2011 June/July: Captain's Sister's visit

The Captain's Sister came for a visit in Grenada. The following is a glimpse of the adventures that ensued:

Looking down the ladder up to the boat

The boat is out the water so with a 3.5m keel she is a vertigo instilling 5.5m above the ground. Thats the hight we currently work at cleaning, bringing the required bits up, taking the rubbish off...you get the idea...lots of peering down and climbing and climbing and climbing!

The Grenadian Jungle

On our trip up the Coast we stopped to hike to a view. This is what the majority of Grenada looks like.

Sliding down from the view point

The route to view the jungle was along a very muddy path/slope held in place by wooden planks. The three of us were wearing slops...mine were quickly removed so that the full benefit of the mud massage could be enjoyed (and i wouldnt land on my face).

Abandoned Dougaldston Estate

After travelling hours up the west coast and stopping for directions on numerous occasions, we finally reached the promised Dougaldston Estate. The pre-travel research had us quite excited to visit this apparently very educational, interactive estate. When we eventually got there we found it completely abandoned.

Nutmeg factory in Gouyave

Leaving the abandoned estate we went on to the west coast town of Gouyave to the Nutmeg Factory where tons of nutmegs are brought from surrounding plantations to be processed. Here they are separated into the various categories according to quality and size, and the bad ones are removed.

More nutmegs

On seeing the uncountable number of nutmegs just sitting there on the shelves, its hard to picture you, Mom, carefully rationing the few I gave you a year or so back.

Mace

Surrounding the nutmeg that we know is this mace. It kind of looks and feels rubbery and is also divided into different quality categories for differing uses from flavouring fish dishes to colouring red lipstick.

Fish Friday

The main purpose of our trek to Gouyave was to taste the delights of Fish Friday. Every Friday the chefs of Gouyave (pronounced: Gw-ah-ve) cook every kind of fish dish imaginable along with all the sidedishes and sell them in the street. It kept pouring with rain but the vendors dont expect you to get drenched, nope, everyone piles under their tents. My allotted space was predominately alongside the fish frying pans and although they reacted rather explosively to the stray raindrops, the aromas reacted rather favourably on my appetite. We ended up with a variety of dishes from pie to fried fish (of course). Then there was dessert including tamarind balls all washed down with a drink of seamoss. Yum

BELMONT ESTATE

An estate where they believe in maximum employment in a country where there is around 40% unemployment. So, no machines are used here, just lots and lots of labour.

Cocoa Pod

We visited the Belmont Estate where we enjoyed an interesting educational tour on the process from cocoa bean to chocolate. In this broken open pod you can see the outside red layer that is surprisingly tough and protects the white pulpy flesh holding the cocoa beans. The Captain and I had been wondering where the cocoa plantations were as despite traversing practically the entire island we were yet to come across one. This was explained by our guide telling us that the cocoa tree needs shade and protection to grow and as such the cocoa trees are planted in between the jungle trees. Yip, the plantations are in the jungle. Our guide also informed us that once the 'farmers' have harvested the pods and the women have broken them open, the children suck the sweet pulp off the cocoa beans...

Cocoa bean fermentation containers

The beans along with their fleshy pulp covering (it was just a story) are piled into these stalls where they are covered in leaves and left to ferment. After a given time they are turned over by being turfed into the neighbouring stall. This process takes all day (4am till after dark) and takes place at high temperatures (fermentation + outside temp = extreme heat) and is done by some very strong brave people who are then not allowed to shower when they get home as the sudden change in body temp would make them sick.

Drying racks holding mace

The cocoa beans are dried on enormous drying racks that are wheel out of the low roof building whose roof also wheels away so that a second layer of racks can be exposed to the sun. When it starts raining there is a mad scramble wheel everything back.

The racks are used to dry more than just cocoa beans as the fully working estate also processes nutmeg etc

Evil Eyed Goat

Part of Belmont Estate is a goat dairy where they produce goats cheese.

RIVER ANTOINE RUM DISTILLERY

Fermentation at the distillery

We made our way north to the River Antoine Rum Distillery. It was a Sunday however so the operation was not underway. We did bump into some of the workers and they casually told us to wander around and explore on our own.

The fermentation process seemed as crude as that in the Amazon Jungle 'distillery' but it did smell a lot better.

Mounds of pressed sugar cane

Water to power the machines

Cane crushing machine, powered by water

After our self guided tour of the distillery and a hike through their grounds, we bumped into the casual workers who had finished their labours and were rewarding themselves with some taste testing. They had a large rum bottle, a 500ml coke bottle and a cup. We got chatting and they offered us a taste. Turns out the rum was in the coke bottle and the rum bottle was full of water. Both clear so was a bit confusing. They did warn us that the rum they were sampling was the strongest of their range. Our small scorching swig was chased by a glass of water but surprisingly the extra strong rum actually tastes really really good.

Channels for water to power the machines. With the sluices to divert the power when not needed