Welcome to Grenada, Geoie & Sarah!

Saturday, July 19 - Saturday, July 26, 2014

Yes, we're having flashbacks! Thanks to a bout with Dengue Fever (DEC-JAN), some incredibly lousy internet in Sint Maarten and Antigua (FEB-APR), and way too much fun as usual, we're once again a bit behind in our blogging...okay, make that EIGHT months behind! Granted, friends Lisa on Ke 'Ola Kai and Deana on Storyville posted such great blogs earlier in the year that they managed to cover pretty much everything we did. Rather than try to re-cap all of our adventures in one massive, sleep-inducing entry, we'll post a few "flashback" blogs of the highlights over the next few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy!

Woo hoo! We're finally having friends come stay with us on Pipe! It's been two and a half long years since Geoie and Sarah last visited us on the boat. They spent a week with us in the British Virgin Islands, having made a last-minute itinerary change thanks to the Christmas winds; no one had told us it would be so difficult to get from the BVIs to Sint Maarten in March! We likely ended up having even more fun in the BVIs than we would've in Sint Maarten...no offense to our favorite provisioning and party stop, but the BVIs offer a lot more sailing opportunities.

Anyway, since Geoie and Sarah's 2012 visit ended up being the last time we'd had visitors, the guest stateroom (a.k.a. the garage) needed some serious TLC. We got it cleaned up just in time for their late night arrival, and planned to make a quick run up to Carriacou the following morning. Fate had other plans for us, however, thanks to an over-zealous customs agent who decided the boat parts Geoie was bringing us would NOT be allowed into the country without some serious duty payments. Crap! Customs didn't even give Geoie his suitcase back that night, so he and Sarah arrived on the boat with the clothes on their backs, swim suits in their carry on, and little else. After 24 hours of high blood pressures, a second run to the airport, and some serious aggravation, we got their luggage aboard Pipe...just no boat parts. Oh, well...

Monday morning we made the 30-mile run up to Carriacou, where we anchored near friends LA and Susan on Genesis. Geoie had met them in the Bahamas a few years prior, and they were eager to see him again and meet Sarah. We hadn't even seen them ourselves since Sint Maarten back in March, so we were pretty excited, too! We dropped the dink in the water for a quick happy hour at Sherwin's Lambi Queen, and finished the night with chicken enchiladas and a bit too much Zaya rum. (Yep, THAT we were able to get back from customs!)

Tuesday, we spent an incredible day touring with Sherwin in his fast boat. Besides doing a terrific job of welcoming visitors to the Lambi Queen bar and restaurant, he also does trips to the Grenadines and beach BBQs at gorgeous White Island. We'd planned to do two days with him, but our delay made us change our plans. Fortunately, we still managed to get Geoie and Sarah up to the Grenadines. First stop: Palm Island!

Palm Island is a gorgeous 135-acre island just off Union Island. Its golden-sand beaches are home to an exclusive resort, and the palm trees along the beach have plenty of signs reminding us lesser folk that we aren't worthy! Even with the "hotel guests ONLY" signs everywhere, we managed to enjoy the crystal blue waters as much as any guest could have. Twenty minutes later, we were pounding through the surf again to our next destination, the Tobago Cays.

The Tobago Cays are still one of our favorite spots in the Caribbean. You can snorkel coral reefs in the protected marine park, where parrot fish, blue tangs, trunks, and a host of other fish grow to massive sizes. You might be lucky enough to spot a stingray swimming along the sandy bottom, and can almost certainly see turtles feeding on the grassy patches. Even if you don't feel like going into the water, the turtles are constantly popping their heads up to catch a few breaths before disappearing again. We had an added treat on this trip when Sherwin's crew, Daniel and Cordell, led us up to the top of Baradal to watch the iguanas scurry around and see beautiful vistas from each side of the island.

Our lunch stop was on nearby Petit Bateau, where we feasted on fresh mahi mahi, chicken, ribs, curried lambi (conch), salads, rice, garlic baked potatoes, plantains, and much more. We lazed in the water for a post-lunch swim, and were soon taking our full bellies and rum punches four miles across the water to Saltwhistle Bay, Mayreau. If you've never seen Saltwhistle Bay, just think of any Caribbean travel magazine cover: a perfect crescent-shaped beach with soft golden sand, palm trees swaying in the breeze, local women selling sarongs and tourist t-shirts, and of course...a beach bar called "the bar just before the jungle". We anchored off the beach and visited with Sherwin in the water while the rest of the crew wandered off to check out the more touristy offerings. Did we mention Sherwin's boat doubled as a swim-up bar?!

