CAPTAINS CORNER (A brief account of general observations!)
“DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL”
‘Don’t Stop the Carnival’.....is a novel I am reading at present, by Herman Wouk. Well, what an author, not only does he write well (having claimed a Pulitzer Prize) but he also understands his topic. Reading it has now made life easier for me living in the Caribbean. For example, our recent visit to French Guadeloupe involved hiring a car which we had to fill up the tank to halfway upon return. So, stopping at the local servo I asked for ‘dix euro s’il vous plait’ ($10). He seemed to be taking a while and when I saw he was at $20 I yelled to stop. He came over to the window and I said that is enough it is more than I asked for; he went back and started putting more into the tank! Again I yelled, he stopped, and went and got the manager. Hell, this kicked it all off. I told the manager I asked for $10. The manager, while laughing, said the attendant doesn’t speak English and probably misunderstood me. I explained, calmly while Marion held onto my arm, that I hadn’t spoken English and asked for ‘dix euro’. I said that was all I was paying. The manager, still laughing at my angst, said, ‘but the fuel is in the car you must pay.’ Marion did very well at this point and explained to me that our lunch had gone well and we should cut our losses as a talk with the local constabulary may not be appropriate right now, we had to get the car back to catch the last ferry home. I gave the manager the cash and sped off back onto the motorway, cursing all the while, watching the manager through the rear view mirror laughing.
The culture is surely different out here, particularly when working in GMT (Grenada Maybe Time) if you want anything done, but that is another story.
So, it is now the 27th of December and we have just arrived in Deshaises, Guadeloupe, our last stop before Antigua. The weather was good, and we had to do a bit of motoring to get here in time to check in at Customs, again. We were to be here yesterday but doing an engine check I found the engine room bilge full of water. Yes, the infamous generator had sprung a water leak from the seal in the Johnson water pump. Aside from now not having a generator and us having to B-line it to Antigua to see if we can get parts, last week I found the engine room bilge full of diesel! Yes, I had to pump it out, mop it out, tighten up the injectors and the return lines to the main engine (I think the latter were the culprits). Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. The week previous to the previous one, I kept hearing the shower pump making a funny noise....I should have known better. Yes, the diaphragm was ripped causing all our shower water complete with scum to be deposited.yes, into the engine room bilge. By the way, I would much prefer to clean up diesel in the bilge than shower water. Life is not ‘plain sailing’ out here in the Caribbean. Oh yeah, besides the engine room bilge, we only have one of the fridges working at the moment, along with one of our heads working, and only one of our showers.
Bequia, one of our favourite islands, is a ‘lovely’ little haunt for us just south of St Vincent and is part of the Grenadine group of islands. A neighbouring island is Mustique! The likes of Bowie, Tommy Hilfiger, and Mick Jagger live there. Marion and I met and helped Chris Jagger kick his guitar up the road at Bequia after one Blues fest!....another story. But Bequia, yes lovely, very local in the main part of town, but also very touristy due to the umpteen number of cruise boats that stop out in the bay. Marion and I love getting off the tourist routes and exploring the unexplored. Bequia has an alternative community living in the moon caves (please Google to find out more), so we thought it would be good to venture to the other side of the island. And it was on the advice of John Lawrence (Lawrence so called due to his uncanny look alike of Lawrence of Arabia). “Go to Pageant Farm”, he said. So we did. Well, I have been to many places on this earth but I have to say that this is the most messed up lot of people you could come across. To try and draw a picture; imagine you have a load of degenerate people, you know, the kind of deros that you see in the street every day. Now, add some very very strong rum, the kind that actually says on the bottle ‘Very Strong Rum’, if it manages to have a label. Imagine them drinking this faster than you can drink a beer. Oh yeah, we ended up in a bar in Pageant Farm and this is where this story is all coming from, we only stopped for one beer and got the hell out, thought it was like a Rocky Horror Picture Show, as one of the locals said; “just call me zipper, zipper”. And he was the most sensible one! Another came in and banged the table at someone so the lady owner asked him to leave. This went on for about five minutes with his one eye and scruffy look on one knee begging her to let him stay. I saw that she motioned to us at one point, which I am not sure she should have done, and next minute he was on one knee kissing our hands and feet pleading apologies. So....., we’re up to a degenerate you know of in the street, who has drunk a lot of very strong rum, for quite a few years. Now, think of this person as also being inbred! Yep, all jokes aside, I am being fair dinkum. You could actually tell. Well we were glad to get the hell out of there and we now call it Funny Farm not Pageant Farm. John Lawrence laughed when we told him all about it! One thing has to be said however, the best lobsters I have ever seen in my life were in the fishing boats at Pageant Farm......DON’T EAT THE LOBSTERS?!
