Oz, revisited

A green tunnel of layers of leaves over translucent green water. And a wild tangle of roots holding up the riverbank. The emerald land of Oz, revisited.
Roy is rowing us up Indian River, all the while rattling off plant names in English and Latin. No motors allowed in this protected brakish waterway. Just the oars and the creaking wooden boat breaking the silence. And a blue heron taking flight from the bank. Small crabs scurry back into the shadows, hiding in the huge mangrove roots.
It's a kilometer of max 3m deep water in to a "jungle bar", where we take a cool mango juice before returning to town. Leaving this slow world, running on its lunar clock.

Prince Rupert, the town, is a Caribbean village where time seems to be ticking slowly, too. The small one-room shacks, unpainted wood shingles, some bright azure blue, line the long road along the sea. The tiny grocery stores are sparcely stocked.

In the blazing midday heat we decide to walk out to Fort Shirley. The Fort is part of Cabrits NAtional Park. The whole Cabrits Peninsula is being restored, trails cleared and signs raised. This Fort, which protected Prince Rupert's Bay, is huge, the old stone barracks and store-rooms getting spruced up, the cannons put back in place. This is one of the many Caribbean stages in the long and bitter battles between the French and the English. Eventually the British won this impoverished but strategic island between the two French colonies.
Not much said about the Caribs, no mention of Arawaks. The black West Indies Regiment was at one point severly discriminated. They revolted and were soon subdued again. Same old story.

Steep vulcanic cones: Dominica ahead!

By 6:15am "Babette" and "Fatuhiva" are motor-sailing away from Martinique. But by 9am, in the Martinique channel we get a good downwind sail. With one reef we coast along doing six knots.
Dominica's high volcanic cones form out of the haze ahead, growing blue, then green. Eventually they put us in a windshadow, with occaional gusts down valleys. So motor on motor off.
By 4pm we're anchored in Prince Rupert Bay; "Fatuhiva" is right beside us. Bjarne is snorkling down to the anchors, but he's up in "Babette" with an itchy back: jelly fish! Of an irritating type: they're invisible. the sneaky microscopic thingies are just like their pals the "no see 'ems" (mosquitos). No avoiding them because you can't see them.
Dominica has another feature, the "welcoming committee". "Hi,my name is Whatever; Welcome to Paradise". They sell fruit, bread, tours in the rainforest, or up the Indian River by rowboat. And they do a watertaxi service. Handy services for sailboats, though it can be somewhat overwhelming at times. And the prices are often outrageously expensive. Advice: agree upon a price before you request a service!

Breezy evenings

This is the way we wash our clothes. In St. Pierre. The very modern laundromat is spic and span, the clothes washed and dried in a jiffy.
But the computers. The keyboard is driving me crazy! The left hand side is especially, uh, interesting. Qhqt q, I qttempting to sqy? Forget it!

But no mind. Come evening "Babette" and "Lovisa" are gathered aboard "Fatuhiva" for pasta and red wine and a breezy Caribbean evening. We hear "Lovisa" plans to stay several seasons in these warm turquise waters. And long, dark nights.

Safely anchored under Mt. Pelèe

We're sailing again. This time "Fatuhiva and "Babette" are heading towards St. Pierre, the old Martinique capital. But that was before its run in with a volcano.
It's only a two and a half hour sail up the coast. A good sail, the wind just behind the beam. Rolling along, a comfortable five knots through the water.
We anchor in the bay at St. Pierre. The town lies quietly under big bully, Mt. Pelée with its nose up in the clouds. Ship wrecks from the 1902 explosion still line the inner harbor waters.

In the harbor we find two "old friends", both Swedish Najads, "Eos" and "Lovisa". With "Babette" we're three Najads in a row. But after a short chat "Eos" deserts us, heading south. Fair winds, "Eos"!

Joséphine, sans head

A soft pastell morning. The sun's just rising out of a sleepy sea. Today we're taking the water-taxi to town on the other side of the bay.
Fort de France is a busy little city: The actual fort is off limits. Still military, not museum. Next to it the "Savannah" is a pleasant palm-tree park with what was a large marble statue of Napoleon's Martinique wife, Joséphine. Only she's been decapitated. The red "blood" still running down the white marble, mixing with the political slogans. They aren't too happy about Napoleon here. He reestablished slavery after the French Revolution brought Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité to, uh, some of the French. The other statue we saw in town was of Schoecher. Not decapitated. He fought slavery here, long after it was abolished in the English colonies; the Schoecher Librqry; with its fancy gingerbread façade was brought here from Paris after the 1889 Exposition.

