On On

Since the day we decided to sail to Grenada and started doing some research about the island I put a hash run on my bucket list. Well, last Saturday I got to put a great big check mark beside that one!

What is a hash? Well, I'm glad you asked. A hash is basically a hike on a trail that has been preset by a hare (the person who sets the trail) marking the trail with paper scraps, to be followed by the hashers (the runners and/or walkers). The terrain can vary from mountain trails, crossing streams, mud, dirt, paved roads and even through neighborhoods. Thank goodness it is non-competitive. In fact, hashers are often referred to as drinkers with a running problem, as there is always a party with beer and food at the end of the hash. If you hear other hashers around you yelling "on on" then you know that you are on the right trail.

I was a little worried about my first hash. How would it be? Could I do it? After all, since I had never hashed before, I was known as a virgin (and even made to sign up as a virgin before the hash). Thankfully, Rene, Stacy, Lisa and Sea Dog Dave, all no longer virgins, agreed to go with me. When we got to the gathering point, we all slathered on sunscreen and then bug spray over that. Next came the sweat and some mud as we hiked uphill on a very narrow and slippery trail. Stacy, Lisa and I, along with our new friend Sheryl Shard, brought up the rear and we got so busy talking that we got lost. For a minute there I was worried that we would never find our way back! The views were breathtaking and it felt absolutely wonderful to be enjoying the island from a point of view that other visitors may never get to appreciate.

Once we got back to the gathering point everyone enjoyed a cold beer and an oil down (In case you are wondering what an oil down is, that topic will be a future blog post all of it's own - a hint though - it's food). So we were enjoying our refreshments when the hash master called all the virgins up. There were 6 or 7 of us and we were presented with our certificates of loss of virginity, then they had us put our sunscreened, bug sprayed, sweaty, muddy arms around each other and they SPRAYED US WITH BEER!

What a day! Luna and I enjoyed every minute of it and we can't wait to go back and do it again.

Hashing has been around since 1938 when it originated in Malaysia. According to the World Hash House Harriers home page, there are currently 2028 hash groups in 1330 cities in 185 countries, so check them out and find a hash group near you.

 Here are a couple of great resources if you are interested in learning more about hashing:

Grenada Hash House Harriers

World Hash House Harriers

Wikipedia - Hash House Harriers

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. ~John Muir

On on! Beginning of the hash!

The trail is marked with shredded paper piles

The views are incredible!

See what I mean?

Luna, making friends with a goat.

Rene and Sea Dog have a rest after the hash.

Here's a fun hash tradition for you - If you wear new shoes
to the hash, they make you drink beer from them!

We did it! Sheryl, Deana, Lisa and Stacy

And now - the reward!

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ~John Muir

Concordia Falls

Another stop on the island tour was the beautiful Concordia Falls. The waterfalls and grounds were so beautiful that I just couldn't stop snapping pictures in every direction!

Us

Rene and Stacy

Lisa and Kari

Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall. ~Fulton J. Sheen

Rivers Rum

We took a tour of Grenada last week and one of our stops was the Rivers Rum Factory. It is the oldest distillery in Grenada, dating back to 1785 and it is very unique because the cane press is run by a water wheel.

It was a fascinating tour and we learned how the sugar cane is crushed by the water wheel press and then filtered into big vats that are ladled by hand through a series of vats (or coppers) with each one getting progressively hotter until the last one gets the cane juice to boiling. The fire used to boil the cane juice is fueled by the bagasse, left over cane pieces, and what is not used for fire is returned to the field to be used as fertilizer, so none of the sugar cane is wasted. The cane juice is then cooled for a couple of days and then sent to fermentation tanks where it ferments for eight days and then is sent to be distilled.

One interesting fact about Rivers Rum is that you can only buy it in Grenada. It is not exported. The two reasons given were: 1) Using this low tech (but very green) process, they can only make enough to supply the local population, and 2) The alcohol content is so high that it is not allowed on airplanes as cargo! If you want to purchase some to bring home from your vacation, you have to buy the watered down version.  The label says 75% Alc/Vol "Slightly Overproof Rum".

