WEEK 18 We welcome our first guests !

Tuesday August 5th 2014

Grenada .....it’s too good not to share !

We have just bid a fond farewell to our guests; my sister Dominique, nephew Thomas and niece Laura who have spent two weeks onboard.  We can honestly say that it has been a pleasure to share with them the beauty of this part of the Caribbean, and our appreciation of the place was definitely enhanced by their enthusiasm of it all.

It was nice to be able to show others what life on board a sailboat REALLY is like, in a way it must have taken away some of the romance from what they might have imagined our life was like, (reality bites!), but then pump toilets will do that for anyone ! In all seriousness though, our three honoured guests did very well! They adapted quickly to life onboard a sailing vessel, and were consistently enthusiastic from “Day One” all the way to “Day 14” ! They embraced the challenges, showed grace when the wind stole some of their clothes from the clothes line, they were easy going and “went with the flow” when weather kept us from doing an activity, and were always willing to lend a helpful hand, we could not ask for more!

Cousins !

We had a good time together; the weather was varied which gave them a chance to experience all sorts of conditions: some very strong winds and rain and some beautiful sunny days and starlight evenings.Oh, and even the dolphins cooperated!  Coming out to say hello in their own magical way on their first day of sailing (from Grenada to Carriacou.) 

I guess that the dolphins had received the memo!  Haha !  We spare no expense in pleasing our guests! Upon their arrival a “wish list” was devised by our guests...and we tried to deliver as best we could with some added, unexpected bonuses. 

Here were the highlights of our time together :

•  Getting lost on a deserted island for a while, check ✔️
• Seeing Dolphins, check ✔️  
• Beach Time, check ✔️    
• Snorkel pretty reefs, see colourful fish, check ✔️
• Swimming with sea turtles, check ✔️
•  Sailing to enchanted islands, check ✔️
•  Seeing Iguanas, tortoises and other land creatures, check,check and check ✔️
• Snorkelling the Underwater Sculpture Park, check ✔️
• Walking up to a Fort for a good view of a harbour, check ✔️
• Trying new foods & buying spices from the spice market, check ✔️
• Learning about “Dinghy Bum” (Wet bottoms) on Recess, check ✔️
• R n' R time, check ✔️
• Watching the sunrise in the stunning Tobago Cays, check ✔️
• Learning the hard way about how much the Grenadian locals like to party, by being kept up by the annoyingly loud and melody challenged “SOCA” music” until the wee hours of the morning, check ✔️
• Quality family time;Board games and watching episodes of "Sherlock" in the evenings check, ✔️
• Seeing the awesome kite surfers while enjoying a drink at Happy Island, check, ✔️
• Getting our "Gambling Fix" at crab race night ,(And they even winning some pocket money too!) check ✔️
• Getting their kitten/puppy fix by volunteering at  the local SPCA in Grenada, check ✔️
• Joining in the volleyball games with the sailing community, check ✔️

Laura, always the trooper, even broke her finger-Ouch-and kept right on playing! (They found out only after their return to Canada). We have been assured that Doe, Thomas and Laura had a very good time and we sure have enjoyed sharing our adventure with them !!

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   (Sandy Island near Carriacou)

Photo by Doe

Catching some rays on Grande Anse Beach, Grenada

Grande Anse Beach

Swimming with Turtles in Tobago Keys, Grenadine

Tobago Cays, are always breath taking!

View from Fort Matthew in Grenada

Shopping the market in Grenada

Thomas gets down with the puppies

Lightning Fast Hermit Crabs on Race Night!

Laura and her SPCA buddy

SPCA Visit

Prickly Bay Weekly VolleyBall Game

Water and Electricity, off the grid !

Before our guests arrived we had been a little bit concerned about conserving water and electricity and what adding 3 adults on board was going to do to our limited water supply...like I told our guests when they arrived : the concept of living off the grid (ie making our own electricity and water) is easy to understand but maybe not so easy to realize and adapt to in real life, especially coming from a country of abundance like Canada, but they surprised us, being very careful with their water and electricity use, consequently we did not run out of water! 

New foods to savour, new things discovered !

Meanwhile, the 4 of us have continued to enjoy to learn new things about the culture and food here in Grenada. For instance, we had a very neat dinner at a local restaurant one night were we were able to sample a huge variety of new foods !

Here are of some of the food we sampled: 

• Green banana salad (tasted like potato salad)
•  Okra (tastes like zucchini or cauliflower when boiled) 
• Christophine (delicious)  
• Fried Plantain (which we now regard as a great substitute to sweet potatoes)

We also tried dasheen, which I recently discovered is the equivalent of taro root from South East Asia, the leafs, locally called Callaloo, are used to make a delicious soup (which reminds me of spinach cream soup)  or in stir fries. 

