Thankful for my hammock...

The pic above I took of the sunset tonight. It was truly one of the best I have seen down here. It went from a true vanilla sky into a fiery red, just freaking awe inspiring. The pic does it no justice.

Happy Thanksgiving. As you can see from the pic taken just before sunset tonight, I had a rough day. Not much to tell you about from the last week. I've gotten the majority of the work done that was on my list, save for a few things that I'm waiting on parts for. According to my pals at the boat shop the parts I need are being shipped in the next container due the first week of next month, I'm not holding my breath. The anchorage here is starting to fill up with boats. The cruisers who went home for the summer are starting to arrive and each day the boat yard drops several boats back in the water. The cruising season has started. Most of these people haul their boats sometime between May and June and go back to their respective countries to work or visit family and basically just wait out the hurricane season. It has provided a little entertainment as I have been watching several boats come directly from the launch out here looking to anchor up and some of the couples get at each other. They yell at each other for all kinds of reasons, mostly because certain things aren't working on the boat and they didn't bother to fix them in the yard, they just flew in and splash, back in the drink they go. Then they get out here and the windlass won't work, they can't get the anchor to set, engine trouble, or my favorite, I recently watched from the comfort of my hammock as a couple from the UK blasted into each other because the little headset/microphone setup they use to communicate while anchoring apparently wasn't working but neither of them could hear the other one shouting because they didn't bother taking the headsets off. Funny shit when it isn't happening to me.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The cruisers put on a nice pot luck over at the Tiki Bar today to celebrate Caribbean style. It was a nice setup though I didn't stay long. I have been content lounging around the boat, swinging in the hammock reading all day. The weather has been perfect with just enough cloud cover to keep it from being brutally hot and a fresh breeze blowing all day. The last few days (prior to today) on anchor I haven't left the boat, haven't even got into the dinghy, it's just been so peaceful. Although Fabian is back from St Vincent and the Grenadines and it's never quiet for long with him around.

He had six people on his boat doing a two week dive charter and they left almost two weeks ago to head up to St Vincent and start sailing back, stopping at several islands to dive and explore so I haven't seen him until today. I guess my jail time has made me somewhat of a legend in our little circle so he stopped by to give me shit and earfuck me as usual about being a dumb ass American. But it turns out during his charter he had some bad luck as well. I guess while they were visiting the island of Bequia (Beck-way, don't ask me but it's how they say it around here) two of his guests, a man and woman went into town to get dinner. On their way back they were assaulted by some local punks. The man's wallet was taken and the poor woman got smacked in the head with a rock. From what Fabian told me, the Coast Guard there in Bequia would not take her to the hospital in St Vincent until 6 AM (I guess it was around 1 when this happened) so they were forced to take his boat back to St Vincent (an hour and a half trip). From there the woman was transferred by plane to the hospital here in Grenada and he said that she is still there under observation. Fabio also said that there have been a few attacks recently reported there in Bequia. Don't know what is going on there but when Brian and I visited, it seemed like a pretty chill place. Anyway, sounds like she will be alright but it sucks hearing about that kind of thing happening.

Again, Happy Turkey Day and to my family and friends, hope you had a good one today, miss all of you.

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."

Mark Twain

If...

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Still one of my favorite poems. You can also check at youtube for some video of Dennis Hopper reading this poem. There is also another reading by Robert Morley that is good.

Yes, I really read this much

The weather here has been shitty pretty much all week. Lots of wind and rain, with the swells constantly changing direction in the anchorage, have been moving the boat around quite a bit. Aside from my "hard time" (see previous post) I have been taking it pretty easy and getting a lot of reading done this week. I have done a few little basic projects on the boat but nothing out of the ordinary. I am currently taking a break from reading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and it got me to thinking about how many books I have read since living on boats. There were so many books that I always intended on reading but never got around to. Now that I have the chance I have read many of them and continue to do so. So I figured I would start posting now and then a list of books I am reading/or have read. I want to do this partly as a record for myself to remember and also because I have received a few e-mails asking me what I do read. Anyway, I'll start small and list what I have read in the last couple of weeks.

smile when you're lying (confessions of a rogue travel writer) by Chuck Thompson

-this was a great book, especially if you have travelled a bit and can relate to some of his misadventures, and written honestly by omitting the bullshit you read in travel brochures and telling you what life on the road is really like, good stuff.