I loved the tour and we had a great guide that explained the process to us very thoroughly. They had me hooked. I couldn't wait to buy a bottle of this organically produced rum as a souvenir. At long last we get to the tasting area. The guide showed us the bottles of rum and small sample cups and instructed us to go ahead and sample as much as we wanted! I poured myself a taste, ready to enjoy a nice rum. It did smell strong, after all, it's at least 75%, but once I tasted it I realized that, to say the least, it's a acquired taste! I was pretty sure they had traded my rum bottle for kerosene and now my mouth would be forever numb and I would probably go blind! Wow. We decided that maybe we didn't need a bottle of Rivers Rum on Storyville after all!

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Drink and the devil be done for the rest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

~Robert Lewis Stevenson

Piles of bagasse, will it be fire fuel or fertilizer?

The river providing power to the cane crushing wheel

Water, providing the power to make rum!

Sugar Cane waiting to be crushed

On the way up to the crusher

Lisa helping make rum!

That's cane juice!

The wheel

Running the cane back through to double crush it

The bagasse rides this train down to be used to fuel the fire

The coppers of cane juice. The closest one is the coolest and the last one is boiling.
The juice is moved by hand using a pot on a long pole.

Mmmmm, cane juice

Mmmmm, fermenting cane juice

Lisa posing at the distillery

This is where they measure the alcohol content. If it's too low, it is returned to the distillery
to be processed again.

Stacy and Lisa labeling bottles

I did one too.

And - the finished product!

The Box is Here!

Whether we were ready or not, our anticipated box arrived and we took possession. Even though we were not able to bring Storyville over to the dock (because of our steering problems) we had to get this big box of stuff out to the boat. We managed to make a couple of dinghy trips, with help from George of Survival Anchorage and Rod on s/v It's Perfect. Of course, just as we were dinghying (spell check thinks that isn't a word, but I think it is!) all the "stuff" out to Storyville, the clouds rolled in and rain was threatening. Fortunately, we had just enough time to get everything (including the new deck box) out to the boat right before the rain started!

We have since moved Storyville over to a marina in the next bay  by using our emergency tiller. That was an adventure that I was not looking forward to as we had to negotiate our way though a reef. Thanks to the help of our cruising buddies and of course, to Troy for putting it all together, we had an uneventful trip and now we know that our emergency steering system works.

The projects have officially begun aboard Storyville.  We are working on installing the new watermaker, getting a swim platform and, or course, fixing the steering problems. Between all the work we are trying to have as much fun as we can. We took a whole day to do an island tour and I will have blog posts coming up about those adventures. I will be doing my first hash tomorrow (if you don't know what that is you will just have to wait for the blog post!). And there is a dinghy concert that we are looking forward to on Sunday.

It's hard to work with so much fun going on, but we are doing our best to balance it all out.

We're Back!

Walking along a beautiful trail at Secret Harbor

Well - we've been back on Storyville for almost 2 weeks now. It seems like the time has flown when I think back on it, but some of the days have just been dragging by. There was an overwhelming amount of work to be done just to get the boat back to some state of liveability. Everything had a slight mold covering it and the boat smelled really musty.  Not to mention that every day is a new day when it comes to seeing what systems are still in working order.  Storyville did not like being abandoned for 8 months!

After a week of cleaning and working, we decided to move the boat over to the next bay so that we can be closer to our cruising family on Pipe Muh Bligh and Keolakai.  Well, that plan didn't pan out as we soon discovered that our hydraulic steering has failed. Troy has been working on getting it fixed, but it is an old system and it looks like we will be ordering a new one and waiting for it to arrive on a ship.

Speaking of ships, we are still waiting for the delivery of our deck box. It arrived on the island last Friday but, true to "island time" form, the container that it was shipped in has not even been opened yet. So, we are still in a waiting pattern for that.  Which is just as well, since we are stuck out on a mooring ball and are not sure when the steering will be fixed so that we can make it over to the dock to take delivery.  We will just have it figure that out when the time comes.

