Bequia, St Vincent and the Grenadines

Here's something I wrote back in December...

The weather has us pleasantly pinned in Admiralty Bay, Bequia.  Our plan had been to sail to St Lucia to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve in a marina.  However, the winds piped up to a gale and we saw no need for a hard passage.  Instead, we've settled into Bequia for the duration.  Admiralty Bay in Bequia is one of my favorite anchorages in the Windward Islands.


Kathy and John, our friends on Oceana who we met in Rock Hall, are moored next to us, but you can't see them in this picture.  They arrived from Grenada the same day that we arrived from the Tobago Cays.  On Jen's direction, we selected a mooring tucked up close to town.  I might have grumbled a bit about why we weren't anchoring out in the bay where it was free instead of paying for a mooring.  A little later, when I noticed that Oceana had chosen to anchor in the bay outside the mooring field, I might have grumbled a bit more loudly.  Jen pretended not to hear.

Bright and early the next morning, Oceana joined us in the calm, but not free, mooring field after a sleepless and rolly night.  I pretended I hadn't been grumbling the previous day, but I'm certain I received a few "I told you so" looks from Jen.

We had a couple of equipment failures on our way from Grenada to the Grenadines.  First, our water maker's main pump controller burned out.  After a long call with the manufacturer, they determined it must be the motor controller board, which I did not have a spare for on board because according to the manufacturer... they NEVER fail.  Hmmph.  We made due with the water we had on board until we arrived in Bequia, where we were able to purchase water and order a replacement motor controller to be shipped in.

Bequia has no source of ground water.  For this reason all the water used on the island comes from rooftop catchment systems (fancy name for a tin roof, gutters, and giant plastic storage tanks).  When you need to purchase water, they bring it out to you on a barge and pump it into your tanks.  The water we purchased from these guys was $0.32 per gallon.  They claim it is filtered...   We were happy when replacement part for the water maker arrived so we could make our own water again!


The next problem was the Raymarine E120 chart plotter.  It's LCD display's back light failed, making it unreadable in daylight.  We have two chart plotters, one at the navigation station and one at the helm, so with the helm's display nonfunctional, were were still able to manage just fine.  It helped that we were in familiar waters.


I sent the E120 Chart plotter display to the US for repair, and they turned in around very quickly.  It arrived back in Bequia in good shape and I re-installed it without a hitch.  It was a great stroke of luck to have been able to receive it here in Bequia instead of waiting until St Lucia.  Raymarine again came through with a quick repair when I needed it.  Too bad I need it so often!

Mechanically, we're happily back up to 100% (or thereabouts) which leaves me wondering what is going to break, plug, or leak next.   Probably Christmas Eve.   :)

Grenada - They call it a Hash

If anyone ever asks you to join them going to a Hash, especially in the West Indies, by all means, strap on your trail shoes (Tevas or sneakers in my case) and some old cloths that you don't mind getting quite muddy, and respond... ON, ON!

When I was first invited to a Hash, I was a little confused.  The only hash I was aware of was something you ate for breakfast, or smoked while in college.  I soon found out that there is a third definition...  Here I'm paraphrasing / plagiarizing from the Grenada Hash House Harriers web site:  http://grenadahash.com/hash-faqs

Hashing started in 1938 in Kuala Lumpur in what was then Malaysia. It was conceived by three expatriate Brits who belonged to the prestigious Selangor Club (still standing to this day as a historic social club, fronting on to the cricket ground in the centre of Kuala Lumpur.)  The Club’s dining facility was referred to as The Hash House (presumably because it served horrific British fare). The Hash founders wanted a sport which involved some energetic physical activity without getting in the way of their beer drinking routines.

So hashing was born, a fun run based on the Hounds and Hares concept - following a prepared trail through the stunning Malayan countryside.  Trails were set with flour and eventually led back to a drinking establishment where merriment and irreverent camaraderie ensued. Today, there are Hash "kennels" in some 110 countries and territories around the world.

So, that's the gist of it.  In Grenada, the trails begin and end at a Rum Shop (ie tiny bar that serves beer and rum and might have a table or two inside to sit down, but probably not.)  If you're not paying attention, you might mistake a typical back country rum shop as a storage shack.  In the photo below you can see part of a typical rum shop (small shack on the left), and a crowd of hashers surrounding it.  Everybody's clean, so this must have been taken while waiting for the hash to start.

The hashes are held every one or two weeks, and the trails are unique each time.  In preparation for the hash, one or two "hares" spend a couple of days scouting out an appropriate route, that will usually include a mix of roads, private yards, trails through the brush and rain forest, and freshly blazed paths through the brush and rain forest.  The route is marked with blobs of shredded paper, and there are often two or three false trails thrown in to each route to spice things up a little.



Depending on the temperament of the hare who laid out the route, the trail can either be a fairly gentle run or walk through the countryside of Grenada or it can be a mad scramble up and down the mountainous rain forests, requiring you to grasp at roots to clamber up a steep muddy hills and and then slide back down, possibly on your butt.  The muddiest hash we participated in was the weekend Tropical Storm Irene's outer bands were soaking Grenada.




There are usually two trails, one for walkers and one for runners.  The runner path is a little longer so that everyone has about 2 hours of time on the trail before arriving back at the rum shop.  Once back at the rum shop, you find delicious and inexpensive BBQ chicken, conch water or goat water (soup), and oil-down (a local favorite, with stewed chicken, green bananas, plantains, dasheen and dumplings).  And, of course, ice cold Carib beer.  If you have more courage than sense, you can also sample their local "Jack Iron" rum.  They serve it in small bottles for sipping with a side of water.   It is the harshest thing I have EVER tasted, and leaves you a bit rough in the morning.

All three of us enjoyed the hashes very much, and hashed almost every week we were in Grenada.  I've done both the walker's and runner's trail, but usually did the walkers so I could team up with Quinn.   Here's a photo of Quinn after one of the more strenuous hashes.  He's exhausted, but you can tell he had a good time!

If you are into eco-tourism, Grenada is a great place to visit.  I'm certain that a hash would be the highlight of your trip!

Hello Again

It's been five or six months since I've posted anything here, so I wonder if anyone's looking?  Well, just in case, I figure I'll post some of the thoughts I've had these past months.  I've been keeping some notes but never managed to post them in a blog...  here goes.

Where have we been?

Well, we're still in Grenada and been so busy that the blog has really taken a back seat. I am still updating the photo gallery on svmirasol.com fairly regularly, but Gregg has just not had time to blog. And now that his hard drive crashed, it may be a while yet.

I'm not much of a writer, so I generally don't blog. The latest news, however, is that we are finished cruising after this season. Within the next couple weeks, we will begin moving north eventually reaching Fort Lauderdale, probably in May (see our updated tentative schedule to the right). We will be selling the boat (hopefully quickly) and making the transition to living on land, i.e., buying cell phones, a car, a house, etc. Busy, busy, busy. While we still have fast wifi here in Grenada, we have begun the process of house hunting and are looking seriously at Virginia.

We have had a lot of fun in Grenada and hope to return some day. Maybe for the 1000th hash?