The people in the Caribbean are on the whole very intelligent and smart people. Just on a different time zone. As one local said to us recently while he was working on our refrigeration system; “I must go home for lunch and sleep”. Upon discussing this further he clarified that his best work was done while he was resting..Thinking on the problem, you know, when you wake up and go....ahh! That’s how you fix it. I took his tools back to him after lunch and told him we would sort it all out later. He was calm about this, we had given him £100 the day before for his work, and I found him nearing the end of his splif. As one Brit who owned an engine repair business on Bequia said, “ they are all experts.....just ask them”. How true!
Food! Ah.... yes....anyone that knows us knows we like our food, and the variety in the Caribbean is amazing. From the fresh Dorado or Barracuda we catch off the back of the boat to the fried chicken the locals cook with herbs and spices better than the Colonels! But it is the food on board that really counts. All the stories you have read about regarding food at sea is true. You know the tales, pounding into the seas for a good 20 hours and all anyone can do in a short space of time is to make a tinned ham sandwich. It tastes absolutely fantastic at 2000hrs and it can’t be beat. Someone who is not feeling well has managed to cobble it together because no-one else can, and thanks are given all around...till the morning! In true daylight, which is always better than the LED’s we have, we notice a rather green/ grey furriness to the bread. Yep, you guessed it, but no grudges are held as it tasted great in the dark of night! It doesn’t kill you. But then we get back to the boat from the UK after 3 weeks and it is great to be back on the boat. We awaken to a great muesli breakfast in one of our favourite marinas, only for me to say at the end of the bowl that I don’t remember the black floaty things in the pack. Further inspection in the muesli container reveals a load of weevils happily squirming about. My stomach now feels them and I have this feeling for the rest of the day! Not happy! There is a saying out here though, “if you see it in the shop, buy it”. Well it is true. Only yesterday Marion went ashore for last minute provisioning, that we had seen the night before, and all the lemons we were amazed to see in the store were gone. Upon asking where the lemons were the cashier said a guy came and bought the whole box last night! Bugger! And then you get the official to the marine park coming to collect our fees. I notice that he has some fresh fish in his bow and enquire whether you are allowed to fish in the marine park to which he says, “No, it’s a marine park” and proceeds to leave us with five fresh sprat mackerel for lunch. We do have some wonderful meals, just never expected. Down to fresh lobster at great prices and imported US prime beef, to great French cheeses and baguettes. Many a video night and the occasional Rose lunch have been had.
In fact all is becoming clear on why we are here and how nice it is. It was only last night that Marion said, “I finally realised something today. I am here with my gorgeous husband, on my yacht, in the Caribbean, having a great time”. Wow, it has been a hard slog but I do believe we are finally getting to what all this cruising is about, it has been nearly 2 years. I am not saying there is no work to do, but I am saying you do need to take stock and take time out. Life is short, and if you don’t make of it what you can when you can, then...... .
“What do you do all day?”, seems to be the question on everyone’s lips back home. Oh, I don’t know...deal with Hurricane Tomas, try to understand what job on the boat has priority. And then there’s getting the job done. You know me, something needs doing then get on and get it done. I’m not sure people in the Caribbean have met people like me before..(Oh yes they have, they just treat me like that guy at the servo in Guadeloupe...Ahhhhhh!) So, I have spent many a day getting that one job done, you know, the one that needs just that certain size of pipe or connector. Only to find, after catching various local buses, visiting every hardware and chandlers on the island, that there isn’t one. Oh, but I have the old one, you must have one the same size................oh no we don’t sir! Is the reply. So, I arrive back at the boat wondering what to tell Marion. “So is it fixed yet”, says she, yes the cats mother at this stage, I am in no mood. It is summer and never mind the heat, try sitting on a kettle with the steam going up your backside for ten minutes and tell me how it feels. Anyway, Marion needs an answer, the best thing to do is get a beer out or the fridge, if it is working and there is beer in there...which means it is the weekend. If it is during the week, then Marion gets stonewalled. You know how it is, have you tried explaining something you don’t really know about to someone that knows nothing about it and have absolutely nothing to show for it, or any idea if there is anything that can be done about it! Don’t Stop the Carnival, you must read it.
