Monkey Business...

We are currently re-doing all the wood work on the boat which means every piece of wood surface has to have the old varnish sanded off and 4 new coats of varnish applied with a light sanding between coats. We have Charlie, one of the locals helping us with this project. Yesterday we had finished all the initial sanding and the first coat of varnish went on, so we decided that rather than take a chance that Miss O's little finger or toe prints would appear on a freshly varnishes wood surface, her and I got on a bus up to the Grand Etang rainforest in search of the elusive mona monkeys. The roads are so twisty and windy and narrow and there are clearly no speed limits here. I'm not even sure all my internal organs are still attached where they should be, but never the less, we made it to our destination. It was an overcast day to begin with which means that up in the rainforest, it is shrouded in cloud or raining - we got both. We walked the paths where the monkeys are usually seen and even stopped at the local cafe for a sandwich while we waited for the furry critters to make an appearance. Just as we were giving up and searching for a bus home....voila! The furry little creatures appeared out of nowhere. I guess even in mating season they have to come out for sustenance sooner or later. They are clearly used to being fed by awestruck tourists because as soon as they saw that we had a banana and a mango for them, they made a complete bee-line for us. They were happy to accept our fruit and peel it ever so carefully before scarfing it down and then retreating back into the jungle once they figured the buffet was over.

Finally...the monkeys!!


These little guys love to peel mangoes and bananas.

Olivia had her very first official sleepover at her friend Lala's boat. She has slept away from us once before, but that was with people she has known forever and are closer than family. She was so excited and seemed so non chalant about us leaving her there that Ron and I both had one of those moments where you silently question why your child can so easily leave you. Just as we were about to lock up and turn out the lights for the night, the VHF buzzed and it was Lala's mom, Mariola calling us to say that Olivia wasn't ready to stay and wanted to come home. When we dingied over to their boat and picked her up, she said "mommy, my magination told me I missed you and daddy too much". Gotta love it.

We haven't embedded ourselves too much with the scheduled social scene here, but we do head over to Hartman Bay on Sunday's to play dominoes with some of the cruisers - it's a great way to get away from boat chores,relax and enjoy the company of others.

This coming week is the annual Carnival here in Grenada and it's a very, very big event. The entire island shuts down during this time and the parades and parties are endless. Preparation for this event starts the day after it ends the year before and we have been feeling the excitement building throughout the island. We feel lucky to be here and get to experience some of it. The events go all through the streets and are 24 hours a day for 4 days.

Getting to know Grenada...

Walking on the trail to the waterfall.

The first week we were here took a little adjustment to get expectation to meet with reality and somehow since then, we have quietly slipped into the comfortable cruisers life here and had opportunity to really see some of the incredible beauty of this island and it's people. They sure don't call it the "Spice Island" for nothing. Everywhere you go, your senses are treated to the most wonderfully exotic smells of the flowers, the trees, the sea and all the different spices and herbs that grow abundantly wild here. We got together with a few of the other cruisers we've met and did a tour of the island with one of the guides called "Cutty". He's spent most of his life here, but has also traveled and worked abroad. The day started with a stop at a local spice shack and a very informative demonstration of what grows here and it's various uses. We sampled cinnamon, lemongrass, coco, tumeric, mimo, noni, vanilla, nutmeg, ylang ylang, fig, bay leaves, citrus leaves and a few others - all fresh and growing on the sides of the roads everywhere. Our next stop was at one of three main waterfalls on the island. This was fabulous because we got to stop and have a swim and man, it sure felt good to dive into fresh water and not have to worry about turning off the tap to conserve!! There were a few locals jumping off the top of the falls wowing the few tourists that were there and happily taking a few EC dollars in return.

One of the waterfalls on Grenada.

Having a wonderful dip in the waterfall pool
After the dip, we were off to the Antoine Rum Distillery which is the oldest functioning rum factory in the world. It was founded in 1875 and is still in production today. The giant waterwheel turns the giant gears that turn the crusher that crushes the cane into liquid that gets boiled down that gets turned into 150 proof rum. The process is a great deal less than sanitary, but apparently that doesn't matter when your finished product is 150 proof liquid explosive. Absolute firewater, but who can tell when you mix it with enough fruit juice and coconut milk?

