From the left, Stephanie (Fruity Fruits), Amanda,
Michael and Asia (Sea Eagle), and Jason (Fruity Fruits)
Chrissy Cole, from Sea Eagle, at left
2002 Grenada
September 1, 2002, Grenada
I feel so fortunate to have been able to show the kids some of the areas Jon and I cruised in the 1980's, and to have had a chance to visit some of the countries two and three times. (Going one-way down the island chain results in a bit of a blur, the sort of "If it's Tuesday it must be St. Lucia" sort of thing.) I have been delighted to find that the islands seem much more sophisticated in terms of the environment and health/sanitation issues. Unfortunately, the area is massively fished out and recuperation doesn't seem very likely. We have caught only three small barracudas in 60 days of sailing, and hunted up only one edible-size conch. In the 1980s the same territory would have yielded about 15 fish (of a meter in length) and probably 20 conch.
We are now in southern Grenada, tucked into a small bay along with other cruising friends. It's boat work time again, and I'll be taking a week to travel back to Seattle to visit my mom. It is wrenching to leave this life and my family for even a few days. We all have quite a good rhythm of activities and duties and interdependencies. I think the kids will be improving their cooking skills during that week I'm gone.
Grenada is a major cross-roads of cruisers. Some get this far and return to the north (Bahamas and Florida). Others head for Trinidad and get sucked into the lure of cheap marinas, air-conditioning, and reasonably priced boat work. (The down side is mosquitoes, wind-less conditions, and filthy water, so no swimming.) Others head west for Venezuela as we will in mid-September when I return from Seattle. We hope to join up with cruising friends with teens on board and tour inland together.
Crime -- dinghy and outboard theft, and boat boardings -- has greatly increased in the past decade and this is cause for vigilance. No longer do we seek to be the only boat in an anchorage. Safety in numbers is the key when anchoring in isolated places. We are training Arthur to become a vicious attack cat, but he is a bit of a slow learner. Boats with dogs have a good early warning system.
I am sad to report that the Americanization of the Third World continues. KFC and Pizza Hut mar the tropical landscape of Grenada. Lovely old-town Fort-de-France Martinique is scarred with a McDonalds. But even though I grumble I AM happy to see better quality food in the grocery stores, with imports from other islands and the USA. I am looking forward to leaving this well-traveled path of the Eastern Caribbean with it's higher-than-US cost of living and tourist-dollar-oriented people, and getting to Venezuela and Panama where I hope to find societies less tourist dependent.
October 15, 2002
The summer has flown, and it has been months since we updated the website, though we seem to work on it constantly. I'm so proud of the kids and what they're learning about people, places, sailing, and life in general. And I'm especially happy when we have other cruising kids around. Here are a few shots of some of our (and the kids') friends and parents from other cruising boats.
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Three cruising families clowning around up on the Tobago Cays. I'm in red shorts, with Amanda to the left, Chris in front of me, and his friend Chrissie from Sea Eagle in the white T-shirt next to him (also below left). From the left in back is Michael and his dad Cole, from Sea Eagle. Then Caroline and her daughter Stephanie from Fruity Fruits (French/South African). Standing in the middle are Jason (Fruity Fruits) and Asia (Sea Eagle, Russian). |
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From the left, Stephanie (Fruity Fruits), Amanda, Michael and Asia (Sea Eagle), and Jason (Fruity Fruits) Chrissy Cole, from Sea Eagle, at left |
 Emily (Yenrah II, British), Chrissy and Amanda, giving each other backrubs on Ocelot's trampolines |
 Tina (the mom on Scud), Katherine (Pelican) and Amanda. Kat's family went with us to Merida. |
 2 other cruising couples who are taking their kids with them: Aidan and Helen on the left (Yenrah II, British) and Cole and Natasha (then on Sea Eagle, American and Russian) aboard Ocelot in Carriacou. |
 Our friends on Scud: Peter, Tina, Warren and Adam. We spent time with them in Carriacou, Grenada, and Venezuela before they sailed north to the Bahamas which they call home. Tina was my exercise buddy: hour-long swims almost everyday. Their boat is a brand-new St. Francis 44 catamaran which they picked up at the factory in South Africa and sailed up to the Caribbean July-August 2002. |
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