Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Category: Cruiser Connections

  • Friday Fish Night

    Did very little yesterday bar read a book all day long. In the evening we took the taxi to Gouyave for the Friday Night Fish night. They’d blocked off an L shaped street and filled it with music and standing frying up fish and fish related foods. Music, as ever, was blaring from speakers and there was a live steel band that piped up later.

    We picked and nibbled on many different things and ended up quite full.

    Trish and Rob from Bristol Rose were there so it was nice to meet up with them again before they head south to Trinidad.

  • A little tourism

    Feeling good about the completion of the battery projects we decided to do a little tourism in the afternoon. We went ashore and visited the Grenada Museum followed by a climb up to Fort George which overlooks the town and where, on October 19th, 1983 Maurice Bishop, the prime minister, was killed.

    The fort is a little run down and is occupied by what appears to be the local police and their training center but we could still walk around. In a few places there were some spectacular views of the bay where Dignity is anchored, the lagoon, the Caranage and the town.

    In the evening we had Jim over for dinner who brought margaritas.

    Project work is going to run into difficulties soon. We are still awaiting parts for a number of projects. To save money we ordered a lot of stuff online in the US and shipped to Ben’s girlfriends home. Three weeks on, one vendor is still playing up, being very uncommunicative and not sending the goods. We now have this in dispute with the credit card company. We still have a number of things we can do but this will cause difficulties at some point. Not fun.

    Near term weather is looking good for the parade tomorrow so we’re looking forward to that. We will probably take the bus up to Gouyave for their Friday Fish Festival. Looking a bit further out it looks like the Caribbean is going to get it’s first hurricane next week. Currently it is called Invest 90 and will probably named Tropical Depression 3 fairly soon. If it makes it to storm strength then it will be name Ana. All the computer forecasts have the storm passing over the northern Caribbean. Weather watching is a several times per day event as one needs to be ready to head south if a storm changes direction.

    Leaving you with video from Fort George and remaining pics.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTnbGY5P5U[/youtube]

  • Back to project mode

    The weather improved significantly yesterday so we were back into project mode. The current focus is finishing off the boxing up of the new house battery bank. Helen cut up the old 8D battery box lids so we can cover the 10 batteries sitting in the welded boxes. I focused on cutting wood and building a box for the final two batteries.

    I made the box a bit too small at first and the interior angle brackets prevented the batteries from sliding into the box. Helen had the bright idea of putting the brackets on the outside of the box so I started again, this time ending up with a box with a very snug fit. The it was fiber glassing the bottom of the box to create a waterproof section in case of minor spills and leaving that to set. In the middle of all this we went to lunch with Inga, Hal and Jim where we were able to drop off some parts we’d picked up for Hal.

    Today we should be able to finish the job off. I hope to install a separate fuse for the house bank charger and mount the dive tank rack I picked up down in Trinidad.

  • Pageant & Monday Night Mas

    What a long day it was yesterday. We walked to the national stadium in time for the listed 1pm start of pageant. Due to earlier rain everything was delayed and things didn’t kick off until nearly 3pm. Once it started it was a bit confused as I think things were out of sequence to accommodate bands that hadn’t yet arrived. The first five bands were what’s called ‘Short Knee’ bands. It is very traditional but from our perspective, once you’d seen one you’d seen them all. The costumes were all very similar. They would come on stage and all stomp around accompanied by a chant to the same rhythm as all the others. For a while we wondered if they would all be like this.

    Next came a sort of in between act where the band was made up of several groups. Each group had a theme. A story about vampires and slayers was narrated while each group came onto the stage. In the end it was just more stomping around but with more variety and some falling over and dying.

    Then it went into the fancy costume parade proper. The bands had gone to a great deal of effort with their costumes. Each band was again made up of different sections. The band would have an overall them with each section would have a sub-theme. The sections would have the same costume, sometimes having a single participant with a very elaborate costume. Each section would have a different colour too. At the end they would all come onto the stage together in a riot of colour.

    The music they would dance to was the usual thumping carnival music with the usual jumping and cavorting that comes with it.

    One of the bands had had a few cruisers help out and join in. Matt and Karen from Where II took part. Matt played the ultimate tourist by bringing his video camera on stage with him.

    We left after the last band played but before the results of the competition were announced so we have no idea who won the costume competition. Our favourite was “Journey to the Temple of the Sun” which had an Inca theme. We will get to see all the costumes again this afternoon coupled with the steel bands for the final street parade.

    We went back to the boat for a quick bite to eat and to get ready for the night mas. This time we put on our ‘Digicel’ teeshirts and carried our red light sabers to join Jim and several hundred other revelers behind the Digicel truck. As a result of the Pageant delays the night mas start was delayed from 6:30 to 8:30. We turned up just after 7 to enjoy the build up. Part of our Digicel gear included a flask into which we could have as much rum and coke as we wanted poured in throughout the night.

    Once the procession started we made our way very slowly around the lagoon and into the Caranage. We danced along with all the rest and both of us from time to time were ‘ground’ by strangers. I’m not sure of the right term for this but it reminds me very much of what Bonobos get up to and it’s very groinal. We enjoyed ourselves while adrenalin kept the fatigue at bay. Around midnight Helen began to fade so we left Jim to the crowd and made our back to the boat falling asleep instantly.

    Despite the long day and lots of rum last night we’re in surprisingly good form this morning and looking forward to the final procession this afternoon when everything comes together. Given the experience so far this will hardly fail to please.

    The one downside of all of yesterday was to learn that one of the other cruising boats anchored near us was burgled last night while they were ashore. Just shows that there are thorns in this bed of roses in paradise and we do need to take care.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9vVbyMKQo[/youtube]

  • Jab Jab

    Jeuve began with Jab Jab this morning at 5:30am. That’s not really true. It started about 10pm last night with music throughout the night with the start of the Jab Jab parade at 5:30am this morning. Jab Jab is a reference to the devil. Many are covered from head to toe in molasses or, more usually, used engine oil. Paint, many colours of it, is more usual.

    We awoke at 4:45am, grabbed a coffee then headed off to the lagoon to catch the ‘beginning’ of the parade. The parade was the usual trucks with stacks of speakers followed by crowds of followers. It hadn’t started moving along the street when we arrived so we walked towards where the trucks were gathering.

    In the dark the atmosphere was a little devilish but overall jovial. It was hard to avoid the paint as some was being thrown around and, more directly, folks in the street carrying cups of paint would smear it on us. It didn’t take long before we began to collect our own daubs.

    We soon ran into Jim and walked down the road together back again to the start. We saw the tail end of the parade and the street behind in a mess. The parade was a judged competition so we made our way forward to where the judging was to take place as we figured that’s where the crowds would be most enthusiastic. I eventually concluded they weren’t really holding back at all and everyone was just enjoying themselves.

    We watched all the lorries pass us by again and once the tail end had again passed we headed back to the dinghy.

    We motored around to the Caranage to see how the procession was going. It was still in full swing snaking all the way around the bay.

    Then it was back to the boat to clean up. We stripped off and jumped into the water to try and get rid of most of the paint. Then it was into the shower for more soaping and scrubbing. We still look a little pink and rosy on the cheeks despite our efforts.

    Now we’ll rest up a bit before heading back into town. We want to see the pageant competition in the national stadium which starts at 1pm. We don’t have tickets for this so we hope to pick them up at the door or on the way. More later. For now, here are some pics of Jab Jab.