May 21
We had a busy morning today. There just seemed to be one thing after another to take care of for people. Calling taxis, coordinating laundry and propane pickups, and other little things that we do to make everybody's stay perfect seemed to keep me running most of the morning.
Mom seems to be walking ok, but still is noticeably more skittish than before. She is not only staying away from people, but she is staying up near the garbage burning area, away from the buildings. She used to always stay on the deck near the office during the day, so this is unusual.
In the afternoon, we launched a powerboat that we store here on a trailer. This is the same boat we have launched and hauled several times before. Launching usually isn't a big deal. The problems we have had were taking it back out of the water because we got the tractor stuck pulling the boat and trailer out of the water. Pulling the empty trailer out is not a big deal, so the launch went pretty smoothly. The only problem came once I had put the boat and trailer in the water, and only one engine started. With only one engine, the boat didn't have the power to drag itself off the trailer, so I got back on the tractor, moved a couple more feet into the water, and slammed on the brakes. The boat slid off the trailer, and the owners helper caught it and guided it up against the dock. This boat is a relatively new Chris Craft that cost a lot of money, yet every time he launches it, something is wrong. Maybe it's from lack of use, but I wouldn't be happy if it were my boat. The boat had two inboard V-8 engines, and the large hydraulic cover over the engines needs battery power to open. Of course, the battery that opens the cover was dead. I went and got our portable jump start box and brought it to the boat. In the designers infinite wisdom, the batteries are also below this electric cover. So, to open the cover, you have to remove a panel in the cabin which gives you access to the back side of the dashboard. There you can attach jumper cables to the main bus bar and then open the cover. Once we had the cover open, I told the owner to try and start the motor that wouldn't. It would crank, but the serpentine belt that drives all the pulleys on the front of the engine wasn't moving. And, the engine didn't start. I looked more closely and realized that the main drive pulley was turning with the engine, but the belt just slipped on it. This probably has nothing to do with the engine not starting, and I suspect there are at least two different issues. The owner called his mechanic, who came within an hour, even though it was late on a Friday afternoon. He found the alternator was seized, and that's why the belt wouldn't turn. I don't know if he diagnosed the reason it wouldn't start or not.
Tonight is burger night. We had a good turnout and watched a movie after everybody ate. The movie we picked tonight was The Bucket List, with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. We had watched it one afternoon, and really liked it. If you haven't seen it, it's about two old guys who meet in the hospital after both being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. They both decide to accept their limited life expectancies and make a list of things they want to do before they die. Jack Nicholson plays a rich guy, so on his dime they take off for a few weeks traveling around the world and scratching things off the list. In the end, they both come home, make some needed peace with their families, and die. It's a sad ending, but a great message about living life while you can, and there is substantial humor peppered through the whole movie. I thought it was an especially good movie for a bunch of cruisers, since most of us are out here because we already get the message about living your dream while you can. Most of the folks who had come for burgers stayed for the movie. More than half had already seen it but liked it so much they wanted to see it again. Everybody said how much they liked it when it was over.
I did get Mom to come close to me tonight. It cost me a hamburger, but I got her to eat out of my hand. Since it got her close to me again, and I know she hasn't been eating well the last few days, I didn't mind.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 22
Today is another local holiday. Corpus Christi Day is a Catholic holiday which is still recognized in several Caribbean countries as was Whit Monday. I remember back when schools were closed for all the Catholic holidays. Can't do that anymore. The day was very quiet, as Thursday's usually are, but even more so because of the holiday.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 23
Today was shopping bus day. A fair sized crowd went. When they got back, one lady, who lives on a boat anchored at Hog Island long-term, complained to us about the service. Our understanding of how the bus works was that it dropped people at one store, went on to the mall and dropped the rest, then came back to the first store in half an hour or so to take those people to the mall, and then brought everybody back at 12:30. Apparently, this lady got off at the first store, and the bus never came back. She ended up walking to the mall to meet the bus. Her husband called the bus owner to complain, and he apparently got pissed and told her the bus wasn't her personal taxi. Other folks told us later that the bus driver said he would pick her up at 12:30, which she should have questioned before getting off since that wasn't what she expected. At any rate, she complained to us, and while I want to make everybody happy, we have nothing to do with the bus. I'm sure some of the cruisers, especially the ones who are long-term, parked-here-forever boats, think the marina has some financial interest in the bus trip, but we don't. And given the hour of the morning, we rarely even sell a soda to the people using it. We didn't organize the bus in the first place, and we get no financial consideration from it. We just do it because it's a nice service for the cruisers and marina guests. So it sucks when we get the blame for something going wrong. Other than that, the rest of the day was quiet.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 24
Mom is getting more friendly each day. Couldn't have anything to do with that burger I gave her could it? She is hanging around the immediate bar and office area more, and wagging her tail a little when I try to talk to her. After Ashley got here, we made our weekly trip to the grocery store.
