May 1
Today is Labor Day here. That means everything is closed and everybody gets a day off. Unlike in the US though, there actually are parades and political rallies revolving around labor issues. We have started becoming aware of the political issues of Grenada over the last few months. Being a former British territory, Grenada operates under a parliamentary government. In a nutshell, that means the voters vote for a party. The Prime Minister then appoints his cabinet of Ministers and there's your government. It's not like the U.S. where you may have a Republican president and a Democratic controlled congress. Once the Government has been elected, they get five years to do their thing. Any time in that five years, they can call a new election. If they win again, the five year clock starts over. Typically, somewhere in the latter half their term, the Government will start doing very visible things to make the people happy. Then when they think their popularity is sufficient, they call for an election. The current Government here has been in place for over four years, so an election is going to have to be called soon. Thus, we are in that period of Government trying to do popular things, and the Opposition party is also making lots of noise. It's interesting because by U.S. standards, it all seems so grass roots. The rallies bring out lots of people and most everybody is very vocal about what party they support. There are actually four parties, I think, but it seems to me only two have a serious chance of winning the next election. Having all this going on at the same time the U.S. presidential election nears is interesting because people are constantly asking us, as Americans, who we think will be the next president. Many of the people we meet here, locals as well as other non-US cruisers, question us about the system of primaries and how the general election works. It's embarrassing to say that we don't understand the system much better than most of them. And while to me it seems that there are several flaws in the U.S. system, which have been highlighted over this and the last couple of elections, most non-US people seem to think we still have the best system in the world.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 2
It's shopping day and the bus had a full load of about twenty people. Unfortunately, since yesterday was a holiday, they found the store to not be stocked yet. The main shipment to the store comes in on Thursdays and by Friday morning, things are usually on the shelves. When the bus returned today, several people commented about the lack of some of the things that sell out every week, like dairy products and the deli meats and cheeses.
I spent some time trying to trick Mom into the kennel that the vet school left. Nothing I tried worked. I couldn't get her to come close enough to me to touch, and even with some tasty looking chicken bones inside the kennel, she wasn't falling for it. Eventually, I left the bones in the kennel and went inside where I could see the kennel, but the dog couldn't see me. She very cautiously came up to the kennel and stuck her head in. She stretched herself out as far as she possibly could and ate the chicken without ever moving her rear feet near the opening of the kennel. Maybe we can get her more comfortable with this arrangement.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 3
This morning I put some food in the kennel again for Mom. I moved away and let her slowly approach. While she ate, I very slowly crept up behind her. I wasn't going to actually trap her today, but hoped to touch her and get her more comfortable with being touched. As I barely touched her back, she let out a scream as if I was strangling her and she bolted away from me, running through the banister supports on the ramp to the bar. She almost got stuck between the supports, but squirmed through before I could catch her and calm her down. So much for today's attempts.
In the afternoon a large group of local folks came walking into the property. They were here to go on a kayaking tour with the company that stores their kayaks here. There was probably a half dozen adults and at least twenty teenage sized kids. They were well behaved as they listened to the instructions on how to kayak and eventually they all got underway. When they returned they were a different story. They were all wet from the trip, and they were still ready to have fun in the water. We keep a hose at the end of the dock for the kayakers to use to rinse the salt water off when they return. While this started as a rinse off, it quickly became a water fight with whoever controlled the hose at the moment blasting anybody within range. Most of the boys started running down the dock to the first finger pier where they ran off the end and swam back to the boat ramp where they had beached the kayaks. Then they would run around and do it all again. This went on for at least half an hour until their leader rounded them all up and they left.