Our final stop of the day was Happy Island in Clifton, Union Island. Happy Island opened about 12 years ago, when its industrious owners decided to build a party bar on a giant mound of conch shells. It's a great little spot, with plenty of cold drinks and acrobatic kite boarders for entertainment. (That's Geoie high-fiving the kite surfer in the picture!) We partied the afternoon away with great friends, and managed to get back to Carriacou just after sunset.
A huge thank-you to Sherwin for giving us such a fantastic day. We never could've made it to all of those stops in the big boat in the time we had with Geoie and Sarah. This was the perfect alternative! FYI...If you're ever in the Grenadines/Carriacou/Grenada area, you can organize a trip with him through Simply Carriacou. Otherwise, just go visit him at Lambi Queen and say hi for us.

After a lazy Wednesday swimming in the surf and dinner with Genesis and Sherwin on Pipe, we had a gorgeous, calm, and...uhhh...SLOW sail back to St. Georges, Grenada. Winds were under 10 knots, meaning Pipe managed a whopping 3-4 knots most of the way...but we were SAILING!! Ultimately we turned on the engine to arrive in daylight, and enjoyed a quiet night on board to rest up for Friday's big event: an island tour of Grenada with Cutty.

We'd heard that Cutty pretty much did the best tour on Grenada...and our friends really didn't exaggerate. Stops included the Goyave Nutmeg Processing Plant, Leaper's Hill, the Grenadian Chocolate Factory, Belvedere Estates (for a quick trip to buy chocolate bars), Rivers Rum Distillery (lunch and tour), a drive through Grenville, a stop in Grand Etang park for a view of Crater Lake and play-time with monkeys, and finally...a walk down to Annendale Falls. Whew! We had an incredible time, and were completely wiped out by the time we got back to the boat. Geoie and Sarah definitely didn't stay long enough, but we hope they had a fantastic time while they were here. We know we certainly did, and look forward to seeing them (we hope) in St. Maarten next year. Til next time...

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Flashback Blog: Why We Love Sint Maarten/St. Martin

February - March, 2014

September 1, 2014: No, we haven't suddenly left Grenada in the middle of hurricane season! This is the first of a few "flashback blogs" that we'll post as we try to get our site up to date. Looking at the photos from earlier this year sure make us miss our cruising friends who've sailed off in different directions. Hope to see you soon!

Yep, we know we've said it before, but we LOVE Sint Maarten! We always manage to have a fantastic time in this island of dual personalities, and this year was no exception. If anything, we found all new reasons to love this beautiful island: hiking, sailing in the Heineken Regatta, TWO Mardi Gras celebrations... With all that activity, we needed a bit of down-time!

First, though, there were those hikes...

You may have noticed that Rene and I aren't exactly the first ones jumping off the boat in search of a good walking trail. :-)  Fortunately, we had other boats in Simpson Bay who were much more inspired than ourselves; Jo and John from Out of Africa and Mark from Sea Life organized a number of hikes around beautiful St. Martin. Our first hike was to Paradise Peak, where we were dropped off at what we thought was the trail head.
We started down one trail, decided we were heading the wrong way, and sent a scout to find the right one. We started on the new trail, saw some gorgeous views of all sides of the island...only to discover we were on the wrong trail again. After returning to our first trail, we ended up at the private resort of Loterie Farm...meaning we'd taken yet another wrong turn! It ended up being a comedy of errors, but we certainly saw some gorgeous scenery.


Not to be dissuaded by our first expedition, we joined the hiking group again at Des Froussards on the French side. We enjoyed a spectacular walk that began at Anse Marcel and wound through cactus-filled trails to a beach; it then circled around and up a hill to a road that ran alongside a garbage dump (John and Mark take us to the best places!), and finally ended in Cul-de-Sac Bay. Somehow we always get a lot more exercise with Out of Africa and Sea Life in the anchorage. They're such a good influence on us...we're going to miss them!

And now for the highlights of that "down time"...

• Girls' day out to Sarafina bakery and Marigot mall
• Cruiser potluck at the new Pink Iguana, a 100-year-old tug-turned-bar in Simpson Bay
• Watching the planes land over the beach at Maho Bay
• Rene's birthday dinner at Skipjacks
• Thursday wine tasting at Corks & Screws; we hear this location has since closed down, but they're supposedly doing wine and/or wine & food tastings somewhere else. Something to find out next March...
• Bratwurst grill night at Bavaria German restaurant
• Watching the big boys at Palapa Marina
• And of course...SHAWARMA at Little Jerusalem!!!

They're Baaaa-aaack!!!

