11:59.95N 61:45.80W       

 

Prickly Bay, Grenada.

We leave the Caribbean in 9 days time to resume life back in Dorset, hope they’ll have us! Life here is a long list of jobs to get Halsway Grace ready for lift out and leaving for 8 months until we see her again next year. Robin has his head in the engine room doing an oil change and we have just polished all the fibreglass vainly trying to protect it from sun damage.

Last week was a busy time with Florence and Phillipa staying and keeping us on our toes. It was nice to have some young company and fresh conversation and although the weather wasn’t brilliant (we were rained on while sailing one day) we managed to pack a lot in around the sunbathing.

One of the highlights was a day tour of some of the island, in particular visiting the River Antoine Rum Distillery which only produces rum for the home market but does make one of it’s two brands only 69% proof so that it can legally be carried on aircraft! The other was 75-80% depending on the brew on the day! This factory employs over 90 local people producing rum with the machinery that was made in Derby in 19th century. The sugar cane is grown on their own plantation along with some other crops which they sell (bananas, nutmeg, mangoes etc). Every part of the process is produced naturally, they were environmentally friendly before the term was introduced. The giant waterwheel fed by the River Antoine produces the power to crush the sugar cane via machinery with well worn cogs. The extracted juice is fed by gravity into vats which boil them to evaporate water, fed by fires fuelled by some of the used cane waste (the rest is dried and turned into a mulch for the plantation). After this the liquid went to fermentation and sedimentation tanks for 8 days before being pumped (the electric pumps are the only non renewable energy used) to ‘retort’ stills where the alcohol containing steam is condensed in coils to make the final product, again the stills are heated from cane waste and trees cut down in the plantation. About 10 gallons of cane juice produce 1 gallon of rum (I may be slightly out on that figure!). Elfin Safety did not feature highly and we were able to wander freely amongst the workers who seemed very jolly!! Trying the finished product, drunk in the  local way as a shot, left us with streaming eyes and throats begging for a glass of water to quench the fire.

After this we cooled off at the Concorde Waterfall where Florence, Robin and I had visited many years ago while staying with Niki and Simon after their ARC adventure. There were only 2 others there so we enjoyed jumping, diving and swimming in the bracing water.

Gradually all the friends we have made over here are moving on, some heading north to escape the hurricane belt and to explore the east coast of the US, some returning to Europe, some travelling towards the Panama canal to venture into the Pacific and some finding places to leave their boats like us and return next year to explore more of these beautiful islands.

Our two final photos show part of the rum process and Flo jumping into the Concorde pool.

We are looking forward to meeting up with all our families and friends who we have missed such a lot.

Until next year from HG blog, au revoir.

Sue and Robin