Log 44E Carnival and Hurricane Dean


Written at : Hog Island, Grenada

Aug. 19, 2007

Hi Folks,

We are still here at Hog Island after Hurricane Dean passed through, with no problems for us. Our plans are to head down to Venezuela Monday or Tuesday the 20th or 21st August 2007 for one or two months.

Hopefully, my next log will be from Venezuela, and about our experiences in that part of the world.

All the best,

Aubrey

 

Carnival and Hurricane Dean

We are back in the idyllic anchorage at Hog Island after a couple of ventures outside. We spent a few days in Veleda over at Prickly Bay, where the first night we were invited to join some old friends for a group Chinese meal at the Choo Light restaurant, a ten minute walk from the marina. The big resort/condominium development there is still progressing. We heard last year that the buildings were going to be higher than zoned, and would block the view over the bay of some large million dollar (U.S.) homes above it. The problem has been resolved as the resort bought two or three of the protesting homes in order to be able to carry on with their plans. Money talks!

We got laundry done and refilled our North American propane gas bottle, switching over and using one of our European Camping Gaz bottles for the two days it was away being refilled. One of the main reasons for going over to Prickly was that Russell, a computer literate friend of ours, was at anchor there in Lady Pauline. He spent a whole morning on board Veleda trying to identify why we couldn't access the internet on our laptop. A computer repair service in St. George's, after several frustrating hours with no success, had recommended that we back up our present programs and data, clear the hard drive, and reinstall everything! We have most of the installation discs, but we did not have the back-up discs for our computerized charting program, and we were afraid if we just tried to save the program on a disc or memory wand, that we might not get it operational again. Russell identified, as we had thought, that the Norton antivirus (firewall?) was blocking the internet. We were unable to remove the Norton program completely using our Add/Delete software, as it could not locate the program. Russell downloaded a special Norton Removal Tool from his laptop and used it to finally get rid of Norton. The internet is now accessible to our laptop, and we are now using a bought version of AVG for our virus protection. Ain't technology grand?

Thanks Russell!

Back to Hog, we enjoyed another Roger's barbecue, and socializing with other boaters, on Hummingbird and Wind Dancer. Something we have noticed here this year is that there are more cruisers with children on board. The kids have a great time at the beach at Roger's. Several of the boats are adorned with rowing skiffs or Optimist sailing dinghies. It is a pleasant sight to see the kids enjoying themselves, energetically rowing about, dashing along the beach on small surf boards, and expertly sailing around the anchorage. Several of the families get together on the beach for a group family barbecue a couple of late afternoons each week, the parents exchanging sailors' yarns and cruising tips, the fathers busy at the smoking barbecues, and the kids playing together. The anchorage is like a small town, with plenty of community activity.

Carnival was coming up, and we wanted an excuse to go over to the Lagoon in St. George's for the convenience of access to the town by dinghy, and a WiFi net from Island Water World for a charitable donation. Happiness is access to the internet from the boat at anchor!

The Lagoon has been noticeably cleaned up since we were there last year, when pilings from the devastated marina rendered a good third of the area impassable, and several wrecked boats still littered some shallows and shoreline, a sad testimony to the destruction wrought by hurricane Ivan a few years ago. This cleanup is the result of a marina/resort/condominium project underway, known as Port Louis, the original name for the French settlement on the far side of the Lagoon before British domination. There are several colourful buildings so far adorning the site on the east side of the Lagoon. These are linked by twin concrete lanes meandering through the dramatic ground cover of rust-colored lava stone and over a small bridge crossing a narrow excavated canal which winds its way across the outer peninsula. Several very colourful tropical gardens, tall elegant palm trees, and fish ponds with babbling fountains, all trimmed with conch shells, create a pleasant ambience overlooking the Lagoon and into the Carenage of St. George's. A wooden fishing boat permanently cradled and painted in the Grenadian colours of red, yellow and green, its new mylar-looking sail emblazoned with "Welcome to Port Louis" sits at the entrance to the Lagoon. The company has energetic plans for a mega-development with over 300 slips, several able to handle megayachts up to 300 feet in length; dozens of 6000 square foot villa lots for designer homes; luxury apartments, many with areas of 3000 square feet; and other condominiums, town houses and luxury hotels. It has started out well so far, displaying a community conscience by the cleanup of the Lagoon, relocating a couple of salvaged vessels by sinking them off Molinere Point as an artificial reef for sea life and divers, and sponsoring the Grenada Sailing Festival. One drawback may be that the extensive dock and slip layout will cover virtually the entire Lagoon, making independent anchoring in the Lagoon for liveaboard cruisers such as us impossible. (For information on this project, go to www.portlouisgrenada.com )

