Finished the Christmas cakes. They turned out well, I put a little Caribbean twist in them. I bought some  spices the other day in Grenada and there was a lot of mace in the package so I ground some up and tossed it I'm with the fruit and then I didn't have any corn syrup so added nutmeg syrup instead. I snuck a little taste of the cake after it was done and the Carribbean version is going to be a hit!!

We are at the Grenadian island of Petite Martinique. It is pretty windy so rather thn wrestle with the dinghy in the wind we are just going to stay on board, tomorrow off to Union Island to check in.

Oh and P S the boat did not heat up at all, it was so windy that it kept the whole boat comfortably cool.

We are still in Grenada at the island of Cariacou in Tyrrel Bay.  We decided to reward ourselves for all the hard work we accomplished in our seven weeks on the hard, and go for a dive.  When we arrived at the dive site we found out the other couple that was diving were taking there advanced open water certification and the instructors talked us into taking it too.  We got five dives out of the deal, and we practiced our buoyancy, we had a deep water dive, a wreck dive, a night dive and a dive where we had to practice under water navigation.  It was fun  although a bit tiring with 5 dives in 3 days.  We are all done the diving and this afternoon we have to go over our answers for all the reading we had to do.
We are planning on leaving Cariacou and heading to Union Island in the Grenadines, which is part of the country St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  The name has a nice ring to it and in my head I sing it to a song by the Bare Naked Ladies.  We will probably spend about a week in the Grenadines and then head up to St. Lucia.  We will see, maybe longer in the Grenadines if we like the anchorages.  I am not sure how the wifi will be further north so thought I would put a blog on now to let you know what our plans are and if you don’t here from us, you will know where we are.
We had a tour of Cariacou the other day and it is a lovely island.  The guide was not nearly as good as the one on Grenada so that was too bad.  I plan to make my Christmas cakes one day soon, I think I have all the ingredients.  Barry doesn’t think I should because it is so hot and the cooking will really heat up the boat, but too bad, so sad, the boat will be hot for a day, it cools off very nicely at night now that we are at anchor.

Managed to get the picture of Barry with the monkey on his head downloaded and uploaded for your enjoyment.  I was very pleased to get the picture because he did not spend a great deal of time on his head!!

We are going to head further north tomorrow to the Grenadian island of Cariacou, it is only about 40 miles from our present position so we should be able to make it during the daylight hours.  We might sail up to St. George this afternoon and see about a little shopping before heading on, although not many places are open in Grenada on a Sunday. 

We went on an island tour of Grenada today.  The tour guide was very knowledgable about all the fruits, nuts and plants that grow here.  Grenada is 21 miles long and 12 miles wide and has a population of about 103,000. Today we were shown examples of all plants, mandarin oranges, limes, grapefruit, soursop, breadfruit, yellow apple, bananas, cocoa, coffee, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves as well as lemongrass, cashews and turmeric, Grenada is know as the Spice Island, it lived up to it's name today. It was a very informative and interesting day. 

A cashew, the nut on top and the fruit on the bottom, without roasting the nut is poisonous!

Our guide holding a cocoa pod. 

We went to a chocolate factory. It was very quaint, read old machinery but we sampled the chocolate after and it was delicious. 

That brown stuff being stirred around is chocolate! Did it ever smell good. 

The view from the spot we had lunch, on the property of a rum factory. The sugar cane is used to make the rum.

The original paddle wheel that was used in 1785, still in use today.

The monkey actually jumped on Barry's head to get a banana.  I have a picture but will have to 

download it from the camera. 

I went for a swim in a fresh water pool under a waterfall.  There was a lot of water coming over the falls and I got pushed around when I tried to swim underneath it. 

Grenada

Well we made it to Grenada. We had a great sail down, even having to reef down because we were going to fast and would arrive before daylight. So far we have found the people here to be much more helpful than in Trinidad. The boat looked great when she went in the water with her hull painted and polished and here new bottom paint, as well as her new dodger and bimini. I was so looking forward to not having to go up and down the ladder to go to the toilet and lo and behold the head sprung a leak and we had to bucket and chuck it the first night we were at anchor.  Barry took the dinghy back to Chaguraramus the next day and got parts to fix the head so it is all good at the moment. 

The other problem was that the outboard dinghy motor decided it wasn't going to work when we got to Grenada so Barry had to row us to shore to get checked in.  We needed money to check in so we had to take a taxi to town to get money.  We are in a spot called Prickly Bay and it is pretty well to do, the homes are really nice and the grounds are all landscaped with beautiful flowers.  I finished the eighth coat of varnish on the hand rails on the deck today so that's it for another few months.  I will try and get some pictures of Grenada the nest time we go ashore. 

Polishing the hull, getting off the horrible stains from acid rain. 

Painting our bottom!!

                             

We put two coats of paint on today, another tomorrow morning.  then Barry will struggle with getting the radar up and running.  He thinks all the wires are connected properly but the output does not recognize there is a radar there, oh joy!! After banging his head on the hull for several hours we decided to hire some help, but it is a holiday tomorrow and there is road construction , so it takes 2 hours instead ot 15 minutes to get here from Port of Spain. Lots of business people have not bothered trying to get to their shops so there is no one available to help us, yeah, welcome to the Caribbean. Hah, the frustration is beginning to boil over. 

We did get one thing done today.  When we bought new chain in Australia a couple of years ago we bought to little, so today we got 25 meters more and the welder actually showed up to weld the new chain to the old one so we now have 90 meters aboard which will make Barry very happy.

5 more sleeps and we will be back in the water, there is no dock space available and the anchorage is really shitty so as soon as you launch you leave and Barry is worried that we won't get everything done (mainly getting the radar working) before we leave.   I figure there are technicians in Grenada so if we don't get it done here, we can do it there, no worries!!

Tomorrow we are taking a trip to go to a village to celebrate Dewali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, I think it is like their Christmas.  We will go to a temple, see some dancing, have dinner and then walk around the villageto admire the lights. We weren't going to do it but since it is a national holiday, I figure it must be a big deal so we might as well join in the festivities.