The Market is all fruits and spice. And the special yellow and red plaid cloth that everything is sewed from: skirts and skarves, tablecloths and napkins. Even bikinis? We meet "Fatuhiva" for lunch there, good, typical French Caribbean cuisine. Parfait!

HMS "Diamond Rock"

Remember the joke about the British military ship that demanded right of way from an Irish vessel, its steaming light bright, right in the path of His Majesty's Marine? In the end the British Navy had to back down to the Irish lighthouse.
Well, here is a true story of a bare,steep volcanic rock that was given the status of one of His Majesty's warships. About 20 poor English soldiers manned their four cannons on the rock-cum-warship for 18 months: They blocaded the harbor of Fort de France sending their cannonballs at all moving vessels. Apparently until the French managed to wreck two ("Trojan") ships, bearing kegs of rum, up on the rock. That part of the story is not confirmed in the British history books.

Sailing from St. Anne at 10am we pass on the inside of (HMS)Diamond Rock, its craggy façade looking more pocked and weatherworn than polished by the sea.
We arrive at Anse Mitan, across the bay from Fort de France, at 2:30pm and anchor up next to "Fatuhiva". With our new Delta anchor, hooked over a rock.

Down the Jesuit path

We're on the road again. This time we're inland, rain-forest country.
First stop; "Sacre Cour", Montmatre. That is, a copy built in 1923. Its white dome has a fabulous backdrop of green volcanic mountains. Dwarfing the church.
French gardens are well-planned, symmetrical and lovely to walk in. And just so in the Balata Botanical Jardin. The carved basalt steps guide the guests through a cloud of color, by huge tropical flowers, tiny hummingbirds. We're getting familiar with the trees and flowers now, and know quite a few by name.

Down the rain-forest road a bit we meet the 300 year old Jesuit path. Jesuits were active in a lot besides praying here. Inventions and business. And rum distilling. The path here is a steep staircase down into the rain-forest. We walk down and down, remembemring that each step down is a step up on the way back! The tropic flowers are blooming here, too. Though not so tightly packed as in the gardens.

Back at the boats we re-cap the two "Tour de Martinique" days with cheese and wine on "Fatuhiva". A good balmy evening bobbing on still, black waters. Stars above.

Survived volcano, joined the circus

"Babette" and "Fatuhiva", two captains, two first mates are packed tightly into a little white rental-peugot (naturally) and off we go. Captains in front, mates in back (naturally).
We drive by Schoelcher. Victor Schoelcher championed the abolitionist cause qnd helped to outlaw slavery. In 1848 in the French colonies. Of course, by then the French Revolution was over ages ago. And even the English had abolished slavery back in 1830. Still Scholcher has a library and enumerous streets with his name on them. Better late than never.
A little stop in Le Carbet on the coast: Paul Gauguin, the expressionist painter, stopped here. He painted in the Caribbean before sailing on to Tahiti to make his fame with his Polynesian women in flat bright-colored forms.

Then on to St. Pierre. Just a shadow of itself. This "Caribbean Paris" with the crystal, china qnd latest fashions of Paris was destroyed in one day. May 8th, 1902. Mt. Pelèe exploded sending fiery poisonous gas clouds and burning volcanic bombs over the city: Almost 30,000 died.
One man survived. He was behind thick stone jail walls, drunk. The prisoner, Cyparis,was badly burned, but alive. He went on to join the Barnum Circus sideshow, in a mock jail-cell, telling his tale.

Mt. Pelèe is sleeping now. So we decide to hike up it. It's a steep walk from the road to the crater. At one point the mountain was up at 1600m, the volcanic "plug" 800m high. It then collapsed, leaving just 1,397m to climb. Rolling green hills; red-roofed villages. Are ze in Southern France?
"Fatuhiva's" Bjarne strides by and we meet him on his way down from the foggy crater wall at the top. So we all walk down into the sunshine again. And the beautiful view of the French valleys below.

