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Published: April 22nd 2007
Dancing in Southside Bar
Enjoying the Private Function
Ben catches Dorado Chris, Drew, Paul & myself descended upon the small Caribbean island of Grenada for a two week mancation, where the primary aim was to watch a few games of cricket interspersed with various activities and plenty of relaxation. Grenada is a small island in the southern Caribbean situated one hundred miles north of Venezuela with a population of just over 100,000.
We brought with us stylish wigs & costumes for the various games which would prove invaluable. Not only did they act as a catalyst for banter with locals and cricket connoisseurs alike, they also provided us with a disguise meaning that our (outlandish) antics on game-days were not linked to us when out of costume the following day.
Day 1 - Sunday 8th
Chris & I flew into Grenada late on Sunday and took the opportunity to venture down to the famous beach, Grande Anse, for a few drinks and a bite to eat at Coconuts. While making our way along the beach to find a restaurant, we noticed there were more than a few people (locals & tourists) getting 'jiggy with it' just a few metres into the water. After our dinner we headed to
the inaptly named bar, Le Chateau, which sounds significantly more glamourous than it is, to quench our thirst with the local brew, Carib.
Day 2 - Monday 9th
A late start the following morning had us enjoying some pool time at our resort before making our way into St Georges, which was fairly quiet because of Easter Monday. Nonetheless we managed to find a couple of dodgy bars to get a drink and watch some cricket before scaling one of the large hills to overlook the new stadium, built by the Chinese following Hurricane Ivan. We then headed back to Grand Anse to meet up with Drew & Paul and found our way into a local game of beach cricket while we downed a couple of ales. No sign of the boys had us heading to the Southside Bar where we did manage to meet up with them. As we tried to purchase our second round of beers, we were asked to finish our current beers first - they did not have enough glasses to serve us. In fact they only had 6 glasses in total in which to serve their draught Carib beers. This was an early warning
that this island was in no way prepared for the chaos that was about to descend on this island for the following two weeks...
Day 3 - Tuesday 10th
The boys met us at our resort early in the morning when we donned our 'Irwinish/rod stewart' outfits and caught a speedboat to the ground to see our first game, between the Windies & the Saffers. This journey was not without incident as a middle-aged american woman claimed that the addition of us four to the boat would make it unsafe and began chastising chris for being a smart-arse following a one-liner. Despite her fears, we did arrive safely and made our way to the ground via the auspicious bar, The House of Lords for a not so quiet ale. Unfortunately the hosts went down quite easily to the saffers, but this didn't dampen our spirits as we headed back to the Southside Bar for a bite to eat, plenty of drinks and some dancing lessons from some of the locals. White boys may not be able to jump, but we certainly can't dance too well either....Check out the video link attached above for some examples of our dancing...
Day 4 - Wednesday 11th
Morning revealed that Chris had gone a little hard, a little early, as he battled with a severe hangover for the remainder of the day. A relaxing day spent primarily by the pool until early evening when we headed to Grand Anse for a bbq on the Webber at the boys apartment. The day had proven too long for Drew & Chris who decided to retire while Paul & I went to the Dodgy Dock. This place was full of american students studying either medicine or veterinary studies. We talked & drank up a storm as time crept onto 4am, I then turned around only to find that Paul had negotiated the purchase of another 8 beers to act as roadies on our way to Bananas, the local nightclub. Fortunately, Bananas was closed given we had a game tomorrow so I made my way back to my hotel.
Day 5 - Thursday 12th
While an early night had done Chris wonders, the large night had well & truly claimed Paul who did not make it to the second game between the Kiwis & the Sris. On this occassion Drew & I dressed as lifeguards,
while Chris dressed in full Hawaiin regalia excluding the coconut bikini top, which he complained was chafing his nipples... Late in the day, and after plenty of drinks, Drew brought out his budgie smugglers and merkin to the disgust of hundreds of people, and maintained this for over an hour as we went for aftermatch drinks at both the House of Lords and Small Pin bars.
Day 6 - Friday 13th
We had expected to spend the day driving around the island checking out the local scenery - the problem being that none of us had bothered to tell a hire company that we wanted a car. I spent about an hour ringing around every car hire place on the island to no avail. A lazy day by the pool was in order, before we headed to the nearby nightclub, Bananas, where we stayed until the early hours...