Carnival

King of the Parade	J'Ouvert Paraders	Queen of the Parade

We enjoyed Carnival last year, and only took in a couple of the parades this year. The rather unusual timing of Carnival was started during the Bishop years, in 1982, as a summer celebration for locals and tourists. It has no association with Lent or any religious aspect, but is a long weekend of Soca (a form of calypso), steel bands, extravagant costumes, drunken parades, and pageants. Several communities have aspects of Carnival, but we joined in those at St. George's. Leading up to the weekend are Soca contests to establish the top Soca champion. I can never understand the words of these shouted lyrics, and have no patience to attend an event supposed to start at 8.00 pm that doesn't get under way until 9.30 or so (GMT = Grenada Maybe Time). So this year we skipped the Soca Monarch Finals, Panorama (steel drumming), Dimanche Gras, and the Pageant ( to judge the King and Queen of the Bands of costumed groups).

We went over by dinghy to see J'ouvert, a parade of drunken revelers soused internally with beer and externally with used engine oil and garish body paints of reds, blues and yellows. It started about 3.00 am, liming (hanging around), chipping (mini stepping to the loud repetitive music and lyrics), and wining (gyrating to the loud repetitive music and lyrics) up Lagoon Road (right in front of where Veleda was anchored) and around the Carenage until about noon hour. Just watching the parade from the sidelines is a clothing-hazardous experience, as the sidewalk crowds are fluid with revelers from the parade coming over for drinks, food, and to greet their friends en route, sometimes sloshing their paints and engine oil on the spectators, or just brushing against the onlookers as they stagger past. To see this I wore old denim jean shorts and a dark shirt that I didn't mind getting dirty, as to view J'ouvert even the spectators will get caught up and their clothes soiled, unless watching from a balcony. A great all night and morning party if one can lose his squeamishness about body paints and engine oil!

Later that same day, Monday Night Mas (masquerade) starts about 8.00 pm GMT (gets under way about 9.00 or later) in which more revelers don accoutrements such as tee shirts, hats, sparkling batons, in colours of different businesses such as Carib Beer, Digicel, B-Mobile and other large organizations. People sign up beforehand to participate with one of these "bands", pay a $50.00 EC fee for the accoutrements and free beer during the parade, and line up with their group, being hyped up by loud sound trucks, given all the beer they can drink, and waving their sparkling batons, parade again from Lagoon Road around the Carenage. Judy and I watched from Veleda and did not bother to go ashore to be assailed by the cacophony. For younger groups who enjoy loud music and intense partying this parade would be more suitable than J'ouvert.

The last Pageant Parade is the best. Again it gets under way about 2.30 pm (GMT), and formed up along Lagoon Road in front of Veleda's anchorage. I was able to wander up and down the road to take pictures of the people in costumes, and get closeups of the extravagant king or queen of each group. These are the groups that competed for King and Queen of the bands in the Pageant a few nights ago. The bands represented different ideas, or traditions. Unfortunately I have never seen any explanation or interpretation of what these different bands portray. The public relations for Carnival are most inadequate for tourists. The locals know some of the traditions and maybe even can understand some of the words of the Soca songs. I would love to read a comprehensive explanation of the traditions, costumes and bands, as well as the words of the most common soca music and rhythms used each year.