Pa ni pwoblem

St. Anne is lovely. We tie up at the dinghy dock, mid-town. Wonderfully free of any dinghy-watchers. the little church at the end of the square is being restored: Three big bronze bells arrived today.
Food is good in Martinique. Walking by the Boulangeri/Pastisserie the good smells of fresh bread and sweet cinnamon wafting by. The butchers with good cuts of beef. And the cheeses. And the wines. So near the ex-english colonies but with an "English channel" of difference.
We taxi over to Le Marin and check in, quick and effecient. "Pa ni pwoblem". And then shop. We're shopping for a main anchor. A too big qnd heavy used Bruce or the just right size, but full price Delta.
Oernulf chooses the Delta. Pa ni pwoblem. We hope.

Before returning to St. Anne we have a chat with Odd Langlo aboard his Baltic, 58', "Lady Jane". A beautiful boat. Wouldn't you know it, Oernulf and he have acquaintances in common. We are also encouraged by his recovery from a major back/neck injury and he advises our brave little friend Sondre from "Blue Marlin" to persevere, never give up hope for improvement, even a long time after the injurie.

The French Quarter

Zell; this ,ight be so,ezhqt different; the keyboqrd is French éé

A little convoi of sailboats,I counted 10,12 at the most, sails away from St. Lucia, heading for the French Quarter: Martinique. A good sail in Easterly winds; rather close-hauled: We're threading our way along red and green buoys at Le Marin, Martiniques big marina/anchorage in the south at about mid-day. The marina is full, so we re-trace our buoyed path out and head for nearby St.Anne.
Norwegian boat, "Fatuhiva", is there and we thought we'ld have a chat. And we did. First on "Fatuhiva" where Mette's boat-made rolls hit the spot and later over on "Babette" over coq au vin and more, red, vin.
Bienvenu à Martinique!

blogging and e-mailing, it's a...

quiet day in Rodney Bay.

A secret World

More snorkling. An amazing, secret world hiding under this (sometimes)flat, blue lid. Sand valleys and steep, hills covered in plants in fabulous forms. There are pipes, bright yellow, empty "flower pots" or jugs, thick, bare branches, rust-red, and huge lacy fans, light green on one side, lilac on the other. All swaying in the current. This is the world the silly, clown-painted aquarium fish live their little fishy lives.

Sad to leave our lovely aquarium behind as we sail away from Soufriere, the "Sulpher" village. With its enormous sentinals, the Pitons, Gros and (not very) Petit.
It's a hot, sunny motor-sail up the coast to Rodney Bay. Where we hope to buy a new anchor. Being tied to a pontoon is different. This is the first time since La Gomera in the Canaries! And showers, super! Even a little swimmming pool. Just what we need after being baked all day in the sun and bright and breezy sea.

Sulpherous Cauldrons and a Walk in Paradise

They call it the "Drive-in Volcano! And, sure enough maxi-taxis and mini-busses line the lane leading into The Sulpher Springs. The scent of rotten eggs waft by on the breeze. We approach this volcanic interior of an old caldron. The steep remaining sides surrounding us. The earth has a yellow-white crust, could fry an egg. Pools of sluggish black mud boil and the sulpherous steam rises and drifts. It's fenced off now, after one of the guides went through the thin crust and into the boiling interior at one point.

Leaving this Dant'e image of Hell behind we enter through the gates of "Diamond Gardens and Waterfall". Bright busy hummingbirds have found their paradise in the huge tropical flowers and fruits along the neat, bamboo-edged paths. There is a little Japanese garden with pools and a tiny red bridge. But with a definite Caribbean flavor. The red-orange "Crab's Claws and deep red-hot-chili hanging flowers are spectacular. Our window sill potted plants are huge flowering bushes or air-plants. Palms and gigantic fans of bamboo cast a green light over this jungely botanical garden. The compost bins, huge, sturdy corrals are impressive. Signs explain how the coconuts husks, huge tropical leaves, donkey manure is used to create new topsoil. The rain forests have almost no layer of lome, the decaying debris going straigt up into the vines and leaves almost immediatly.

There is a water-wheel from the old sugar mill that's still running. And there's a waterfall. The sulpherous waterfall leaves a bright orange layer on the rock behind it. Then the waters go on into a mineral bath, three small pools. They are still in use today, having been built originally on order from French King Louis XVI! This estate, 2000 acres of land, was given by Louse XIV in 1713 to the two brothers Devaux and the descendants developed the run these gardens today.

A quick trip from hell to heaven. Nice direction to go. Then I spoke to sister, Jocelyn on the cell phone. Bad news from home. Dad broke his hip. The good news is that he's doing well at the hospital. And his choice of turkey/fish or fish/turkey reminds us of our Charlotteville, Tobago, dilemas.

