We had an amazing six hour tour around the island yesterday with our good friend Roger who knows Grenada like the inside of his pocket. I've got tons of images to show you shortly, it's all about monkeys, beautiful rainfalls, the oldest river powered rum distillery in the world to donkeys and colorful rum shops. I've dyed my hair by the way as you might see. Hoping the last bit of orange will finally fade away as the brown subsides with time. My super comfortable hiking boots from Chatham can be found here.

Thought I could show you how a normal, uneventful day of our lives looks like. Days on a boat on any given island can be close to as unexciting as a normal day back home in the city. Only big difference I think is that we don't have to get up to work in the way most knows it, but can instead choose to do a little bit whatever we feel like, while still making sure that our important boat tasks and other freelance job gets properly done in between. We got up around 8 am this morning. I normally wake up around 6.45 when the sun goes up but since we got back to the anchorage and the boat is rolling slightly at all times, it seems my body is more tired than what it's used to. The never ending rain probably has some influence too.

In any case, we took our dinghy to shore and then the bus to town where we had some errands to do. You see the British phone booth there by the harbor in St George's? There are a few of them gathered there but non are in use what it seems.

We stopped by one of the many roti places for a quick lunch. This delicious roti was served at Carenage Café. If you haven't had a roti before, it's a typical West Indian fast food. A sort of bread, similar to a pancake, that is filled with meat, fish, chicken or conch mixed with potatoes, veggies and a flavorful curry sauce. The roti/bread of this particular one was flavored with mashed peas and spicy pepper which gave a wonderful taste to the meal. I've written about roti earlier here if you wish to know more about it. It's the Indians who brought it here to the West Indies back in the colonial times.

The café had a huge map on the wall and we discussed which route to take to cross that massive Pacific ocean. One of the intelligent conclusions were that why not sail down the West coast of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, and from there cross WSW towards the Easter Island, then onto Pitcairn island and eventually end up somewhere around Tahiti. Like that we would shorten the long passage a little, all the while getting to see more of South America while we're anyway at it. Hmm... still not decided. But man are we dying to be on the other side already!

Pit stop at a juice bar after lunch to refreshen ourselves in the steaming heat and after those spicy rotis.

Some of the things we brought with us home from Budget Marine were a bunch of cables and hoses that we need to have installed/replaced this weekend. One cable is for the satellite internet, one cable for the water maker, one hose for the manual bilge pump, one for the toilet and the last one for the shower.

Just one of our pirate neighbors.

When that long and exhausting day was almost over, I jumped out of my shorts and into my hoodie and tights and retired in front of the computer with a few Spanish lessons as I need to brush up my Spanish for our departure towards Colombia next week. 

In between las clases I also managed to prepare a mackerel stew with mashed potatoes.

And the day was ended with a bucket full of ice cream. The one and only macadamia nut brittle.

Tomorrow might be even more exciting as we have the installation of those hoses and cables to get started with!

Speaking of things. We were walking past this industrial section of the harbor in St George's the other day when we saw a crowd of people anxiously waiting in line. Were they waiting to enter the harbor area to work or did they stand there to collect something? Some of these people were dressed in fancy Christmas clothing so it really didn't look like they were going to work. It turns out, they were all waiting for barrels, as one woman rushed to tell me. Barrels? What, rum barrels? No, the man with the blue pickup explained, barrels full of things and gifts from relatives abroad. The thing is, on the ex Brittish islands such as Grenada, St Kitts, Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, Dominica and a few more, the policy and the high taxes for importing gifts or parcels from abroad is not very accommodating for its citizens. We have experienced that a few times too, even for us who normally are a boat in transit, it is a real pain to receive whatever parcel you have been sent.

To collect a package, whatever the purpose, value or content, is often a long bureaucratic process where you are sent from one authority to another and often have to spend half a day to collect one little box. And not too seldom you will have to waste far too many hours than officially needed, as not everyone are perfectly sure of what exactly is the task assignment they've been appointed. More to this is that you also must pay the high duty fees to customs/state, a broker fee, the cost of the carrier and probably something else I forgot, and the final bill normally ends up at an added 50%* of the total value of the content of your package. Needless to say, to receive gifts from abroad, is not for everyone. But in kind communist manners, the governments in the ex British colonies have decided that once a year, during the holidays, every household is allowed to collect two barrels free of custom import duty and service charges, full of christmas gifts or whatever their relatives or friends are willing to send them from abroad (appliances and electronics would not be allowed duty-free into the country during this time either though.) 

Many of the Caribbean families that we have met on our time around here, have their kids, sisters/brothers, aunts/cousins or parents living in for example the States or the UK, where they're working or studying, and this barrel phenomenon gives them a chance to overcome the high costs that is normally applied when receiving gifts from them. What I find interesting is that these barrels all looked the same, no matter which country they were sent from. This is first time I ever come across them and I can't help but wonder, where do the relatives get the barrels from? Is there a special barrel shop located in every postal office in the US and UK, or how do they get around to purchase them? 

I should add that on the other Caribbean islands, the French and the Dutch ones, it is much easier and cheaper to collect and import gifts or other packages. Not sure why they insist on having these tremendously complicated and expensive procedures in the ex British islands. I do understand that it is a good way for the government to collect money to themselves, I mean to the state, but why all the paperwork and hassle? 

* might be interesting to know that in Sweden, for example, the custom import duty for gifts is as low as 2,5%, and that 2.5% will only be added if you import gifts from outside the European Union and if the gift has a declared value of more than 500 SEK/approx. $70 USD. Two and a half percent as opposed to fifty seems reasonable, one shouldn't have to get punished for receiving gifts, things that you haven't even paid for yourself?

The capital of Grenada is a bustling town, feels very active and alive with a great mixture of people and many different businesses covering the streets. We had a nice Caribbean meal on one of the road restaurants and enjoyed good exercise walking up and down these steep hills in the center of the city. Only thing missing which appears to be a rarity in the Caribbean in general, is an ice cream shop. Have I missed them completely or aren't they prioritized by the people of the West Indies? Dreaming of a freshly made ice cream cone or a fruity sorbet ... how suitable and logical that would've been to devour in this tropical heat.

This is some seriously good, high quality stuff. Grenadas own organic dark chocolate... the crispy one called "nib-a-licious" with a hint of citrus, banana and dried fruit is out of this world.. If you'd be interested in trying out something new, get on their website where you can buy it online. I love the colorful packaging too..

It's been raining practically non stop since we arrived to Grenada so we haven't had the opportunity to explore the island as yet. Been indoors working on the boat, Alex with installations and me on the computer for the most part. Reading a lot these days too, just started to dig into Memoirs of a Gesiha by Arthur Golden. Though I've heard much about it, I have neither seen the movie in full nor read the book previously so it's intriguing to throw myself into the colorful suggestive Japanese culture for a bit. In between all this we're planning our next few months. We have a friend flying in from the US right after new year with whom we will be sailing to Colombia so we'll stay in Grenada until then. Decided to haul the boat out and prepare most parts here in Grenada so we have around three weeks to go and can take the whole process as comfortably slow as we wish. We have after all at least three months to kill somewhere before we can transit the canal and get out on the much longed for other side. It's been a busy year for us but the ambiance is different as we approach the end of the year. Less boat work, less stress and we're rather flowing towards the next step of this journey. Things feel good and we are happy to be where we are. If only the rain could calm down so we can get to see those beautiful rainfalls we've heard so much about. Image from when we arrived to Grenada last week.