Have I told you about Wax Apples and French Cashews?  These are just a few of the “apples” you can get in Grenada  you can also get Custard Apple, Mami Apple, Golden Apple, etc, these are not apples in the traditional sense, but they offer a wide range of tastes and textures. Matthews favourite are French Cashew (that some would describe as a bit too bitter for their taste) and Wax Apples which I think we described after our tour with Sea Cat in Dominica, where they were going by the other name “ Pomerac”.

Dasheen (Taro)

Callaloo Leafs

Yummy Chin-ups

French Cashews

On tour with our guests we also tried :  “Chin Ups”, like a Lychee, which grow on trees and that the local kids sell to raise funds for school supplies.

We also learned about “Noni” : a strange and unattractive looking (and smelling!)  fruit but if you put it in water, its juices flow out and are reputed to being very good at fighting cancer. Cutty told us that a few weeks ago, an american tourist told him she gave her dog the whole noni fruit to eat, and that a month or so later, his cancer was all gone !  I am told that you can buy “Noni Juice Extract” in the United States. I am sure that they came up with a catchier name than "Noni Juice" though.

We also learned about “Noni” : a strange and unattractive looking (and smelling!)  fruit but if you put it in water, its juices flow out and are reputed to being very good at fighting cancer. Cutty told us that a few weeks ago, an american tourist told him she gave her dog the whole noni fruit to eat, and that a month or so later, his cancer was all gone !  I am told that you can buy “Noni Juice Extract” in the United States. I am sure that they came up with a catchier name than "Noni Juice" though.

Noni

We also tried Sorrel, a traditional drink made with Hibiscus....very tasty and refreshing !

Sorrel

I was amazed to learn that “Loofas”  -Those neat little sponge-like bath scrubs you can buy in health food stores- come from a plant that looks like a cucumber. We were told that there are actually two types of Loofas, one from land and one from the sea. We had a chance to handle the land loofa, breaking open the ripe pod, which looks like a dried cucumber, and food a perfect loofa inside ! 

The Loofa

We also saw where cloves came from (from the flower in case you were wondering), and discovered “Yuku” a seed pod that once opened can be used for make up (nail polish, lipstick), OR, as a food colouring to help convince children to eat their rice, true story !

Yuku

Waterfalls, Daring Stunts and Elusive Monkeys.

While enjoying an after dinner drink on Happy Island in the Grenadines this second time round, we got a impromptu show from a couple of kite surfers who wizzed by us in the shallow waters around the island. At first I was not sure if it was the rum I was drinking, but it looked like one of these dare devils has done the impossible task of surfing through two  dinghies (parked inches apart) and then, I saw that I was, in fact, still sober and my eyes had not deceived me, which prompted cheering and clapping from everyone present, and this got the kite surfer really going, he started to entertain us by doing fly bys and charging towards us at crazy speeds, kicking up and flying above our heads just before hitting the wall ! Meghan and Matthew each got a high five from him.How cool is that?1

When we got back to Grenada, we and our guests joined our Rafiki friends to go discover some new waterfalls: Concord Falls and the Seven Sister Falls. Both were stunning and refreshing to swim under, I even had a bit of fun and jumped in, but only after seeing all  the other people come up safely (hehe) !  Meghan quickly followed suit but Matthew declined. He loves water, but not when he has to fall into it from up high! 

"Sisters in the mist"

Concord Falls

If the dolphins got the memo, the monkeys certainly seemed to have missed it, completely !  

I am going to have to have a chat with those cuties next time I see them, because we tried to get my family to meet them, on two separate occasions and they did not show up.  I think that the road construction nearby may have been a factor, or maybe it was the sight of this crazy tourist, hm...

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Photos by Ingrid, S/V Rafiki

Photo By Ingrid S/V Rafiki

Thanks Laura, it did not hurt one bit !  (I just made that face for show)

 Just in case people are wondering how the medical facilities are in Grenada, I can tell you that they are pretty good! A few days before our guests arrived, I went grocery shopping with a friend of mine, and I got into an altercation with the sidewalk, and the sidewalk won!  Who knew that grocery shopping was a full contact sport ?! Anyways, I am fine, Robin who was with me, kept his head and assessed my condition, got me in a taxi, and Ingrid met up with me and took me to the hospital, where an excellent doctor gave me a single stitch, on my brow line, and since the stitch had to be removed on the 7th day, Laura, who has medical training (as a Veterinary Assistant), did a great job, thus allowing us to keep our scheduled trip to the Grenadines as planned. 

Meg welcomes our guests at the airport

Meg's booming bracelet business

Tobago Keys

Dinner on the beach, Tobago Keys

The Origin of CHOCOLATE !

Doe tries sugar cane at the Rum distillery

Kids Playing cricket on Streets- Grenada

MC and Laura clean out a Calabash

MEG GETS UP ON WAKEBOARD !  WAY TO GO !

Coming up, Grenada may not have been hit by tropical storms or Hurricanes, but Carnival Fever is building up here, we can feel the a real increase in energy and anticipation all around us, soon we will feel the full force of it ! Stay tuned for more and thanks for reading !