Swimming in an aquarium

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. This one has a yellow stripe. There are bright turquise ones, too. Spotted, Thin as a stick or round as a pancake. They swim among the coral fans and mustard-yellow tubes in their blue-green world. It's like swimming in an aquarium!

"The Green Room" in Church St. is where we have dinner. There are two tables out on the porch, either sie of the door. It's a great place to sit and watch life in Soufriere. The dark, warm evening is bustling. Everybody is up and about, from infants and toddlers to flirting teens hanging out, the music blaring from a nearby bar.
Retiring to "Babette", bouncing in the swell, it's quiet, just the sound of the surf and the squeeky bats. In the black and balmy night.

Gros Piton, Petit (not!) Piton

At 6am we're off and sailing. Well motor-sailing at first. On our way to St. Lucia. Another island , another country. A new flag up the mast.
The wind picks up and we're sailing sharp against it, along the island, St. Vincent, the last of the Grenadines. It's a five hour sail across a channel to St.Lucia.
Out of the haze tall, pointy mountains materialize. The two tallest and pointiest are rising right out of the sea, sentries to little Soufriere. They are Gros Piton, just under 800m high, and Petit(not very)Piton, 750m above sea level. Like two giant's ice cream cones, upside down. Fuzzy, green-tinted, they grow enormous as we approach the coast. Tiny sailboats at the base emphasize their gigantic size.
Just beyond is the village, Soufriere. Small wooden houses, blue and turquiose like the sea, wooden fishing boats with big outboards, painted in hot-rod colors, red, yellow, pink and orange. Once the French capitol, it is a small town, (pop. 14.000) with a large Catholic Cathedral by the town square. The town lies at the base of a longish, protected bay, under steep, green jungly hills. Palms swaying along the beaches. A picture of paradise.
The poverty, occational begging, and a great number of "boat fruit-sellers", and dinghy-watchers, trincket-sellers, and the like witness more on a sort of paradise lost. Their history records the paradise being lost already when the marauding Caribs wiped out the peaceful Arawaks. And many times since.

It is peaceful enough when we pick up a mooring under the vertical wall, just beyond the "Bat Cave". We're in a (Coral Reef) protected area, no anchoring. Just as well, since we've just lost our two anchors in Tobabo Cays!
Since 1995 they've been sheltering the delicate coral reefs against fishing and anchoring. The whole Piton protected bay is now a Unesco World Heritage Site. Rightly so.

Good ol' Bequia

Baby blue skies and puffy lamb's wool clouds. The moorings like a chain of pearls along the caf'e-lined strand walkway. Frangi-panis and palms, green, bushy hillsides . About 50 masts bobbing in the flat, green waters of the long Admiralty Bay. Disturbed only by the 60hp. wooden boats, all brightly painted, named "Kamikaze", "Phat Shag", "African Pride". They roarrrrr by your dinghy. Swimming prohibited?

We meet an American/Dane, Robert, on "Skaramouche", a single-handed boat. A nice new acquaintance. Solo-sailors have such interesting tales to tell.

3am, 30knot winds, a drift in Tobago Cays

Sleeping at anchor is a lot like having an infant in a cradle at your bedside. You sleep with ears open wide.

Bonk.
"...what? Uhh, Oernulf, I think I heard something... Let's check the anchor." We're both up and can't understand what we're seeing. It's dark, blowing, and wet. We're real near a couple boats. But, hey!, they're not our "boat neighbors" from when we went to bed!? We're broadside the boats now, luckily floating between them. Fast! Next stop, reef? The motor's running, bimini down in no time. Oernulf's forward to pull up the anchor.
No anchor. !?
The chain stops just short of where the anchors were. ?? The chain has broken. The weakest link? We've been drifting out towards the reefs in 25, 30 knots of wind.

But we have control of the boat now. It's still dark and stormy but we have a deep pool between the islands, Pt.Rameau and Pt.Bateau and the (mostly lit) anchor-lights from the sailboats to motor back and forth on. So we consider our possibilities as we motor up and down the 10m deep pool. We have good way-points out of the reefs and could just sail on to ... somewhere. It's 3am now and a blinding squall is suddenly over us. The drenching rain is not cold, but we pull out the foul-weather gear.
It's ten minutes back and ten minutes forth, that's 20 minutes a round. Like swimming laps.


