Well I can honestly say that we are officially on Caribbean time. Our daily entertainment is listening to the cruisers net at 7:30 am, where other cruisers like us (albeit most are retired and live down here on their boat year round) volunteer their time each morning to give us an update or the goings on around Grenada, events happening, different organized tours, pot luck suppers, domino games, different items for sale and so on.Through listening to this broadcast we signed up for a full day island tour, which took place last Thursday.
Fortunately for us Thursday turned out to be a rainy day (4 kids on a boat inside all day would have had us packing and coming home). Our tour guide Cuthbert (Cutty for short) was an amazing local man who has lived his whole life on the island. This man knew every plant, flower, tree and spice on the island. Grenada is called the spice island, and on this tour we found out exactly why. This island, which is only 21 km by 8 km, used to produce the second largest amount of nutmeg in the world, next to Indonesia. 
Hurricane Ivan changed all of this in 2004 when it destroyed over 95% of the nutmeg trees, the nutmeg trees are just starting to recover as it takes the new ones 7 years to produce again. Cutty would stop his taxi/bus/van about every 5-10 minutes to hop out and grab some leaves, a fruit or spice of some kind for us to sample.Kiana was most amazed with the Cocoa pods that Cutty picked off of a tree, he cut this big red fruit looking item in half and in the middle were cocoa beans, covered with this white slimy looking stuff. He told us to take one and suck on it 
(but not to bite them as cocoa beans need to be boiled before eaten), well they were far from appetizing looking but trusting him we each took one, two of the boys spit theirs out but Kiana and I (chocolate is a girl’s best friend) loved them. They had a slightly slimy sour coating on them but you could definitely taste the chocolate in them.
(but not to bite them as cocoa beans need to be boiled before eaten), well they were far from appetizing looking but trusting him we each took one, two of the boys spit theirs out but Kiana and I (chocolate is a girl’s best friend) loved them. They had a slightly slimy sour coating on them but you could definitely taste the chocolate in them.On the next tour we went through a nutmeg processing plant where all of the farmers on the island bring their nutmegs in to sell. Before the hurricane in 2004,
149 people (49 men and 100 women) were employed in this plant, today there are only 7. They eventually hope to see production increase back to where it was, although Cutty doubts it ever will, he says that the younger generation is lazy and are not taking over the plantations that their parents and grandparents are getting to old to work in, the tourist industry on the island has a higher profit margin for them and is a lot less work.
Everything in the plant is still done by hand, a nutmeg, when still hanging on the tree is a yellow fruit about the size of a lime, when they are ripe the fruit will split open to reveal a red slimy product called mace and inside this mace is the nutmeg
‘seed’. Every part of this nutmeg fruit is used in some way, the yellow fruit is used for making jams and jellies of which we have purchased and eaten already, the mace is used as a preservative, for ice cream and candy products, and finally the nutmeg is used for baking and adding to eggnog and rum punch.
Which brings us to our next little tour inside of our big tour, the rum factory.
149 people (49 men and 100 women) were employed in this plant, today there are only 7. They eventually hope to see production increase back to where it was, although Cutty doubts it ever will, he says that the younger generation is lazy and are not taking over the plantations that their parents and grandparents are getting to old to work in, the tourist industry on the island has a higher profit margin for them and is a lot less work.Everything in the plant is still done by hand, a nutmeg, when still hanging on the tree is a yellow fruit about the size of a lime, when they are ripe the fruit will split open to reveal a red slimy product called mace and inside this mace is the nutmeg
‘seed’. Every part of this nutmeg fruit is used in some way, the yellow fruit is used for making jams and jellies of which we have purchased and eaten already, the mace is used as a preservative, for ice cream and candy products, and finally the nutmeg is used for baking and adding to eggnog and rum punch.Which brings us to our next little tour inside of our big tour, the rum factory.
The River Rum factory is the last remaining factory on the island that totally uses sugar cane to produce its rum. Another industry where it is getting harder and harder for them to continue, as growing and working with sugar cane is hard work and the younger generation is not stepping up to take over. 
