Nov 21

We had a long day today.  We conned Jim & Amanda into staying in the marina through the weekend so that they could help us get ready for the hash Saturday.  Jim just got back from a trip to Canada Sunday night, and planned to leave the marina Monday.  However, he had to FedEx some stuff that he could not carry on the airplane, and it won't be here until the end of the week.  We convinced them to stay in the marina and help us get ready for the hash and do some decorating.  Some of the decorating is for Christmas, and some is permanent.  The first thing Jim did was hang a windsurfer that was left here years ago from the ceiling of the bar.  The windsurfer had been laying along the wall of the bar taking up space for years.  Now it is serving a purpose.  Barb & Jim dug some Christmas decorations out of a closet and started hanging things up.  There were some lights already installed up in the rafters of the bar that were never on.  We tracked down wires and plugs and made the existing stuff work, as well as ran some chili pepper lights around behind the bar.  We have also added a few more flags to our collection.  We got a Swedish flag from Anders & Catherine on Ellinor, and we added an autographed Texas flag that is frayed on the edge to the point that we can't fly it anymore.

Late in the afternoon, I noticed a boat in the harbor that was approaching the marina and had fenders deployed as if they planned to dock.  We weren't expecting anybody, and I was standing right by the radio to see if they called in for docking instructions or help.  I never heard them call, but they were obviously planning to dock, so Bob and I went to the end of our dock to take lines from them.  Once we had them secure, we realized it was a guy who came by in a car last week inquiring about dockage.  He had never indicated when he was coming, so we were surprised.

Tonight is burger night.  I have been worried that burger night would be lightly attended this week, since a lot of the boats that have been here a few weeks moved north a couple of days ago.  We were pleasantly surprised when over thirty people showed up.  The steel drum player we hire started late again because he left a bag of cables at the place he played immediately before coming here, and had to go fetch them.  This probably worked a little in our favor since he didn't start playing until about the time most folks were done eating.  They then stayed an extra hour listening to him and buying more drinks. 

After the pan player was done, most people cleared out.  I was looking forward to closing since it had been a long day.  There was a local guy here who had been talking to Bob, and now was talking to Barb.  Bob had left and taken Ashley home, so it was just the three of us there.  The guy made a comment that we probably wanted to close and go home, and Barb said something that indicated there was no hurry, so he ordered another beer.  I could have kicked her ass.  But, we ended up having a very nice conversation with Ian, who is the head of the Hotel Association.  He owns the hotel that we should have stayed at when we were hauled out, but didn't.  He also rents cars and is the guy that Bob got my drivers license from.  We had an interesting chat about doing business in Grenada.  Like Bob, he is from here, but spent the majority of his adult life in Canada.  We finally said goodnight and went to the boat after 22:00.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 22

Today is Thanksgiving in the US.  Of course, that doesn't mean anything here except to the American cruisers.  We had managed to score a small turkey breast that will fit in our oven, and we have Pepperidge Farms stuffing that we brought with us from the States.  Our original plan was to have a quiet dinner by ourselves, but a bunch of the other cruisers asked yesterday if they could use the bar to have a Thanksgiving pot-luck dinner.  We said sure, as long as we didn't really have to organize anything.  Tom from Sojourn made an announcement on the morning net that the pot-luck would happen, and I followed him with an announcement that we would have a two-hour happy hour at the same time.

We didn't have any boats coming or going from the marina today, so I was able to do a minimum of real work and enjoy Thanksgiving.  The one task I did was to cut the top off a plastic fifty-five gallon drum that Bob had gotten to be another trash can.  We will use it outside the bar Saturday night, and then move it to replace the one on the north dock that is cracked.  The drum came from the Westerhall Rum factory.  Westerhall no longer distills their own rum.  They buy the rum and then age it and/or flavor it to their specs.  When I opened this drum, it clearly smelled of rum.  I told Bob to get a full one next time.  Jim pitched in to help again today and mounted a new light fixture over the bar.  Prior to adding this new light, digging through the cooler after dark was a challenge to come up with the right bottle, and making change from the cash register could have been a landfall to somebody if we mistook a $100 for a $10.