Day 7 - Saturday 14th
This day had our two antipodean rivals, the saffers & kiwis, battling it out, so we thought it prudent to wear our brightest australia gear to ensure that we were not confused with either kiwis or saffers... The Kiwis managed to win the game fairly
easily though. After a big night previously, and with Drew & I diving the following day, we retired to the comforts of True Blue Bay Resort for a relaxing dinner, a few drinks and some cards.
Day 8 - Sunday 15th
The day started early with Drew & I embarking on our Nitrox course and doing a couple of dives on the Bianca and Veronica wrecks. The Bianca wreck wasn't the greatest dive as it was deep, and there wasn't a whole lot to see - while the Veronica wreck was more lively, there still wasn't a huge amount to see as the wreck was quite small. While we were diving, Paul was sleeping and Chris went on a mission to get to a well-advertised event - he arrived after 2 hours to find he was the only punter there... In the evening we headed to the Aquarium Restaurant, and as we began our second ale, the Australian team rocked up to have dinner with us (actually, they were at a table about 2 metres away, but we were interspersed with them as we collected food from the salad bar!). Interestingly Brad Hodge turned up late and found that
Me with Dorado
It was absolutely golden when first caught, but after five hours this is the colour it looked...there was no spare seat available so collected his salad and was eating by himself at a table near us...where he was soon to be heckled by Paul & Drew for not having any friends - he then went back to the salad bar and sat somewhere else, leaving his original plate of food. The Sris also turned up to this place to eat, but went to a private room at the rear of the restaurant. Via the beach, we then headed to another well-advertised foam party, which was a bit of a fizzer. We headed to Tropicanas for a couple of drinks, before grabbing some mixers and heading back to the apartment for a few more.
Day 9 - Monday 16th
Although we saw the Aussies beat the Sris easily, it was disappointing as the Sris left out Vaas, Muralitharan and Malinga, all of whom were fit and would play against Ireland just two days later. Consequently much heckle came from the four Irwinish spectators regarding there sportsmanship....with a little left over for Hodge, who again had no friends when fielding in the deep. On our way out of the game, we heard some local beats coming from
Paul & Drew take a break
5 hours between fish was a long time... a nearby marquee, and managed to talk our way into a private function with free booze...where we ran amok - I will let the pictures below tell the story. We staggered out of this function and headed to the Owl Nightclub famed for its Crab Races - these were well overhyped, but sitting on the beach having a few drinks wasn't a bad result. At some point we all split up as Drew went home, and Paul & Chris disappeared and were no doubt up to no good. When I arrived back at the resort, I found that we had been moved into a new room, and that Paul was asleep in my bed.
Day 10 - Tuesday 17th
We did manage to get a hire car for the day, and made our way to Seven sisters falls, Bathway Beach (where Paul nearly fell off the cliff, and ended up with grazes to his arms & legs while he tried to hold onto the cliff). We then played cricket with the locals - who curiously all threw the tennis ball when bowling - this is not a good sign for future west indian cricket. They were quick though...I faced
only a few balls before being bowled, while drew was hit without having seen the ball - leaving a bruise & welt on his leg. Paul maintained some dignity by making contact with the ball a few times. We then had a swim before driving around the beautiful northen and western coast of the island on our way back to St Georges. Sauteurs & Gouyave were two really beautiful colonial towns, and in the latter we enjoyed a drink while watching the sun set over the water. For dinner, we organise a smorgasboard of streetmeat from the barbeques of the locals - excellent, we got enough to take to the following days game.
Day 11 - Wednesday 18th
This was a rout of a cricket match as the Sris wiped out the Irish in less than half a days normal play. In protest at the Sris, Drew & Paul only watched the Irish innnings, and left the ground before the Sris made their paltry 90 odd runs to win the game, though Chris & I did see the game out and watch the half-time entertainment, before heading onto the private after-match function where, despite some doubts that after the
shanigans of two days previous, we were allowed in to enjoy the music, a few drinks and a buffet lunch. On behalf of the group, I extend our thanks to Paige Clifford, who showed us hospitality where most sane people wouldn't! We met up with the boys and began was to be a debacle. We dressed up and headed to Le Chateau to have some dinner, and found that we just couldn't find out whether the food we ordered was ever going to be delivered. We asked the waitress, who responded by telling us that she "couldn't gurantee anything". Two hours after we'd arrived, and with no food in sight, we hit a low point and headed to the nearby KFC. A disgrace. The night got worse as we reconvened at the Dodgy Dock, where it was overflowing with people and the service was unable to cope. Drew was at the bar for more than one hour without service...we took this as a sign and headed back to the apartment.
