Ann's Blog
Prickly Bay, Grenada:
June 26, 2011
The Gifts of a (Cruising) Girl’s Dreams
Steve brought me home a present last week from Renwick Thompson on the Carenage in St. George’s. This funny store has two seemingly unrelated halves: One side is an agricultural store, selling seeds, fertilizers, and animal feeds. The other side is a wine shop selling Chardonnay, Shiraz, and Champagne. If you’re guessing that Steve bought my gift on the wine side, you’re wrong. It came from the agricultural side: a cute little 5-litre pressure sprayer, the kind used to apply weed killers and pesticides in gardens. Though we lack even a potted plant on Receta, I was absolutely tickled. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.
Red and black jumbie seeds in two sizes. The smaller ones
are also known as "crab eyes."
I’d been coveting just such a sprayer since I test-drove my friend Devi’s weed sprayer a few months ago. It makes a little water go a very long way, so it’s just the ticket for efficiently washing down the boat after a passage. You partially fill it, then pump the handle up and down a few times to pressurize the contents. Turn on the wand, and the water jets out, melting away the greasy, corrosive salt that cakes
Receta’s rail, stanchions, turnbuckles, blocks, rigging,
everything after a lively upwind sail. (Devi swears by her sprayer for water-conscious showering too, though we’ll likely stick to our solar showers for that.)
Crab eyes also make good piggy eyes. I found this clay
critter in the main market in Castries, St. Lucia.
Sprayer aside, this isn’t the time of year we usually bring stuff onto the boat. It’s when we take things off — rooting out what we rarely use/wear/eat and giving it away, throwing it away, or packing it to move off the boat with us when we head to Toronto for the heart of hurricane season.
Dolphin-shaped sections from the seed case of the
sandbox tree -- in the raw (at left), and turned into a necklace
(by Devi Sharp on Arctic Tern) at right.
The problem is that Steve and I were both collectors – okay, packrats – in our former land-based life, and although we’ve mended our ways somewhat, stuff still has a way of accumulating on
Receta during the course of a cruising season. Take seeds and shells and stones, for instance. We gather them when we beachwalk and hike – each of us looking for the perfect specimen(s) to give to the other, and these little gifts had somehow grown to an alarming quantity. Some crafty cruisers and islanders turn their seeds and shells into jewelry. Not us. We just like to look at them, ID them, run them through our fingers, feel their smoothness, admire their patterns and colours, and marvel at the variety that a single beach or rain forest trail has dished out.
Nicker nuts (from Barbuda) on the left, and donkey eyes (from Grenada) – also known as hamburger beans – on the right.
Don’t you agree they’re just too lovely to discard? Besides, you can’t throw away a gift from your beloved, can you?
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Hi Ann. Are you back in Grenada? How did your sailing go, really enjoyed reading your blogs and using your recipes. We have our holiday booked for next year Dec 10-Mar 10, so hopefully we will see you and Steve in Grenada next year. Have a great summer
Vano
Hi Ann,
I simply adore your recipes, books and your joy for life. My husband and I are on our own 7 year plan to sail away and, for the short term (thanks to your books) are heading to Grenada for our honeymoon from Oct 1/11 to Oct 11/11. We would also like to spend time in Carriacou and the Tobago Cays. We are on a budget (since we’re keeping to a 7 year plan:) but we’d love to see (and eat) the best that we can. We’ll be staying in budget accommodation and cooking on our own so would you have some tips on where to buy the best produce and what is best (in season) in October. Also, we’d love to get out sailing, perhaps in the Cays but haven’t been able to find much, especially that doesn’t break the bank. Any and all recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
We’ll b staying in a small cottage for our first few nights (close to St. George’s) and the last few nights we have a cottage rented on the north end of the island in St. Patrick – everything in between we’ve left open so that we can be spontaneous. We’ll walk, sail, swim, dive, snorkel, paddleboard etc – we’re open to anything. We’ll have a car for the last few days too so we have lots of options. We want to meet people and really learn about the culture, food etc – we’re not big on touristy things.
If you have the time in your schedule to send us some ides, tips etc it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for being a huge inspiration to us – in our kitchen and our lives. Health and happy sailing to you1
Sarah and John
Hi Ann,
I simply adore your recipes, books and your joy for life. My husband and I are on our own 7 year plan to sail away and, for the short term (thanks to your books) are heading to Grenada for our honeymoon from Oct 1/11 to Oct 11/11. We would also like to spend time in Carriacou and the Tobago Cays. We are on a budget (since we’re keeping to a 7 year plan:) but we’d love to see (and eat) the best that we can. We’ll be staying in budget accommodation and cooking on our own so would you have some tips on where to buy the best produce and what is best (in season) in October. Also, we’d love to get out sailing, perhaps in the Cays but haven’t been able to find much, especially that doesn’t break the bank. Any and all recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
We’ll b staying in a small cottage for our first few nights (close to St. George’s) and the last few nights we have a cottage rented on the north end of the island in St. Patrick – everything in between we’ve left open so that we can be spontaneous. We’ll walk, sail, swim, dive, snorkel, paddleboard etc – we’re open to anything. We’ll have a car for the last few days too so we have lots of options. We want to meet people and really learn about the culture, food etc – we’re not big on touristy things.
If you have the time in your schedule to send us some ides, tips etc it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for being a huge inspiration to us – in our kitchen and our lives. Health and happy sailing to you.
Sarah and John
Hi, Sarah and John –
Thanks for the note. Sounds like you’ve got a wonderful honeymoon coming up. I’ll send some suggestions later today.