Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot in Grenada

Well not only are the temperatures soaring in Grenada but so is the vibe. Grenada is a lively place with fabulous people and surrounded by beauty, from the colorful housing that lines the coast and to the beautiful trees and flowers that take your breath away everywhere you turn. We have spent the last couple of months getting to know this island as well as lots of fabulous cruisers coming down here to take refuge from hurricanes. Luckily there is lots to do here from visiting sites such as the seven sisters’ waterfalls, enjoying delicious ice cream, or taking in events at the Carnival.

Discovering Grenada

One thing I have enjoyed doing is discovering new foods, and dishes in Grenada. One of these foods was breadfruit. Although we had actually first come across breadfruit in Dominica, we weren’t sure what to do with it, so the breadfruit went bad. However, in Grenada, there is a lovely lady working in the grocery store who overheard our discussion of breadfruit and decided to share some delicious recipes with me. As it turns our breadfruit is a versatile fruit that can be prepared in many ways and is always delicious. As a result, I have made, Breadfruit Pie, Oil-down (the national dish of Grenada), and Breadfruit Cake. The one thing I have left to try is roasting it over a fire, it is such a delicious fruit, I am sure anything you do with it will be fabulous.

The other new discovery in Grenada are ‘Skin-ups’, or so that is what we were told they were called by a local. Skin-ups have come into season during our stay in Grenada. They are a fun fruit to eat, you just use your teeth to crack open the skin and then pop out the fleshy insides into your mouth. I usually suck on it or use my teeth to scrape the flesh off the seed and then spit out the seed when it is done. It is sweet and flavourful with a gummy texture and we love them.

We are finding that one of the best ways to discover a new place is to travel like a local, which usually means taking the bus. In Grenada that in particular means the number one bus, which runs between the southern anchorages of True Blue and Prickly Bay to the city of St-Georges. Catching the bus is easy, it is probably the easiest bus I have ever had to catch. We don’t even need to make it to the bus stop, the bus will find us. When the bus drives by the “conductor” will lean out the window and yell “number one”, we respond with a slight nod to indicate “yes, we would like to take the bus”. It doesn’t matter how far away we are there is no need to hurry, we are on island time after all. If the bus has passed us, he will even back up to come pick us up. Once on the bus, we take the seat indicated to us by the young conductor, sometimes this requires squeezing in with other travelers, or dropping the aisle seat for more room, sometimes the bus is empty and we have it to ourselves. The atmosphere is always lively on the number one with loud soca music playing, the conductor trying to recruit more passengers and the sometimes hair raising driving. However, all we must do is squeeze in, hang-on and enjoy the ride. As with the bus in St-Martin, if it is full and we are on the outside and someone on the inside or back needs to disembark, everyone in their way must get off to let them off, once everyone is back on the bus, it continues on its way. To indicate that we would like to get off, we knock on the window or roof. All this entertainment, plus a ride to wherever it is we would like to go for only $2.50 EC, which equates to about $1.25 CND, it’s a great deal.

Grenada Has the Best Mas

Carnival in Grenada, also referred to as Mas, is supposed to be the best Carribean, and I have to say it really blew us away. Upon arrival in July, we quickly discovered that carnival season was upon us, this isn’t just a week of events, parties, and parades, every weekend leading up to carnival has various events and parties taking place. We knew this was going to be interesting when we witnessed a flatbed truck full of massive speakers driving through the streets followed by another truck full of dancers having a great time dancing away to the lively Soca music. Preparations were underway as locals busied themselves with making costumes and steel pan band practices.

Carnival itself was kicked off with Kiddy Carnival, where local kids dressed up in beautiful costumes of various animals, insects, or representing various Caribbean islands marched through the streets to the stadium for some kiddy events.

After that, the evenings held events at the stadium from beauty contest to the steel pan band competition. Eryk and I had the opportunity to attend the steel pan bands and were blown away by the talent. One of our favorite bands had over a hundred band members on stage, and not only was the sound of the pans succinct and beautiful, but the theatrics were entertaining including when they did a play on the “Daddy Shark” song but made it about the daddy, mommy and baby jabs. 

A jab is a creature that we were introduced to for carnival, from what I have come to understand the Jab Jab is a term meaning “double devil” which was how the slave masters used to refer to the slaves. Prior to emancipation slaves were not allowed to attend carnivals, so when the slaves were liberated they took to the streets scantily dressed with chains and padlocks covered in oil and molasses in an attempt to offend the “polite society”. Now when people dress as these creatures they are usually adorned with goat horns, covered in molasses and chains. This is a celebration for Grenadians to honor their African ancestors and remember where they came from. 

The day of the carnival, also referred to as “Mas”, didn’t have one or two parades, but three parades. The first parade was J’ouvert, which took place at sunrise with the rising of the Jabs, although we did not witness this parade, there was evidence of it everywhere as not only are the participants covered with molasses, but the crowd gets sprayed as well. From the pictures we saw of this parade, a good time was had by all. Later in the day, the devils were replaced by Fancy Mas, where ladies and some gentleman dressed in vibrantly colored costumes, usually all based around a theme such as volcano, flowers, birds and so on, paraded down the streets, stopping at various locations along the parade route to dance and display their beautiful costumes to the judges. The third parade was the parade of lights, where everyone sported sparkly outfits with lights and continued the party into the night. If that wasn’t enough for everyone, the next day Fancy Mas was repeated to close off the carnival. 

Dorian

Once Mas was concluded we were feeling like we needed a change of scene, after having spent the better part of six weeks in one anchorage. So we sailed back up to Carriacou (a Grenadian island to the north of Grenada) to enjoy one of our favorite spots to date, Anse La Roche. We were having a fabulous time, as other boats joined us, the kids had lots of friends to play with and the adults were enjoying themselves as well. However, we had to put an abrupt end to it and head back to Grenada as Dorian started making its way across the Atlantic. We knew based on the forecast that the storm was going to pass to the north of us, which meant we were in the less dangerous quadrant, however, we still headed to one of the southern protected anchorages in Grenada due to the likelihood of reversing winds that tend to follow the backside of tropical storms and wreak havoc in typically safe west-facing Carribean anchorages. As the Tropical Storm hit the Windward Islands it passed over St-Lucia, and Martinique experienced the worst of the storm. However down in Grenada we experienced a doldrum, the winds quieted and we did get turned around, but the winds were so light there was barely a breeze. The next day the swell started to reverse and came in the anchorage to make things uncomfortable, but this was easily remedied by pulling up anchor and changing anchorages. Now, Dorian has passed us and continues to intensify and is hitting northern islands and is threatening Florida as a major hurricane. We are keeping everyone in Dorian’s path in our thoughts and hope for the best outcome possible from the threatening hurricane.

One Thousand Nautical Miles

One positive came out of our trip back down to the main island of Grenada, we hit our 1000 nautical mile milestone. This was celebrated by the SeaSparrow crew with ice cream from the House of Chocolate in St-Georges, YUMMM!!