Grenada Greetings
As we have written about often, more often recently, so many of the places we swim and love are on the front lines of weather that is becoming more severe, more frequently. This summer, Grenada, and specifically the island of Carriacou, was in the beeline of the monster hurricane Beryl. Our skipper this week, Jason, was here with two boats full of young marine biology students with Odyssey Expeditions, and made a run to safety in Port Louis Marina where they rode out the storm in a hotel. Grenada Island took some damage but on Carriacou, a place where we have shopped and dined and danced and made dear friends, the devastation was near total. It’s so hard to watch these events unfold from afar, trying to stay in touch with the ones we love. It’s even harder to live there and be helpless to the coming storm.
Islands and their inhabitants are resilient by necessity and we have heard that Carriacou is well on its way to rebound. We will likely go ashore there at some point on our way up to St. Vincent, and it will be good to see for ourselves what’s changed, what’s lost, what’s rebuilt, and to be inspired by the people who refuse to let their home be extinguished.
Leaving late fall in Maine, having a few frosts under our belts, it's a shock to the senses to step off a chilly airplane and into the blinding heat of the Grenada’s tarmac. I don’t mind. I like being jolted into a change of scene. I prefer to be hot.
Chef Maya showed up with the lightest luggage of all! Have knife, chef will travel!
There’s hot, and then there’s sweltering, which is what we had for the provisioning marathon yesterday. Grocery stores, fish mongers, spice markets, hardware stores, marina offices, countless cab rides. Hauling so much stuff down the longest dock we use in any location. Props to chef Maya (new to us but not to yacht galleys) who filled 7 shopping carts and four coolers with the ingredients for 6 days worth of 3 meals plus appetizers, and super props to Jason and Zack who moved ALL of our provisions and gear down the dock and onto our boat home, Christophine, a beautiful 50 foot Fontaine Pajot catamaran. Alina and Fitzy, my fellow guides this week, showed up in the afternoon and hit the ground running (sweating) with us. I often wish I could do a timelapse video of the pristine boat as we receive it, how it looks as we get all of our provisions and gear on board, then the slow and sweaty process of finding a place for everything. I’d make one but I’m too busy sweating.
Funny quick provisioning annecdote: Apparently there is an egg shortage on Grenada at the moment, and the grocery store we did the bulk of our buying at is limiting customers to one dozen eggs per checkout. We had seven dozen eggs in our baskets. Maya convinced the checkout lady to let her do 4, and I stood in line three different times with one dozen eggs each time to do the others. No worries, I was able to watch my son swim in a college swim meet over their livestream while standing in line with the eggs!
No complaints as this weather will make it sublime when we jump in the ocean this afternoon.
Guests will be here soon and I have a few more things to do before they arrive! Maya has prepared a delicious lunch which we will enjoy at our first location not far from here, but far from the crowds of town. It’s why we come to these places on the edge. To see what the sea has on offer for us, out where amazing life processes are happening all the time whether we know it or not.
Love from Grenada,
Heather
