HOPE AND HER MUM ON HOLIDAY

I need to make it perfectly clear that this is not Jan my sister who is Hopes mum. This is in fact one of the Mona monkeys from the rain forest around Grand Etang in Grenada. Cutty our tour driver has 'trained' 'conditioned' some of the monkeys to appear when he sounds his horn. They did not appear straight away but when they did turn up they put on quite a show for us including climbing up on to Hope's shoulder in pursuit of strategic placed bananas.

Yes the monkey is sticking his tongue out at you.

Pictures are going to be in short supply as my camera has died [ this is death number 3 ] Hope is also having camera troubles as well. Today she was attempting a selfie with a local inhabitant and finished up clonking it on the head with her camera phone when it squirted out of her grip. The red toed tortoise retreated into it's shell and refused any further interaction. Personally I would blame sun tan lotion.

We are up in Union island now and heading for the Tobago Cays tomorrow.

The sea temp is 82 Fahrenheit or 28 Centigrade.

Air temp is only 25 Centigrade.

It is tough out here.

JAN and HOPE arrive TOUR THE ISLAND and SAIL UP TO CARRIACOU

The plane was on time, my taxi driver was not. However another couple was meeting the same plane so I doubled up with them.

The transfer was smooth and Jan and Hope were soon sitting down to drink in Whisper Cove Marina and slowing down to Island Time while learning the art of liming.

The next day I had arranged an island tour with Cutty and off we went.

Prisons Prime Ministers Nutmegs and Lunch in a beautiful location overlooking the channel to Isle de Ronde.

We learned about drying the nutmeg then saw the set up used to sort it. Ladies sitting on the stools and opening the hatches to sort as they came. It seems all very labor intensive.

After lunch we visited two chocolate factories and Jan who is allergic was relegated to the outside.

Ho guards on the belts and some of the souvenirs on offer were hard to believe.

We had to cut short our visit to the Belmont estate to get to the oldest rum factory in the island and the only one left crushing their own sugar cane in a centuries old waterwheel driven crusher.

No guards, wonky wheels and lots of hand labor.

The dried crushed cane is called bagass and gets used to heat up the cane juice to start the fermenting process.

Post tour but before we got to sample the product.

None of their rum is exported, it is all consumed locally. Well it is 87% alcohol and the airlines for one do not allow it on board as it constitutes a severe fire hazard.

Last we stopped off at the Grand Etang forest preserve and Cutty was able to call up the Mona monkeys. Unfortunately I have lost the pics but once I get some from my guests they will be posted. I can't do it now as I have worn them out today sailing up from Grenada to Tyrrel Bay Carriacou. Both went to be early and are fast asleep.

I NEED TO CATCH UP ON MY BLOG!

Plan A had been to go down to Trinidad and pull my prop shaft as part of the haulout, but that only worked if I had the bits I needed. Despite being able to trace them down to Grenada they have vanished into some limbo.

So there I was hauling in Carriacou instead and hoping I get another year out of my pinkish in places prop. It still goes ting when tapped so I think it will do.

On the pink theme here is a Pinky Schooner the first one I have ever seen. Apparently a design that was developed to fish the waters off Cape Ann harbors from the early eighteenth century. This one was a ferrocement version.

Another different boat was this lift keel steel boat. Not as swoopy as the Pincky and I suppose a better sailor.

I was back down to Grenada and tucked up in my usual spot behind the Buzzard in time for the Christmas party and jam session. I tried to get Dizzy into the spirit of things but he was not amused by the Santa hat.

Boxing day saw me doing a little housework

with a helpful paw coming through the hatch every now and then, at least it was for a time but he got bored and went off to check the fish that hang about off the stern.

Sea Sett on the reef

I was dozing in my bunk after lunch. Often I turn the VHF radio off but it had been quiet today so had not bothered. We have had a lot of kids in the anchorages and they arrange their complicated social lives on the radio, mostly with impeccable radio protocol. But they have started to migrate North so as I said the radio is much quieter.

Anyway it bursts into life and a paniced voice announces sans protocol" I am on the reef. I need help. Can anyone come with their dinghies?". I grab the handheld and some rope and head to the reef.

Fortunately Sea Sett was not too hard aground although the sounds of the keel grinding on the coral was quite audible as the swell rocked the boat from side to side.

I sounded around the boat to establish the best route off the reef and unusually it was not backwards but forwards. A masthead halyard was deployed to heel the boat and with a bit of huffing and pulling she came off. Luckily I think there will be no damage but the spade rudder on this model is very vulnerable so needs checking.

I wonder if this was another GPS/chartplotter aided grounding. Not the ideal time for eyeball navigation.

Back at Elephants Child Dizzy was waiting for me. I get ticked off if I am away twice in one day.

1 & 1/3rd TONNES and PLENTY WATER & GRENADA POSTAL SERVICE STRIKES AGAIN

S

ome people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Well it wasn't 16 tons it was only 1 & 1/3 tons but it was a case of out with the old and in with the new.

The time had come to replace my battery bank, by the time I had finished I had lifted a ton and a third of batteries. Next time I do this I will hire in a strong young back.