The kids were not too impressed with the smells that came from this tour. We were taken through each process that the sugar cane juice goes through from the juice extraction by a 200 year old water wheel producing the power for the juicer to the fermentation process where the juice ferments and naturally produces its own yeast to the end distillation (boiling) process which creates the rum. 
We were each given a taste at the end of the tour of the two types of rum that they produce 60 and 75%. The kids thought that this was the best part. No we didn’t let them have their own glass, but we did let them stick their fingers in and I think that cured them from ever drinking rum again. 
The kids were not too impressed with the smells that came from this tour. We were taken through each process that the sugar cane juice goes through from the juice extraction by a 200 year old water wheel producing the power for the juicer to the fermentation process where the juice ferments and naturally produces its own yeast to the end distillation (boiling) process which creates the rum. 
We were each given a taste at the end of the tour of the two types of rum that they produce 60 and 75%. The kids thought that this was the best part. No we didn’t let them have their own glass, but we did let them stick their fingers in and I think that cured them from ever drinking rum again. 
We all gained a more open mind about trying the different local fruits and spices and as Kiana puts it, “just stuff it in and if you don’t like it you can just spit it out and never ever, ever eat it again!”
The kids (and adults) had an eye opener when Cutty took us through a local neighborhood where the houses were as small as a Canadian garden shed. I asked him if one family would occupy one house and he told me that these houses were called Janet Houses, after Hurricane Janet. Venezuela had sent these prefabricated houses over to Grenada for the locals to live in. Cutty said that he grew up in one and that there were 15 people living in his house, 
kids slept on the floor under the beds, on the beds, under the table and on the table, wherever there was space. I don’t think that the kids will ever complain about space again. After Hurricane Ivan similar houses were sent over again, but this time, unfortunately, not everyone who needed one received one. It was a political case of; if you knew the right people in the right places then you received one, as did other members of your family.As you can see this day was definitely a science and social class at its best.
Saturday brought us another all day rainy day that we all hope can soon be forgotten. We got up to listen to the morning cruisers net and then decided that the kids and I would go in to do some laundry and internet surfing at Whisper Cove Marina while Kevin ran into town to pick up some supplies to fix the solar panels on the boat. At approx. 2:00 pm a very large system moved in that brought with it 50 knot winds and large waves. 
The kids and I were safe doing laundry, watching a movie and surfing the net, when we received a phone call at the Marina from a fellow cruiser telling us that our boat was dragging through the anchorage (this is not a good thing as we were right in the middle surrounded by many other boats that we could have hit). Thankfully a neighbor of ours, Phil, from Newfoundland, knew that you didn’t need a key to start our boat and quickly hopped aboard ‘One Life’ and reset her anchor. 
Feeling bad about our day, we quickly learned that there are some amazing people down here who have done and been through what we went through and who would do anything for their neighbor.Being Caribbean time and all, our solar panels were finally ready to be installed, so we relocated to Prickly Bay where the welder could come aboard to do his work. What Kevin thought would be an hours job turned out to be a days event, we should have know that lunch break would take 2 hours. Needless to say Kevin decided to do the wiring himself, and I do have to say that he did an amazing job. He did have the whole boat taken apart and I was scared that there would be left over pieces when he was finished. We are now running on solar power but are still constantly yelling at kids to turn off lights, still in that adjustment phase I guess.
Yesterday we decided that it was time to raise the sails and move to a more swim and snorkel friendly area. We headed North and had an amazing sail up the island of Grenada, the weather was perfect with the winds at 15 knots and the sun shining. We even had an escort by 6 Bottlenose dolphins just off our starboard bow. They were absolutely amazing, swimming along side of us, it could not have been a more perfect sail. Today we spent most of the day on Grand Anse Beach, a white sandy beach over 2 kms long where the kids found probably 20 starfish, nothing better than sand and waves to keep 4 kids busy. I think that we will be spending a lot of time here.
This week brings us a new adventure. Our first guests (Grandma and Grandpa on the farm) will be joining us on Thursday evening. We are all very excited for their arrival and look forward to entertaining them for a week or so. We thank everyone for sending their ‘comments’ and well wishes to our blog! We all sit around together to read what everyone has to say and hear what is going on back home. Keep them coming and all our love to everyone. Wish you were all here with us. (Kind of! - says Kevin)
