shop in the big open-air market in downtown St. George. There’s also a fish market downtown. Island spices are for sale everywhere. Like most other Caribbean societies, this one has a huge lore of alternative, herbal, homeopathic, etc., medicines and cures. The big market has great displays of natural products for every conceivable medical need. Corollary with food is the people’s health and fitness, and I must say that these folks look great! There’s little obesity here. Most people look like the jog and work out in a gym, although there’s no gym here. The girls are lovely and curvy. The boys look like they lift weights. It’s hard to find junk food here. 

A description of the people. They’re so nice, it seems unreal. Early on, you notice how native Grenadians want to get to know you. They are always offering to help. If you ask directions, they’ll not only describe them, but drop what they’re doing and take you there, visiting the whole way. If you’re sick, they worry about you. If they’ve had good fortune, they want to share it. There’s almost no crime here. The bus drivers always wait and watch to see that the younger school children have made it to the house safely. People with garden produce to sell commonly send their adolescent girls out on the streets to hawk to strangers. I just don’t think I’ve ever been in the company of more loving and lovable people. They’re also an extremely social bunch. Everyone seems to have a garden, and they usually get together to weed or harvest each others’ gardens, usually accompanied by a little beer and some food cooking on an outdoor fire. Apprenticeship of the young is so obvious in the gardens, too, as you see fathers teaching sons how to transplant sweet potatoes or pick okra at the right stage. Their most glaring weakness is that they’re poor business people and competitors. If they had to compete with Mexicans or Chinese or even Americans, they’d starve to death. They’re indifferent about making a sale. They’d rather not be bothered. They’re also essentially apolitical. Most leaders tend to be corrupt. The people accept it as a way of life and don’t get involved.They also don’t have a feeling for animals. You see hundreds of dogs, never neutered, with big batches of starving puppies. You see tethered cows and sheep with no water to drink. Being a farmer and a dog lover, this is very hard for me to see.

Meanwhile, what we’ve been up to: During this period, we wanted, literally, to see the island. We joined one of the commercial tours that took us by bus up to an overlook of St. George, where we could see the old French fort, the harbor, the downtown buildings. From there we went on up into the higher elevations and into the rain forest of Grande Etang National Park. We hiked to one of the seven major waterfalls on the island. We stopped at a spice plantation and saw growing ginger, turmeric, cocoa, nutmeg, citrus. We went on north to stop at the Rivers Rum Distillery, a site that I would nominate for World Heritage status. First of all, they are certified organic. They grow their own sugar cane. They squeeze out the juice in a plant built in 1789, that was originally used during the early British colonial period to produce coarse sugar. They carefully maintain the plant in its original design. If a part wears out, they have a replacement cast just like the original. The cane crushing mill is still powered by a water wheel as it was 221 years ago. In keeping with the “green” theme, they use dried bagasse along with timber culled by highway maintenance crews to fire the still. Their product is not exported, but sold only on the island.

 After this distillery, we drove on to the city of Grenville, second largest on the island, to visit a nutmeg processing plant. With most of the nutmeg trees blown down during Ivan In 2004, they only produce enough now to show the tourist how it used to be done. Even so, it was quite interesting.

Early in June, quite to our surprise, a dear couple with whom we’d become acquainted in 2008, sailed in and dropped anchor just a few dozen yards from us. Neither knew the other was here. They are another English couple, Mike and Barb of S/V Phantasie. A couple of weeks later, in celebration of a Mike’s seventienth birthday, we rented a private car and hired a driver to visit a site known as Belmont Estate. Here, they maintain a grove of cocoa trees. This farm is also certified organic. They harvest the cocoa pods and take them through the process of fermentation, drying, polishing and on to the finished, dried cocoa beans. They do not produce a confection here. Like the rum distillery, much of their facility also dates to the eighteenth century. Another company uses their cocoa beans to produce a Granada chocolate bar -- really tasty. 

During this period, we also strove in vain to find a healthy coral reef over which we could snorkel. The marine environment here in our part of Grenada has received many assaults. I imagine that the reefs were already suffering from the effects of elevated sea temperatures when Ivan struck in 2004. As a Category III, the hurricane would have driven a storm surge ahead of it and then generated waves around forty feet high. Conditions like this just pulverize marine life shallower than about 30 feet. What you expect, and what we see, are huge patches of white sand (pulverized coral), growing up in turtle grass. Scattered around are recognizable pieces of coral rubble. Also scattered around are new, infant corals no more that a year or two old. Occasionally, one finds a chunk of old boulder coral or brain coral that still has patches of living polyps. Rarely, there will be an intact old coral. In keeping with the prolific beds of turtle grass, there are sea urchins in huge numbers everywhere. Most are a short-spined decorator urchin. Some are the familiar Caribbean long-spined urchin. There are a few schools of reef fish. With the turtle grass and abundant sea weed growing on dead coral, there are schools of Blue Tang, accompanied by a few Yellow- and Blue parrotfish. The tang and parrotfish are the “cattle” of the reef, grazing the plants that grow there. Very occasionally, the big predators will enter our bay from the open sea. You usually don’t see them, but see the small baitfish in a frenzy at the surface trying to avoid being somebody’s meal.

Toward the end of June, the temperature has been climbing. The rainy season of the tropics has arrived with a vengeance. Along with daily rains has come hoards of mosquitoes. These are mostly the twilight biters. What this means to us is that in the late afternoon, when our boat cabin has reached about 90 degrees and the humidity is at 100% from the afternoon rains, we must shut up our boat against the evening mosquitoes. If we’re careful, we can run our built-in air conditioner for an hour or so, while we’re running our AC generator for our refrigerator. The other 23 hours, we just sweat a lot. We got to thinking that nothing here was charming enough to live in these conditions into the indefinite future, and that we should look seriously at buying or renting a home air conditioner that could operate on the island’s 50 cycle electricity furnished in our marina. Our boat, being a US boat, has AC appliances designed to use 60 cycle electricity. You can transform voltage but you can’t transform frequency. First, we shopped the appliance dealers and hardware stores. All the island retailers and installers offered were 12,000 BTU units and larger, much too big and too expensive for our small boat cabin. We checked with a marine repair service that advertised rental units for boaters. They wanted $400 per month just for rental. Finally, I started shopping on the internet for units I might buy abroad.