Three hours of laps later, it's daybreak.
As the black skies grow grey in the East we decide we've had enough. The weather's still foul, and the boats are sound asleep. We don't have any way of fetching up the anchors on our own.

We weave our way out between yachts and reefs. And head for a mooring in Bequia.

Tobago-pictures &c

About half a thousand Tobago-photos are up here (with slideshow here).

Polly wanna cracker?

Tobago Cays: two anchors down

But we're sailing to Tobago Cays after all, on the hope of better weather. It's a grey, blustery day.
We wind ourselves out of "Round about Reaf" in Clifton Harbor and sail choppy waters, rather hard on the wind, Mayreaux, and the idyllic "Salt Whistle Bay" to starboard.

Tobago Cays consists of three tiny green islands, and coral reefs surrounding them and a sailable pool. And in there we find about 20 to 30 boats anchored. We join them, pulling up from 9, 10 meters depth to a turquise sand bottom, 3, 4m below us. Two anchors out, an alluminiums "Fortress", light but large (5kilo), just a few meters in front of our "Bruce" anchor (32lbs.) Oernulf snorkles down to see the "Bruce" buried under the sand. So, we should sleep well. If the boats around us are also well-anchored.
We've just put out the dinghy and its motor. But the wind is still strong, over 25knots. And it's jumping about. So we decide to pull it up again for the night. Off with the motor. Lift the dinghy up and tie it securly forward on the deck.
The light dims in the squally skies, 25 and up to 30 knots of wind. And "Babette-sweet-home" is swaying on her 8mm chain in gail force winds.

Wind and more wind,

Doesn't look like we'll make it to Tobago Cays this time either. Not exactly snorkeling weather. A strong wind is blowing in the harbor, and charter boats, with and without skippers on board, surrounding us. One more Union day.

Happy Birthdayj!

Happy Birthday, nr.1 son, Thorbjørn, in England!!
And Happy Birthday Brit Emma, good friend, neighbor and house-watcher, in Norway!!

We celebrate both their birthdays by making a tropic-fruit salad and a spice cake. And we invite "Galadriel" over to share the goodies. Sondre and Synne get busy with Skittles and the Flekkefjord puzzle, down in the saloon.
While we bigger sailors re-hash stormy weather, broken rudders and gear boxes, and other minor inconveniences. We've both come a long ways, an ocean of experience since last we met, all starry-eyed, on the other side.
Now we have an exchange of info as we trade places. They have Martinique tips for us, we Trinidad and Tobago tips for them. We hope to smooth the waters a bit for each other. Meanwhile the fruit and spice cake have disappeared. And at 10pm, four hours after sunset and after an hour of yawning, time to hit the sack.
Sunrise is 06:15!!

Back to Union

Exactly one month ago, and a day, we left Union Island for Tobago and now we're back.
We leave Carriacou for Union at 12 noon. And, interupting pulling up the anchor this time,we have no business for a furious oyster selger. We leave him cussing all yachties, The White Man.

We're hard on the wind from the North-east, all the way to Union. A short motorsail puts us into position to navigate the reefs that guard this windward harbor. We're almost anchored at 4pm. When who should show up in a dinghy but the four-man crew of "Galadriel". Two of which are Sondre, 9 years old and Synne,seven. All last seen in Porto Santo (Madeira). They and their Bavaria 42 have lost a rudder and a gear box, but are otherwise, fine. And the boat, two times up on the hard, is repaired.
Snorkeling-Sondre is out and under in a flash and checks out our anchor, at nine meters. All's well.
So we sleep well in the ever-windy Clinton Harbor, at Union Island.

A small watery world

As the wind picks up during the night we have our heads up and take a look-see a few times. But come morning light it's obvious. We are some meters west of where we anchored yesterday.
We re-anchor. The patchy sand is so fine it gives too little a grip on the anchor. But eventually we find a spot. And give it a go. Satisfied, we take a maxi-taxi bus to town.
Hillsborough is town, the capital of Carricou. It has a bank, post office, supermarkets, tourist office, and lots of cafe's. And we use all of the above. And tomorrow we'll return to use the customs/immigration to check-out.

Back to Tyrell Bay. Yes, "Babette" is still where we left her when we return. Good girl! We also find another Norwegian boat there, "Fly Desiree". A dinghy, with family of four pulls up at "Babette" with two small fry, boys 2 1/2 years and 10 months. They live near Arendal (Norway, southeast)when they're not in their share-boat. This time they're on a six week jaunt. But between them they have years of sailing experience. We continue our yarns in their boat, come evening.
They also know Otts. Remember? Our brief encounter with this 74 year old , four times circumnavigator, tied to a tree in Scotland Bay, Trinidad?!