Several of the events were held in the National Stadium, completed last year for the World Cup Cricket matches. There was a glossy card listing the Schedule of Carnival Events 2007, naming the events and prices, but containing no description of what the event was about so a tourist would know what to expect. I still don't know what Dimanche Gras is other than it means Fat Sunday and cost $40.00 EC. Similarly, I have never seen an explanation of J'ouvert, or know anything about its origins. It is a great party for locals! There are no programs for the individual events. There are a few locations where tickets can be purchased in advance at reduced prices, but such are not mentioned anywhere. One has to get information from a local who may or may not know what stores sell tickets in advance. The tourist booths when open do not have that printed information and do not sell tickets. BUT; this is the Caribbean! Hey mon, no problem!

The few nights at anchor in the Lagoon were noisy with parties along Lagoon Road going until 3:00 and 4:00 each morning, with drums and rhythms so loud that on Veleda loose fittings would vibrate and rattle to the cacophony. However in the Lagoon we were able to enjoy the internet. Each morning I would spend some time reading the Globe and Mail and listening to CBC from Toronto on the laptop, when Digicell was working properly to acquire the necessary internet addresses; but that's another problem. As most of our maintenance has been completed I have had time to start the planning and writing the first few chapters of the book I have been encouraged to write using the logs I have been sending for the past nine years.

Hurricane Dean

We returned to Hog Island next day, August 15, 2007 after considering a hurricane strategy. The fourth hurricane of the season was forming up in mid Atlantic. Tropical Storm Dean was at 12 degrees north latitude and heading west towards to Windward Islands. However they usually veer northwards, and if it behaved normally it should miss Grenada where we are at 12.1 degrees north latitude. The decision was to leave for Trinidad to go south of it, or to hunker down at Hog Island, hoping it would go north as predicted. Such a decision should be taken at least three days in advance of its arrival to get properly prepared if staying, or to get well out of the area and into a more southern location securely. We anchored in Hog Island. The hurricane went north and by the time it went across the Windward Islands at 0800 on the 17th, Dean was a category 2 hurricane with winds up to 105 knots, at 14.3 degrees north latitude, and passed over the northern parts of St. Lucia and the channel between it and Martinique, with the eye going over the southern part of Martinique. We had stayed at Marin on the south coast of Martinique a couple of times, but we have not heard of what damage was done to that large yachting community. Dean has continued northwest towards Jamaica and by the time of writing this has been upgraded to a category 4 hurricane with winds from 130 to 160 knots.

Here in Hog we missed most of the heavy winds and had no waves. However as the hurricane went about 130 miles north of us, the winds died then shifted to the southwest, the opposite from the usual pattern in which we anchored. Then they increased, but only to force 5 (about 20 knots) on the 17th. However, that was enough to switch all the boats around, and we found ourselves about two boat lengths from the mangroves. We thought we were OK, and knew that we had eight feet depth (we sounded the area when we initially anchored) right up to the trees, but as we didn't want to take any chances we put out a second anchor. No problem, we were OK for the day. A couple of boats dragged their anchors as when they reversed their direction of pull with the southerly wind, their anchors did not properly reset. So, we didn't have any great effect from the hurricane other than the wind shift for a half day from the opposite direction. However on the night of the 17th we had very little wind, but a fantastic lightning display for over a six hour period where there was as much lightning as there were periods of darkness. Little thunder except a few times I could hear it far off. It was a form of sheet lightning, illuminating the clouds and the crest line of the surrounding hills. ( The last time we were in such an extensive lightning display was going up Georgian Bay about 20 years ago in our Northern 25. This was a thunder storm which we thought we would pass through in an hour, but it lasted for over three hours! Apparently rather than going through the storm cell, we were travelling along the front with strike lightning flashing all around us.) Next morning the wind pattern resumed its normal direction from the east, and we retrieved our second anchor.

We have heard that Trinidad was badly hit by large wave action and there was damage to boats in Chaguaramus. Boats that tried to get to Trinidad encountered heavy seas the day before Dean crossed the Windwards, and were hit with the heavy waves in Trinidad.

I will try to identify the damage done there and in Martinique in my next log. We are glad we stayed in Hog Island.


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