November 13 - 30, 2013
Clarke's Court Bay, Grenada
Woo hoo! Deana and Troy have finally come back to us! Okay, so they've REALLY come back to their beloved home on the water, Storyville. Still, having last seen them in St. Martin eight months ago, we've been suffering from some major separation anxiety! We hopped into a taxi with Dave and Lisa to play "welcome wagon" for Deana and Troy as they got off the plane, and Lisa even thought to bring a cooler with a few cold Stag beers for them. (She's such a great hostess!) We shared big hugs and a few tears as we finally got to welcome our friends to Grenada, and it took Miss Luna all of two minutes to remember us and give us slobbery kisses. Deana and Troy had some serious work ahead to get Storyville back into cruising shape after being closed up on a mooring ball for so long, but they managed to get over to our neighborhood just in time for the Thanksgiving festivities.

Before celebrating Turkey Day, however, we had a more "local" offering to celebrate: RUM! We attended the 4th Annual Caribbean Rum & Beer Festival, which was held on the 22nd & 23rd of November in Grand Anse. The festival showcased beers and rums from all over the Caribbean and included beverage tastings, cooking-with-rum demonstrations/tastings, recipes, cocktail-making contests, a steel pan band, and a live Soca band to round out the evening.
We apparently missed the beer tasting on Friday, but thoroughly enjoyed the rum and food sampling on Saturday afternoon. We had an opportunity to try rums from Grenada, Barbados, Guyana, Dominica, Jamaica, Suriname, and the US, and were hard-pressed to choose a favorite. We had such a fantastic time that we ended up closing down the festival. Our taxi driver seemed a bit impatient, but we sure had fun. Who knows? We may have to stick around for next year's festival! Interested? Save the dates: November 21st & 22nd, 2014.

As if November hadn't been a crazy month already, we still had American Thanksgiving to celebrate. (Why "American" Thanksgiving? Because both Grenadian and Canadian Thanksgivings were celebrated here in October.) Clarke's Court Bay Marina hosted a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner, transforming our normally-casual cruiser bar into a lovely spot with tablecloths, candles, and floral centerpieces. They provided turkeys, stuffing, and gravy for a small fee, and 60-70 cruisers brought mouth-watering salads, veggies, breads, starches, and desserts to share. We were full to bursting by 3pm, and couldn't think of eating another bite till the next morning. One thing's for sure: we cruisers can cook!

Our second Thanksgiving feast was held the following Saturday, when we made a huge turkey and ham dinner - complete with 16 sides and desserts - for our Grenadian family.
Eslyn graciously offered her home and downstairs apartment, where we filled two ovens and half a dozen stovetops with turkeys, crescent rolls, soups, veggies, and casseroles for four solid hours. We began serving around 6pm, and the get-together lasted well into the night. Troy even brought out his guitar to entertain the last of the group, and we ended up spending the night at Eslyn's. We had some serious clean-up to do... :-)

December is shaping up to be yet another busy month, with concerts, island tours, hashes, Christmas and New Year's celebrations, and get-togethers we don't even know about yet. Rumor has it the family is planning another oildown on the beach, and Lisa is organizing a movie and ice cream day out with the kids once they're out of school. We'll definitely stay in Grenada through New Year's, and will begin slowly moving north at our first weather window in January. Til next time...

Thanks again to Lisa & Deana for sharing their pictures with us!

Please enjoy more photos here.

Grenada: Putting the "TIRED" in RETIRED!

November 1 - 12, 2013
Clarke's Court Bay, Grenada
Yes, we know...we've used the "[insert beautiful island here] puts the TIRED in RETIRED" line before, but sometimes we get a little reminder than we're not in our 20s anymore. Between island tours, happy hours, nights out with the family, hashes, potlucks, dominoes tournaments (don't laugh - Mexican Train is a blast!), and marathon shopping buses, we sometimes feel like we're burning the proverbial candle at both ends.
We thought that maybe life would quiet down as nearby anchorages emptied out. (Even though hurricane season officially lasts until November 30th, a quiet 2013 in the southeastern Caribbean meant that many cruisers began leaving Grenada in late October and early November.) Silly us - we should've known better!

November had barely begun when we hosted a going-away Mexican night for Island Dream aboard Pipe Muh Bligh. Pat and Darnell were anxious to see Trinidad & Tobago before heading back north, and we couldn't let them leave without a real send-off. We hadn't done a Mexican potluck in quite awhile, and Darnell had the brilliant idea to re-start the tradition. We had a dozen people on the boat, complete with Ke 'Ola Kai, Island Dream, Bad Kitty, Blues Breaker, and Graunya. Besides our usual dishes of enchiladas, Mexican cornbread, guacamole, and such, Vee from Blues Breaker upped the ante with yummy margaritas...complete with massive fishbowl-type margarita glasses! All of the food was fantastic as always, and we found a few new recipes that will definitely make a re-appearance.