Day 12 - Thursday 19th
We awoke early and were driven (in the back of a ute) to our marina to go Deep Sea Fishing - something none of
us had done before. There were the four of us and two saffers on baord. In the first 30 minutes one of the saffers and I both caught a Dorado - an amazing gold fish, that by the end of the day, had lost its sparkle and just appeared like a normal grey fish. The next 5 hours didn't even get a bite, before Drew, one of the saffers and a helper brought in three baracuda as we were returning to base. The helper then filleted one of the Dorados and two of the baracudas which we split between the six of us. We took our fillets to Patricks - a local restaurant with the campest chef, Patrick, where we'd heard they'd cook our fish for us. Instead we tasted about 15 local dishes including goat, marlin and jackfish. We were given our fish in takeaway containers to eat the following day...not exactly as we had planned...
Day 13 - Friday 20th
What a day, we once again dressed in full Aussie regalia and saw a brilliant batting performance by the aussies. Midway through the Australian innings we headed down to the bar and met up with our aparment
neighbours, Tim & Nikki, who shared with us the bottle of vodka they had brough into the ground. We mixed it with Ting, and the day was shot. The four of us cannot remember a huge amount of what occurred from 2pm onwards. We do have photographic evidence (disgraceful as it is) to confirm we made it out of the ground and that we did go once again to the function. This time I apologise to Paige for the disturbance we must have caused. My memory returns as Chris & I were being driven (in a car without lights) by an american medicine student we had befriended over our two weeks, Micah. His car was a disgrace, but it got us to the Dodgy Dock once more...
Day 14 - Saturday 21st
Drew & Paul catch their plane in the wee hours of the morning, while Chris & I move back to True Blue. We then enjoyed a relaxing few hours at the resort of the stars, La Luna, before some more luxury with a superb dinner at the Beachhouse Hotel - where I managed to get into a photo with Mr Cricket (Mike Hussey).
Day 15 -
Sunday 22nd
Our final day was spent packing up our crap, and a few hours on the Grand Anse, which once again was showing off its brilliant azure waters. We caught up with our apartment neighbours, Tim & Nikki, who also weren't able to add much to what happened on Friday.
The end of a great mancation - while the cricket itself wasn't the greatest spectacle, the island was lovely, and we had plenty of fantastic experiences - the memories of which will stay with us forever (or until we lose our minds). Below are a couple of general observations, which didn't really fit into a day, as such.
Vehicles
There should be something said about the vehicles of this country....they are wrecks, of the two we travelled in freqently, one had a 5 inch diameter hole in the floor, had a door that needed to be lifted to close but still didn't lock, had no windows and multiple dents, while the other had both its bonnet and front right panel held on by cable ties. Another car we journeyed in had one of its rear tyres rubbing against the chassis of the car - the driver said
Ben & the hospitable Paige
If it wasn't for Paige's wonderful hospitality, we shan't have made it into the after match functions...(Thank you!) he had fitted it that morning and was 'wearing' it in. And finally, while Chris & I were trying to hitchhike our way into town a small red 4WD drove by us over the rise ahead. By the time we had walked to the rise, we could see that the front right tyre had come off, causing the car to do a 180 degree turn and was on a severe angle leaning on the un-tyred axle which was now deformed. Three days later, as we left the island, this car was still at the side of the road. For those venturing to Grenada in future, keep an eye out for it....a couple hundred metres towards town from Bananas.
Grenada Time
After about two weeks we found quite a strange twist on island time...it became apparent that whenever you wanted something (to check into your room, get served some food or drinks, having a tap fixed that was jammed open etc) then you would have to allow for 'island time'. But when they wanted something from you (checking out of your room, paying a restaurant bill) then they were all over you like a rash. When Chris & I checked
Game 5 - Boys in Regalia
We just couldn't support the Sris! out of the apartment in St Georges, we'd had two visits by the cleaner and a phonecall from the agent all by 11.12am (check-out time was 11am), while when checking into our room at True Blue at 2pm (the check-in time) we had to wait until 3.35pm until the room was ready!
I've written way too much already, so won't add any more - except to say that the photos tell their own stories as well - & make sure to view the three short videos attached above...
Until the next (shorter) installment, take it easy,
Jekyll (Ben)
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Son
non-member comment
Were you bored?
G´day! It looks like you guys were bored ;) No, honestly the pics. are really funny and it seems like you had real men holiday. I really like your outfits :)