This leads me onto crew. Always a discussion point among cruisers as long passages can sometimes be made easier with crew; paid, paying, or friends. Success of temporary crew is dependent on many factors, and that as I say is another story. And then there is permanent crew....Marion (sometimes called owner). At the moment, Sunday morning of the 9th Jan anchored at Green Island Antigua the crew has prepared a wonderful breakfast served in the owner’s cabin of fresh fruit and yoghurt with a poached egg to follow and a cup of tea. This is crew behaving at their best! Then there is the other side. No matter what dock we end up on getting water, fuel , or berthing for the night, there is always some local declaring undying love to my gorgeous crew. It is nothing in the Caribbean for men to call any woman a gorgeous lovely lady! There was a time in Prickly Bay Grenada when we use to go to the marina for water every two weeks. The marina also had a great Tiki Bar which on a Friday night had a great sunset, bbq, and band, which we frequented many times, and the best Rum punch in the Caribbean. On one occasion when we were leaving by dinghy I took off my thongs (flipflops) to get into the dinghy, as you do, and decided to leave them on the dock. They were well passed their use by date. Oh, back to the crew story. This marina had a great dock master, a young lad, who found it hard to talk to me but when I went to pay for the water he made all the efforts he could on my crew, and straight up! So we turned up to get water one time, and while the tanks were filling I noticed something different about him. I waited till the crew came downstairs to let them know. I said, “ If that dock master wants to fill my shoes he must do more than wear them”. Yep, he was actually wearing my thongs I had left on the dock.
But you know what....”Don’t Stop the Carnival!”. The carnival at Grenada was great, and you know, besides all the work on the boat, dealing with the Caribbean culture, getting use to a different way of living...with someone 24/7, we are doing something! It might be bloody hard work physically, mentally, and emotionally. Everything is new, where is the shop, where do we get parts (what parts do we need, you never know till something breaks) what will the weather be, is the tide in our favour, will our anchor hold, who will we meet, what book have we not read yet! It is not easy, but life never is! Don’t Stop the Carnival!
Looking forward to seeing you on Zenna, and our further adventures in 2011 and into the Pacific.
Aghh! And that will be all you scrubbers!
Signed
Captain and Owner Mark!
“DON’T STOP THE CARNIVAL”
‘Don’t Stop the Carnival’.....is a novel I am reading at present, by Herman Wouk. Well, what an author, not only does he write well (having claimed a Pulitzer Prize) but he also understands his topic. Reading it has now made life easier for me living in the Caribbean. For example, our recent visit to French Guadeloupe involved hiring a car which we had to fill up the tank to halfway upon return. So, stopping at the local servo I asked for ‘dix euro s’il vous plait’ ($10). He seemed to be taking a while and when I saw he was at $20 I yelled to stop. He came over to the window and I said that is enough it is more than I asked for; he went back and started putting more into the tank! Again I yelled, he stopped, and went and got the manager. Hell, this kicked it all off. I told the manager I asked for $10. The manager, while laughing, said the attendant doesn’t speak English and probably misunderstood me. I explained, calmly while Marion held onto my arm, that I hadn’t spoken English and asked for ‘dix euro’. I said that was all I was paying. The manager, still laughing at my angst, said, ‘but the fuel is in the car you must pay.’ Marion did very well at this point and explained to me that our lunch had gone well and we should cut our losses as a talk with the local constabulary may not be appropriate right now, we had to get the car back to catch the last ferry home. I gave the manager the cash and sped off back onto the motorway, cursing all the while, watching the manager through the rear view mirror laughing.
The culture is surely different out here, particularly when working in GMT (Grenada Maybe Time) if you want anything done, but that is another story.
So, it is now the 27th of December and we have just arrived in Deshaises, Guadeloupe, our last stop before Antigua. The weather was good, and we had to do a bit of motoring to get here in time to check in at Customs, again. We were to be here yesterday but doing an engine check I found the engine room bilge full of water. Yes, the infamous generator had sprung a water leak from the seal in the Johnson water pump. Aside from now not having a generator and us having to B-line it to Antigua to see if we can get parts, last week I found the engine room bilge full of diesel! Yes, I had to pump it out, mop it out, tighten up the injectors and the return lines to the main engine (I think the latter were the culprits). Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. The week previous to the previous one, I kept hearing the shower pump making a funny noise....I should have known better. Yes, the diaphragm was ripped causing all our shower water complete with scum to be deposited.yes, into the engine room bilge. By the way, I would much prefer to clean up diesel in the bilge than shower water. Life is not ‘plain sailing’ out here in the Caribbean. Oh yeah, besides the engine room bilge, we only have one of the fridges working at the moment, along with one of our heads working, and only one of our showers.