The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho

-I can't help it. Coelho is bad ass and I dig his writing. I have read some other opinions about how contrived and regurgitated his quotes are but I relate a lot on a personal level to his characters. This book tries to answer the question, why do we destroy the things we love the most? (taken from the back cover but it is the most accurate description). I couldn't help it, read it in one night. If you have a tendency to sabotage yourself (as I often do) you will like this one.

Adventures of a Continental Drifter by Elliot Hester

-cool travel stories from an ex-flight attendant that sold everything and went on an "around the world excursion into weirdness, danger, lust, and the perils of street food". Good fast read.

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

-sick, twisted, I loved it. One of my favorite books is Fight Club (still the name of my little fishing boat back home) by the same author. It was hard for me to put this book down. I just dig the way this guy writes, in your face, real, harsh, he even makes me cringe sometimes and that ain't easy.

Why We Hate Us by Dick Meyer

-good commentary on the "American discontent in the New Millenium" the author attacks rude people on cell phones, kids being taught to market themselves on myspace/facebook, cheating in sports/business, reality TV and many other topics that many of us bitch about but seem to keep rolling right along taking all this shit every day.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

-probably don't have to say anything here, I've never read it so I finally did. I found a bookstore here in Grenada that had this one as well as the three books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy so I bought all four of them.

Currently reading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolken

-same thing as above, unfortunately I had never read any of these but like everyone else I have seen the movies. I am really enjoying this one (The Hobbit kicked ass as well).

I think that's about it from the last two weeks or so. This weather sucks so bad I think I will be running some errands in the morning, checking out of the country and sailing North to either Union Island or possibly St Lucia, haven't really made up my mind I just want to get the hell away from the rain.

I can now say I have been in jail...

Now I can add going to jail in another country to my lengthy resume of insane situations that I have been a part of. Here's what happened. Sunday afternoons, a lot of people gather at a small beach bar on Hog Island called simply Roger Bar. At Roger, beers are 5 EC and for 20 EC you get a big plate of food. So this last Sunday I had told some new friends of mine that we should go hang for the afternoon in Roger. As is customary there on Sundays, the afternoon quickly turns to evening and the beers keep flowing. When we finally decided to pack up and go, I was heading back to Prickly Bay to the West and they were headed East to where their boat was moored. I sped around in my dinghy to another spot to say hi to some friends there and ended up drinking some wine with them until about 11. I said goodbye there and hopped back in the dinghy, at this point, I'm feeling pretty good and hadn't reached that retard drunk stage, so I decided just to head back to the boat and get some sleep. I was cruising through a cut in some reefs headed out to go around the point to Prickly when the motor of the dinghy died. This outboard motor has been a champ and run strong the whole time. I checked the fuel, good to go, fuel line was attached, nothing on the prop, pulled and pulled but it would not start. Now the weather here for the past week has been pretty shitty and we have had lots of wind and rain. Basically, I was screwed if I couldn't get the motor started because there was no way I could paddle around the point and all the way to the boat in the sea conditions. So after 20 minutes or so I was starting to drift onto the reef near a small beach. I pulled the motor up so it wouldn't hit and rowed the dinghy to the sand. After pulling the dinghy up the sand a bit I tried to monkey with the motor a bit more but in the dark and having no tools I didn't think I would make much progress. So I decided to tie the rope to a tree and just crash out on the beach.