Another stop was the cocoa processing plant where local farmers bring their cocoa pods and sell them to the processors.

Learning all about the cocoa process - the cocoa bean starts out as a slimy sweet seed in a large pod...

...and ends up as a dried cocoa bean that looks like a dark almond. They are shipped all over the world like this and further processed into other things.

As we drove through the middle of the island, we passed through Grant Etang National Park which is part of the rain forest. This was a much anticipated stop for us as this is where the monkeys come out of the rain forest to greet people and hope for a mango or banana in return. We waited for quite a while and listened to Cutty'c monkey calls, but as luck would have it, this is mating season for the little guys and they were obviously more interested in that than our lousy little fruit offering. Fortunately, the regular island bus passes right through here, so it will be easy to make a return trip and hope to experience the monkeys.

Sugar Cane being pressed at the rum distillery.

This will eventually be something drinkable - not sure I'll drink rum anymore.


In addition to the island tour, we've also made several trips to downtown St. Georges which is the main shopping, financial and economic district. On one of those trips we were admiring the old brick buildings and learned from one of the locals that most of the bricks on the island came over as ballast in ships from England in the 17 - 1800's and were traded for rum and spices. Pretty good trade for the English, I'd say.

One of the many old brick buildings - bricks were originally traded for rum and spices.

It's become something of a ritual that we start the day with coffee in the cockpit and discuss plans for the day and watch the boats that are leaving the bay for other destinations and in the evenings we watch who is arriving into the bay from points north. Two weeks ago, we were enjoying the end of the day in the cockpit and had mentioned how nice it would be to see our friends from the boat LaLa. We thought they would be coming to Grenada at some point, but didn't know when, or if they would come to Prickly Bay or one of the other many anchorages here. A few days ago, while enjoying a sundowner in the cockpit and watching the boats come in, low and behold, there came Lala around the corner with Henrick posing on the bow. We were so delighted to see them and feel like we've run into old friends. Olivia and Lala (their 11 year old daughter is also named Lala) have been hanging out and really enjoying each others company also.

Olivia, Lala and Inanna playing on the beach.


Last week, one of the marinas held a "Boat Jumble and Craft Fair" so we went to check it out and socialize a little with the other cruisers. I bought a few small watercolor pictures from one of the artists I enjoy to bring to our house (when we figure out where that is). In conversation with the artist, she mentioned that she was putting on a water color class for children that week and that while most of the kids were a little older, Olivia would be welcome to attend. Anyone that knows our little girl knows that she LOVES to paint or do any type of artwork, so she was very excited to get to go to this class (which is held in a marine pub like every other social event). I got caught up on my email while she listened intently to the teacher and created her masterpiece and I have to say that for a four year old, she did a great job!

The teacher's painting.


Olivia's interpretation - not bad for a four year old.

Grenada 12*00.919N, 61*44.543W

After a few spectacular days in the Tobago Keys, we had a great sail down to Grenada averaging 7.5 knots which is great for a boat as heavy as Exodo. We made our first stop at the island of Carriacou to check into Grenada and spent the night at Tyrell Bay on the south end so we could get an early start for the longer run across the water and down the coast of the main island of Grenada to St. Georges. After one night in the marina in St. Georges without a breeze, we were reminded of how many flies and mosquitoes love to greet the cruisers on land, so we filled out water tanks, stocked up on a few things for the fridge and headed out to find some of the southern anchorages we have heard so much about. So many of the cruisers we've met have spoken so highly of spending the hurricane season here that I may have built my own expectations too high. While the island is very, very beautiful and the people are extremely friendly and helpful, the anchorages themselves are really not what we expected. I think we expected to find more beaches, services and businesses at dingy range to the anchorages, but there is in fact very little with the exception of Prickly Bay, which is where we have our anchor set for now. Over the past 10 days, Ron has himself deeply embedded in priority #1 which is removing and resealing the the leaky hatches and fits in other small boat projects as time and weather permit.

