Grocery Shopping in Grenada - The last week in April we sailed south to Grenada to go grocery shopping. Driving 32 miles may be routine when you don’t live too close to the supermarket. It’s a little different by sea. The trip down was uneventful. We stayed in the lagoon at St. George’s for four days which was convenient to one decent market. We were just a two minute dinghy ride to the dock provided by the Foodland Market across the street. The young man who bagged the groceries also wheeled the cart across the street to the dock. Nice way to earn a tip! The bus stop was also at the dinghy dock making it easy to get a bus to the Spice Island Mall IGA Supermarket, a REAL supermarket. Mmmm, Miracle Whip, sweet pickle relish, black olives, CheezWhiz, Oscar Mayer bologna, tortilla chips, Kleenex, Maxwell House coffee, Lipton Iced Tea, and the list goes on. We still haven’t found Kleenex tissues anywhere in Carriacou. There’s an Ace Hardware store on the lagoon where we found filters for our water maker, and some other goodies, and at their other store in St. George’s, Roland found a Black & Decker saber saw to replace the one that died recently. Our first night there we went back to the Tropicana Inn for dinner. That was the scene of the Carnival visit last August. The derelict boats had been removed from the lagoon since our last visit in December as the new Port Louis Marina is clearing the area for their expansion. We had forgotten how yucky the bottom was there, like the muck we anchored in up in the Chesapeake. It certainly is not a spot to run the water maker!

Back to Carriacou - The return trip to Carriacou was not as uneventful. We lifted anchor about 6 AM, and were having a decent sail although the wind was a little on the variable side. Suddenly Kathleen heard a noise, looked up at the genoa which was only partly unfurled, and said "Roll it up, it’s ripped!" That was at 10 AM, and we had to motor the rest of the way home. The seas were a little too rough to try to drop the sail and put up the working jib. Had the engine (knock on wood) had a problem we would have done it, but no sense beating ourselves. Once back in Tyrrel Bay we waited for a calmer day to drop the sail and put up the jib. The tear is pretty bad so we’re not sure what we’ll do with the sail at this time. BUT, our friends, Mark and Debbie (S/V Sea Cycle, Toronto), gave us a used sail that they have been lugging around and wanted to get off the boat, one that needs some stitching, but will fit our boat and serve as a 100% genoa. Wonderful friends! Today Roland dropped the sail off at the shop on the beach for repairs. Yes, we have that sewing machine that works on sailcloth, but it’s time to help the local economy.

Dinghy Driver’s License - Kathleen has officially obtained her "driver’s license" for the dinghy. She said she wouldn’t take it out until the outboard was more reliable. The kinks and idiosyncracies have been duly noted, and it was time. So off she has gone alone to the dock a few times to go to town or up to the school. On Saturday mornings when Roland helps with the kids’ sailing club, Kathleen buys fresh veggies and takes them home. After accomplishing her first tie-up at the commercial dock, she brought home a quart of ice cream from the store. That was lunch! Sometimes you just have to have nothing but ice cream for lunch. One evening we were invited to another boat for happy hour. Roland declined for a reason you will see later, but Kathleen ventured over, telling our friends that she had to be home before dark because she only had her learner’s permit.

School Days - The library books for the Harvey Vale Government School arrived on May 8, only two months later than expected. Cruisers from several boats went to the dock to help get about 30 cartons from the hold of the M/V Amelia to the bed of Sherwin’s pickup truck. Sherwin delivered the cartons to the restaurant across the street from the dock where the same cruisers took them inside. Representatives from the local schools and the community college were to come for the cartons in the next day or two. We walked up to the school the following Monday to make sure that the books had indeed arrived there. Kathleen has been walking up the hill on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to spend two or three hours pasting pockets and writing out book cards. Donna Lynn, the teacher’s aid, has been recording each title in a ledger, and might get the list on the computer some day so she can sort it alphabetically.

Another Saturday Night - Lucky’s continues to be the Saturday night "spot" with new arrivals adding to the fun. Actually, one Tuesday night ten of us went to celebrate friend Jaime’s birthday. Last year he told everyone that he was 75 because he liked to hear people say that he looked real good for 75. So this year we kept up the pretense by telling everyone he is 76.

Sailing Along - Roland offered his help to the Carriacou Kids’ Sailing Club at the beach. The kids are learning to sail Opti’s that were donated by Peake’s Boatyard from Trinidad. Since the sailing dinghies were cast-offs, most of them need a little TLC, repairs, etc. We’ve brought a couple of them back to our boat where Roland has done the work.

Farmer’s Market - The first Saturday morning that we went over to help with the sailing Kathleen encountered a local farmer, Rufus, who had brought his fresh produce to sell in front of the store down the street from the sailing club shack. So every Saturday we can get freshly picked leaf lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, green onions, green beans, callaloo (spinach), cabbage, carrots, papaya, or sour sop, maybe even bananas when they’re ready. Fresh, not shipped in from "somewhere". Rufus’ kids won’t eat string beans so he’s happy to sell some of them to us.

OUCH! - Kathleen went to Hillsborough to see the dentist, but the office is closed until June 12. Must be on vacation. One of her crowns came out last week while

eating lunch. To the rescue, Temparin, a temporary filling material used by dentists, holding well after several days. The problem Roland has had is much more uncomfortable, a pilonidal cyst, that had him lying down for more than a week. Not wanting to risk TMI, let’s just say it was located where the sun doesn’t usually shine. OUCH! Helping it along with antibiotics it is now almost totally gone. Paradise isn’t always perfect. But it sure is a good thing Kathleen got her dinghy license or she would have been stuck on the boat for more than a week.

Anchoring Woes - Whenever cruisers get together, one of the favorite topics of discussion is anchoring, and why people do the stupid things they do when coming into an anchorage. We have another stupid anchoring story to add to the list. One morning a sailboat came into the bay under sail. No problem. The crew worked its way back and forth, tacking with the wind. No problem. Until they decided to drop their anchor in front of us. Problem. Suddenly we have the stern of this 42 foot sailboat about to hit our bow. The captain calls over to us, "We have no engine." Well, if he doesn’t have an engine, why didn’t he anchor away from several boats that he could hit? Needless to say, English wasn’t his first language which seems to be typical of most of these anchoring stories. As a result we were forced to let out another 50 feet of chain to avoid a collision. To make the situation even worse, the crew goes to shore most of time, rarely staying on the boat for more than a couple of hours. The boat appeared to have dragged as well so first chance we got we picked up our anchor and moved away from them! No problem, mon!

Lessons from Mother Nature - One afternoon there were two laughing gulls off our port side, quite close actually, that looked like they were trying to kill each other. They were pecking and flapping and screeching! Suddenly they straightened themselves out and flew away. Who would have thought? Then there is the good old powdered camel dung we probably mentioned last summer. The beautiful blue skies lose that hue we come to expect down here. There’s a grayness instead. Then we noticed that the air was thick and heavy, only way to describe it. Visibility over water was severely diminished, much like the summer days on Lake Erie when the pollution from Canada covers the Inner and Outer Harbors. Red dust started to coat the solar panels, and the light bulb went on! Sahara dust! The good thing about the dust is that it suppresses the formation of tropical storms along the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) when a tropical wave heads this way. Dirty though it may be we’ll take it over a hurricane any day.

Get caught reading! We’re reading Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop the Carnival. If you can locate a copy, we think you’ll enjoy it.

Happy Memorial Day to all you veteran’s out there. Thank you for your service to the U.S.A.