Papa yo! Ah gone! - A Belated Farewell to Grenada
I was in Grenada for 30 days, and I posted a few blurbs while I was there, but nothing that really described my impressions of being on the island. I am back in San Francisco now and the tyranny of the urgent is setting in, so I will only be able to do one post to sum up my Grenadian experience. I’m limiting it to words that start with ‘B’, forcing the egregious omission of Kirani James, Soca (“soca does give meh meh powers!”), GH3, fruit, and most egregious of all, rum.
The Buses
Riding the buses was actually one of the most delightful experiences I had while I was in Grenada. It was the complete antithesis of the cold, impersonal independence and personal space that Americans are used to.
Picture a boxy vehicle about the size of a minivan, many of them with nice paint jobs and gleaming chrome rims. Now picture everything behind the driver’s seat stripped out and replaced by four relatively spartan bench seats. Except for the one in the back, all of benches have a single folding seat at the end nearest the van’s sliding door; this allows passengers to move to benches near the back of the bus.
Now imagine 20 people in a vehicle that only has seating for 7 in the U.S., then consider that none of these buses have – brace yourself – air conditioning. Mercifully, there are three windows on each side of the bus that actually do a pretty good job of funneling a breeze around the passengers, at least while the bus is in motion…
All bus routes start at the bus station in St. George’s, and the various bus routes almost never cross each other, which means one has to go all the way to St. George’s to change to another bus line. This is due more to the topography of the island than anything else; there are simply very few roads that intersect on the island, at least outside of the parish of St. George.
It’s usually hot, and most passengers have a job or school to be at, so the buses careen along the narrow roads at a terrifying clip. The driver taps the horn as he rounds curves and corners to let potential riders know that a bus is approaching. While there are official bus stops, simply raising one’s hand whenever one hears a bus horn is enough to make the driver stop the bus and the conductor throw open the sliding door.
Getting on the bus is a relatively straight forward affair. When the sliding door opens, one simply plunks down in an available seat, unless told otherwise by the conductor. I usually headed to the back of the bus, which was sometimes awkward, but I figured that since I was a tourist with no strict schedule, I’d get out of the way of folks who had some place to be. When possible, seats near the door and in the front next to the driver are reserved for plus-sized passengers.
The actual bus ride is a surprisingly intimate experience. If the bus is full (which is almost always), there are 20 people sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. The locals seemed a little more acclimated to the heat than me and therefore less prone to sweating, but there was plenty of moist skin contact regardless. On one bus ride, a young woman in a beautiful white dress – apparently on her way to some kind of social event – sat down next to me. I did my best to maintain a quarter-inch gap between us to avoid perspiring on her lovely dress.
Getting off the bus is where things get interesting. If the exiting passengers are near the door, then the process is simple. But if the exiting passengers happen to be sitting opposite the sliding door and/or near the back of the bus, then all the passengers between them and the door have to get up and step off the bus to allow them to exit. Once that is complete, everyone piles back in, the conductor slams the door shut, and driver roars off down the road. The locals are pretty adept at the process, and it doesn’t actually take as long as one might think.
Fares are XC$2.50, XC$3.00 on Sunday (approximately $0.80 and $1.00 US, respectively). Exact change is preferred, but if passengers don’t have it, then bills are passed amongst passengers to the conductor, who makes change, which is then passed amongst passengers back to the payor.
Many Grenadians aspire to having a car. In spite of cars being very expensive, the island already has too many of them. Traffic in and out of St. George’s slows to a crawl every morning and evening, and there is very little room or resources to expand the infrastructure to alleviate it. Marketing campaigns will no doubt make people feel ashamed that they have to suffer the indignity of riding the bus, but I hope the Grenadians recognize the insidious miseries that come with being dependent on autombile infrastructure before they abandon the intimate discomfort of their modest but effective transit system.
The Bars
Say what you will about alcohol, but the fact is it’s strongly correlated with socializing. After a busy day of getting work done on the boat, the evenings could be hot, boring and lonely, so I often ventured out (perhaps too often) to places I thought I’d have a decent chance of striking up a conversation. Here are some establishments I imbibed at, ranked in ascending order of memorable experience(s):
The West Indies Beer Company
While Coda was docked in Port Louis, another Outremer 51 named Black River docked right next door. Her owner, Doug, was very outgoing and helpful, and when the topic of what to do in Grenada came up, he said “Ah! You have to go ‘The Brewery’!”
