It pours with rain almost as soon as we leave our little cottage. Mike makes it to the restaurant to arrange our lift but I take shelter with the gardener under the stairs to the pink house because it comes down HARD. The sea is almost entirely flattened. The gardener and I chat about his work. He is a sweet boy, very young, probably only about 20 and already he has a baby. Talking to Nancy on the way to the boatyard once the rain stops, it seems that there is a problem on the island with very young people having babies, and also a bit of a drink problem with so much cheap rum around.
We discuss the machete issue too. Mike had noticed that most of the male population walking along the roads carry machetes. Presumably they used to have to cut their way through vegetation to get where they wanted to go and it has become a way of life as they still hack at things (of the plant kind, hopefully) as they go along now. Fairly recently the Grenadian government asked people to cover their machetes as they walked along because it was scaring the tourists! I’m not surprised. If you are walking along a deserted road and come across a group of men standing around with machetes, it would feel a tad threatening!!
When we arrive at the boatyard, we notice that the boom is on. I resist the urge to inspect it to see if they have scratched or dinged my paintwork doing this but do take a sneaky look later and it looks OK.
The boat, however, is crawling with workers; underneath, on top and inside so we decide to hire a car and do some shopping. Sandy and John on Fat Dash, in the water but still tied to the dock as the generator is still not working, have run out of food and Sandy offers to share the cost of the car and come with us.
Eventually the car arrives, just as most of the workers clear off for their lunch. That’s life! We go to the supermarket at Spiceland Mall. Sandy is like a thing possessed and has filled up her trolley before Mike and I are a quarter of the way round so she goes round again for a more leisurely look. It’s only when we are taking the two trolleys to the car that it occurs to us we might not get it all in. Amazingly we manage it. We stop at Foodland in Westerhall on the way back to buy meat pies. I have been raving about these to Sandy and she is keen to try one for lunch, but we arrive too late and they have sold out.
By the end of the afternoon, all layers of old antifouling have been removed and the hull is sanded right down to the gel coat.
Mike investigates having the hull copper treated. This would negate the need for antifouling for ten years, and although it costs three times as much to do, after the three years you are quids in! But it is not to be. The copper product has to be ordered in from the UK which will take a week to ten days, so we stick with plan A as we must make it to St Lucia by the end of the month.
At the end of the afternoon, we go over for a drink with Sandy and John. Just after we arrive, the two engineers manage to get the generator going which means they can leave tomorrow.
Because Sandy and John had read my blog, they ply me with white wine and send me home somewhat inebriated. Mike is far better behaved and sticks to beer – yuk!
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