It's a small, watery world.

Sailing over a volcano

"Kick 'em Jenny" is only 169ft. under us. Well, not directly under, we're almost out of the "exclusion zone", which the charts have circled around this sometimes active volcano. I'm suddenly remembering the instructive illustrations from the musty museum showing a ship tipping, Titanic-fashion, into a bubbly sea. Appariently it's like shaking champagne and then popping the cork. The resulting bubbly is so light that boats don't float. That's physics. Look up density and go on to "Eureka".
I wasn't exactly euforic. Watching for bubbles or at least a minor volcanic explotion. But only azure blue seas bordered by volcanic rocks and islands. Diamond Rock and The Sisters guard the area, naked angular sentries.
We have a seven hour motor-sail in slight to moderater winds, right on the nose. But a sunny day, calm seas, and no snow to shovel, so no complaints.

We reach Tyrell Bay in Grenada's "little sister" island, Carriacou at 4:30pm. And anchor in a sandy patch. And, simultaneously try to deal with a rather persistant oyster-seller trying to sell us his wares. Oernulf snorkels down to find a sand-buried anchor, in just four feet of water.

All should be well. hmmmm.

Blog day, Seraphina evening

The machines are so slowwww that I can type a whole sentance before it appears on the screen. And I'm no speed-typer! The hourly price is outrageous. I should've taken that typing course!

Come evening we join English Brian and Irene on "Seraphina" for a drink and a chat. It's Brian's birthday! They have guests, a sailing couple from of all places, in the neighborhood ofBournemouth (that's where Thorbjørn is going to college). It's a jolly crowd, and we're happy to get to know them. Hope we meet again further on, up this pearl chain of islands.

dusty grey hummingbirds and "Kick 'em Jenny"

Ooh, lovely, ice-cold white wine! Brian from Seraphine" is by with a thanks-for-some-medicine present. Anybody else need some antibiotics or anything? An aspirin?

We let it warm up in our "fridge" and dinghy over to True-Blue Road, then Maxi-Taxi to town. Town is the capital, St. George's. We have a couple errands and manage to buy a charger that doesn't fit the plug of the cell-phone it's supposed to charge.

The Grenada Museum here is the typical dusty collection of graying feathers and bowl fragments. The irridence long gone from the hummingbirds. And lots of placards describing volcanos. Especially the underwater one near here, "Kick 'em Jenny". They can send gas bubbles up and "aerate" the water, make it less dense. And huge ships become relatively heavier. Ploop,ploop. Down they sink.
Scary.

Nutmeg tree, nutmeg factory, nutmeg icecream!

First the Nutmeg Tree. Here at "Spice Island", Grenada, we find "The Laura Herbs and Spice Garden. There is a sign on the main raad, then you guess your way to a box-like two-story building at road's end. Our young guide of the grounds knows each herb, bush and tree by heart, reciting quickly, all in one breath. We learn about cinnamon. They chop the whole tree down. The bark curls in the sun, and they remove it. It's the bark that is the cinnamon. Another tree grows right up from the tree stump. They can harvest again in eight years!
But it's the nutmeg tree that is Grenada.

NUTMEG: ALL YOU WANT TO KNOW!

So, let me tell you about the nutmeg. With just 10% of the trees left unscathed by "Ivan", they're harder to come by. They bear fruit, yellowish, apricot size. When ripe they split open and fall from the tree. The fruit is made into jellies, jam and syrup. yummmmmm.
The nut inside has an orange-red coat of mace around it. This is worth six times that of the nut and is collected and sold to the factory separately. Mace is dried, turns bright safran-yellow and is on a well-stocked spices shelf. And, bright in color, it is used in cosmetics, too. And mace is also the mace of riot-control.
Then there's the nutmeg stone. It's in a hard shell. After the nut is dried, the shell is cracked. Not discarded, it's used for walkways, mulch and as tinder for coal stoves. We walked on it up at some of the Grand Etang trails. Very bouncy!
Now we're inside the nut, at the kernel. Once the whole nuts are sorted, out of the crusher's jaws, they are immersed in water. The heavy ones sink. They're dense, class-one nuts. The lighter ones float. Not good, they're second rate. Nuts are sold whole or ground. Nutmeg is a great spice. What would egg-nog be without it! Rum Punch always has a dusting of nutmeg on it here. Also good, dusted with cinnamon and nutmeg, is strong new-brewed coffee. Spice cakes and muffins have nutmeg, but also spicey meat dishes.