It started getting cold and with the drizzle I was getting soaked so I walked up a hill a bit until I found a small villa. I found a nice little corner under an eave to keep me out of the rain and I crashed there for a bit. I was woken up at 1 in the morning to a flashlight and several voices. I stood up thinking I might be in for a fight when I heard them say "Police!" After shaking the cobwebs from my head I asked what the problem was and apparently, the bitch who runs the property wasn't happy about some random dude sleeping on the beach so she called the popos. I apologized, tried to explain about the boat being broken down and blah blah blah. They asked if I had any weapons or drugs and of course I said no. They asked me to empty my pockets which was no problem. I reached into my right pocket and pulled out the EC money I was carrying. Out of my left pocket I pulled out a small piece of foil. I was confused for a moment because I didn't remember having this in my pocket but it only took one of the cops a second to snatch it out of my hand and open it. When he asked me what it was I had to look to remember. So here is the fun part. It was weed. A friend of mine had been given this small amount of marijuana from another person while we were out drinking that afternoon. As she had no pockets and we were all drinking, she asked if I could hang on to it until we got back to their boat. I said sure and pretty much forgot about it. So now I'm standing on the beach trying to explain this to cops at 1 in the morning. Not only that, but I'm not carrying any ID on me. Time to go to the station house. I get escorted to an SUV and sit in the far back. They wouldn't even let me grab my sandals out of the dinghy. We get to the police station sometime after 2 AM and the interrogation starts. Do I sell drugs, where do I buy my drugs, blah blah. Let me say for the record that I have never smoked weed in my life. Not because I have some moral stance against it, I am too scared that like most things I do, if I start smoking I would take it to excess. Just simple self awareness keeps me too scared to smoke. At 2 AM when you are buzzing from a day of drinking, standing in a police station trying to explain this to cops just doesn't really sound convincing. I swear though, it is the truth. So after being questioned for an hour, I'm told I have to spend the night there because they need to confirm my story the next morning. The only place I can lie down to sleep is in a holding cell so they take me down to a cell, barefoot and all and show me my accomodations. I did my best to get some rest on a narrow wooden bench in a cell that reeked of urine and was infested with mosquitoes. At 7 AM, one of my cellmates woke me up because our ration of food was being given. A cold sandwich and a small cup of tea. No thanks, I gave it to another guy in the cell. At 9 AM, the "Detective" assigned to my "case" arrived to escort me to the Coast Guard so he could confirm my story of living on the boat and that I had nothing on board to hide short of my speargun. For his "protection" he needed to cuff me (this is the first time I was in cuffs) for the ride to the Coast Guard. He spent an hour bullshitting with some of them while I sat barefoot and cuffed in the SUV in the parking lot. He finally came to get me, took the cuffs off and we were off in the Coast Guard boat with 4 members, 3 of which were holding automatic machine guns as if I were a threat. This whole situation was so fucking surreal that I couldn't help but keep laughing at them. We got on the boat and he "confirmed" that I was in fact telling the truth, no drugs or weapons on the boat and he saw a photo hanging in my cabin of me with my old truck crew from Station 3. He asked if I was a firefighter and I said yeah. This seemed to make him relax a lot and I was glad for that. I asked if I could rinse off and change and he was generous enough to give me 90 seconds to do so. I got some shoes, a red bull, a breakfast bar and some water and after that we were dropped at a dock near the beach I slept on and were picked up by the SUV to go "investigate" the area I tied the dinghy at. After searching around for a bit and listening to the lady that ran the place act like I ruined her life, the cop was finally satisfied that I had been telling the truth the whole time, I drank, the boat broke down, I was gonna wait until morning to figure out where I was and get a bus in to figure out what to do, blah blah. From this point, apparently I was now a friend and the cop asked me if he could come out sometime and hang out on the boat with his family. I couldn't believe it. I asked if he could leave me there so I could work on the dinghy and he said they would wait because I needed to go back to the station to be cleared of any charges and given my property back (the money in my pocket). I messed with the dinghy for a bit and figured out the problem. Somehow the vent on top of the fuel can worked it's way shut, just enough to choke out the motor and cause it not to start. Being fairly deep in the beer and wine I guess it never occured to me to check that. I laughed hysterically because I could've avoided the whole mess if I had simply unscrewed the vent a bit. I told the cop and he laughed to. I was really tired and hungry at this point and just wanted to take a long swim followed by a shower to rid myself of my jail cell funk but instead of going straight away to the station to clear me out, I got to go along with the cops as they ran their own personal errands. We stopped by the grocery store to buy milk, sugar and bread followed by a stop in at the laundry. Then we stopped by another crime scene where someone had broken into some building. After we finally reached the station, I spent another hour waiting for the jackass guy at the desk to write a few lines in a book and ask me four times my name and age. I got my money and after the guys finished their lunches (that they bought at the grocery store), they were gracious enough to give me a ride back to my dinghy. After dropping me off, we said our goodbyes, one gave me his card and told me to call him if I ever have any problems down here. I thanked him and headed to the beach.



