What On Earth Do You Do All Day?

It's amazing how the time flies down here in Grenada but what is most confusing to me is that I can never remember what a specific day has entailed.  Social activities, general chores, a little bit of boat work (but not much) fill the calendar and always with the growing heat and humidity and the search for just a little cooler breeze.

So, what on earth can keep us so busy that the days are flying by, you might ask?

We usually start the day with the Cruiser's Net at 7:30.  Each day a different host gets on the VHF radio and we all religiously listen in and participate when needed - getting an update on security issues and the weather, filling in the calendar with upcoming social activities, trading/selling "treasures of the bilge", and getting the lo-down on local businesses and services available to us.  There's been a huge effort recently on the part of the cruising community down here to raise funds and goods to help provide relief to Dominica following tropical storm Erika, which has all come together on the Net.

Mondays and Thursdays often continue with yoga up at the marina restaurant and on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays we play volleyball in the afternoon.  There's also dominos, trivia, bridge, euchre, tai chi, and many other activities - hence why we call it Camp Grenada.

Dinghies heading in for volleyball - the 'kid boat' in front of us has gathered up 11 teenagers from various boats to come in and play ball with us.

Following the southerly winds of TS Erika, the little beach at Hartman Bay was inundated with sargassum weed.  This stinky, smelly mess would soon become very unpleasant in our little patch of paradise so a few of us banded together to rake up the weed and the marina willingly carted it away.

Raking up the sargassum

Lugging it down the beach by the cart load - thankfully it rained and was nice and cooling, but misted up the camera a bit.

The growing pile of wet, salty weed.

A nice clean beach, and we picked up some garbage as well.

Next day the truck arrived to carry it all away.

We've found some great friends in the anchorage to share all this fun with.  In particular Gwen & Guillaume on Slow Waltz, Dave & Jackie on Tempo, Robert & Carla on Moody Mistress and Tanya & David on Dea Latis.  Many others as well often round out the group on any given day.

Enjoying a rum punch at Nimrod's before Friday fish night at Taffy's.

On Saturdays we are still hashing with the local group - running up and down the hills of Grenada which is a great way to see the island and burn off a few of the calories consumed at the local hangouts.

For the last hash we gathered at the National Stadium - on our return it was like running into an Olympic stadium with the huge satisfaction of having completed the run.

The only thing keeping us on the trail at this point is following the person in front of you - the hares had slashed through the undergrowth to get us to the top of this particular hill.

The National Stadium where we started out.

We finally emerged from the bush onto this beautifully tendered garden, but still incredibly steep and tiring.

Another glimpse of the view of old Fort George beside the Carenage bay.

The end of the hash usually includes a bit of public shaming - here the "wizard sleeve" is employed on someone who complained about the food at the last hash.  Just try to hit your mouth with the beer in your hand and not soak yourself in the process.

I can't remember what these two did but they had to drink from the "dotty potty".  Warm, foamy beer (yum).

And so the days continue, but we do try to do a bit of work on the boat from time to time.  Since we are sitting in one place for a long time in extremely warm fertile waters, we are once again growing a whole ecological system on the bottom of the boat and our anchor chain.  I think we are both trying to live in ignorance of the need to scrub the bottom of the boat, but this will take a more significant chunk of our time in the coming week.  Just to give an idea, Gwen & Guillaume hauled their boat out to get the bottom repainted and it took over an hour of pressure washing and heavy scraping to get all the growth off the bottom of the boat.  We certainly don't want to haul out at the moment so we definitely need to keep on top of it.

But, before we get to work, we just wanted to fit in one more hike up at Grand Etang - repeating the Qua Qua to Concord hike we did in the rain a few weeks ago.  This time no rain and what an enjoyable time it was with a new group of folks, who rather wondered what they were in for as we marched them through mud and river.  It's still a rain forest so never really dries out.

Carla and Robert trying to avoid some of the mud early on the trail.  Legs and shoes were definitely not this colour at the end.

One of the views we couldn't truly appreciate on the previous hike.  It's like a giant green shag carpet was laid over a child's papier macher diorama.

Climbing up to the top of the wind-blown peak.

We finally reached the turnoff to Concord.  Tonya, David, Carla Robert & Jackie still smiling after the ascent.

Now heading down to Concord and picking our way through the river boulders.

Time to clean off and cool off in one of the little pools along the way.

Lots of other things I could go on about but time to wrap this up, and just in case you noticed that I am not in any of the pictures (usually behind the camera), here's one taken at the hash just to prove I was there.  And yes, we got busted for some minor infraction and were handed the Dotty Potty for a bit of nasty beverage consumption ;-)