It was at The Grenville Nutmeg Factory, a farmer's co-op, East Grenada, we learned the process from nut to nutmeg. The 17 workers there now were part of a 160-person workforce, pre "Ivan". The sacks piled up, 150 pounds of ready nutmeg, are all second grade. And there are no buyers for them. Half of the 17 workers here will be laid off nest week. And it'll take six to ten years before the new nutmeg trees bear enough fruit to start up again. The dusty wood trays for drying nuts in the warm Caribbean sea breezes are mostly empty. The machines are simple , but the labor intensive sorting has given lots of work to women here.
The next hurricane season starts in May. Cross your fingers and keep your head down!

The Grenada Chocolate Company is hard to find. It's by "Jenny's Whim", near St.John's. After a road-sign we and another rental car climb a lonely,narrow concrete road forever up and into old plantation hills. No factory buildings in sight. But a lovely view of the ocean beyond the green hills. Back down to the sign.
And there it is! A jolly multi-colored bungalow in a pleasant neighborhood. Just below the little balcony the identifying sign> The Grenada Chocolate Company", in a lime-green, lemon-yellow and orange design. How could we miss it?!
The enthusiastic chocolate factory man, let's call him Charlie, shows us the various machines, some rather antique, that make cocoa powder, cocoa butter and a really good chocolate bar. Two types, one 60%, and one 71% chocolate. From cocoa bean to hand-wrapped bar.The beans are dried and crushed, emulsified and mixed smoooooth. The wrapper is gorgeous, bright and cheery in the same Caribbean colors of the factory sign.
Souvenirs bought!

Next stop: "Carib's Leap". The Caribbean's history in a nutshell. They weren't the first Amer-indian tribe to come to the islands; but they were the most tenacious and the last to go.
It was the mostly peaceful Arawaks that arrived in the uninhabited islands only about 2000 years ago. Then, a thousand years later, the fierce, sometimes cannibal, Caribs disturbed their peace. They fought with fire and poison-tipped arrows and forced the Arawaks to flee. They had weapons for torture and took slaves. Atrocities have no racial boundaries, just ask an Arawak. But the Caribs also developed fine pottery and built swift, dug-out canoes. "Canoe" is a Carib word.
5oo years more passed. Then the Europeans came, with firearms. The various European nations continued their home rivaly and fought for new territories in the Caribbean, wiping out about all the Amer-indians in the process. Either by war, disease of attrition. The proud Caribs here, in 1651, leaped to their deaths rather than surrender to the French colonists.
The sign indicating the cliff is in the village of Sauteurs in the North. Behind it, a vertical drop into a frothy Atlantic ocean. You'll find the cliff at the far end of a neglected, but still used cemetary near the big Catholic church. Which seems to be undergoing extensive repairs, post-"Ivan".

One last stop: "The Nutmeg". A delightful restaurant in the Carenage, St. George's. We find a table on the pleasant veranda. Huge open windows give us a sea-breeze and a veiw of the inlet and the waterfront. Friendly and informal with a good menu. And we cap the meal with coffee and nutmeg ice cream. Of course.!

Bold monkeys and harrowing hikes

Rental-car day today! We head up to "Grand Etang National Park. First stop, Grand Etang Lake. We take a hike to this round crater-elake and to an outlook in th remains of the rainforsst. The bare branches a reminder that "Ivan" was to be taken seriously.
The serious face of a Mona Monkey is what meets us at the visitors-center entrance. Perched on the fence, with three or four pals in the bushes, it looked like it's his turn to be photograghed. But when a German woman with a bag of bananas approaches we catch on. He's off the fence and at the bag in a wink of an eye. The woman is aghast, the monkey at feast, chomping away as his three cousins join in the feed. And I get close-ups of their long, pointy teeth in the mushy fruit. Arn't they cute!
Down the road a bit we find the track into the "Seven Sister's Falls". And our guide, David finds us. Okay, not a problem, we can pay a guide for walking along the path to the falls... Do we want to carry on up to "Honeymoon Waterfall"? There's a heart-shaped pool under it? And off we hike. Now through more rugged, rocky country. On all fours under huge toppled trees and balancing over slippery rocks and logs over the swift stream. Higher, steeper, the last bit is up through a waterfall. David shows us each foothold and guides us through, one at a time. And there she is " The Honeymoon Falls"! A lovely waterfall, from the dense green hills down into the heart-shaped little pool.
Soon we're in the cool, dark pool swimming under the pounding waterfall. All very refreshing, but how do we get back down?!
Step-by-wary-step, balancing-act on the log, hopping from rock to slippery rock in the rushing stream, through the gooey, muddy bit, and back to the main "Sister's Falls".
Yes, it was worth it!