It took a bit of Googling to figure out that ‘The Brewery’ was The West Indies Beer Company. I wasn’t too familiar with Grenada’s bus system at this point, and couldn’t figure out exactly how close the brewery was to a bus route, so I opted instead to take a Haylup rideshare from Port Louis.
The place was nearly empty when I arrived (it was after dark, but apparently still too early). There were a staggering number of taps, and it took me a few minutes to read through all the beer options on the blackboard behind the bar. I ordered a pale ale, a type of beer that I was missing from back home that had been unavailable at any locations in the voyage.
I inquired about food and was directed to a window opposite the bar. Feeling a little tired and awkward, I opted for the safe and simple choice of a burger and fries. I ordered another beer – this one more unique to the establishment – and waited for my food to arrive.
It was exclusively tourists and a few expats that trickled in as I ate my burger and sipped my beer. Since they were coming in as couples or groups, I didn’t see much opportunity for starting a conversation, so I wandered around the place a bit to have a look, then called up another Haylup ride to take me back to Port Louis. It might have been more enjoyable had I been with a group of friends, but as it was, the tourist/expat/college student vibe didn’t really work for me.
Nimrod’s Rum Shack
Wes had heard that Nimrod’s had live music on Thursday nights and suggested that as the night to try it out. By the time a Thursday rolled around, I had learned enough about the bus system to know that the #2 route would get me there, so I rode the #1 line into St. George’s and transferred to the #2. I let the conductor know that he would have to tell me where to get off the bus. There were a few snickers when some of the riders had to remind the conductor that he was supposed to have remembered where it was that I was going, so I ended up getting off the bus about 200 yards farther down the road than I should have.
Nimrod’s most certainly had rum, and it was most definitely a shack. It was built on a very uneven lot, and there were two places to order a drink: across a short, crowded bar just inside the front door that opened onto the road, or by climbing up a ladder to a small window at the end of the shack that sat on stilts where the ground sloped down away from the road.
I ordered a beer (at the bar, not the window), then went outside to see more of the place. Down the hill from the bar there was another ramshackle building that housed a kitchen; it was built around the trunk of a giant tree. Attached to the kitchen was a covered deck of sorts where some musicians were indeed setting up. There were picnic tables of varying sizes and quality between the deck and the street, so I sat there nursing my beer, wondering if I should have brought bug spray.
Nimrod’s is located at the narrow end of Woburn Bay, about 150 yards across the water from Clarke’s Court Boatyard and Marina (where Coda was hauled out of the water). It’s just up the hill from a dock where dinghies can be tied up, so it is an ideal location for the numerous people living on boats anchored out in the bay (for free!). The yachties started to roll in as the sun was setting, and the place was buzzing by the time it was dark (there isn’t much twilight in the tropics; it’s dark about 30 minutes after the sun goes down).
People got their drinks and ordered food from the kitchen and the picnic tables filled up. A brother and sister from the Vancouver, BC area and their Kiwi friend sat down at the table I was at, and we swapped stories from our recent sailing trips. The music finally got underway in essentially an open-mic format; the quality of the music got a little better with each new performer. A gentleman named Tom, who seemed very well known to the audience, was the best and final performer.
While there were noticeably more locals at Nimrod’s than the brewery, the whole place had the vibe of a clubhouse for retired senior expats who happened to live on boats. Other than the Canadians I spoke with, I didn’t get the impression that there were many people present who had recently done any offshore sailing, and it made me realize that having (or living on) a boat is not the same as sailing a boat, and that I preferred to be around the sailors rather than the liveaboards.
By the time the music was done, the buses were no longer running, so I was left with the more expensive option of a Haylup back to Port Louis.
The Cruisers Galley
I didn’t exactly realize what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to stay on the boat while it was taken to Clarke’s Court Boatyard and hauled out of the water. The boatyard is a long ways from anything, so walking anywhere wasn’t really an option. Nimrod’s was across the water, but that would mean using Coda‘s dinghy to get to and from, and I wasn’t really comfortable with that (after the engine conking out in St. Helena, I didn’t completely trust it). There was also the issue of having no air conditioning while the boat was out of the water (the A/C heat exchanger relied on salt water being pumped over the coils to remove the heat).