Olivia helping Dad fix re-seal the hatches.

This is the second place we've been that offers a "cruisers net" which is a forum held over the vhf radio each morning to inform people of events, activities, things for sale, weather, security issues and anything else that might be of use to cruisers. The second day we were here, we heard a call over the net for volunteers for a children's literacy program in the area called Young Readers. I knew immediately that this was for us and I couldn't think of a better way to do something useful and meet some of the locals. For the past 2 weeks, we have been going up to Mt. Airy with a few of the other cruisers and helping the children to with their reading and some simple math and spelling. The kids range in age from 4-18 and after the work is done, there's a little time left to play some games and have a quick snack before heading back to the marina. Most of these kids just love the extra attention and love to be cuddled. Olivia and I paired up with a little girl named Shemina and she was a surprisingly good little reader for a six year old. She has 9 brothers and sisters - no wonder she loves a little extra lap time so much!

2 of the Young Readers, Whitney and Shemina with Olivia.


Jan, the founder and leader of the Young Readers Literacy Program reads to the kids.

2 nights ago, I had the opportunity to fulfill a long-time dream of watching the leatherback turtles lay their eggs on the beach - too bad it didn't quite happen...

Grenada's Levera Beach is one of the main beaches that these giant turtles come to each year. They will lay eggs about every 3 years, but in that year they may lay up to 4 nests of 150 eggs each. They come ashore at night, find a spot on the sand and use their huge flippers to dig a perfect hole. When they feel that they've dug deep enough, they will lower their back end into the hole and go into a deep trance like state as they lay the eggs. The eggs will incubate for approximately 50 days and when the next erupts, the babies will dig themselves out and instinctively waddle into the sea. Myself and 12 other cruisers took the 2 hour ride up to Levera Beach at the north end of the island and were briefed by one of the guides. To protect this habitat, this beach is closed to the public from May to September for nesting and hatching. People are only allowed there with guides, must use red lights only and no flash photography as bright lights will often scare the females and prevent them from nesting. We had to stay in a certain holding area on the beach until one of the researchers told us that they had spotted a nesting female or could see a nest erupting. The research team walks and scans the 3/4 mile stretch of beach every 30 minutes or so to look for any turtle activity. We waited and waited and waited and finally one of the researchers came over with a pail that had a bunch of hatchlings in it that were only about 30 minutes old. A nest had erupted, but because there was no moon that night (they will instinctively follow the moonlight into the sea) these particular babies were wandering aimlessly around the beach. We got to see them and then help shoo them into the sea. Unfortunately, we didn't get to experience a female coming ashore to nest, which was really disappointing, but we did get to sit in the dark on the beach until almost 1:00 am and experience the most star packed sky I've ever seen.

We are currently deciding on weather or not to stay here in Grenada for the remainder of hurricane season, or continue to Trinidad. There have been some reports of boats being boarded en route and some other security issues and we just aren't sure we want to take that chance. For the very most part, the entire Caribbean is just as safe, or safer than our own neighbourhoods at home, but some of the criminal activity from Venezuela has begun to migrate north into Trinidad. Olivia has made a few new friends here, although there aren't as many "boat kids" here as we had hoped. She loves that she gets to swim every day here and her swimming skills have improved exponentially. She has no fear and flings herself off the side of the boat at every opportunity and has a very keen sense of balance and boundaries on the boat.

Olivia and her local friend Inanna.

At times, I think all three of us miss life at home, friends, family and our comfortable routines, but we are still enjoying all the great new opportunities and adventures this journey has led us to. There are definitely trade offs for everything, but while we really miss the events that go on at home without us, we are busy making great memories and living in the moment every day. We can't respond to them all, but we really are thankful for the emails, blog comments and skype conversations - they really keep us feeling connected.

Pics to follow.

The one that didn't get away...

From fishing in St. Lucia.