In Grenada they say, "have a blessed day" when they say goodbye. The also say, "hello, good morning," "hello, good afternoon," etc when they greet you on the street or in a shop.
One that I think is interesting (I think it may be English of French) is their name for New Year's Eve — They call it Old Year's Night. I'm looking forward to Old Year's Night party on Hog Island.
The Christmas winds are going to die down next week and that will be great cause that is when I'm planning to sail off north.

It has been blowing hard since Dec. 25th. These are East winds (they vary a little north and south) that kick up the seas, Here in Woburn Bay, the winds run 8 KTS when light and up to 26 KTS when strong. And here in Woburn I'm protected by some large hills. Out on the Ocean, the winds are 20 ++ KTS and the seas up to 8 or 9 ft. The winds are supposed to die down a bit this weekend.
Trying to clear puppies in, still waiting for a response. I've requested Jan 10 for clearing them into Bequia. No answers yet from St. Vincent.
Finally done with the Christmas Ham… The last bits were very yummy as they had lots of time to soak in the glaze.

Here are a couple pictures of how my code-0 is setup.   There is no tacking, the thing has to be furled and redeployed on the new tack.   I always raise mine on the port side as that is the side of the halyard. I had to modify the roller a bit (drill the pin hole larger for the shackle).  I don’t use that pin cause it doesn’t work with the anchor.  The picture below shows the inner ear of the starboard roller and is was drilled larger so that the shackle will fit (anchor deployed in this picture since I’m on the hook in Grenada).

Next photo is from higher up so you can see that there is almost no space between the code-0 and the Jib.  The code-0 is just a few inches in front of the Jib.


As i said before, the sheets are run back to the last block on the rail.  I usually use the staysail turning block as I don’t fly the staysail and Code-0 at the same time.
The next picture is the blocks used to run the furling line to the cockpit.   I usually wrap the lazy side of the line to the cleat between the two winches on the starboard side.   This puts enough tension to allow me to take down the sail (top down furling requires tension on the lazy side of the furling line).   These blocks open and close (push and twist) and I always run the active furling line on the top side and the lazy line on the bottom (makes life easier but you have to make sure you do it the same way every time you deploy the sail.  Sorry for the dirty deck (i just cleaned the anchor chain of all the sea moss and oysters)


The next picture is of the furling system, there large shackle that is used to connect the bottom to the anchor roller.  *i should clean that shackle*   The blue line is the continuous loop furling line  (about 80ft so it can be run two the cockpit).

The last picture is of the top side of the furling system (Ronstan top down furling).  There is spectra line to hold the foot of the sail to the furling system and the thick black line is the luft line that the sail is sewn into.  Since it is mounted on the anchor roller, the sail is about 2 feet from the furling system so that it clears the pulpit.

I saw a cute puppy come off the shopping taxi today at Whisper Cover while I was there for lunch and laundry. I pet the dog a few times. About 10 min later I went up to the bar to get a beer and the puppy was there. I reached down to pet her/him and then I picked her/him up (about 8lbs of fuzz). The man next to me yelled at me and grabbed the dog away from me saying that I was not to pick up his dog. He stormed off cursing and made lots of obscene gestures and noises. I turned to the woman on my right (his wife) and said I'm sorry. She said it's not your problem it's his. If he treats his dog like this, I wander what is wife's life is like.
Wow some people have serious problems!

The past two weeks have been cooler than the previous 6 months. Last night the temps dropped in the boat to 75deg F. I had to use a sheet to stay warm. I hope we have a few more nights like that ahead. I don't like winter, but I sure do love a cool night.
Today I went to the ministry building in Grenada to extend my visa. Cinco's paper work is in St. Vincent, but not Jupiters. Don't go to the ministry complex on Monday! I had to stand in line for over an hour to pay my $25. They have to print a load of paper and each piece has to be signed, stamped and filed. I'm not sure what the folks ahead of me were paying for, but it took multiple stamps and paper. My visa renewal required 3 stamps and several pieces of paper at the treasury… plus more stamps and paper at immigration. Next time I'll do it on Wednesday.
Since I was on that mission, I also went into the City of St. George and putzed around a bit. I did some shopping and then hopped the Woburn Bus back home where I had a couple beers at Whisper Cove before going back to see the pups on the boat. The most important thing is that I got more frozen chicken for puppy Jambalaya!!! They will be happy for that.

I went to the Jab Jab village again, but this time was for a traditional christmas feast. Wow it was a great celebration. Nikki and Jamie went shopping yesterday. They picked up a young pig and put it in the trunk of the car then did lots of other shopping. Nikki said the car broke down twice and she had the hear the pig squealing in the trunk. Oh that pig was yummy.
They boiled on hind quarter in salt water for the sliced ham with home made rolls. We also had calalou, slaw, potato salad, bread fruit salad, stuffed and roasted bread fruit, BBQ chicken, BBQ lambis and black cake. Black cake is like fig cake but denser and with a bottle for red wine and two bottles of OP rum poured over it. The rest of the pig was roasted in two different seasonings, one with hot peppers, the other with garlic and sage. Just getting home now at 10:30 PM after leaving at 1:00 today. So here are a few pictures of the food and once shot of some of the gang there to eat. Starting with Black cake.

The most important language to lean for the Caribbean is English then French followed by German. I never realized how important my French would be until traveling down here.
The French islands are great, good food, good shopping and pet friendly! Spanish is almost never heard in the islands.

We had pukey's and poopies all over the boat for the past two days. He is much better now. I have to go the butcher to get some veal today. Yummy. I went on Wednesday but the butcher said the veal was not aged. So later today I expect to get some aged veal.
I have to get gas for the dink today so I will be heading to Secret Harbor after noon today to fill the cans. St. Vincent has Cinco's paper work but not Jupiters…. Still waiting for that before we head north in the Christmas winds. Varnish is slow as he has rained every day. I'll do some sanding today but no varnish.
I'm going to the Jab Jab village this Sunday for Christmas food and fun. It should be great. This time I'll be able to do the hike up the mountain for some pictures as my foot is all better now.

St. Vincent has Cinco's papers but not Jupiter's papers. So I renewed the cruising permit today for another month and will have to extend my visa for another month next week. Hopefully the paper work will be in place some time in the next week or two so we can head out to the Grenadines. Rain today again so not much varnishing done. My foot is feeling great so I'll hop on the radar pole and reinstall the top plate. Had curried tuna on Grateful last night before we went to Nimrods for the music and beer.

Raining all morning. This has delayed the varnish, but filled the water tanks. Done with the antibiotics and my foot is doing well so far. I'm still waiting for the paper work for the puppies before we move on. I also have to mount the new stainless steel modification for the radar pole.

Yeh, it will be nice to be off the antibiotics. I still have some soreness in my foot but no signs of infection. The dogs and I have gone to the beach a couple times this week - I feel comfortable getting my foot wet in salt water.