In the mean time, we have been trying to enjoy ourselves as best we can. Luna has adjusted well. She loves the beach and swimming and playing with other dogs.  She's really got the life.  We've also been having some fun. We went to the Caribbean Rum and Beer Festival the other day and had a great time sampling rum and rum drinks.  So, it's not all work and no play!

Luna getting her sea legs back!

Caribbean Rum and Beer Festival

Vee, Silvio, Deana, Troy, Seadog Dave, Hurricane Lisa, Stacy and Rene!
Some of our cruising family, what a fun crew!

I think they missed each other!

Vee, Hurricane Lisa and Me

We Are Headed Home!

If you follow this blog then you know that we've been away from Storyville for the last eight months. We've been in Texas caring for my mother, but the time has come for us to return to our boat and our life on the water. We will be flying back to Grenada tomorrow and we will see just how sad our boat is after eight months of neglect. We will get her right back into sailing shape though!

In fact, we have been sitting here on dry land thinking and dreaming of improvements for Storyville and we decided that we would ship a box back with some of the wonderful things that we have been collecting over the last months. Troy had a great idea. We would purchase a dock box and fill it with goodies and ship it to Grenada. I thought that was a great idea as well since we do need more storage space on deck and a nice dock box would definitely be an improvement over the ice chest that we are currently using for deck storage. The idea was great, but the project seemed to grow it's own legs and get out of control quickly.

We ended up with the largest dock box that would fit on Storyville's aft deck, it's 72 inchest wide! We must thank our friend Bob on s/v Wyndigo. His boat is a sister ship to Storyville and he is currently based in Kemah. He kindly allowed us to use his boat for measuring and even for a trial run with the dock box.

Of course, with the bigger box, came more "stuff" to fill it up. All kinds of stuff, like new kayak paddles (which were desperately needed) and even some new carpet squares to replace the carpet in our aft cabin. We even added things like treats for Luna and a new food chopper for me. We stuffed it so full that I can't remember what all is in there. Luckily, we made a list!

Troy had to make a crate to ship the dock box in. We wouldn't want that pretty shiny box to get all beat up on the cargo ship! Like I said, this project took on a life of it's own.

One of the main reasons for this idea was so that we could get a new water maker with a higher output. We love our Spectra but we love water and the 4 gallons an hour that we were getting made it difficult to keep up with the pace of our water consumption. We have only heard wonderful things about Cruise RO Water and Power. They were very helpful in getting the unit ordered and shipped to us and we are can't wait to get it to Grenada and installed on Storyville.  We will be able to make 30 gallons a hour - yes, that's right, from 4 to 30. What a difference.

I guess it's a good thing that we need to get a bottom job for Storyville soon. We may have to raise the waterline!  I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

She's out of our hands and off to Grenada to meet us after our arrival. We will have some busy days ahead but we just cannot wait to get back to our life on the water!

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
It's always our self we find in the sea.
~e.e. cummings

We Love Boats

We've been land locked for over seven months now and I can't tell you how much I miss being rocked to sleep with the gentle sounds of water lapping at my hull just a foot away from my head. Or waking up and enjoying a cup of coffee in my cockpit as life floats by all around me, or having a sundown rum drink in the cockpit in the late afternoon and doing the same thing. If all goes as planned I will get to experience those things again soon as we are planning to return to Storyville in mid November.

We've been making good use of our time on shore and have several improvements for Storyville when we get back to her. More on that later......

I just to get this blog up and rolling again and ready for some adventures in paradise!

As I was going through some of my personal papers I came across this article that I wrote in 2007 for a local sailing magazine:

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WE LOVE BOATS!

By Deana Jones

"If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most." ~ E.B. White

It has occurred to me that I may have an obsession with boats. I mean, most people either like boats, or they don't like boats. Or, they may be somewhere in between, you know, take 'em or leave 'em. Me, on the other hand, I think it may be a little more serious. Don't misunderstand, I realize that there are others out there, just like me, but we usually try to hide our obsession from the "outside world". They just don't understand.

