June 11
I left you with a cliffhanger at the end of my last update. Would we get meat for burger night or not? AT 08:45 I headed to Tempe to the Foodland distribution center. As promised, and with no hassle, I got the ten pound bag of freshly ground burger. Thank goodness. At least we're good to go for one burger night. We have a special Saturday burger night coming though, so we'll repeat the whole dance tomorrow. As soon as I got back to the marina, Barb started making the burgers. She prefers to have the burgers made and the veggie slicing and dicing done on Tuesday, but not this time. Burger night went well. We had a good turnout and Smokey was here playing the pans, and the crowd enjoyed it. By 20:00, everybody had gone home, so we had a fairly early night for a Wednesday.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 12
Over the past few days, there has been a priority message making the rounds of the various radio nets, regarding a vessel named Boon. The first time I heard anything about this boat was on the SSB Coconut Telegraph net that I host. A boat in Los Aves announced that Boon had been found washed ashore in Los Aves with a body aboard. The Venezuelan Coast Guard was looking for any information about the boat and the dead guy. We announced this two days in a row with no info coming back from other cruisers. Then yesterday, on the local VHF net, a boat watch was announced for Boon. A boat watch means the boat has been reported missing. I replied to the boat watch announcement to say that the boat was in Los Aves and there was a dead guy found aboard. This connection of the dots resulted in the family of the dead guy being put in touch with the Venezuelan authorities. Apparently the dead guy was the owner, and he was known around here and Trinidad quite well. Since he had only been bouncing back and forth between Grenada and Trinidad for years, none of the cruisers who regularly listen to the Coconut Telegraph had known him. It was confirmed to us that an autopsy was done, and there was no indication of foul play involved, and he apparently died of natural causes while transiting from Grenada to Trinidad, then the boat drifted west until it washed up in Los Aves. The guy was only in his mid-fifties, so it's somewhat surprising that he died, but it's also good to know it was not another case of piracy to add any fuel to fire regarding that issue.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 13
Today is shopping day. The shopping crowd is back to it's normal size of fifteen or more after a few slim weeks.
Early this morning John on Sojourn, moved his boat from Hog Island to the marina. He is leaving for a couple of weeks and wanted it secure. He is a singlehander and it's not easy to drive a large trawler and throw lines etc., so he had a friend ride along to throw the lines to us on the dock. Since there was very little wind when he arrived, all went perfectly.
The U.S. Open golf tournament is this weekend, and a few people expressed interest in watching it, so we had that on in the afternoon and evening. The tournament is in California, so it went on later than usual. Tiger Woods was in third at the end of the day, and was the big story because he is recovering from minor knee surgery a few weeks ago. It was apparent on a few of his shots that he was playing in pain.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 14
The morning was pretty quiet today. One boat, Winergie, left the marina and anchored out. He has been here for a couple of months, initially leaving the boat for a trip to the States, and then staying at the dock while he tried to resolve a refrigeration problem. He has reached a point in his repair that he is just waiting on parts, so there isn't a point to paying to stay at the dock. We did our grocery shopping today after Ashley came in.
The U.S. Open is on TV again from 16:00 to 22:00. Today Tiger moved up to second place, although he was even more obviously in pain. The leader is a forty-five year old who has never won a major tournament. We had our regular Saturday pot luck dinner tonight, with about twenty people in attendance. As a result of Winergie's refrigeration problem, there was extra meat grilled, some for people and some for the dogs. Everybody, especially the dogs, appreciated the donation, even though we feel bad for Morgan. Since we had the golf on, we did not do karaoke tonight. The crowd didn't seem to mind. Those that were not watching the golf were having a lively conversation.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 15
Augustine, our grounds guy is supposed to be in at 05:30 to relieve the security guard. When he doesn't show up, We get a knock on the boat. So, after our late night last night, we got an early knock today. I told the security guard to go on home, and I went back below to get dressed. By the time I brushed my teeth and got dressed, Augustine was here emptying the trash. So, I just unlocked the bar, set the trash and the empty bottles outside the door, and went back to the boat. I was wide awake of course, so I didn't go back to bed, but rather messed around on the computer until about 07:00.
Mid-morning, our friends Steve & Ann on Receta brought their boat in to the dock. They usually prefer to be anchored, but they are leaving the boat for a month while they travel back to Canada. Ann is the author of the popular book about cruising, An Embarrassment of Mangoes.