We had a tiny pot luck this evening, probably due to the fact that there were several other thing going on around the area tonight. The main one was a drum festival in Tivoli, which is on the east side of the island. Inga, the former cruiser who now lives here and organizes tours, had set up a trip, and three busloads of cruisers from the various bays went to the festival. As a result, pot luck consisted of Barb & I, and the family from Omarsea, Scott, Jean, and their three kids. We still had a nice dinner with them and instead of karaoke, we watched Ice Age, which Omarsea had brought on DVD. More accurately, the kids watched the movie while the adults continued to have a nice conversation.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 4
It was a typical quiet Sunday. I spent the morning writing while sitting in the bar. I like Sundays because the whole area is quieter. Even though the road through Woburn is more than a quarter mile across the bay, the sounds of trucks and horns is noticeable on weekdays. It's nothing like being in St. Georges or any other city anchorage, but its there. I did entertain myself and others making another attempt to catch Mom. Again, she stuck her head in the kennel, but no more, and this time she was much more wary of my activities trying to sneak up behind her. Mid-morning, the van from the vet school showed up. They laughed that I hadn't caught her yet and they took a shot at it. There were doggy treats offered by extending a hand through a loop in the end of a leash, there was sitting on the ground with food hoping the dog would get close enough to grab, and there were attempts to gently corner her by three people converging on her. None of these things worked, and after about half an hour of trying we gave up. Tammy was more than happy to come to us and get treats, but eventually I had to take her and hold her so she would be out of the way of the university folks trying to get Mom. When we gave up, we swapped kennels with them. Instead of a medium sized hard plastic one that the dog can barely see out of, we now have a larger wire mesh one. Maybe she won't be as threatened to go in this one to get food.
We had a nice group turn out for happy hour. There were about ten of us here from about 17:00 to 20:00. Everybody turned in at the same time and we closed up.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 5
I took a new approach to catching Mom today. She has successfully avoided all attempts to do it in a way that won't traumatize her, so I'm going to step up to a more aggressive approach. I have a large fish net on the boat, with a long handle. This is the kind of net you use to bring a fish you caught aboard the boat. Since I have never used it for that purpose, I figured I might as well try to use it to capture a small dog. When I came around the corner of the bar where the dogs were sitting, you would have thought she knew exactly what that thing in my hands was for. She backed away from me before I ever made any gesture towards her. Clearly this wasn't going to be as easy as I hoped. Eventually, I put a bowl of dog food on the ground next to the ramp to the bar. I rested the net on the railing of the ramp, but I was standing on the ground holding the handle. My plan was to slowly and quietly move the net from it's resting place to over the dog without her noticing, and then drop it on her. The plan worked perfectly until the net covered the dog. I wasn't prepared for the squealing and jumping she did. Her reaction startled me so much that I didn't control the net and within two seconds she was free and running across the parking lot. So close.... After I gave up, I noticed Augustine, our grounds worker sitting watching me and laughing. I'm considering offering him a free six pack if he can catch her.
I went shopping for burger night early in the afternoon. The last two weeks, our ten pound bag of meat has been waiting for me at the store as planned. Of course, good things always come to an end, and this week the meat wasn't there and nobody seemed to know anything about it. Ms. Ross, the lady in the office who arranged this for us is off on Monday's, so she is not available to help. The guy who said he was in charge of the meat department said he knew nothing about any standing order for ten pounds of meat. I explained to him that it had come as planned the previous two weeks. Instead of this helping explain that the order did exist, this just seemed to irritate him because he wasn't aware of it. Bottom line was I had to take almost all of the small frozen packages of ground beef from the freezer case. I'll have to call Ms. Ross later in the week to clarify everything again. My other point of interest in the shopping was at the place where I get the fries. This place is called Bulk Buy, and they specialize in frozen foods. They have cases where you can buy individual items, but they specialize in case lots. I usually buy a case (four large bags) of fries every other week. The ladies who work in this store have not been trained in customer service. They never smile, even when I start the conversation with a pleasant "Good afternoon", and if they say anything to you, it is mumbled so quietly that you can't hear it. When I go in, I go to the register and ask for a case of fries. The girl sticks her head through the door to the freezer room and tells a guy to get it. Then she takes the money, and in that minute or so, a guy appears with the case of fries. Today, after paying, a guy came out of the freezer and politely told me it would be a couple of minutes. I smiled and said "no problem", and he went off looking for a key to a container outside. He couldn't find who had the key, and he kept apologizing to me and was getting irritated with his co-workers. Only five minutes had passed, and I wasn't in a hurry at all, but the freezer guy eventually went to the display case and grabbed four bags from there. He bagged them himself and again apologized for the wait. What I found so funny about this was that the guy from in back, who normally doesn't deal directly with the customers, had a lot more concern for customer service than the people up front who's primary job is customer service.