Prickly Bay in the Spice Island

We have to slow the boat down to sail into "Prickly Bay" by daylight. By 6:30am we are well-anchored right next to "Stormwitch", along with about 40 other boats in the good-sized bay.
After three weeks in Tobago, three more in Trinidad, we are now in a new country.The flag is bright red, yellow and green, with a nutmeg included in the design. Flying over houses, painted on cement-walls you see the flag everywhere. They're more flag-y than the Norwegians!

Clearing in, no problem.the seven-year old daughter of the customs desk official is drawing on forms, behind the "Immigration" sign. Hard to keep a serious expression as we all kid around with the new immigration "officer".

The Bay is boardered by low bushy hills with pretty coral pink, red-roofed houses. This year they have roofs. The double whammy of "Ivan" and "Emily", the 10 month apart hurricanes, whipped off all the roofs here in 2004 and 2005. (And, if you recall, this mini-state of 100,000 souls was invaded by the US, Reagan's troups, after the Cubans started building an airport here, in '83)
We've gotten a warm welcome here, as elsewhere. And we notice that the people here are friendly, proud of their country and mostly optimistic, in the face of a long stretch of re-building ahead. Not only did the roofes blow off of houses, churches, factories, but the rain forests were blown down. The tallest trees tumbled, leaves were swept off. The result resembled a burnt-out forest. Their national symbol and product, the nutmeg, suffered. 90% of the trees are destroyed. And a new grove takes 6 years just to start reproducing. "Ivan" did that. And as the rebuilding was just getting underway "Emily" knocked them over again.
They're getting off their knees again. We hope that this hurricane season will pass them by. It starts in May.

Night sail to Prickly Bay

Work to do in Scotland Bay! The dinghy, our "water taxi", with its yellow checkerboard pattern on the motor, is covered with barnacles on its underside. Oernulf hacks them off and I do a meticulous "aftershave", scraping and scrubbing their white bases away. A new smooth clean-shaven "WaterTaxi" splashes in Scotland Bay.
Channel 68's weatherman from "Foreclosure" is our neighbor in the bay and we row over for the latest report. Another boat, almost up on the shore at the head of the bay, is a wooden "Colin Archer" ketch, called "Froeken" (Missy") from Oslo. The owner, 74 yrs. old, has circumnavigated four times, he tells us, and is now busy with a noisy metal cutting machine he's borrowed.

At 16:30 we pull anchor and are off again. Destination: Grenada. We have East to South-east wind and we lean hard on it, so as not to lose height to the strong current. 15 to 20 knots of wind, a bit confused seas, but a good sail over. After a good rest at the start, my night-watch goes well. Oernulf's watch has the fishing boats and oil riggs to sail past. I get to do the star-gazing this time.

Splash!

No splash-party, I'm afraid. "Babette's" wet again at 2pm. And We high-tail it out to Scotland Bay, just an hour out of Chaguaramas. But with lovely, clean, swimable, waters! Enclosed by jungly hillsides, with the eerie wail of "howling apes" in the twilight. As red-headed Turkey Vultures circle above, or perch on naked white limbs.
Far from the thousand white masts and noisy workshops of Chaguaramas.

Stocking up and taking farewell

Our last day in Chaguaramas. We maxi-taxi over to Hi-Lo's super-duper-market and stock up on Grape-Nuts and Muesli, and othe necesities for further cruising.
The carneval pictures are on the ipod and are now burned onto cd's to be sent off to Norway. 360 carneval pictures.
"Babette" has her last day on the hard. The "Splash" is set for 2pm tomnorrow; are we ready? And our last day of air-conditioned-with-tv-vacation.

Hans and Milla from Swedish "Blue Marlin" are over for a pre-Splash farewell. And I am now the happy wearer of Milla's "friendship's band". Hand-woven in blues, now tied securly around my ancle. Thanks, Milla!