We had golf again today. This is the final round, and all the contenders except Tiger and the leader dropped back a shot or two. The coverage started at 14:00, and Tiger and the leader didn't tee off until 16:30. On the eighteenth hole, Tiger was one stroke behind the leader. It came down to Tiger making a birdie to tie the score. Unlike most tournaments, a tie meant playing eighteen more holes tomorrow instead of sudden death. Ashley was thrilled that we would have another day of golf to look forward to.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 16
We had a busy day today. I know I won't get any sympathy from people working nine to five in a city somewhere, but I was pretty much busy all day doing something. I had to call for a laundry and propane pickup, arrange an ice delivery, show the local welder something that needs to be repaired on a dock, call for a couple of taxis, etc. We also had five boats come in today. Winergie moved back to the dock from the anchorage since his partner is returning to the boat today, and Drum came to the dock from the anchorage in order to replace their anchor chain. We had three other boats come in from Carriacou. Two, Pirate's Hideout and Isle Escape, are friends from last year, who will be staying all hurricane season. The other, Santa Maria, was here for a couple of months and just left a couple weeks ago. They didn't plan to come back here, but had engine problems and came in to check it out.
In the afternoon, we watched golf again. Tiger took an early lead, but then blew it later. It came down to the eighteenth hole again, and Tiger was one shot behind. Once again, Tiger tied the game on the last hole. This time, they went to sudden death to resolve it. On the first sudden death hole, the other guy had a bad tee shot and Tiger ended up winning. It got fairly exciting even for the non-golfers amongst us. It did make at least the fourth 22:00 night in a row though.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 17
Santa Maria left this morning. They resolved their engine problem and are now going to St. Davids to haul out for the season. Before they left, they gave us a couple bags of food that they had left over. We have been the beneficiaries of this several times over the past month. Many boats have come here for a few days to prepare for their haulouts, and the last thing they do is empty the fridge and cupboards of anything that won't last four or five months. We have split the booty with Ashley.
I retired a pair of Crocs today. Dave, on Pirate's Hideout, sold me a pair of Croc's last year when after a day he realized he didn't like them. I've worn them every day since, and the gravel has taken it's toll. I had to keep them long enough to show Dave that I got my money's worth though. So after showing them to Dave, today I tossed the worn out ones and started wearing the pair I bought myself at Budget Marine just before Dave sold me his. I was dismayed to realize that the pair I bought at Budget are Croc rip-offs. I thought they were the real thing. We'll see how long they last.
We had to do the burger night shopping today. I normally do most of it Monday, so I have an extra day to resolve any issues of things we can't get, but since I watched the golf yesterday, we're doing it today. Dave & Sue from Pirate's Hideout need to do some shopping too, so we made a combo trip. We went to The Boulangerie for lunch and then hit the stores. We went to the IGA first where Dave & Sue did their shopping, and we did some of ours. We then went to Foodland, where we get most of the burger night stuff, including the beef. While Barb started getting the other things on the list, I went to the back to get the beef. I stopped the first employee who came along headed to the back room and asked her to check on my order. She came back and said there was no ten pound bag of ground beef in the cooler, and nobody knew anything about it. I immediately went to the front of the store and asked for Ms. Ross, the lady who has coordinated the meat order for us. They said she was at lunch. I asked for the store manager, and was told he was not in the building. Since Dave & Sue had refrigerated stuff from the other store, I told the girl at the desk to tell Ms. Ross that I would be back in half an hour and that I wasn't happy. We went back to the marina and unloaded what we had. Dave & I then went back to Foodland. Ms. Ross saw me come in and came to meet me. She apologized for the lack of meat, and explained that the reason the order wasn't there was that they had ground all the beef they had Saturday and sent it out to the stores. So, they didn't have any to fill my order Monday. Of course, it was too much to expect that anybody at the distribution center might have thought ahead about a standing order that they have every Monday and saved some for that. Or, Heaven forbid, they think about calling Ms. Ross Monday and telling her they couldn't fill the order, so that I could have bought frozen packages Monday and had time for them to thaw. Now here we were late Tuesday afternoon, with no option but to buy ten of the little frozen packages. This means Barb can't make the burgers until Wednesday again, and she will have to work with meat that will still be semi-frozen, even after being in the cooler overnight. This also happened at a bad time since we have a special, large, burger night coming up Saturday. Will we be able to get meat for that?
Our friends Bruce & Lin, on Alize, came into the bay today. They anchored out for now, but dinghied in to say hello. We haven't seen them since before we got here last summer when they were headed south to Trinidad. When they moved north last November, they were in a hurry and didn't stop here. It was good to see them again.
We have started getting some rain finally. It has only been a few showers at this point, but there is already a noticeable amount of green returning to the grass. Now to just get the mountain trees green again.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 18
We had another busy day. Again, there were a lot of little things, organizing stuff for cruisers, and we had three boats leave and three come in. Gypsy Wind and Anjo's Jest both theft for haulouts. Gypsy Wind just for a few days for a bottom job, and Anjo's Jest for the season. Drum also left and went back to the anchorage, after replacing the anchor chain here at the dock. We also had three boats come in. Sea Otter, an Island Packet from Houston arrived. We know another Sea Otter, who will be here in a few days, but we had never met Paul & Mary from Houston before. It turns out we have some friends in common. Joat Man, with Ernie aboard also arrived today. Ernie was here last year and spent the winter up in St. Martin. The last boat to arrive today was Ned & Barb on S Class. They will be here a few weeks. Three in, three out. Not bad.