Bequia, one of our favourite islands, is a ‘lovely’ little haunt for us just south of St Vincent and is part of the Grenadine group of islands. A neighbouring island is Mustique! The likes of Bowie, Tommy Hilfiger, and Mick Jagger live there. Marion and I met and helped Chris Jagger kick his guitar up the road at Bequia after one Blues fest!....another story. But Bequia, yes lovely, very local in the main part of town, but also very touristy due to the umpteen number of cruise boats that stop out in the bay. Marion and I love getting off the tourist routes and exploring the unexplored. Bequia has an alternative community living in the moon caves (please Google to find out more), so we thought it would be good to venture to the other side of the island. And it was on the advice of John Lawrence (Lawrence so called due to his uncanny look alike of Lawrence of Arabia). “Go to Pageant Farm”, he said. So we did. Well, I have been to many places on this earth but I have to say that this is the most messed up lot of people you could come across. To try and draw a picture; imagine you have a load of degenerate people, you know, the kind of deros that you see in the street every day. Now, add some very very strong rum, the kind that actually says on the bottle ‘Very Strong Rum’, if it manages to have a label. Imagine them drinking this faster than you can drink a beer. Oh yeah, we ended up in a bar in Pageant Farm and this is where this story is all coming from, we only stopped for one beer and got the hell out, thought it was like a Rocky Horror Picture Show, as one of the locals said; “just call me zipper, zipper”. And he was the most sensible one! Another came in and banged the table at someone so the lady owner asked him to leave. This went on for about five minutes with his one eye and scruffy look on one knee begging her to let him stay. I saw that she motioned to us at one point, which I am not sure she should have done, and next minute he was on one knee kissing our hands and feet pleading apologies. So....., we’re up to a degenerate you know of in the street, who has drunk a lot of very strong rum, for quite a few years. Now, think of this person as also being inbred! Yep, all jokes aside, I am being fair dinkum. You could actually tell. Well we were glad to get the hell out of there and we now call it Funny Farm not Pageant Farm. John Lawrence laughed when we told him all about it! One thing has to be said however, the best lobsters I have ever seen in my life were in the fishing boats at Pageant Farm......DON’T EAT THE LOBSTERS?!
The people in the Caribbean are on the whole very intelligent and smart people. Just on a different time zone. As one local said to us recently while he was working on our refrigeration system; “I must go home for lunch and sleep”. Upon discussing this further he clarified that his best work was done while he was resting..Thinking on the problem, you know, when you wake up and go....ahh! That’s how you fix it. I took his tools back to him after lunch and told him we would sort it all out later. He was calm about this, we had given him £100 the day before for his work, and I found him nearing the end of his splif. As one Brit who owned an engine repair business on Bequia said, “ they are all experts.....just ask them”. How true!
Food! Ah.... yes....anyone that knows us knows we like our food, and the variety in the Caribbean is amazing. From the fresh Dorado or Barracuda we catch off the back of the boat to the fried chicken the locals cook with herbs and spices better than the Colonels! But it is the food on board that really counts. All the stories you have read about regarding food at sea is true. You know the tales, pounding into the seas for a good 20 hours and all anyone can do in a short space of time is to make a tinned ham sandwich. It tastes absolutely fantastic at 2000hrs and it can’t be beat. Someone who is not feeling well has managed to cobble it together because no-one else can, and thanks are given all around...till the morning! In true daylight, which is always better than the LED’s we have, we notice a rather green/ grey furriness to the bread. Yep, you guessed it, but no grudges are held as it tasted great in the dark of night! It doesn’t kill you. But then we get back to the boat from the UK after 3 weeks and it is great to be back on the boat. We awaken to a great muesli breakfast in one of our favourite marinas, only for me to say at the end of the bowl that I don’t remember the black floaty things in the pack. Further inspection in the muesli container reveals a load of weevils happily squirming about. My stomach now feels them and I have this feeling for the rest of the day! Not happy! There is a saying out here though, “if you see it in the shop, buy it”. Well it is true. Only yesterday Marion went ashore for last minute provisioning, that we had seen the night before, and all the lemons we were amazed to see in the store were gone. Upon asking where the lemons were the cashier said a guy came and bought the whole box last night! Bugger! And then you get the official to the marine park coming to collect our fees. I notice that he has some fresh fish in his bow and enquire whether you are allowed to fish in the marine park to which he says, “No, it’s a marine park” and proceeds to leave us with five fresh sprat mackerel for lunch. We do have some wonderful meals, just never expected. Down to fresh lobster at great prices and imported US prime beef, to great French cheeses and baguettes. Many a video night and the occasional Rose lunch have been had.