The football games started at 14:00, and the potluck started at 15:00.  We cooked our turkey and made the Mooney family recipe dressing to go with it.  I usually make the dressing, but this year Barb did all the hard part while I was doing other stuff around the marina.  She did all the slicing and dicing, and cooked the bacon and sausage.  I just sautéed the veges, made the basic dressing and threw it all together.  It was all a hit, because everybody complained that they had eaten too much when we done.  We watched the Packers beat the Lions and the Cowboys beat the Jets.  We closed the bar "early", about 21:00 and headed to the boat.

In the evening I got a few pictures from my brother in NY.  My daughter, her husband, and my grandkids visited them for Thanksgiving.  My brother's daughter is building a new house on the property and my three small grandkids enjoyed climbing on the big digging machine that had just dug the hole for the foundation.  The picture is included on my picture page.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 23

Today is Friday, which means it shopping day.  Shopping day has always meant a bus to the IGA.  Today, the regular bus driver had a tour to do, so he sent another guy.  There were enough cruisers going that he had to make two full trips.  We used to have a cruiser take reservations so the bus driver could know in advance which bus to bring, but the past month he has said just let it happen and he would take care of it.  This has worked well until today.  I didn't hear of people being pissed off, but then again, since it's not really a marina function, I didn't worry about it.  We have our own shopping to do, but that had to wait a bit.

There is a sixty-foot motor yacht here that has been here since April.  The owner is here for a few weeks for the first time since he left it, and needs to get fuel for it.  Bob went to great lengths to arrange for a truck to come here and fill them up, and to make it a duty-free purchase.  Unfortunately, the fuel truck is not really equipped to do dockside deliveries, i.e. no long hose.  So, we had to move the boat from the end of the north dock to a slip on the south dock where we hoped he would be close enough.  When the truck finally got here, it was apparent that even in this place, the hose wasn't long enough.  So, for the second time we moved the boat to the first slip on the center dock.  The hose still was a few feet too short if we took it down the dock and out the finger pier, but if we made a straight line across the water, it would make it.  I took my dinghy and another little boat out and we let the hose run across them instead of being in the water.  The fuel truck driver was quite unhappy, but we got the job done.  When it was all done, we moved the boat once more back to it's original spot.

Once all that was done, we went shopping.  Our first stop was FedEx to pick up the parts I need to get our big air conditioner working again.  With little hassle I got the box.  On the food front, we got almost nothing for ourselves, but instead got stuff for the hash tomorrow night.  We expect to sell about a hundred burgers.  The meat and buns have been special ordered, but the rest, cheese, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, plates, napkins, and condiments have to be purchased.  We hit the Food Land market first, since they have good produce.  Then we hit CK's, which is a mini wholesale store.  Don't think Sam's here, but they do case pricing or individual pricing, so for bulk stuff they are the place to go.  We got plates, chips, bottled water, wine, cheese, napkins, mayo, ketchup, mustard, and plastic beer cups here.

We got deliveries from several important vendors.  The truck from the brewery came and we got ten extra cases of Carib beer.  The Coke truck finally showed up after trying to get them here for three weeks.  We got seven cases of Coke, but they didn't have any of the Fanta flavors we need.  Coke, Sprite, or ginger ale was all they had.  The guy asked me if we had enough ginger ale, and I said yes.  He only saw one case in our pile, so he questioned me again.  He said that with Christmas coming we would need more.  I didn't know that, so I took another case.  I asked Bob later and he agreed that rum & ginger is a traditional Christmas drink.  Since a minority of our business comes from locals, we'll see how much we sell.  The ice man cometh also.  The ice vendor has been giving Bob crap about taking too few bags on each delivery.  I learned today that the freezer belongs to them, and it is half full of stuff other than ice, and that's their real point of contention.  We moved most of the other stuff out, and they got twenty-five bags in.  Since we need quite a few for coolers of beer tomorrow, that's good.

As I mentioned earlier, we conned Jim & Amanda from Adventure Bound to stay until Sunday and help us with the hash.  Today, Jim moved the large wi-fi antenna that has been on a pole in the middle of the bar to an outside mount where it should have always been.  This resulted in better signal strength to the boats, but ironically it cut the signal to the office since the roof of the bar is now in the way.  The office can still get internet via a hardwire to the modem, but managing the wireless access requires being connected wirelessly, so this will have to be resolved.  Amanda made some signs for the outside bar, the inside bar, and parking.  They also dug out about twenty plastic chairs that were way in the back of a storage trailer to give some extra seating to the hashers.

