Radio Net: Best of Grenada, Part Two
Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Tue 23 Aug 2016 21:13
Jack spoke in a high voice into the VHF receiver, ‘My name is Alex from Staying Alive,’ he said. The radio presenter came back, ‘Hello, Alex from Staying Alive. Tell us your trivia question.’ Jack paused for a moment and pushed the button. ‘I was wondering if anyone knows how tall I am?’ While he was talking, the rest of Quest was hiding in the front cabin. ‘Does anyone know how tall Alex is?’ we heard the presenter ask. No response. In the end, Jack broke the silence he himself had created. ‘I’m four-foot-nine,’ he said in the same high, wispy voice. Another pause. ‘Ok, moving on,’ said the presenter. With this, Lulu buried her head in a pillow and Delphine followed suit but I went out and looked at the nav desk. Jack was just putting the VHF down. I shook my head. ‘Four-foot-nine?’ He smiled from ear to ear. ‘Yeah, good, no?'
This is the Grenada cruiser’s Radio Net, a community service and in principal a great thing. Every morning at 7:30 am except on Sundays, the VHF channel 66 crackles into life and a radio presenter begins. ‘Good morning. Can I have a radio check?’ With this greeting, the channel crackles again. ‘Loud and clear from Prickly Bay,’ someone responds, ‘Hog Island,’ another voice comes in and then Quest’s favourite, a voice that could be straight out of a swamp, drawls, ‘Coming wall to wall and down the hall in St. George’s anchorage.’ Once coverage has been established, the first topic is always Priority Traffic. This is the moment that people come in with all their scary robbery stories, boat dragging dramas or general warnings. A few weeks ago, we listened to a French guy tearily explain how he’d lost his anchor in the middle of the night after being anchored in the same spot for two years. Two years, we thought! Was he trying to set an anchoring record before his anchor finally snapped? Anyhow, after Priority Traffic, the Radio Net turns to the weather and the forecast is read aloud, including any forthcoming tropical waves or the dreaded H word; hurricane.
After the weather’s done, the net’s opened up into different sections: Treasures of the Bilge, Shopping Buses, Local Business, Socials, etc… There’s even a new section on Nautical Trivia. ‘Shhh!’ Jack hissed at us one morning after he’d missed the question, ‘can’t I just listen to one thing without you guys distracting me?’ Oops. Apparently not. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realised our Captain's interest in nautical trivia before but as more cruisers are here in Grenada, all of us clustered like squawking seagulls avoiding the hurricane season, the net has become a long and rambling affair. We’ve become used to the voices and even the items that regularly pop up. Someone wants to buy a child’s kayak, another boat is permanently selling its solar panels. 'Lower your price!’ we’ve grown to love yelling at the VHF. We’ve learned to recite the path of the shopping bus, how much dinner costs at Whisper Cove Marina and even predict to the very second when Fast Manicou is going come in with his list of juices, beers, propane top-up, soda-stream re-gassing and scuba bottle re-fills. We hope he doesn’t get any of those things confused and fill a scuba tank with fizzy mango juice while sipping on propane beer…Bad joke but there you go. Blame it on the radio net.
There are fracas too. George from Survival Anchorage doesn’t get enough respect. People keep stepping on him when he talks, pressing on their VHF transmitter buttons and making George sound like he’s underwater. Poor George, I think. Ok, I don’t like the gruff and often disgruntled sound of him either but still, a bit harsh, no? It all came to a head when George finally told everyone that when chaos starts in the anchorages, it’s not going to be his fault. 'Is that a threat?’ the regular voices came in on him like a retired wolf pack. ‘No,’ George said a little sadly, ‘just a warning. I’ve been doing this for a long time.’ We heard the VHF go silent as if the machinery itself was holding its breath and since then, I can’t help but wait for George’s prediction to come true. Every time something does go wrong, I can’t help but wonder. This is his island after all, not ours.
Finally, at the end of the show, the Net belongs to Shade Man, the Grenadian who worked as an Ice Trucker in Canada and coincidentally or not has a xylophone for a voice. Every morning, Shade Man sends his musical good wishes to, 'anyone celebrating an anniversary or a birthday today,’ and then he’s off like a whippet, his voice rising up in down into a loose version of ‘There’s a Hole in My Bucket’ while explaining his free trips to the marine chandlery, tours to his cousin’s rum shack, turtle-watching in the North and the weekly run/walking path called ‘The Hash’; a popular opportunity for the whole population of Grenada to meet others, exercise and explore new trails. We’ve never been, blaming it squarely on ballet, modern and a general dash of lethargy. But we could, we like to smugly tell ourselves before eating another pancake.
‘Tomorrow I might pretend to be Bob from the Midwest in a boat called Home of the Free,’ Jack said, standing up from the nav desk when he’d finished pretending to be Alex and we'd all emerged from the front cabin, still cringing. ‘I'll ask if anyone knows where you can buy milk.’ With this, the rest of us groaned except for Fin, who automatically assumed she was being accused of passing wind and jumped on everyone apologetically. It’s true that the real-life version of Jack’s fictional Bob comes on the Radio Net almost every day, asking inane questions and staying on his VHF transmitter for longer than it takes to pull a tooth. In fact just that morning, there had been a conversation about finding an optical prescription where a gaggle of Americans all agreed in the end that they wouldn’t actually buy their glasses here anyway. ‘I could be Scottish Jock who complains about the price of sardines and Welsh Dai who’s looking to buy a flock of sheep,’ Jack said and practised each of his voices with the same degree of gusty enthusiasm. The rest of us groaned even louder so that Fin went to hide somewhere with a massive misplaced guilt complex and we got ready to meet our friends we’d arranged to see that day on the beach. When we got there, I asked, ‘Did anyone hear that boy, Alex on the Radio Net this morning?’ with deliberate vagueness to a bunch of boat kids sculling in the chin-high water. Robyn, the young mermaid from Macbeth, frowned. ‘The kid from Staying Alive? Who wanted to know if anyone knew how tall he was?’ ‘Yeah, that was the one,’ I said, trying not to smile. Robyn shrugged matter-of-factly. ‘ How were we supposed to know how tall he was? I thought he was really weird.’ ‘Me too,’ I said and quickly turned away.
Love from Quest and her crew xx