Yesterday morning, after I finished the Coconut Telegraph on the SSB, I left the boat and noticed something didn't look right. After a minute I realized that the cable for the SSB antennae had come off the backstay. That could explain why I didn't seem to be getting out as good as usual, nor hearing well at all. Unfortunately, the cable attaches to the backstay well above where I can reach. I originally installed it on deck as the backstay was being installed. In order to get up to the point of attachment, I brought the spare halyard around to the back, attached it to the bosun's chair, and then used a snap shackle to clip the bosun's chair to the backstay. Barb then tried to winch me up, but she didn't have the strength to do it all the way. Peter, from Cheetah, saw what we were up to and came over to help with the winching. I also pulled as best I could to lighten the load as I went up. Once high enough, all I had to do was re-clamp the wire to the backstay, and then install new wire ties all the way down the backstay to secure it. It all went pretty smooth and only took about ten minutes.
We had our usual pot luck dinner this evening. There were only about twelve people, but that's a nice sized crowd to have a good selection of food and nice conversation.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 25
Today is Sunday. Sunday's are usually very quiet, but today may be a little different. We have been getting inquiries for several days about showing the Formula One auto race from Monte Carlo on TV. Monte Carlo being in Europe, means that the afternoon race starts at 07:30 here. We had several people here by 08:00 to watch. Formula One ended a little after 10:00, leaving under two hours until the start of the Indy 500 coverage. The Indy 500 ran until about 17:00, and was immediately followed by the Coca Cola 600 NASCAR race. There were no real customers here interested in NASCAR, so we closed about the usual time and didn't see the end of the race.
My SSB was noticeably better today. It's hard to judge radio performance from day to day because so many external things affect the reception, but it did seem that I heard and transmitted better. At least I think it was better since I had to hang from the backstay to fix it.
We had two boats leave today. Suhaila and Maara both are hauling out Monday for the season so they moved to the bays where the yard is.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 26
Today was a pretty normal day. I went and did all the shopping for burger night, except the meat, today. The new deal we have for the meat is that we will have a ten pound bag of unfrozen ground beef waiting for us at the store every Tuesday afternoon. But, it still makes sense to do the rest of the shopping Monday so I have an extra day to work out any problems with availability of something. This week, the something is cheese. We usually buy sliced cheese that comes in a package of 88 slices that are NOT individually wrapped. All the stores carry this packaging some of the time. Every two weeks I get a package from whatever store happens to have it. This week, none of the stores had it. I'll try again tomorrow.
Mom is back to normal. Now when she sees me, she comes up wagging her tail and slinking around in her totally submissive posture. She stays just far enough away that I can't touch her though. This is how she used to behave. Today I had some leftovers that Bob brought in to feed the dogs. I split the food onto two plates and took it outside. Tammy inhaled hers as usual, and Mom worked on hers much slower. As she ate, I was able to just lightly touch the top of her head a little without her running away or yelping. This is a big improvement. I was never able to do that before the accident.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 27
Barb and I went together to have lunch and pick up the meat. For lunch, we went to Rick's Cafe. We have always heard good things about this place, but never stopped by. They have a varied menu, including pizza, burgers, fish & chips, etc. It was tempting to try a burger, but since I have not heard of this place on the short list of good burgers in town, I resisted the urge. Barb ended up getting fish & chips, and I had a fried fish wrap with onion rings. I have never seen a restaurant here offer onion rings, so I was impressed. The food was all good, so we'll have to come back and try it again. While we were there, we saw three other cruisers we know who all came for the pizza. Perhaps we'll try that next time.
