Advertisement
May 18, 2011 Wednesday
Today marks there being a month left before our arrival to Lunenberg, Nova Scotia – craaaazy.
We are now in Bequia, one of the Grenadine islands just south of big ole St. Vincent. I am noticing that as we make our way more northward, I am seeing more tourists/yachties and the prices are going up.
Grenada, the southern most island we visited, known for its spices – and I definitely stocked up. I also gained a deeper understanding of our cook’s cooking seeing how Donald is from Grenada (bay leaves with almost everything, curri rotis, lots of spices). The market in St. George kinda reminded me of the market in Vietnam in its hodgepodginess of all kinds of random things. But the theme of spices including nutmeg, mace, curries, cinnamon, chocolate balls and sticks, rum, pear essence, coconut and banana oils to cook with, vanilla, all kinds of hot sauces and rum prevailed. The van-buses all had their own names detailed across the top of the windshield like in Carriacou, but less to do with God-themes and more to do with randomness. Store front names are also phonetically spelled and the street mutts appear better fed and less skittish than the ones hanging around the roti and fried chicken shacks in Carriacou. Grenada will be remembered for the super cool waterfall-crawl hike with Wendy. We passed loads of mango, banana, coconut and cocoa pod trees. The first waterfall was on the tourist path, smaller and only so so. But we hiked for another half hour onto a barely there trail thru the jungle and then thru and across a river several times jumping from rock to rock (in my Chacco flip flops – in fact my entire “hiking” outfit included wearing a sarong over a bathing suit and flip flops – needless to say I’ve adjusted to being less appropriately outfitted for various excursions than before this whole trip – travelling for a while will do that to you. I’m not necessarily saying it’s smarter, I’ve just learned that a sarong can go a long way: post swimming dry off towel, hiking outfit, evening wear, sleeping sheet, today I was on galley and cooked all day in one, oh and they’re great to sleep in too!). The second waterfall: Fontainbleu was pretty awesome. Worth a quick dip which was a great treat: fresh water and take-your-breath-away-cold. I happened to also have a new razor I just bought, so ended up shaving my legs on one of the boulders – holy cow did I feel like I was in some cheesy razor blade commercial set in a tropical setting – so, lucky-me, I had Wendy – photographer-movie-maker extraodinaire from Toronto – take a quick video shot – I think having Ossu – a newer Danish shipmate – skinny dipping in the background was a nice touch to the shoot
What else – went to a fish fry that night in Gouyave, a little fishing village further north on the west coast and then took a super long bus-van ride home thru the winding lush hills.
Oh and we also had a Caribbean hootenanny at donald’s backyard bbq party. And it was a proper hootenanny with loads of Caribbean moves and grooves (his son was dj’ing), plates and plates of Caribbean bbq treats and of course, rum. I do have pictures of this.
After Grenada, we headed to Petit Martinique – the northernmost islands of the Grenada (made up of Grenada, Carriacou, and some other little guys) before you hit St. Vincent and the Grenadines (a different nation from the Grenada islands) beginning with Petit Vincent. Petit Martinique was a day long sail and we stayed a day for an all-hands water sports day: small boat sailing on our little gaff-rigged small boats: the Monamoy and Sea Never Dry and snorkeling around the post-card picture-worth reefs. Altho, luckily I was on watch the night before – which means I did not go to shore with all the other off-watchers – which means I did not part take in the force 7 rum squall that hit the off-watch folks. Force 7, according to the Beaufort Force Scale of Rum Consumption means there were 7 bottles of rum bought and consumed by 15 shipmates in 2 hours. I was, however, awaken by their 11 pm skiff return to the ship which included lots of laughter, slapping and spanking, pinching and not very many clothes. I had the privilege of waking up an hour later at midnight for anchor watch – by then much of the debauchery had quieted down. However, I did feel like I was on love boat for during my ship check I kept bumping into couples. And surprisingly, the aftermath the next day was not too bad for everyone was getting in on all the water-sport activities.
After a long day sail beginning at six thirty in the morning, we arrived in Bequia. Another small Grenadine island. More frequented by visitors/yachties however, the season is now passed. This island is best known for the boats that are built here and the varnish work done is reputed to be the best in the Caribbean. They are also the only island that is still allowed to do any whaling (I think is controlled to only one whale a year or something). My first night off I spent lingering in the island book shop – I love visiting and perusing through book shops and can easily spend a day doing so. Today was my on watch day and I volunteered for galley which means cooking for 15-20 people, depending. I was much less nervous doing so today than my first time doing port galley in St. Helena and can tell that cooking 3 meals for a group of this size seems less daunting and more normal to me now. And we are in port which means we have lots of great fresh local ingredients that I don’t entirely know what to do with (like breadfruit, I still need to learn what to do with it). So, lunch was a rice salad with fresh cucumber, corn, green onions and blanched green beans with a dijon mustard vinaigrette that I learned to make when I lived in Lyon, France (it’s made for Lyonnaise salads), left over baked chicken wings from the day before, a huge bowl of guacamole (the avocados were on their way out), with made-fried tortilla/pita chips and grated cheese. Before dinner refreshment was homemade Hibiscus iced tea (we found a bag of fresh-dried hibiscus flowers in the veggie locker!) - the doc said it was “very left-winged” but it was a hit no less as the watch gathered to enjoy it at midships. Dinner was more baked chicken wings but this time with my style of seasoning: fresh thyme, oil, salt, ground pepper, garlic and then topped with tomato wedges and star fruit slices; my dad’s style of potato salad (no mayo), and callalou which I think I’ve learned is the Grenadian form of Bock Choy – wasn’t sure what to do with it, but we have loads – so I made it like I do Kale: steamed with some oil, garlic, salt and pepper (and a few ginger slices found their way in there from my tea today), and tropical fruit salad (paw paw, mango, banana, melon, star fruit) with whipping cream (Paula made that). I can’t take all the credit tho, cuz paula was my fellow galley-star. Tomorrow will be my full day off watch on the island and I’m looking forward to renting scooters and exploring and snorkeling and checking out the whaling museum and turtle preserve with others.