Tonight is burger, night and we did very well. We sold almost all the burgers, and enjoyed a movie afterwards. The original choice of movies was No Country For Old Men. We have not seen it before, but are aware that it is pretty violent. Since I announced it yesterday on the morning net, people have been commenting about what a dark movie it is. So, we rethought that choice and decided to show The Bourne Supremacy instead. We'll have to watch the other one in private someday and see just how bad it is.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 19
I mentioned that we have a special burger night coming up Saturday. We will be hosting another hash at the marina this Saturday. The last time we hosted a hash was last November, just after we started running the bar, and we didn't know what the heck we were doing. Since the students are mostly gone from the university for the summer, we expect a smaller crowd than last time, but still seventy-five to a hundred people. And, we already announced that we would be selling burgers at the end of the run, so the lack of beef has me worried. I called Ms. Ross and she confirmed that they wouldn't have any more beef to grind this week at least. So, off I went to the store to see if they still had enough of the one pound frozen packages to make seventy-five burgers. They did, although I came close to cleaning them out. With the beef secured, I went ahead and did the rest of the shopping for a seventy-five burger night.
We had another new boat come in today. Vaunt Courier will be here for five days before their haulout. The name Vaunt Courier caught our attention. Many boat names have obvious meanings, or are just supposed to be cute. And, many times people don't think about what their boat name will sound like or how easily it will be understood when you say it on the radio three times in a row. Occasionally, you come across one that you just have to ask about. It turns out that in Viking times, when the Viking fleet was going to attack a port, a boat would be sent in first to give the town a chance to surrender without a messy fight. That ship was the vaunt-courier. It later became known as any advance scout, and the modern meaning is a precursor to something. The owners admit though, that while it's an interesting story behind the name, nobody ever knows what they are saying when they say it over the radio.
There has been a controversy brewing again related to the Four Seasons development on Hog Island. The plans include building a bridge between Hog Island and the Grenada main island. This bridge will be at what is referred to as the dinghy cut, which is just around the corner from the marina. The dinghy cut is the narrowest gap between the two islands, and there is a reef there precluding big boats from going through. But, lots of cruisers anchor behind Hog Island and use the dinghy cut to come here or to any of the other businesses in Clarke's Court Bay. Also, lots of locals use the cut to go out to the beach bar on Hog Island, go fishing, or go around to Mount Hartman Bay. The bridge construction started a few weeks ago and has been slowly proceeding with the driving of pilings and grading on the shore. Monday and announcement was made on the local VHF net that the cut would be closed on the 20th for the duration of the construction. This got everybody up in arms of course. It would be bad for cruisers anchored in Hog Island. It would be bad for businesses in Clarke's Court Bay, it would be bad for local fishermen, it would be bad for Roger's Beach Bar, and it would be bad for the environment since lots of tidal flow goes through the cut to flush both the north end of Clarke's Court Bay and the Hog Island anchorage each day. As soon as the announcement had been made, Bob called his contact with the development company. This started the ball rolling to help them see that closing the cut would not be a good idea. Yesterday afternoon, the developer met with some cruisers and other local business people in Woburn and said they had reconsidered closing the cut, and instead they would use a barge to move stuff from one side to the other. Seems like a no-brainer to everybody else, but they had to be yelled at to see the flaw in the original plan. Hopefully it's resolved, although the whole development remains a sore point with most cruisers and locals.
We got to close fairly early tonight. Back on the boat, Barb made us dinner, and then cooked up a bunch of pork chops that were the last things left unfrozen from Winergie's refrigerator failure. The pork chops had been out to long to safely eat ourselves, but they would be fine for the dogs if cooked. Barb's comment while slaving over the hot stove was "I never thought I'd be cooking for dogs". Good thing the air conditioning is working.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
June 20
The dogs enjoyed half the pork this morning. The chops were boneless, and Barb had cut them into big bite chunks. I fed each dog about a dozen chunks each, with Mom getting full after about ten, but piggy Tammy was more than happy to take up the slack.