We had a fairly early night at the bar and went to bed to dream about tomorrow.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 24

Today is the big day.  It started early since the day guy didn't show up on time, meaning that Christopher the security guy knocked on the boat at 06:00 to say he was leaving.  I told him to go home since he has to be back early, at 17:00, to direct parking.  My foot had been hurting again overnight, so I was a little slow to get going.  I loaded up on Advil thinking that today would not be a good day to be hobbling around.  By the time I got dressed and went up to the bar, Augustine the day guy, was here.  On the weekends, he comes across the bay in a small boat, and his son had taken the key for the outboard, so he had to jury-rig it to get over here, resulting in his tardiness.  He went about emptying the trash and doing the stuff he does on the weekends.  I had him bring six cases of Carib to the bar and I reloaded the cooler in a different manner.  I removed and relocated some products that we don't sell a lot of, and loaded a whole row of three cases of Carib in addition to what we normally have chilled.  The outside bar area got set up with two coolers that we have, and a round cooler like you might find near the checkout at a convenience store that was lent to us by Carib.  The signs Amanda made were stapled in place and the chairs were distributed around the normal parking area.  Barb and Amanda spent an hour or more making all the burgers, which we stored in the regular fridge and the cooler where we store beer kegs.  Bob had picked up one hundred buns from the bakery on his way in, and I sliced them all.

By mid-afternoon, we were pretty much ready, and I should have been sitting down resting my foot for the rush later, but I kept puttering around making sure everything was ready.  We had discussed with Jim & Amanda, who have run many hashes, that most hashes end at a small rum shop.  This results in long lines for beer, and little or no food available.  Compared to that, no matter what we do, it will be better.  But, I couldn't help applying my American expectations to the idea of what I wanted to provide tonight.  The run is scheduled to start at 18:00.  Four people had been here earlier in the afternoon to lay out the trial, but they had left when they were done.  So, at 17:00, here we were ready for a crowd of over a hundred, and not a soul here except us workers.  About 17:30, the first cars started to arrive.  They followed the signage and Christopher's directions and parked where we wanted them without incident.  Parking space is another thing we excelled at compared to most hashes.  The crowd gathered in the parking lot awaiting the organizers instructions.  We had lots of bottled water available hoping to sell it before the run, but not much moved.  The organizers were a little behind schedule, but by 18:45 they were off.  We were told the first of the serious runners would arrive back in about forty-five minutes.  Once the hug crowd took off, here we were with almost nobody here again.

True to the prediction, the first runner got back at 19:30 and ran right into the water to cool off.  Bob quickly set up a hose they could rinse off with since a couple of them went to our showers.  As soon as people started arriving, I started cooking burgers.  In a little over an hour I had grilled a hundred burgers.  Thanks to Jim & Amanda, and a couple of other impromptu volunteers, the whole thing went off rather smoothly.  We sold nine cases of beer, almost a keg of draft, and almost exactly what we had projected for burgers.  About 21:30, people started leaving.  Since the majority of people carpool to these events, once they started to leave, most of them left within ten minutes of each other.  There were a few stragglers in the bar until about 23:00 when we finally shut it down.  It was a long night but we had great sales.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 25

Today was a comparatively quiet day.  I was up at 07:00, even though I forgot to set the alarm.  Augustine had gotten here on time today, and was sober, so he had been cleaning the grill and emptying trash before I got up.  I opened up the bar so he could empty trash and sweep up.  I started rearranging the cooler back to it's normal configuration.  By 08:30, you wouldn't have known anything special happened here last night.

Adventure Bound is leaving the marina today.  They aren't leaving the area, since they are still waiting for a FedEx package, but they are wisely getting out of the marina before I find more work for them to do.  Seriously, we greatly appreciate the help they gave us in planning and executing the hash night.