Still the job done and I have passed the old ones on which still had some life left to Nicholas who is the guardian of the zombie fleet tied up in the mangroves.

It is the end of the 'rainy' season and we were a little behing the average well I don't think that's true. It has been PEEING it down.

Dizzy is busy checking the quality with a taste test but always alert for an unannounced deluge from the trapped water in the bimini.

GRENADA POSTAL SERVICE ************************A RANT

I have been waiting for a parcel. I know it is in Grenada from the tracking but that stops when it hits Grenada. I don't expect it to be delivered as Custom are involved. But I usually get a blue slip telling me it is there.

I have been phoning them for a few days but there is never any reply so I finally give up and take the bus to town and the main post office.

The queue is not to bad. While I am waiting I ask one of the young ladies manning a desk that no one ever seems to visit if the number I have been phoning is the correct one. { got it from their web site and also directory inquiries }. No she says we have a new number and points to a small typewritten notice. Taped on the pillar. "That is good to know" I said, gritting my teeth.

Finally I get to the front of the queue and ask the young lady if she has a parcel addressed to me. She disappears into the back and returns 10 minutes later shaking her head.

Now I have done this dance before so I know that I have to get her to check all possible variants of my name as well as looking under S E and C as the second line in the address is S/V Elephants Child. W and M are also just possible but I keep those in reserve.

20 minutes later she returns triumphant and tells me it had been filed under C. Had a blue slip gone out to Mr Child?, she nodded

Customs take their small bite [ I had my C 14 and two copies of the invoice already stamped ] and I am on my way back home to Mr Child. I had timed things to avoid the school surge. It is truly amazing how many kids a Grenadian mini bus driver can fit in but underestimated the wait time.

Ahh well it is the Caribbean.

IS CHEATING OK and POOR SANTA GETS SHREDDED

India.

Students are often keen to exercise their rights but recently there has been an interesting twist - some in India are talking about their right to cheat in university exams.

"It is our democratic right!" a thin, addled-looking man named Pratap Singh once said to me as he stood, chai in hand, outside his university in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. "Cheating is our birthright."

Corruption in the university exam system is common in this part of India. The rich can bribe their way to examination success. There's even a whole subset of the youth population who are brokers between desperate students and avaricious administrators.

So you are poor. You see rich students being allowed to cheat, paying for essays, buying exam papers in advance and bribing the markers. I can see that they might well demand the same ' rights '.

Doesn't make it right though.

Still I no longer need to worry about such things.

A PRETTY SUNSET FIXES MOST OF MY WORRIES.





NO GRINCH on ELEPHANTS CHILD.

In the middle of the night

I woke up to a new noise. Well a sequence of noises, scrinch thump clonk then click clonk. All new noises are worrying and get investigated.

I splashed out in the hardware store. Well they did not have what I wanted so I bought four little Santa heads. I know it is early but I hung one up.

Yup it was hurty paw leaping up and clawing at poor Santa's beard which was unravelling and he would fall onto the bug spray can. At the same time this would fire the ping pong ball sideways hitting the cooker front and coming back to hit the bug spray can.

Knowing now what was going scrinch thump clonk then click clonk I could go back to sleep.

He was still at it next morning when I took these pics.

DINGHIES DINGHIES DINGHIES

I am sitting in the cockpit watching the world come alive and working on my first mug of excellent locally grown coffee.

Was a song outside my window. And the traffic wrote the words. It came ringing up like Christmas bells. And rapping up like pipes and drums

Brmm Brmm Brmm

It is just the 'NOODLE BUS' coming by picking up the early morning noodlers. Off to the beach for some early morning water aerobics. I really should go but I don't DO early.

Last night I had a visit from goblins and goths and gobblers in search of more sweets. I made sure there was plenty of pink food colouring in my offerings to keep them bouncing along.

There was some early morning radio traffic too as the 9 year old cruiser was negotiating with a 10 year old on another boat the loan of a wake board so she could go and have some fun behind a third boats high speed RIB. Impeccable radio procedure throughout.

But not every dinghy driver needs speed. Which is just as well as a Walker Bay is at best a sloth among wind powered dinghies.

Unlike the kids on Hobie that were wihzzing around with disaster a gust away at any moment.

It is charter boat season and yes an AB 10 will carry 8 people if they don't mind wet bottoms.

.

Dinghies get a hard life especially in places where they have to be dragged up the beach. I was 'reading the mail' [ listening in on peoples conversations on the VHF ]while in the cockpit with my coffee and a neighbor needs a ride in while his bottom patches dry.

BUT not all beach landings go as planned. This is not my pic but it represents what happened to one newbie cruiser who learned the hard way that even on the mildest of days there can be sufficient surf to flip a dink. Nobody was hurt and the outboard was running again that afternoon after copious quantities of WD 40.

I am sitting a little longer in the cockpit this morning as I am waiting on that essential of life down here Raymond the garbage dinghy driver! I am also noting that the Flying Buzzard manages to collect more dinghies than the average cruiser.

And finally this creation has never been seen down island but if it was ever spotted it might cause some to wonder if they had overdone the strong rum the previous night and that it might be time to start that 12 step plan that runs under the third palm tree on Hog Island.