It's shopping bus day, and we had a full load. There is a tropical wave coming through the area today. Tropical waves are the vaunt-couriers of tropical storms. (Like that vocabulary?) This one doesn't have a lot of wind in it, but there is a lot of rain. This is the most rain we have had in several months. It rained hard early in the morning, slacked off just long enough for people to come in and catch the shopping bus, and then dumped again. About 12:45 when the bus returned, it was raining pretty hard. Some people just went for it and got soaked going back to their boats, while some took shelter in the bar hoping the rain would abate. It kept raining steady for another hour, so eventually everybody gave up and went for it. One lady had been brought across by her husband in their dinghy from Whisper Cove Marina. Unfortunately, on his way back, his motor had died. He had been unable to fix it while she was shopping, so she was stranded here. I was in the bar by myself, so I couldn't offer her a ride. Eventually, her husband got Luke, the manager of Whisper Cove to come over and get her. The rain continued for most of the day, not stopping entirely until evening. The island needs the rain badly, so come on rainy season.
I had a few things still to buy before the hash tomorrow. One thing we needed was wine. I have two options for wine by the case. One is CK's, the case-lot store where we get lots of our supplies. The problem with CK's is that they obviously have no manner of inventory control, because they frequently are out of things. They also have about the least helpful staff in Grenada. The other choice is to get it directly from Huggins distribution center. Huggins is more professional to deal with, and since they are the distributor, if they don't have it, nobody has it. But, they are further away. Although they are further, they are right across the street from the bakery where we get the hamburger buns each week, so if I can coordinate things, they aren't out of the way. CK's has not had red wine for a week now, and we ran out at the bar, so I went to Huggins. When I went to the guy where you place the order, he asked me to wait a minute. Then a lady from the upstairs office came in and asked me to come up to her office. I thought they were questioning me buying at the wholesale price or something. The "problem" turned out to be that they had just gotten a new shipment of wine, and they weren't sure yet if the price was going to be the same as it had been or not. She said that so my trip wasn't wasted, she would let me have the wine at the old price, but if the price turned out to be more, they would call us and we'd work it out. I said that was fine. She then printed me off a list of stuff they handle in an effort to get some more business from us. I thanked her and said I'd look it over and see what we could use them for. Then she said, don't worry about the price change on the wine. She just made sure I knew it might be more next time. I thanked her and got the wine.
The last thing we need to get today is bottled water. I normally just buy a case at a time of small bottles of water, but for the hash, we thought we should have several cases. Again, CK's has been out of bottled water for over a week. Yesterday, one of the guys who is setting the trail for the hash gave us the number of a lady at Glenelg Water, to get it directly from them. I called and got a different person who told me to call the warehouse in about an hour and half. I called the warehouse when I was supposed to and got a guy who I had trouble understanding, but I thought we conveyed that they had three cases of small bottles that I could get. I told him I would be there shortly, even though I only knew what road they were on, not their exact location. (For those of you who simply think in terms of a nice numbered street address - it doesn't work that way here.) I took of for Dusty Highway, which I was slightly familiar with. At the east end of Dusty Highway, I found construction had restricted access to eastbound only. So I had to go around to the west end to come back east. The construction is making Dusty Highway concrete instead of dirt. Guess it won't really be Dusty Highway anymore. With a little bit of intuition from the types of buildings, I guessed at a driveway and found the totally unmarked Glenelg warehouse amongst several other small business sharing space in the same building. The guys loaded the three cases of water into the car and I paid them cash. They had a printed invoice ready before I got there, and insisted on giving me the $1.20 EC change (that's about $.45 USD). That's the last important thing to accomplish on my list.
Back at the marina, late in the afternoon, we got a call on the VHF from Thora To, with Pia & Erling aboard. They were here last year for hurricane season and are coming in for a couple of weeks. We knew they were coming, but didn't expect them to show up the day of the worst storm we've had in four months. Those people used to sailing in the North Sea don't worry much about 40 knot winds and ten foot seas - at least it's warm water. They came south from Carriacou on the windward (east) side of Grenada. This can be a nice sail in settled weather, but today it was rough. Several other boats we know came from Carriacou today, but they came on the leeward side of Grenada, where other than the rain, it wouldn't have been so bad.
Steve & Ann from Receta had stopped by about 17:00 and told us they were taking Chuck, from Tusen Takk II to meet their local friend who is one of the main people in Ann's book. Ann asked if it would be ok, if when they returned in an hour or so they brought their dinner up to the bar to eat instead of sitting in the hot closed up boat since it was raining. We jokingly said sure, as long as she brought enough for everybody. Ann is known in the cruising community as an excellent cook, and her book includes many island recipes. When they returned from their visit, Chuck and Steve came to the bar while Ann got dinner ready. When Ann brought dinner up, she didn't bring a whole dinner for us, but she did share a new dish, mango gazpacho, and some wonderful gooey brownies with fresh slices of coconut on top. They also shared a before dinner snack of seasoned roasted chick peas. The three courses made a complete dinner for me.
The hash is tomorrow, so I'll leave you with another cliffhanger.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.