After lunch we went to pick up the meat. Ms. Ross, the lady who arranges the order for us was just inside the door, so I said hello to her and asked if the meat was there. She headed for the back and I followed. She came back out to get the guy who allegedly runs the meat department and sent him in back. A few minutes later he came out with the bag of meat - FROZEN! I told him it is supposed to be fresh, not frozen, and he just shrugged. I asked Barb if she would rather have ten little packages which might thaw faster than one big block, but she agreed to take the big package. As we went back towards the front of the store, we saw Ms. Ross again and mentioned that it was frozen. She jumped the guy for putting it in the freezer, apologized to me, and assured me it won't happen again. We'll see.
Tonight we are in for a treat. From late April to late June, Leatherback turtles come to the north shore of Grenada to lay their eggs. Inga, the lady who organizes islands tours all year, organizes trip to watch the turtles build their nests and lay their eggs. Levera Beach is on the northern shore of the island. We went there with Gary & Jeannie from At Last a month or so ago. It's only about twelve miles as the crow flies, but it's an hour and a half as the bus drives. Cutty was our bus driver. He does almost all the trips that Inga organizes, and is a very nice guy. At 18:00, I did the daily close out of the bar and left Ashley and Bob in charge. There weren't any customers here, and Thursdays are usually very slow, so they will probably just lock up at 19:00. Cutty picked us up at 18:15, and we got to the park headquarters on Bathway Beach about 19:45. We were met there by two guides who gave us a brief run down of the rules, and an explanation of what we should see. When the turtles come ashore, they pick the place where they want to dig their nest, turn towards the sea and start digging with the rear flippers. As they start digging, they get more and more into a trance-like state and are unaware of the people around them. There are researchers on the beach who tell the guides by radio when it is ok to bring a group of tourist to a turtle. The instructions we were given before starting, were to walk directly behind the guide and when we got to the turtle, stay behind it's mid-section. As for lights, we were told to bring red lens flashlights if we had them. No white lights, and no flash photography. We don't have a red lens flashlight, so we just planned to say close to the guide. Sometimes you may wait for a couple of hours before a turtle comes ashore. We got lucky and within fifteen minutes of our arrival, the guide got the call that there were at least two turtles on the beach. We drove a mile or so from Bathway Beach to Levera Beach and got out of the car. We walked to the shore-side edge of the beach and waited. A researcher came to our guide and said there were two turtles laying, and a nest hatching. Because they didn't want us stepping on the hatchlings, they directed us to a turtle that was a couple hundred feet away. When we got there, a researcher explained that she was still digging, but she had dug too deep. She had dug below the water level and the nest had water in the bottom. If she lays the eggs in the water, they won't survive. Sometimes the turtle realizes the mistake and moves to another place, but this one didn't. The researcher got a bucket, laid down on the ground and stuck his arm under the turtle. As she dropped an egg, he caught it and tossed it in the bucket. They lay abut 120 eggs, so it took a while, but she popped them out one every five or ten seconds. The eggs themselves are about the size of a tennis ball, and have a soft leathery covering, not a hard shell like a bird egg. After all the eggs were collected, the researcher went to build a new nest. The turtle, totally oblivious to what was going on started to bury the nest. She worked for at least half an hour filling the hole, packing the sand, and them camouflaging the surface to hide where the real nest was. She then finally lumbered back to the sea and swam off. We never did not see the hatchlings, but what we saw was really cool.