When I got back to the marina, Barb left. She is going for a short boat ride. John, on a boat named Brightside, came in the marina several days ago to prepare for his haulout for hurricane season. When he came in, he had a friend aboard, but the friend flew home the next day. John was nervous about bringing the boat into the haulout slip by himself, so Barb offered to ride around with him and play line handler. It only takes about an hour to get from here to Prickly Bay, and about 15:00, Barb called to say they were there and I could come pick her up. The other boat action of the day was that our friends Don & Heather on Asseance, came into the marina for a few days. They need shore power to equalize their batteries, so they will spend a couple of days with us.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 6
We had free entertainment at the marina today. A small powerboat, a Bertram 28, has been kept here in the marina for quite a while. It is owned by a European guy who lives here. He is going back to Europe for four months and wanted to haul the boat out of the water while he was gone. We really are not equipped to be a haulout facility, but it's not the first time a boat has been hauled and stored on the hard here. The boat owner arranged for the local crane truck to come and pluck the boat out of the water at 09:00. The owner moved the boat from it's normal slip to the closest slip on the south dock. Low tide was at 09:30, and being new moon day, it was the lowest we had ever seen it here. This meant pulling the boat up into the very corner of the marina, like they did last time the crane came, wasn't possible. The crane came and parked as close as he could, but still had to extend the boom as far as it would go in order to get the end nearly over the boat. They got the straps around the boat and tried to lift it. With the boom extended like it was, the lifting capacity is greatly reduced. As he tried to lift the boat, the front wheels of the crane came off the ground. They put the boat back down and fashioned some blocks under the rear edge of the crane to alleviate the problem of the front lifting. They finally got the boat out of the water enough to start retracting the boom. They put the boat as far in on land as they could and blocked it as they set it down. They then moved the crane and repeated the process twice more to get the boat in it's final parking place. The whole process took over three hours.
As long as the crane was here, Bob asked them if they could lift his boat out too and place it on the trailer. We normally would just use the tractor to back the trailer down the ramp and do this, but we have to do that at high tide, and the last couple of times we have tried it, we had trouble with getting the tractor stuck in the mud. So, while the crane was finishing up with the first boat, I got the tractor and hooked it up to the trailer. This was not quite that simple since the tractor battery was dead. I went to the office and got the portable jump start unit we have, and tried it, but it too needed recharging and didn't have enough juice to start the tractor. So, I found a set of jumper cables and moved the car over to jump the tractor. Once running, I drove over to the trailer to hook it up. As I was lining up the hitch, the tractor died, apparently out of diesel. Not to worry, we have plenty of diesel around in jerry cans. I grabbed one of them, and with Bob's help, we emptied it into the tank. Of course I had to get the car and the jumper cables again to restart the tractor. Once hooked up, we saw that two of the four tires on the trailer were flat. I pulled the trailer over by our workshop trailer and started the generator and air compressor. Once all the tires were aired up, I moved the trailer to the shoreline near where the crane had moved. Bob untied White Squall from the dock and let the wind slowly blow it to the shore where we held it off the rocks as the crane guys hooked the chains to the slings. White Squall is much lighter than the first boat, and the angle was much better, so there was no drama lifting it out. They swung it around and gently placed it on the trailer. I then moved the trailer over where Bob wanted it parked.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 7
It's burger night. The last two weeks we have sold out at fifty burgers. All the customers got one, but the staff either didn't get a bun or didn't get a homemade burger, or both. This week we have enough to sell sixty. So, of course, we had a light turnout. We only had about twenty paying customers, so the staff all got real burgers. This week was movie night, and our feature flick was Ratatouille. It was fun, although not as good as I had thought it would be based on other people's comments.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 8
Mid-afternoon the guy from the vet school showed up to see if I had caught Mom yet. He laughed when I told him of my failed efforts, especially the net. He said he would come back Sunday when he could spend some time and try to get her. Today is the day we are supposed to send Lou, the marina cat off for her visit with the no-more-kittens surgeon. But, she hasn't showed up yet for her daily visit. I asked Ian, the vet school guy, if I should bring her over when she showed up, or call him. He said to just call. He had not been gone five minutes when the cat showed up. I immediately called the number we had, and it went right to voice mail. While the cat ate, I tried the number several more times, all with the same results. Since it was getting late, I didn't want to miss the regular hours of the clinic, so we got Bimmy's carrier and put Lou in it. Well, she has become extremely friendly, let's us hold her, and snuggles and purrs in our laps all the time now. But confining her in a carrier was a whole new experience, and she didn't like it. She normally has the most pitiful little voice when she meows, but she found a big voice once that carrier zipped shut. The vet school is only about a ten minute ride from here, and Barb went with me to hold the carrier and try to keep the cat calm. She did calm down, but still didn't like it. When we got to the clinic, we explained who we were and why the cat was there. The program that does the free spay and neutering is apparently separate from the public clinic, but they knew who to call. They finally got a hold of Ian and he told them who would be taking the cat. They took her in back and then returned the carrier to us. She should be back Sunday when Ian comes to try and catch Mom again.