The Cruisers Galley was a restaurant and bar located within the boatyard, situated between where the boat hoist hauled vessels out of the water and the docks of the marina. Captain Andre and I had breakfast there when we first arrived with Coda and waited for her to be pulled from the water.
It became clear on my first afternoon in the boatyard that the heat was going to be an issue. Sitting in the sun all day with very little air circulation meant that the interior of the boat turned into an oven. The sweat poured off of me even while sitting still reading a book. I really was leary of finding a place for a cold beer that might turn into a habit, but sitting in a puddle of my own sweat every afternoon didn’t seem like the best way to help the resale value of the boat, so off to the Galley I went.
Due to where it was located, the Galley had a fantastic breeze blowing in from Woburn Bay. Not only did that keep things cool, it also kept the mosquitos away (another problem I had staying on the boat). There were other yachties having work done on their boats, security guards, boatyard workers and even some locals that frequented the place. One evening, the owner of the boatyard and the owners of several of the vendors (some of which had lost almost everything in the recent fire) gathered at the bar.
The kitchen served breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the most part, I was only there in the evenings, but occasionally I would order a coffee in the morning. On Monday mornings, local vendors would use the restaurant tables to put out fresh bread, fruit, yoghurt, canned goods and other food items for sale to the folks staying on their boats in the yard or out in the bay. There was a free pool table in one corner, so Wednesday evenings were lively for a couple hours while a group of yachties shot pool and drank beer. A very talented husband-and-wife duo performed live music at least one night while I was there.
The staff was obsessed with music, so they were forever selecting music to play on the big-screen TV. Reggae, Dancehall, and (my favorite, in case you hadn’t guessed) Soca were all played each afternoon and evening. It seemed like they knew the words to every song, and I would pepper them with questions about the various artists and the locations of the live performances. They poured a very generous rum punch, and since the place closed at 9, I had no choice but to be in bed fairly early every night (by which time the boat had cooled off enough for me to sleep).
It was the type of place that wasn’t particularly remarkable if only visited once, but its charm revealed itself over the 10 days I was at Clarke’s Court, and it was a blessing and a relief to be able to have some place to go while I was stuck in the boatyard.
Dappa’s (De Everything Place)
This bar was an absolute dive. It was also the site of one of my favorite experiences in Grenada.
I first entered Dappa’s with my daughter, sister and brother-in-law as we wandered through St. George’s on a hot, sleepy Sunday afternoon. There were no cruise ships in port and almost everything was closed, but Dappa’s had a sandwich board out front with a menu, so we decided to pop in. Unfortunately, they had run out of food, so we bought some Pink Tings and struck up a conversation with the proprietor. He mentioned that he’d spent 30 years in Boston, but had returned to Grenada after having had enough of living in the U.S. He gave us directions to a nearby (very Grenadian) restaurant that was open, so we finished our Tings and filed out to get ourselves lunch.
After the family had returned home and I was still getting my bearings on the island, I decided to return to Dappa’s in hopes of talking with the owner again to see if he had any recommendations about what I should (or shouldn’t) do while I was on the island. He was there when I walked in the door, so I ordered a beer and introduced myself. As we chatted, he would occasionally converse with four guys playing pool on a well-worn pool table. They seemed Caribbean, but something told me they weren’t Grenadian.
I watched them play for a bit, nodding in approval when one of the players who was quite a bit better than the others made a good shot. At the end of one game, they asked if I would like to play, so I set down my beer and picked up a short, battered cue.
It took a bit to get some conversation going, but when I learned that they were crew members on a container ship that was currently unloading in St. George’s and they learned that I had arrived in Grenada after crossing the Atlantic, the floodgates opened. We played game after game of pool, accompanied by round after round of beer. Three of them were from Guyana, and the pool shark was from Honduras. The boat they worked on hauled cargo between Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and (I think) Dominica. We made some good shots (cheers) and some bad shots (laughter), talked about home, and what we did on the boat. The Honduran and I did our best to help the Guyanans improve their game, but it seemed to have little effect.
By then it was closing time for businesses in the area. More and more locals came into the bar, and the reggae music from a seven-foot sound tower near the front door got louder and louder. Some of them looked to be rough and tumble characters that worked on the waterfront, and a couple of them were pool sharks. They put down coins to get in line for the pool table and had no trouble taking control of the table against the Guyanans. I ended up playing a few games against them. I shot pretty well, but I scratched on the 8-ball in a couple games. Being the only white guy in the place, it didn’t hurt to show some skill but still lose.