The next day, Clarke's Court Bay Marina hosted the 2nd Annual Junior Regatta.  Lisa, Gary, and Stacy volunteered to be on the race committee, so we got to watch these talented youngsters race from the perfect vantage point of the committee boat.
Gary kept time on our Mickey Mouse look-alike "official" clock, while Lisa and Stacy played scribes. Local kids, ages 6-17, raced in Lasers and Mosquitoes (similar to Optimists), and there was even a "Big Men (& Women) in Little Boats" race for the cruisers. From what we heard, the cruisers had a whole new appreciation for the kids in the boats; they were a lot harder to sail than anyone imagined!

We had an absolute ball the following week at our first-ever dinghy concert, held on a barge near Le Fare Bleu Marina. The band was made up of local Grenadians plus a Swiss singer, and they kept the party going until the rain shut us down just before sunset. We managed to get there early enough to get a front row seat (or tie-up, as it was), and we loved watching the concert up close and personal. There's supposed to be another one in December...at this rate, we may still be in Grenada for it!

The next weekend, we attended Papa Steve's 88th birthday party.  How much do we LOVE this family? We finally had the opportunity to meet the last of Teresa and Steve's children, their daughter, Eastlyn. She, along with her husband, Dean, and son, Marcus, came up from Trinidad to help celebrate Papa Steve's birthday. We can only imagine how much it meant to Steve & Teresa to have all six children together again, and we were honored to be invited to such a special "family-only" event.

If there's one thing we've learned about Grenadian traditions, it's this: one night of celebration is NEVER enough! With that in mind, we joined the rest of the family the following morning for a cookout and pool party at Kenny and Lisa's lovely home. Kenny, Lisa, and their son, JJ, live on a hillside with gorgeous views of the valley and Egmont harbor, and we felt absolutely spoiled by their kindness.
After stuffing ourselves silly with chicken, hot dogs, burgers, kabobs, and salads, we hopped in the pool for a cool-down. We weren't sure who had more fun - us or the kids!

We also had a chance to spend more time with Eastlyn and Dean, along with Richard and Jonelle, when they came aboard Ke 'Ola Kai and Pipe Muh Bligh for happy hour and dinner a few days before their departure. We had a great time showing them the boats, and had a cockpit party to introduce them to the "real" cruiser lifestyle.
Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Eastlyn, Dean, and Marcus a few days later when they returned to Trinidad...but not before another going-away party at Grandma Theresa's and Papa Steve's, of course! It may be awhile before we get to see them again, but we love knowing we'll have family to visit once we head south.

It's hard to believe we've had such a busy month already, and yet November isn't even half over. The next two weeks have even more fun in store, with the return of Deana and Troy on Storyville, a Caribbean rum festival, our 7th wedding anniversary, and TWO Thanksgiving celebrations.  'Til next time!

Please enjoy more pictures here.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!

Clarke's Court  Bay, Grenada
October 1 - October 31, 2013

Can someone PLEASE tell us how three months have gone by since we first arrived in Grenada? We started off the month of October with a great story from some friends of ours who hadn't realized that their visitor's visa had expired. Oops! They threw themselves on the mercy of the Grenada Customs and Immigration folks, and after a few closed-door sessions (and a bit of sweating on our friends' parts), were given another extension. Hmmm... maybe it was time for us to check our own visas. Whoa! We arrived in Carriacou (officially part of Grenada) on July 8th, and our visas were set to expire on October 8th. Fortunately, we noticed this around the 4th, and were able to get renewed in the nick of time.

With the official stuff done, it was time to get back into fun mode. We'd initially anchored in Prickly Bay after returning from the Carriacou hash to take care of a few boat projects (not to mention that pesky immigration thing). We had a serious incentive, however, to get back to our friends in Sago Cove in a hurry: Pat and Darnell on Island Dream had invited Three Belles and us to a lamb roast. Yummy! The only catch? Pat and Darnell were in the midst of varnishing, and asked if we could host dinner aboard Pipe Muh Bligh. Talk about a no-brainer!  We enjoyed a fantastic night with Pat, Darnell, Carl, and Riva, and managed to have way too much food as usual. Thanks again, all!