The property owners had managed to drag the dinghy quite a ways up the beach so I spent about 20 minutes wrestling the damn thing down to the waters edge. I finally got it in the water and spent another 15 or so minutes rowing out to deeper water so I could drop the outboard and motor along. I fired up the motor and headed over to my friends boat to tell them the story and explain why I hadn't showed up in the morning as we had previously planned. I had offered to drive them around the island if they wanted to rent a car for the day and they said yes. We planned to leave yesterday morning but due to my incarceration, that just didn't work out. We all got a good laugh after I told them the story and showed why I am Captain Chaos. I sped back to the boat and after a good swim, a long shower and some chow, I fell into a deep sleep for the rest of the afternoon. This morning I got up and went to rent the car. After I rented it I realized I needed to update my temporary driving license from here so I had to return to the police station. When I walked in, the guys just started laughing and after messing with me for about 45 minutes I got my license updated. So the irony here is that I can probably say that I am the only person in the Caribbean who doesn't smoke weed but I have been detained (since the detective informed me that I was never under arrest) for possession. Only me man, only me.



On another note, I spent all of last week in the lagoon tied up at Port Louis Marina. I was getting the bottom scrubbed, the boat washed and polished, the interior cleaned up, batteries charged, oil changed, generator serviced, etc. It worked out good and it was nice to have unlimited water and power for a few days. The part that really hurt was getting fuel. I wanted to sail to Trinidad to get fuel because last time I was there it was less than a dollar a gallon. My buddy told me that he just came from there and there had been some problem so they are now charging foreign flagged vessels the same rate that you pay in your native country. So F that. So I was forced to buy fuel here at 16.45 EC a gallon. After filling up both tanks, the dinghy and the reserve gas cans I got to pay 700 U.S. dollars. Yippee. Needless to say I wasn't in the same chipper mood I was in back in June when I sailed to Venezuela with Jaymie and bought the same amount of fuel for less than 7 U.S. dollars. So I'll close for now by saying to my good buddy Dan Lopez that I have joined your club of having spent half a day in a jail cell in a foreign country, although your Mexico jail story is probably still funnier than mine.

Finally, a good headsail...

When I sailed to Union Island before my visit home, I blew out the headsail (jib/genoa) in a squall that caught me on the windward side of Grenada, the photos above show where it started shredding. Since this sail was already on it's last leg, I had already had a foot and a half cut off the leech (backside of the sail) and had some reinforcement sewn on (which worked great obviously), I had been looking into buying a new one online out of Hong Kong. Anyway, that trip was to pick up a dinghy in Union. If you hadn't followed before I was having all kind of trouble with dinghies and finally found a decent one through a friend in Union. So now I have two extra dinghies on board. Pretty ridiculous. So that leads me to now where I have been able to buy a headsail from Fabian that is in really good shape and should last a while and by selling the two dinghies I'm actually coming out ahead, I can't believe it. So I spent the afternoon through sunset pulling down the old sail and rigging the new one. I guess I should be happy there is no wind again today, the anchorage is flat calm (which is unusual in Prickly) and I didn't have to wrestle with a huge sail flailing around. One less headache taken care of.

New meaning to water bed...

Here is a free tip:

If you go to town to get some groceries, shut the hatches and windows. Especially the one above your mattress. Even if it's a perfect sunny day and not a cloud in the sky and you will be gone less than an hour so there is no chance that a freak tropical downpour will swoop through the anchorage and dump a shitload of rain in 15 minutes. Cause that never happens down here. I'm glad this boat has 4 cabins.

Another reason I love my friends...