Since nothing was going on, Barb cooked us a nice full breakfast about 09:30.  Ashley came in at noon, and I went back to the boat where I fell asleep for an hour and a half.  Even though I slept well last night, I guess it wasn't enough.  In the afternoon, we had the football games on and a group of a dozen folks played two games of dominoes.  When the dominoes players were done, we closed the bar down early and went to relax on the boat.  Barb made pizza for dinner, and bed came relatively early.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 26

Today was a very quiet day, punctuated by a few moments of excitement.  There was no traffic in the bar all morning.  Ashley came in from noon until about 18:00, and we still had no business.  A boat that has been here over two months was leaving the marina this afternoon.  They are moving to the Hog Island anchorage where the water is clearer and they can clean their bottom before heading north.  Unfortunately, their prop was so fouled that when they backed out of their slip and tried to go forward, they were making almost no headway.  They got to the end of the fairway and turned into the wind toward Hog Island.  Once they were straight into the wind, they made no headway at all.  The wind pushed them up against the t-head of the dock they had been at, and they took lines and tied up there.  Unfortunately, since they had little power, they also had little control, and the bow of the boat took out the power pedestal on the end of the dock.  Bob and I went out and made temporary repairs to the pedestal, but will have to either replace it or get it fiberglassed to repair it.

Just before closing the bar, we heard a radio conversation that led me to believe that a boat in the marina might be having a dinner visit from the guy who caused all the trouble a month ago.  I alerted our security guard to keep an extra eye open to make sure no people who weren't marina guests were wandering about.  I suppose we can't control the guests a boat has, especially if they come by water, but we can make sure they don't wander around and do anything vindictive.  An hour or so later, I walked up to speak with the security guard, and he told me that only one gentleman was a guest, not the problem people.  So all is well.

The other excitement of the evening also occurred as we spoke to the security guard when we first left the bar.  The little cat who hangs out with the security guards was meowing from under the bar.  We spoke about her, and then the security guard said there was a cat down on our dock meowing loudly.  Oops!  That would be our cat.  Barb had let him out late in the afternoon and forgot he was out as it became dark.  During the day, he doesn't venture from the boat's cockpit.  But after dark, his prowling instincts get the better of him.  I had gone back to the bar to turn out a light I forgot, when Barb headed down the dock and there was Bimmy.  He ran down a finger pier and hopped on a boat.  Unfortunately, it wasn't our finger pier, nor our boat.  Fortunately, it was an unoccupied boat, so I didn't hesitate to board it and snatch his furry butt up and carry him home, where he got a stern lecture about getting off his boat.  I'm sure he understood every word.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 27

I called a local repair service, called Enza Marine, to come look at the air conditioner.  They can't get here until Friday, so we'll continue to be hot.  A boat named Misfa that came in a few days ago and is going to be here for a couple month's storage, went out for an overnight sail before they leave the boat.  A boat named Corem Deo came in from Trinidad.  They will be onboard for a couple of weeks, and then leaving the boat while they go home to the States.  And, we had one boat leave.  Dock Queen, fellow Texans, left the marina and headed for Venezuela. 

The other day, Jim from Adventure Bound moved the wi-fi antenna outside where it should be, and today, Bob hooked up an amplifier he has had for a year or more.  Adventure Bound is now anchored way across the bay, and they are getting a good enough signal to Skype and surf the net fine.  If we decide to make our wireless available to people outside the marina, now we have the hardware to do it.

Late in the morning, I took Jim & Amanda into town to FedEx.  Jim had gotten new masts and sails for their windsurfers last week while in Canada, but he couldn't get them here as baggage, so he had to ship them.  We went to FedEx first to get the paperwork, then to Customs to get it cleared, then back to FedEx to get the boxes.  With the boxes securely strapped to the roof of the car, we then hit Food Land and CK's to get what we needed or burger night tomorrow.  I expect a relatively light burger night, since many boats have taken off to the north today.  We also have some leftovers from Saturday, so the shopping was light.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 28

We had a little boat movement today.  Misfa came back from their night out, and we docked them in the slip where they will be staying for a couple of months.  We moved Zig Zag from where she has been tied during the hurricane season to a regular side-tie.  Stuart & Natalia arrived early in the season and we got to know them.  Back in September, they went back to Vieques, Puerto Rico where they live, to start a business or two.  They left the boat here for the rest of hurricane season.  Stuart returned last week to take the boat back north, but there was a guy in the area interested in buying the boat.  Stuart stuck around an extra week to potentially make a deal, but in the end it didn't work, so they will be leaving in a couple of days.

