Fishermen's Birthday (St. Peter & St. Paul) in Gouyave

July 1, 2006    Saturday

Grenada

One of the other cruisers arranged a group trip on June 29^th to the Fishermen’s Birthday celebration at Gouyave, which is a fishing village on the western side of Grenada about 2 hour drive from our marina.  Gouyave is the fishing capital of Grenada.  The Fishermen’s Birthday is an annual celebration that is held in many fishing communities all over the world.  It is not a specific date each year, nor is it even a specific day.  Different communities hold their celebrations on different days.  It originated as a religious celebration, the fishermen being Peter and Paul; but it really seems to have no religious connection anymore at least here on Grenada.

It was raining the day of our trip, but that was a positive thing because we would have died in the direct sun all afternoon.  The rain helped cool things down quite a bit.  They had several displays of the various fish caught that day (I have uploaded some photos), and lots of food for sale like all festivals (but the types of food were nothing like we would have back in the states).  Bill and I wandered around and finally found a tiny restaurant that actually had 3 tables and a few chairs so we could sit down to eat rather than standing outside in the rain.  We weren’t very adventurous in our meal selection—shrimp fried rice—something we could identify.

They had huge, HUGE, stereo speakers lining both side of the narrow main street; and were playing them all at full volume.  Judy had to cover her ears just to walk down the street because it hurt.  Bill didn’t feel the pain in his ears (buy, hey, we all know he is half-deaf anyway), but he could feel the vibration all inside his chest.  These speakers were way, WAY, WAAAYYYY too loud for comfort.  So loud that we couldn’t understand one syllable of what was being sung.

There were supposed to be sailboat races that day as part of their annual celebration, but there was absolutely no wind so the races were finally called off.  There was a little girl on the beach who kept posing for photos.  She had the longest and curliest eyelashes of any human that we have ever seen.  When she tired of posing for photos, she turned to our group and said:  “I am going into the sea.”  And away she went; to torment the little boys playing at the waters edge.  She was a cute little thing with lots of personality. 

We left just at dusk and it looked like things were going to really start hopping around there.  There were even more truckloads of huge speakers being delivered and set-up along the streets.  Definitely glad we left before the volume got any worse.  Bet at least half the people in that town have hearing damage.

Last night we had another Pot Luck Dinner here at the marina.  There was a large turn-out and a lot of fun. 

We took down our awnings yesterday in preparation of moving on to Trinidad.  Boy, do we notice the increase in interior temperature without the awnings.  Judy has been ready to go for days.  She is getting stir-crazy just sitting here.  It is time to go sailing!!!!!   At this time we think we will leave next Wednesday; but it truly just depends on the weather.

Tomorrow is the Fishermen’s Birthday celebration here in Clarke’s Court Bay.  We have invited Tony and Linda from S/V Amazing Grace to come over to our boat to watch the races.  We are the last boat on this dock so we have a perfect view of the entire bay.