Wouldn't you know, Pat and Darnell's varnish work got us looking at our own boat. (Damn you, Pat!) Our nav table was looking dreary, and our companionway stairs were down to bare wood. We were also planning on taking our Grenadian family up to Carriacou at the end of the month, which meant we had to start varnishing soon if we wanted to get ten coats (yes, TEN) on the staircase in time for boat guests. Three Belles loaned us a heat gun that took the old varnish off like a potato peeler, but Stacy also managed to add a few "leopard" (read: "burned") spots in the processs. Oh, well...we decided to go for the six-foot rule. (You know, as long as it looks okay from six feet...)  Our social calendar seemed to crank up around the same time, so there were quite a few mornings where we got up at oh-dark-hundred to get a coat of varnish on before leaving the boat. (I know, I know - queue the violins.) Twelve days later, we finally had ten coats on our stairs and seven coats on our nav table. If you have to question the math, you've never varnished before. :-) 

Sometime around Day 4 of varnishing hell, we rented a car with Island Dream to explore the island. What a blast! Rasta-mon Donald picked us up in our SUV for the short drive to the police station, where Pat got his official Grenada driver's license (mandatory if you rent a car here). From there, we headed up Grenada's west coast to Concord Falls. Located just south of Goyave, Concord Falls offers visitors an easy Kodak moment if you're in a hurry. For the more adventurous, there's a two-hour hike to the upper falls. We chose to admire the lower falls alongside the road before continuing on to tour stop #2, the Nutmeg Processing Station in Goyave.

Goyave's Nutmeg Station processed over 3 million pounds of nutmeg before Hurricane Ivan decimated Grenada's nutmeg trees in 2004. Today, the output is back up to about 1.5 million and growing as new trees reach maturity. Our tour guide took us through the facility, past drying bins and sorting stations. The smell was heavenly, and we enjoyed a bit of history going through the 75-year-old building. If you want to read more about the harvesting process, click here.

After a quick lunch stop in Grenville, we headed north to Belmont Estate, a 17th century plantation that is now a 400-acre organic farm and an extension of the Grenada Chocolate Factory. We've been told that tours of the original GCF site must now be organzied through a local tour company, but Belmont Estate offers an outstanding alternative. Our guide showed us the fermentation room, where we watched farmers delivering harvested cocoa beans and saw "wet" beans fermenting under a layer of banana leaves.
From there, we walked through the drying room and then on to a small grove of cocoa and cinnamon trees. We ended the tour in a small museum, where we saw a video of the chocolate-making process (still done in the old Grenada Chocolate Factory building) and enjoyed a sample of cocoa tea and the chocolate itself. The Belmont Plantation was a lovely stop to learn more about the harvesting and drying of cocoa beans; maybe next time we'll hire a local tour guide to see the other half of the chocolate-making process.

Our last stop was Rivers Rum Distillery on the north side of the island. Opened in 1785, Rivers is the oldest functioning distillery in the Caribbean. Even today, Rivers rum is produced using the original water wheel brought to Grenada from London over 200 years ago. Sugar cane is crushed via rollers powered by the wheel, and the cane remnants are dried and used as both a heat source to fire the stills, and as fertilizer for the cane fields.

The juice travels through pipes, where it will be boiled, fermented, and distilled, all of which is still done using original 200-plus year-old equipment.  Be warned, though: Rivers rum is not for the faint of heart! Rivers rum is 75% alcohol, or 150 proof. Anything less than that gets distilled again until it reaches an "acceptable" level. You also won't find Rivers anywhere but Grenada; they don't export it because they can barely keep up with local demand! We've heard people swear that Rivers' purity means no hangover in the morning. Neither of us can get past the taste, so we guess we'll have to take their word for it. For more info on the distillery's history and operation, click here.

Of course, we also managed to spend some quality time with our Grenadian family. Darnell treated everyone to real Louisiana gumbo (let the good times roll!) at one of our beach get-togethers, and we even got to eat it out of our very own callabash bowls. Thanks to David and Richard for making them for us!
The next afternoon, the family came out to see Ke 'Ola Kai and Island Dream, ending with a day of fun, food, and swimming on Pipe Muh Bligh. We set a new record for ourselves: 20 people aboard Pipe! The kids and grown-ups alike had a great time in the water, and Kathleen and Rory even managed to get some kayaking in before the sun went down.

The only disappointment was that we didn't get to take the family up to Carriacou as we had planned. Mother Nature decided to disrupt our plans with four days of heavy wind, rain, and seas - not the conditions you want when you're introducing people to sailing. Hopefully we'll have another chance to go before we head north again. If not, we know we'll be back here next summer! Til next time...

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