An Israeli Good-Bye
Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Thu 3 Nov 2016 15:56
It’s almost time to leave Grenada. With a reluctant wave, we said good-bye to Prickly Bay and made our way back to the capital, St. George’s two days ago. Before leaving, we were asked questions by fellow cruisers such as, ‘Isn’t it noisy in St. George's?’, ‘Isn’t it hard to find good anchor holding?’ and my personal favourite, ‘Why would you want to go up there?’ Hello? You’re a cruiser! Oh well, I guess Prickly does that to you. It’s a strange, comforting, claustrophobic mix of a place. Most of us have either sold or are renting our houses, we’ve learnt to sail and we've all set off to find something else. Now we’re all sitting in Prickly. You feel like drumming your fingers while you’re having a good time. We went over to our new friends, Rothim to say good-bye and discovered a proper floating home! A wooden cuckoo clock hangs pride of place in the middle of their saloon. Nicknacks and plants adorn their boat. ‘Most of it broke over the Atlantic,’ Hagit, Rothim’s mum said from her stove, pointing at the little shiny terracotta pieces with her spatula. As the girls and Jack sat outside, I went to a metal bowl and began to mix its vegetable contents. This was the day Hagit sells her amazing vegetarian food. I was just making a quick mental inventory of the ingredients in case I ever plucked up the courage to try and replicate it when the words, ‘Don’t touch!’ rang out like a lightning strike. I recoiled back from the bowl. This was quickly followed by the sound of laughing outside. Jack had seen what happened and always enjoys it, hyena-style when I get told off. ‘Ok.’ I went and sat down meekly at the saloon table, giving Jack a quick glare as I went. He now had a large grin on his face. Hagit went back to her routine, mixing, dipping, frying. You could have blindfolded her and it wouldn’t have made a difference. What a woman... Two days before, we’d taken the Rothim girls, Adi and Naomi for Prickly Bay’s trick-or-treating. ‘We don’t do this in Israel,’ I was informed by their father, Peter that morning. His long beard juts out in the most jaunty of geometric patterns. I’d waved back, too focused on his chin area to really concentrate. That beard really is impressive. Then in the afternoon, when the kids were all gathered in their costumes, I noticed the two older Rothim girls. With gothic black patterns drawn on their faces, they looked excited but a little unsure too. ‘Come in our boat,’ we said, herding them into Edna before Jack drove me back to Quest. Here, I sat and waited for trick-or treaters with my zombie snorkeler costume (teeth and a mask) at the ready. This turned out have a rather mixed reaction. Small kids looked at me with huge eyes and didn’t really want my candy but I got some decent laughs out of the older ones. ‘So embarrassing!’ is how Lulu refers to it now. Anyhow, about an hour later, I heard Edna’s high-pitched whine as she came hurtling toward Quest. The Rothim girls’ faces had dramatically changed. The hesitancy I’d seen at the dock was now replaced by red-cheeked pure adrenalin. ‘They’re giving this stuff away!’ they shouted from Edna, ‘For free!’ With that, I put my mask and teeth in and gave them our quality-laden-if-on-the-modest-side offering. That night, the Rothim girls were the talk of Quest. ‘They wanted to go round again,’ Jack chuckled, 'since we were the first dinghy to get round the boats.’ ‘And we got more candy from one boat since we told a joke,’ Delphine said. ‘You did?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘The man said we’d get more candy so Lulu said, “Knock, knock,” and he said, “Who’s there?” and she said, “Phillip,” and he said, “Phillip who?” and she said, “Phillip our bags with candy!” With this, Quest’s crew rolled around laughing and I saw the shine again on the Rothim girls’ faces as they'd pointed at their shopping bag full of sweeties in Edna. Prickly. It makes you want to stay and leave all at the same time. Love from Quest and her crew xx       |