For instance, my husband, Troy and I currently own four boats. One sailboat, two kayaks and one dinghy. Our sailboat is a 37' Morgan Out Island named Different Drummer. You should see us when we head out for a sailing destination - the kayaks on the deck of the sailboat and the dinghy following along behind! We have our own fleet with us wherever we go.

Another clue regarding my obsession would be the fact that we live on our boat, the sailboat of course. We have a perfectly nice home, but we choose instead to stuff ourselves into the small living space on Different Drummer. We even like it!

When I'm not boating, I'm usually thinking about boating. I just can't wait to get out there on the water and see what adventures are in store. Troy is just as bad. He is usually working on boats, or talking about boats, or thinking about boats, sometimes even dreaming about boats. You get the picture.

We started boating on Lake Livingston on a pontoon boat. That was lots of fun - fishing, swimming, just hanging out on the lake, but something seemed to be lacking. Then one day Troy confided to me that he had always wanted to try sailing. Little did we know how that would affect our destiny. We took a moonlight sail on a sailboat maned Blue Marlin through Leisure Learning. We didn't know what to expect, but we really had a great time. The bay was beautiful under a full moon. I think we were both hooked on sailing that night. A little while later we decided to take sailing lessons.

We took our first lessons through Bay Area Sailing School. It was lots of information to take in at once, I felt overwhelmed and thought I would never understand how to sail, much less what to call all that stuff on the boat! Who knew there were no ropes on a sailboat? That each "rope" had its own name according to its use? Anyway, the school did a great job and before we knew it we were ASA certified sailors.

Troy, being also obsessed with eBay (that's another article for another day), found a 21 foot Ericson for sale and it just happened to be in Kemah, Texas, and it just happened to be in our price range. We are a little nervous and undecided about buying it, but my obsession took over and I clicked the "confirm bid" button and, ta da! we bought our first sailboat, sight unseen. She was a great little boat to get started in. We sailed her all around Clear Lake and spent every weekend scrunched up in that tiny cabin - loving every minute of it!

Eventually we (really, me) started wanting more space. I mean, if we're gonna spend every weekend on the boat, I would like to at least stand up when I'm in the cabin. Is that too much to ask? Troy found an old 27 foot Balboa on a trailer at Lynn's Sailboats on I-45. She hadn't been in the water in about 13 years. She had been sitting on a trailer somewhere in west Texas. She needed lots, and I do mean lots, of cleaning and TLC. Troy gave her a nice bottom job, we cleaned her up and named her Storyville. I like to think we brought her back to life. We sailed Storyville all around Galveston Bay and Trinity Bay and had a great time. In fact, Troy claims to have had the best day of his life on that boat, but that's another story too. Maybe he'll write about it some day.

Well - here we are - life is good and we are spending every weekend on Storyville. If course, given the fact that we are both obsessed with boats, we (in this case I mean Troy) are always looking at boat ads and going around to various boat brokers and looking at the boats for sale. By the way, that's what you call entertainment for someone obsessed with boats. One day Troy tells me that he found a boat for sale and it was such a great deal that we just had to take a look. We took a few of our other "boat obsessed" friends with us and went to see Different Drummer. We fell in love at first sight. We decided on the spot that we just had to make an offer. The broker told us that there was already an offer pending, but he would take our offer as a back up. I guess it was fate, the other buyer couldn't get financing, so Different Drummer now belongs to us.

Five years after the obsession began here we are living aboard and loving it. If course, given our obsession, who knows what the future will hold. Troy sure had is eye on a Morgan 41!

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What a story to look back on. Another six years have gone by. We ended up with the Morgan 41, named her Storyville, sold and gave away all of our belongings and took off for the cruising life. We've been gone for 3 years with 2 1/2 of that time spent on our boat, on the hook. Storyville hasn't been tied up in a marina in 3 years! What fun we've had and we are looking forward to more of the same when we get back to Grenada to be reunited with Storyville. And, yes, we are still obsessed with boats.