Later in the afternoon while sitting at the bar, we noticed another female dog walking near the office, with a little puppy following her. This wasn't our Mom, but could be her sister. I looked further up the hill and saw at least two more puppies up by the burn pile. The last thing we need is more dogs thinking this is home, so I went and chased the mom and puppy back up the hill. They went up to the gate and left the property. We'll see how long that lasts. I told Tammy & Mom to quit inviting friends over.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 9
My morning started a little different when I awoke to see two people I didn't know sitting on the end of the dock. It was a young (20ish) girl and a not as young guy. They were sitting snuggling and facing the sunrise. This was about 06:30. I went out and approached them and said "My I help you?" The guy said they just wanted to watch the sunrise. I explained that we only allow boat owners and their guests on the docks, and that they were welcome to sit up on the hill to watch the sunrise if they liked. The girl got up and walked back to their car without saying a word as if she was pissed, but the guy was polite and apologized. They did drive up on the hill and laid in the grass for another half hour before leaving.
The regular shopping bus ran to the mall today. The crowd was a little smaller than the last few weeks, but there were still about fifteen people. The store was apparently stocked as usual this week, and everybody came back happy.
The elusive Coke truck finally came today. We haven't seen them in several weeks, even though we have called and asked for a delivery. Bob saw them down the road a couple days ago and asked them to stop by, and I had called again this morning. As usual though, they didn't have all the products we wanted. They only had Coke and Sprite, no Fanta. I got Coke and Sprite, and the driver explained that the reason there was no Fanta was that they were retooling the plant and would be selling Fanta in plastic bottles in the future, not the returnable glass ones. This sucks since it just means there will be that much more garbage for us to burn. For the island as a whole, it seems like a bad idea since the plastic will just end up in the landfill, or blowing around the countryside. We will be looking into whether or not the Carib brewery still offers soda in bottles instead of using Coke.
Another call I had to make this morning was to the Clarke's Court Rum factory. The guy from there usually stops by weekly, but he hasn't been by this week and we are down to our last bottle of rum. Of course I could get some at the store, but it's cheaper direct from the factory guy. He showed up late in the afternoon and restocked us before we ran out.
We had another nice happy hour gathering with folks from the marina as well as the anchorage.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 10
I watched the bar all morning while Barb baked a cake for pot luck tonight. After Ashley came in at 14:00, Barb and I went to the store. We don't need to do any personal grocery shopping this week, as we have been the beneficiaries of several boats unloading their stores before getting hauled out for hurricane season. We do need several things for the bar though, and we want to see if the IGA got any good kitty litter this week. We hit CK's first and got the liquors we need to make it through the long weekend. (Monday is a holiday and most stores will be closed.) We then went to the IGA and found that for the first time in a month, they had the good clumping litter we like. They only had three large jugs and we bought them all.
We had about a dozen people here for pot luck. It was the first time in a while that there was a desert, and everybody liked it. None of the folks acted like they would participate in karaoke, so we didn't do it. We all just sat around and talked until about 21:00. We met two new boats tonight. One was Appleseed, who we have heard checking in on the Coconut Telegraph for some time now. They came around to pot luck specifically to meet us. The other boat was Ocean Air who is over in Prickly Bay.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.