Now for my rant though. I was amazed at how a bunch of allegedly intelligent adults can't follow simple directions. Our group consisted of nine cruisers, Cutty, and the tour guide. The tour guide told us to follow her to the turtle. We are supposed to follow directly behind her since there could be hatchlings anywhere. Within twenty feet, half of the cruisers were spread out walking alongside the guide instead of behind her. Once we got to the turtle, everybody started in the right place, but then the same cruisers who couldn't walk behind, started moving around to the front of the turtle. They were reminded and all but one moved back. One ignored the guide and continued to not only stand in front of the turtle, but was shining his light (at least it was red) right on the turtles head. He was asked again to move. Later, as the turtle was starting to fill the hole, he asked the researcher if it would be helpful if we helped the turtle. The researcher said no, to let her do it by herself. So the cruiser started to push dirt into the hole. Then a bunch of locals showed up with no guide. They walked all over the place, with no lights or with white lights, totally oblivious to the basic care that should be taken in such a place. In case you can't tell, it pissed me off. We got back to the marina about 23:00, which is early for a turtle watch trip. We got lucky on not waiting too long when we first got there, so we got home at a reasonable hour.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 28
Today is burger night. We expected a good turnout, since Smokey the pan player is here, and based on peoples comments over the past few days. At 17:30, half an hour before cooking starts, there were about three people here. Several more trickled in, and we sold twenty-two when all was said and done. We had been told by a friend of Bob's that a Canadian film crew was making some kind of documentary on Grenada, or Canadians in Grenada, or something to that effect, and that they would be here tonight. Bob called the friend earlier in the day to make sure they understood that we cook burgers and have the pan player between 18:00 and 19:00. So if they want to film anything meaningful, they should be here by 18:00. Well, the Canadians must have been in the islands too long, because they are on GMT (Grenada Maybe Time). Bob's friend showed up about 18:45, but the alleged film crew didn't show until almost 20:00. By then, Smokey was gone, even though he played an extra half hour for us. We had kept the food and grill out waiting for them, so we served them burgers, but there was no evidence of any interest in filming anything. Another Island plan gone awry.
There was another interesting twist to burger night this week. We have a boat here that has been here a while and the occupants don't generally participate in cruiser stuff like burger night or the pot-lucks. This week they have guests aboard, and they all came for burgers. We were glad to have them, even though they sat by themselves and didn't mingle at all with the other cruisers. As things were winding down, but I was still at the grill, another couple from the marina came out and said sternly, "We're going to bring our own gin and tonic next week". My first thought was that they were somehow unhappy with the bar service or something. They recognized my puzzlement, and explained that they were commenting on the fact that the aforementioned group of four brought two bottles of wine and other beverages from their boat. I hadn't noticed this fact, since I was busy cooking burgers. In the interest of customer service, I probably wouldn't have said anything anyway, but two other boats also commented about how tacky this was. We are, after all, a bar, and you don't expect customers to bring their own booze to a bar.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 29
Today we have to visit the Immigration office in St. Georges. When I returned from Houston in March, I was given ninety days, which runs out on June 11. Barb's last extension expires ay 30th, so we are going today to renew both. Bob had to run some errands in the morning, so we couldn't leave until about 11:15. The Immigration office does not close for lunch, but the Treasury office where you pay the fees does, so we waited until noon to leave the marina. We figured we would get lunch and then go to Immigration. On the way to lunch, we stopped at the new Ace Hardware store. The Ace used to be on Lagoon Road next to Island Water World, the boat parts store. They built a new store on Maurice Bishop Highway, which I originally thought was going to be a second store. But, it turns out it is a replacement store. The new store is larger and laid out much nicer. There is more stock, wider isles, and brighter lights. We just went up and down every isle checking it out. We left with three items, only one of which I really had been planning to buy.
For lunch we went to Da Big Fish. This is the restaurant at the boatyard where we had our bottom job done last summer. We know not to order the burgers, as this was our first exposure to the Grenadian mush burgers. We had been impressed with both their quesadillas and fajitas back then, so we both ordered blackened chicken quesadillas today. It took quite a while for the food to come, but the waitress kept the beers full while we waited. When the food came, the first thing I noticed was the smell of curry. Not something you expect from Mexican food. The quesadillas were ok, but not as good as last time we had them.