Baby Alex has her first Halloween. She is gonna be one of the coolest people on the planet from growing up with two of my best friends Ron and Laurel. Though I do feel sorry for whoever has her on her first day of kindergarten.

Air Jamaica sucks, boat maintenance, fuel run, Obama and Prop 8

So I have been back in Grenada for a while after my extended visit home. It was no easy feat getting back thanks to the wonderful staff of Air Jamaica. I had connecting flights in Las Vegas and then a long 8 hour layover in JFK. My flight was scheduled to leave JFK at 6:30 AM and around 6:10 AM I was called back to the check in desk. They wanted to see my Grenadian citizenship papers. My what? Apparently, if you buy a one way ticket through Air Jamaica, you better be a citizen of the country you are flying to. Makes no sense to me based on the fact that it isn't the job of an airline to enforce immigration laws of a given country, that's why when you enter somewhere you will go through customs and immigration. I explained about living on a boat, produced my papers showing the boat registration and the current immigration forms proving I had checked the boat in legally to Grenada. Of course, I had to talk to a supervisor who took her sweet time coming out and after calmly explaining everything to her still felt it necessary to call Grenada immigration. Of course no one is in that early. After acting like she was doing me the biggest favor in the world she said that she will "allow me access to Grenada". One thing I do miss about the U.S. is the ability of people to (forgive the cliche) think outside the box. I swear in these other countries the people tend to operate like robots. If there isn't something written down to guide them, they simply cannot come up with a gameplan of their own. It's amazing to me the lack of efficiency that goes on daily. It's just part of traveling and you have to deal with it and normally I take it in stride but after flying and/or sleeping on cold airport floors for over 24 hours it just about sent me over the edge that morning. The best part is when you go through customs here and you tell them that you live on a boat, they ask if you have any spare parts with you. You say no, they stare at you for a moment, then wave you through. Guess they aren't as worried about national security as the guard dogs from Air Jamaica.

Anyway, after landing here I got a taxi bus to where I figured my buddy Fabian would be anchored up. I called him a couple of times before he answered and as usual he had been out drinking until 7 in the morning so I don't think he was real happy to hear from me at noon. He got up and came to the dock to give me a lift over to where the boat was anchored in Hog Island. I was dreading all the work that I figured I would inevitably have but to my surprise and relief it wasn't that bad. I got situated and spent a few days relaxing and getting adjusted to the time change and the weather. I recently moved the boat over to the bay I'm normally in and of course it's time to get to work on the boat. I've got oil changes and services to do on everything, a leaking window to fix, paint the dinghy, alternator change on the port engine, blah blah blah. I already had to replace the control box for the windlass again (3rd time) as I think when they rebuilt the motor for it that it has a higher output than it previously did so it burned up the 1200 watt box. Fun stuff huh? The weather is hot and humid right now. We haven't had any wind all week so I have been drifting along all over the place and sweating to death. It's too hot to do any work during the day so I have been typically doing stuff at night. This weekend I'm going to tie up to the small marina here in Prickly Bay and take on water and fuel. It kills me to buy fuel here at 15 EC a gallon but I heard that Trinidad recently stopped selling fuel, not sure why but I don't want to risk sailing 15 hours down there just to be turned around. Last time I was there it was less than a dollar a gallon. Venezuela is still possible, I haven't decided yet. I can sail to Margarita Island in about 20 hours but the sail back is brutal coming into the current, swells, and directly to windward. I would probably have to sail northeast to St Vincent and then tack back to Grenada and I assume that will take the better part of 2-3 days. But at 6 cents a gallon down there it beats the hell out of the prices here. Not sure yet what I will do.

Obama being elected is big news down here. All of my island friends want to talk about it and it is on the cover of all the papers. The whole island is buzzing after his victory. I was glad to see him win. I can't believe Prop 8 actually passed in California. Just when I was feeling patriotic about the election (Obama even won in Colorado, wow) my fellow Californians pass that bullshit. What the fuck is wrong with people man? Go to Burning Man and get a different view about gay people. They are people. I don't even want to get started on a rant about this but if you voted for this prop please move out of California because you are a douche bag.