The place started to empty out around 7 o’clock, when the buses stop running. I hung around to play a few more games of pool, then ended up having a candid conversation with the owner. He was a man of imposing stature, and I had observed through the evening that he kept a tight rein on what was happening in his establishment; anything other than unwinding and having fun was met with a glare and a few stern words (usually out of earshot of the other patrons). Had it not been so, I might have quickly found myself out of my depth.
The Boat
For my first 10 days in Grenada, while friends and family were still on the island, I was essentially a tourist. It’s OK to relax by the pool and go sight-seeing, but the interaction with the locals tends to be at arm’s length in that context. Taking care of the boat gave me an opportunity to interact with Grenadians in a way that wouldn’t have been available otherwise, and so Coda was really a catalyst for some much more personal interactions that made me really appreciate the island.
Everyone that I interacted with was proud of Grenada, and was keenly aware that their reputation as a safe place full of friendly people that did good work was critical to the health of their economy. To get a sense of individuals, and because I don’t want to forget these people, I thought I would record their names here, and how they helped me:
- Thaddeus - he did varnish work on Coda (and several other boats in Port Louis). A former Rastafarian converted to Seventh-day Adventist, he was a farmer when he wasn’t doing varnish work on boats. I gave a donation towards his efforts of obtaining kidney dialysis for people on the island too poor to afford it.
- Patrick - he lived on a boat while building another boat, his 25th boat-building project. He was a boat guy. Coda had some knicks and dings in her gel coat, as well as flecks of paint that were apparently overspray while she was out of the water in Cape Town. Patrick visited the boat many times to address those issues. He could be a little prickly, but he did good work to get Coda looking her best again.
- Lucy - an assistant to Patrick who was only on the boat for one afternoon, but she left an impression. She had worked for many years as a housekeeper for a very wealthy family in New York, and sent her wages back to Grenada to put her son through college, who was now a successful accountant. She had the whitest teeth I think I’ve ever seen, which gave her a radiant smile. She stopped working for several minutes to tell me about her life and to warn me that chasing money was no good, that happiness came from hard work, living simply, and growing one’s own food. She was very convincing.
- Terry - when asked for recommendations for someone to look at technical issues on the boat, Terry’s name came up over and over. He was impossible to get ahold of, and yet, one afternoon he and his crew just showed up at Coda in Port Louis. They caught me a little flat-footed, but together we tore the boat apart looking at fresh water and electrical issues. If you’ve ever wondered what it might look like if a tall, skinny white guy and a group of hardcore rap artists were crawling around on a boat, well, that was the scene, but they absolultely knew their stuff. The only time I ever walked in and out of Clarke’s Court boatyard, Terry happened to be driving by and stopped to give me a ride back to the boat.
- Martin, Glocky (sp?) and Donson - While the boat was out of the water, these three guys polished all of the gel coat and stainless steel on the boat. I had beers with Glocky and Donson on the day they finished up, and it turned out that Donson was a striker for the Grenadian National Men’s Football Team. I ran into Martin one afternoon in St. George’s, and he helped me find a place to get a haircut. On the day we set sail for St. Martin, he arrived at the boat with a papaya, two dozen bananas, some delicious sapodilla, and a dozen of the best tasting white grapefruits I think I’ve ever had, all from his backyard.
- Father Ambrose - a Russian Orthodox hieromonk (a monk who is also a priest) living alone on the island. The last Sunday I was in Grenada, he and I celebrated the Divine Liturgy together (just the two of us). Afterwards, he offered me lunch, which included my first and only cup of sea moss. After lunch, we walked together around his neighborhood. Being the only Orthodox priest on the island, many people seemed to know who he was.
- Lorenzo - he was a bartender at Cruisers Galley, a drummer and a passionate farmer. He had one acre of land where he raised fruit, vegetables, pigs, sheep and goats. He had hopes of buying another acre of land, but he said things were getting expensive. He was also an encyclopedia of Caribbean music and cheerfully answered my many questions. We played a couple games of pool together.
- Rachel, Lydia and Biggie - also on the staff at Cruisers Galley. I didn’t get to know them as well, but they were always friendly whenever I was there.