By the time we left Da Big Fish, it was going on 14:00. We went to Immigration and found nobody waiting. I filled out the forms, we saw the officer, went to the Treasury office to pay our fees, and got our newly stamped passports back in total of fifteen minutes or less. To my surprise, instead of giving us ninety days from today, the officer added ninety day to each of our previous expiration dates. So mine doesn't expire until the middle of September. This may save us $25EC in the long run when we depart Grenada in November.
When we got back to the marina we found that our grounds guy had finished power washing the north dock. He has been working on it for several days, and if you had asked me this morning, I would have bet he could have milked another day out of it. Bob and I were both surprised he finished it today. The day has been very quiet at the bar, as Thursday's usually are.
In the afternoon, after we had returned from town, I heard Tammy barking incessantly in the distance. I finally got up to see what she was barking at, and saw her way up on the hill. She was looking up into the trees where I saw nothing. This morning a cow had come through the property mooing loudly every few steps. I had speculated then that the cow had lost a calf and she was calling for it. Well, now Tammy's behavior finally got the best of my curiosity and I walked up the hill to see what she was barking at. What I found was few-days-old calf hiding in the bushes. I yelled at Tammy to stop barking (like that worked) and tried to herd the calf back down the path it came from, because I think Momma went back that way this morning. The calf had a better idea and went trotting off across our lawn towards the main gate. Tammy was about twenty feet behind, barking all the way. At one point, the calf stopped and turned around. This move sent Tammy scurrying backwards. Some attack dog. The calf left the property, but I don't know if it ever found Momma. Another chapter in the sad life of Island animals. The calf appeared to only be a few days old, as it still had traces of it's umbilical cord, so I doubt it would survive long if it didn't get reunited with mom.
Yesterday a couple came in by taxi to look at the marina. They were in the lagoon and were looking for a place to stay until October. I spent quite a bit of time with them explaining what we offer, and when they left they said they would be here today. Well, late in the afternoon, I heard them call the marina in the next bay over and ask for docking instructions. Guess they changed their minds. What's funny is the fact that they said the most important thing to them was having finger piers. This is the only marina in Grenada with finger piers.
Today is Ashley's birthday. Peter, from Cheetah, had told Ashley he was going to bake her a cake. He came to the bar about 16:00, with no cake, and told her "You didn't really think I was baking a cake, did you?" About thirty minutes later, his wife Jenny came up, with the cake. The cake (see pictures) depicted the bar, on land, and the dock and boats on the water. It probably wouldn't win the cake competitions we watch on the Food Network, but for a baked on a boat cake, it won top prize. Since we had desert first, once we closed the bar at 19:00, we drove over to Prickly Bay Marina to get a pizza and listen to our friend Gylfi play guitar and sing. We ran into some other friends there and visited while waiting for our pizza. We were back on the boat by 21:00.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 30
On the Coconut Telegraph this morning, I learned that several of our friends are on the way here from Carriacou. Pat & Dori on Sol Y Mar and Richard & Harriet on Perseverance are underway and should arrive here early this afternoon. Also, Mike & Lynn on Seabbatical are with them. We have never met Seabbatical, but they have been checking in with the Coconut Telegraph for quite a while, so we know of them.
The shopping bus was the lightest load we have ever seen. Only three people went shopping. A lot of boats are moving around this week, so that may account for it, but lots of the regulars who live here weren't here either. Oh well. It doesn't matter to us at all financially, but it's a nice service for the cruisers and I hope Elvis doesn't stop it.
I spent most of the morning up in the bar catching up on writing my logs. I had not written anything except a few notes to remind me of what happened since last publishing. At 11:30, just as I finished writing for the day, Sol Y Mar hailed us on the VHF. They were on their way into the bay, with Perseverance right behind them. Both plan to take moorings and not slips. I told them I would launch my dinghy and be out there to help them with the mooring lines. I had the dinghy in the water within a few minutes and went out to the first mooring to await Sol Y Mar. They approached and I took a line from Dori through the mooring eye and gave it back to her. Once they had a line secure, I went to the next mooring and did the same for Perseverance. Once Perseverance was secure with two lines to the mooring ball, I went back to Sol Y Mar and put a second line on their mooring. Pat invited me aboard for a beer, and we caught up for a bit. I was out there for at least an hour, and two beers, when Seabbatical hailed Sol Y Mar on the radio wondering about the approach into the bay. I spoke with them and got them straight on what markers to look for, and stayed aboard Sol Y Mar until we saw them approaching. I then got back in my dinghy and helped them pick up a third mooring ball.
