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| The crawler receives the Queen |
All things considered, we did a good job of putting the boat away last year. We arrived late on a Sunday and took a taxi into "Cool Runnings" a small guest house near the boatyard. By early Thursday we were launched and anchored in Prickley Bay on the southern coast of Grenada. For those of you interested in what a feat this is - here is a link to our current checklist of items to be done. Much prep had been done by the excellent crew at Spice Island Marina. They had done the bottom sanding before we arrived and the rains held off so we could get the bottom painted in short order. We had a bit of confusion with Turbulence, the sail makers who were fixing the spinnaker and main and undertaking to cut down the spare Genoa for us. When they arrived with sails, we had more than we had left them. As these are large, bulky and heavy items, we elected to return the surplus. The Canvas Shop showed up with our new bimini right away which was a blessing because it is really hot without shade canvas. Really hot. Unbearably hot.
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| Drying the nutmeg |
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| On the nutmeg racks |
We continue to learn new stupid boat tricks. This year's lesson: if you leave your outboard locked to the rail you might develop two problems. The lock might rust shut and prevent you from removing the dinghy. The impeller may shrivel in the summer sun and fail to do its critical job of keeping the engine adequately cool. I mention this only in passing- I would not personally be so foolish as to try to cook our trusty outboard..
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Nutmeg workers: shush! |
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| Nutmeg sack stencils |
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| Susie, Betsy and guide |
After running through about a gallon of penetrating oil and several keys, a grinder took care of the former. The latter was fixed with the help of Martin Thompson who patiently showed me how to drop the lower end and change out the impeller. For a job that the manual recommends doing annually, this is quite a touchy procedure. I had done it on the old Yamaha but never on the new Tohatsu so I was pleased to have a good teacher.
click for next column>> |
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| Diving for Dollars |
We also learned to rebuild shower sump pumps. Land dwellers among you are familiar with the little drain at the bottom of your shower where the shower water, hair, soap & so on silently disappear. On a boat, this job is done by an electric pump which has been making ominous noises for quite a while. After this one went on strike ( no work, just lots of noisy protesting), Susie found two boxes of likely looking parts we had not opened. Sure enough, there was a spare pump, a partially rebuilt pump in pieces and a whole lot of spare parts. Installing the spare proved pointless, it had the same problems as the original. A cheap plastic gear gets stripped by a steel worm drive on the motor. The box contained three of these plastic gears and a quick internet search confirmed that these pumps (Whale gulper 220) all end up suffering from this problem. After carefully exploring a great number of wrong ways of putting the pump together, we fixed the original and the spare and reinstalled the pump. What with the detour through that maze of twisty passages, it took the morning - but we no longer have to empty the shower with the dinghy pump
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| Flowers at Belmont Estates |
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| Flowers at Belmont Estates |
However all is not hard work and no play here in paradise. Betsy joined us here and we together we have been enjoying Grenada, the Spice Island. We took an excellent historical tour from Clement Baptiste, whose numerous family goes back to the French settlers of the 17th century. He also shared with us some of his personal experiences of the military coup and the American invasion it prompted during Regan's presidency. We toured a nutmeg exporter and watched a wood fired/ water wheel driven distillery make rum the old fashioned way. Many fine meals and swims have been enjoyed. Knock wood, all appears to be working adequately well to carry us and our guest up to St. Lucia over the next week. Queen Emma had her season's first sail from Clark's Court Bay around to the capital, St. George's and we had a fine (though turkey free) Thanksgiving meal in a lovely waterfront restaurant. We have much to be thankful for.
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| Molasses skimming for rum |
A word about the pictures here. We toured the "River Antoine Rum Factory". Sugar Cane is crushed on a water wheel imported from England in the 18th century. The remaining chaff is thrown by the armload into fires under the pots to cook the molasses. Settling pots for the cane are still skimmed by hand and the fermentation takes place in huge tanks. The stills are fired with wood. The bottles are hand labeled. This does not seem to be a historical re-enactment but, as with the nutmeg processor, a case of "why change?"
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| At the rum distillery |
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| Groaning, steaming 'cane fired still |
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| Waterwheel gear and grease buckets |
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