In fact all is becoming clear on why we are here and how nice it is. It was only last night that Marion said, “I finally realised something today. I am here with my gorgeous husband, on my yacht, in the Caribbean, having a great time”. Wow, it has been a hard slog but I do believe we are finally getting to what all this cruising is about, it has been nearly 2 years. I am not saying there is no work to do, but I am saying you do need to take stock and take time out. Life is short, and if you don’t make of it what you can when you can, then...... .
“What do you do all day?”, seems to be the question on everyone’s lips back home. Oh, I don’t know...deal with Hurricane Tomas, try to understand what job on the boat has priority. And then there’s getting the job done. You know me, something needs doing then get on and get it done. I’m not sure people in the Caribbean have met people like me before..(Oh yes they have, they just treat me like that guy at the servo in Guadeloupe...Ahhhhhh!) So, I have spent many a day getting that one job done, you know, the one that needs just that certain size of pipe or connector. Only to find, after catching various local buses, visiting every hardware and chandlers on the island, that there isn’t one. Oh, but I have the old one, you must have one the same size................oh no we don’t sir! Is the reply. So, I arrive back at the boat wondering what to tell Marion. “So is it fixed yet”, says she, yes the cats mother at this stage, I am in no mood. It is summer and never mind the heat, try sitting on a kettle with the steam going up your backside for ten minutes and tell me how it feels. Anyway, Marion needs an answer, the best thing to do is get a beer out or the fridge, if it is working and there is beer in there...which means it is the weekend. If it is during the week, then Marion gets stonewalled. You know how it is, have you tried explaining something you don’t really know about to someone that knows nothing about it and have absolutely nothing to show for it, or any idea if there is anything that can be done about it! Don’t Stop the Carnival, you must read it.
This leads me onto crew. Always a discussion point among cruisers as long passages can sometimes be made easier with crew; paid, paying, or friends. Success of temporary crew is dependent on many factors, and that as I say is another story. And then there is permanent crew....Marion (sometimes called owner). At the moment, Sunday morning of the 9th Jan anchored at Green Island Antigua the crew has prepared a wonderful breakfast served in the owner’s cabin of fresh fruit and yoghurt with a poached egg to follow and a cup of tea. This is crew behaving at their best! Then there is the other side. No matter what dock we end up on getting water, fuel , or berthing for the night, there is always some local declaring undying love to my gorgeous crew. It is nothing in the Caribbean for men to call any woman a gorgeous lovely lady! There was a time in Prickly Bay Grenada when we use to go to the marina for water every two weeks. The marina also had a great Tiki Bar which on a Friday night had a great sunset, bbq, and band, which we frequented many times, and the best Rum punch in the Caribbean. On one occasion when we were leaving by dinghy I took off my thongs (flipflops) to get into the dinghy, as you do, and decided to leave them on the dock. They were well passed their use by date. Oh, back to the crew story. This marina had a great dock master, a young lad, who found it hard to talk to me but when I went to pay for the water he made all the efforts he could on my crew, and straight up! So we turned up to get water one time, and while the tanks were filling I noticed something different about him. I waited till the crew came downstairs to let them know. I said, “ If that dock master wants to fill my shoes he must do more than wear them”. Yep, he was actually wearing my thongs I had left on the dock.
But you know what....”Don’t Stop the Carnival!”. The carnival at Grenada was great, and you know, besides all the work on the boat, dealing with the Caribbean culture, getting use to a different way of living...with someone 24/7, we are doing something! It might be bloody hard work physically, mentally, and emotionally. Everything is new, where is the shop, where do we get parts (what parts do we need, you never know till something breaks) what will the weather be, is the tide in our favour, will our anchor hold, who will we meet, what book have we not read yet! It is not easy, but life never is! Don’t Stop the Carnival!
Looking forward to seeing you on Zenna, and our further adventures in 2011 and into the Pacific.
Aghh! And that will be all you scrubbers!
Signed
Captain and Owner Mark!
