October marked the beginning of an exciting month, with family joining us for visits. John's mom Lois and sister Liane started it off with a one week visit to Grenada. Lois stayed in a lovely cottage right on the Calabash Beach in Prickly Bay in sight of Nahanni V at anchor. Liane camped out with us on the boat and got a taste of our cruising life.
Outside the L'Anse Aux Epines cottages
Chilling in the hammock
Mojo brought us to shore for a day of visiting
Calabash Beach with Nahanni V in the background
There is a term in the Caribbean called liming, which is "the art of doing nothing while sharing food, drink, conversation and laughter." We had several days of liming, enjoying being together, and playing games. Lois and Liane spoiled us by bringing treats and gifts from home. It felt like Christmas came early. The crew of Nahanni V marvelled at the size of their fridge and indulged in cold drinks and daily ice cream. Luxury!
Making breakfast smoothies for breakfast
We all loved the HUGE galley onshore and took advantage of all the space!
Gardener preparing a coconut for our breakfast
Liane, our breakfast captain
Liane rustled up some fresh fish for dinner. Yum!
A service offered by the cottages included preparation of a Grenadian meal for a nominal price (we supplied the groceries.) Our housekeeper Elsa worked all afternoon in the cottage to prepare a tuna dish with vegetables, rice and peas, callaloo soup and breadfruit balls. It was a fantastic feast!
Elsa (The Magnificent) after cooking all day
Breadfruit balls and veggies
Eating our first course of Callaloo Soup
As Liane got her sea legs on the boat, Simon oriented his Auntie as to how things worked on Nahanni V. I could hear him earnestly imparting information, while she, (knowing Simon) thought at times he was kidding. For example, while swimming off the stern, I could hear Simon explaining the mechanics of our waste system. "No, really Auntie Liane, we really do flush our poop overboard. Just check no one is in the head before you go for a swim!"
Boarding Nahanni V
Lois generously rented a car while they were here and we got out to explore. John did all the driving, as I could not get my head around driving on the left side of the road and navigating in tight spaces with a paucity of guard rails. On our first day, we went into St. George's to do some shopping. After much nail-biting, we learned that most Grenadians don't drive there - it's too crazy! (I have no pics of driving the steep and narrow streets of St. George's. I was too busy hanging on.)
Roundabout...really?
Downtown St. George's taking a smoothie break
Granny and Wavey shopping in spice market, St. George's
Fish market, St. George's where we bought excellent fresh fish
After a couple of days, we took a tour of the island which turned out to be an all-day excursion to see some of the sights.
Local fishermen on the west coast of Grenada
Our first visit was up the scenic west coast to the town of Gouyave to see the Nutmeg Processing Station. We learned that the nutmeg industry here was decimated in 2004 during hurricane Ivan, and is just starting to recover now. It is second largest producer of nutmeg in the world after Indonesia.
Our tour guide demonstrating that the better quality nutmeg sinks in water
Workers processing nutmeg
Bags of nutmeg that have been sorted and bagged for export
Freshly picked nutmeg
Grading nutmeg
Sacks of nutmeg for export
During our excursion, I was navigating by Google Maps. We decided to take the secondary road to cut across the island to get to a rum distillery and a chocolate factory. (You probably know where I am going with this.) Unfortunately, the road turned into more of a goat path and wound its way up and down switchback roads through plantations of nutmeg and other things. (We are not sure what those other things are because most of us had our eyes closed.) Luckily, we avoided going over any cliffs and made our way out to something that was paved with more than 5 cm on either side. John, you are the driver. Luckily, there is more than one chocolate factory on Grenada. Once we made it out of the forest, we happened upon the Jouvay Chocolate Factory. We recognized that our tour guide was the same woman we met at the IGA grocery store in St. George's the previous week. (She remembered us after the kids and I ate up her samples.) We took a little tour into the forest to see how cocoa beans are grown and how they process the cocoa in this factory. Of course, the tour ended in the gift shop where after sampling some more, we did buy some.
Our tour guide with a cocoa pod
Sorting station of dried cocoa beans
There is a sign behind this woman that says, "This machine has no brain. Use your own."
Processing cocoa
More shopping
After a lovely buffet lunch at the Belmont Estate, we rushed off to our second last stop of the day: The River Antoine Rum Distillery. We didn't want to miss this tour because of what we heard about the place. Except for a few new moving parts, this distillery operates much like it has since the 1800's and claims to be the oldest functioning water-propelled distillery in the Caribbean.
We arrived as our tour guide was getting ready to take her young son home after school, but welcomed us and agreed to give us a tour. Production had slowed down for the day, but the water wheel was still moving which sets the whole process going from crushing the sugar cane, boiling and fermenting the cane juice, to distillation.
Water wheel
Where the cane goes up for crushing
The crusher
They use the cane husks as fuel for the fires
The boiling of cane juice
Amazing to think that this sludgy stuff will become rum
Fermentation - open to the air
Distillation
At the end of the tour, we got to sample some of this potent overproof rum. It kind of blew my head off. They sell a 69% rum that they will let you take on the plane, as it is not as flammable as the regular stuff. Lois bought a bottle of their rum punch for us to sample which was safely diluted for our tender rum tastes. On our way back to the cottage, we saw a few interesting sights.
Ruined home with bathroom left intact
Our final stop of the day was at the Grand Etang Forest Reserve for a quick peek of the crater lake high in the mountains.
Grand Etang Lake
Checking out the lake as the sun is setting
Lois in pergola at Grand Etang Lake
Grand Etang Lake
Another travel day took us to Annandale Falls where we enjoyed some cool, fresh water and a little hike into the rainforest. We also watched as two men jumped off the top of the falls into a shallow pool (for a fee, of course.)
Annadale Falls
Kids in Falls
Liane chilling by the Falls
John and his Mom at the Falls
On the final day of their visit, we hung out on the beach, and joined the BBQ at the little beach bar. After a rum punch (or two), we had to have a little selfie fest.
Calabash Beach
Sunday afternoon at the beach bar
Liming
Cheers!
Siblings!
Friends!
There is nothing better than this!
We ended the week by celebrating Liane's upcoming birthday (you can never get enough chocolate.)
Making a wish
(I know her wish was to stay longer with us.)
It was appropriate that Lois and Liane's visit fell over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. We were grateful for their visit. One week goes very fast, especially when you are with those you love. It was a tearful goodbye as we waved to Lois and Liane at the airport.
Last lunch at the Dodgy Dock at the True Blue Resort
No comments:
Post a Comment