So, observations – I can tell we as a crew have melded together because all hands entering or leaving port with the sail handling is more stream line now and less stressful as we are all more comfortable with each other now. One morning in Grenada we made a few observations over breakfast of this experience. One is with such an international crew with English not being the first language of many – the quality and quantity of vocabulary has pretty much gone down the tubes – the English is a hodgepodge of sailing terms that are used even when we aren’t sailing. Like when I was working on someone’s ankle they said “the inboard side” which technically means the “medial side” – except now I’ve also adjusted and am speaking anatomy in sailing terms – this should make returning to work interesting. Words are also easily replaced with “singydingy” thanks to our Swedish Engineer who uses this term for everything. Which isn’t so bad as now the English speakers are using it because we can’t be bothered to try to remember the correct term like: wrench. And the weird thing is that we are understanding each other. Which brings me to the next point of us turning into a super-organism. We have, as I imagine, become so accustomed to working together – because it often takes anywhere from 4-15 people or more to complete various tasks from chaining provisioning food into the hold/freezers, bracing the yards, hauling up the anchor on the windlass, stowing sails, to cleaning and doing repair work/rigging. That now, there have been moments when a simple task that can be accomplished by one suddenly has several pairs more hands involved. Like “chaining” (meaning creating a line of people from point A to point B to pass an object along) a 200’ hauser line from hatch to the chain locker makes sense - as does chaining 200 lbs of meat from the delivery truck, onboard, into the hold, into the freezers. “Chaining” two grocery bags a few feet from the bus-van to the sidewalk is kind of comical. Yet, it’s now unstoppable because people do it automatically now. Additionally, I am so accustomed to people jumping in to help out with various tasks and doing so myself that I wonder if I will have lots of random tasks around my apartment only 20 percent finished because I’m so used to just completing parts of lots of different tasks. I also notice I’m becoming more responsible about things – like when I see something where it doesn’t belong or someone else’s unfinished task, I pick up where they left off. Cleaning the ship every day is making my aversion to cleaning less (doing dishes for just myself seems nothing compared to hammering out dishes for 48 and cleaning the galley). Everything gets cleaned over and over again: the heads (toilets, sinks and showers), the deck (floors), the walls of everything – just everything.
In addition, like all great experiences, it’s teaching me that relationships are the most important thing. We have to look out for each other. Altho, there do still seem lots of bumps and bruises – altho possibly more minor than if we didn’t have each other. Like when we arrived to Petit Martinique I, for the first time, was in the skiff when we were launching it. So, I’m in the skiff with Paula as it’s being lowered to the water – and I’m really excited to be doing and learning a new activity. Once she was lowered and all slack was on the tackles/davits – I reach for the block to pull more slack into it to unhook it from the gripe. Except it had three sheaves in it and next thing I knew my last 2 fingers on my right hand got caught in the block – aaaaggghh! – and then I couldn’t get them out and thank god Paula was there to help me bcz the feeling of having fingers stuck in a block and not being able to get them out . . . . well hurts A LOT for one and freaked me out for two. I got them on a cold pack pretty quickly after that and luckily it was only a minor crush injury – they still hurt today, but bones, ligaments and joints are intact. My left hand actually still hurts from colliding hands while hauling on the outter jib halyard with Dave 2 weeks ago – again, luckily a minor sprain to the transverse ligament between my second and third metacarpal – but makes gripping difficult. Ok, enuf about my aches and pains – the point is we have to watch out and take care of each other. Of course, I find it funny to learn this with a bunch of former strangers but now family-like shipmates/friends rather than with my own family. But, it’s always those universal truths that keep re-presenting themselves to us so that I may keep relearning them until I finally get it.
Even if I can’t appreciate all that I’m learning – I must be learning something because I feel less anxious about sail handling with docking, and running aloft to loose or stow sail, and hoisting or launching any three of our small boats (even despite my recent mishap). And I still manage to have at least one new learning experience every single day.
Like yesterday, was the first day I did a back flip off the swing rope – that’s right! Frank was surprised that I wasn’t doing acrobatic things off the swing rope when he was visiting in Carriacou – but it’s crazy scary swinging off it! Only the bro-guys do crazy stuff off of it and I can’t seem to control myself from erupting in screams as I’m swinging thru the air when I do work up the courage to swing off of it. The swing rope is a rope attached to the fore course yard – we brace it around and swing from the cathead on the focsle head off into the water. Nadja’s been trying to do a flip off of it the whole year – but then recently Rebecca and Kaitlyn both did their first. And I was hooked. So, yesterday during swim call – with my clothes still on (cuz that’s how I sometimes do laundry now – go for a quick dip with them still on my body), I steadied myself on the cat head, grabbed onto the rope and remembered what Kaitlyn said “you just can’t think”. So, as I started to stare at the water and freak myself out, I shut my mind off and launched off the cat head – this time with no uncontrollably erupting scream. The pendulumic momentum – with a relaxed body – carried my feet up on the other end of the swing, and I just let go, felt myself flying and rotating as the world was whizzing in gyroscope style – I began to hear the exclamation of 20 other ship mates when my eyes found the water beneath me and in I went! Holy cow! That was more fun and less scary that not flipping! So I did it two more times. That’s right – flips off the swing rope aren’t just reserved for the dare-devil 20-something year old “bros”!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0514s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