We had deliveries from the brewery today.  One truck brings kegs, and another brings bottles, and they were both here.  We got ten cases of beer and four kegs.  That should last us a week or two without another night like Saturday.  Speaking of Saturday, a lot of the hashers are student from the medical school.  We hoped the exposure from the hash would bring some back as regular customers.  Sure enough, three guys showed up for burger night.  They said they had never known we were here, and they would spread the word.

I worried all day about burger night being a light one.  Quite a few boats have left the area today for points north.  We hope to sell at least thirty each week, and tonight we have supplies for forty, but I would be happy to sell twenty.  As usual, my fears were groundless. We sold out the forty burgers in less than an hour.  Buns were our real throttle, as we had about ten more burgers but no more buns.  Barb and I had burgers without buns so we could sell all we needed.  Christopher, the security guard, didn't get his normal free burger tonight either.

We had a special event tonight, as Smokey the pan player, played Happy Birthday to Barb on Tusen Taak II.  Her birthday is really tomorrow, but we gave her birthday wishes tonight.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 29

Our boat movement today consisted of one in and one out.  Ellinor, who tried to leave a couple days ago, but had the fouled prop, left for points north.  Murka, a forty-eight foot Swan came in from Trinidad.  Barb & I went to town to get our visas extended again.  The guy asked us why we were asking for extensions as if we needed a serious reason.  On the form, the reason I put down was "enjoying Grenada".  He took a few seconds to consider this and approved our extensions.  After Immigration, we hit both Food Land and the IGA for our personal shopping.  We ran into our old taxi driver Bert at the IGA and chatted him for a few minutes. 

Back at the marina, it was a quiet day.  Except for the earthquake.  Ashley had been at work since 08:00, but there had only been a handful of customers.  At 15:00, I was in the bar with Ashley and two customers when the building noticeably shook.  The TV mounted over the bar shook a lot, and the little Christmas tree on the bar almost fell over. Several beer cans on the back edge of the bar where we display what we sell fell over. We all went outside quickly, and could still feel the ground shaking. It all happened within about twenty seconds and then was done, but it seemed longer. I have been in a few small quakes in California before, but never felt them. This was quite weird. Barb was on the boat and felt it a little but thought it was just a wake from a passing boat.  We later found out that what we felt was a 7.3 magnitude quake that was centered between Dominica and Martinique.  That's about 275 miles north of here, but it was close enough.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.

Nov 30

This morning, I got up as usual and unlock things to get the guys working.  On the local VHF radio net there was mention of the earthquake yesterday, and reports that there was some damage and even a death in the islands north of here.  I hosted the SSB long-range radio net at 08:00 and learned that people from St. Maarten to Venezuela felt the tremor.  About 08:30, I got a message from Ashley that she couldn't come to work today.  Normally on a Friday this would be a problem, since we go shopping.  But we did our shopping yesterday so it wasn't as big a problem as it could have been.  Barb watched the bar most of the morning, while I took care of a couple of marina tasks, like replacing a power outlet on the north dock that fried overnight due to an overload.  There is a large motor yacht plugged in to this pedestal, drawing a lot of power, but you can't really blame the boat for the problem.  The circuit breaker should have blown before the wire burned, but it didn't.  So about four inches of wire and the outlet melted.  The wire eventually parted from the outlet and stopped the burning with no intervention.

Two boats left today heading north.  We are looking a little empty, but there are several boats expected in within the next week.  The shopping bus came and went as usual today, although rain showers that came just as the bus returned folks stalled their return to their boats.  The afternoon was pretty quiet with a few folks coming and going to use the Internet.  Barb did a load of laundry this morning, and for the first time in five months, the drying laundry got rained on and will have to stay out until tomorrow.

I did an interview with Radio Margaritaville in the afternoon.  We tied the conversation in to Don't Stop The Carnival, the Herman Wouk book that Buffett made into a musical.  It's about a guy who thinks it's a good idea to run a resort in the Caribbean.

In the early evening we spent some nice time with Steve & Ann from Receta and Chuck & Mickey from Corem Deo.  A little after 19:00 we closed shop and came back to the boat for Pizza!. 

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.