I went back to the marina to see what I had missed while I had been out on the water. Bob was playing with the new power washer. He bought the new gas powered washer a couple of weeks ago, and one of the workers has been using it to clean the north dock. This morning when the worker went to start on the middle dock, the pump didn't seem to be working. The motor ran, but there was no pressure in the hose. When Bob came in, he loaded the machine up and took it back where he bought it. They looked at it and found a broken valve that detects when you squeeze the trigger on the wand. They replaced the part, and when Bob got back, he had to try it out on the deck by the bathrooms and office.
At 16:00, Crystal, the bartender intern, left for the day. She has been with us four weeks now, and has two more to go in her internship, but she is going on a trip to the States for a month, so she won't be back for a while to finish. About 19:00, everybody came in for happy hour. We haven't seen Richard & Harriet since we parted in St. Lucia last June, and we haven't seen Pat & Dori since they were headed north last December. And, like I said before, we had never met Mike & Lynn although we had spoken on the SSB. We had a nice time catching up for a couple of hours.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 31
We had a quiet morning as we usually do on Saturdays. I ordered an ice delivery this morning, not sure if we really needed it. The freezer that we keep the ice in belongs to the ice company, so we try not to use it for other things, and I try to not order too early so their trip here is worthwhile. They don't deliver on Sundays, and I had six bags left. I figured six bags would be enough to make it until Monday, but I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, knowing we had three new boats on the moorings. So, I got the delivery, and it was a good thing I did. One of the boats in the marina is having an issue with their freezer, so they came up and bought four bags. If I hadn't gotten the delivery, that would have almost wiped us out. As it tuned out, we sold two more bags in the afternoon, in addition to what we use in the bar.
Ashley came in at 14:00 and we immediately went to the store. We had to stop at CK's and get a number of things for the bar, and we went to IGA for our own weekly shopping.
The pot-luck was well attended. We had at least fifteen people, including a group of four adults and a kid who came by taxi from Prickly Bay. We had plenty of food and enjoyed about an hour of talk before eating. As soon as everybody was done eating, I got the Karaoke machine out. Over the past month or more, Karaoke would have just been the Bob & Chris show, so we didn't do it. But tonight, I know we have Willie Nelson (Pat), and Frank Sinatra (Richard), back in the house, so we will definitely do Karaoke. It turned out to be one of the biggest Karaoke shows we have ever done. I played songs non-stop from about 19:30 until after midnight. We had at least eight different singers, including the "kid" from Prickly Bay. I hate to say, but I forgot his name. He took his karaoke very seriously though. He was quiet good and did several songs, most of them old enough that you wondered how he knew the song.
During karaoke, we had a nice surprise. Lou, the marina cat, had not been seen for four days. It's not that unusual for her to skip a day of gracing us with her presence, but this was the longest stretch of not seeing her. About 22:00, she came running in the front door at full speed. She usually travels in the mangroves along the shore to avoid detection by the dogs, but then she has about fifty feet of open parking lot to cross to get safely inside the bar, so she does that at full speed. Once inside, she seems to know she is safe from the dogs. The dogs are not allowed in the bar, and for strays, they are very good at respecting that. The cat will sit just inside the doorway with the dogs sitting five feet away outside the door, and they just look at each other. But they all know that once she steps outside, she's fair game. Anyway, the cat ate and then wandered around all the people getting picked up and snuggled as well as pet. She hung around until closing time when we had to physically put her outside. I carried her over to the mangroves while Barb got the dogs to follow her down the dock, so there was no chase.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.