Talk like a Pirate Pirate Day

We’ve been waiting for it all year – today it’s finally here: Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s real, every year on 19 September. Since our friend Bill introduced us to the holiday in 2016, our pirate vocabulary has evolved way beyond “Aye” and “Avast”. Early in the morning I can wake Ka up with “Arrr, let’s get together and haul some keel”. Great, a whole day of nothing but swearing sounds and rum from the barrel. 🙂

In 1995, the day was invented by John Baur (“Ol’ Chumbucket”) and Mark Summers (“Cap’n Slappy”) to honour the “golden age of piracy”. Well, there’s also “Chocolate Day” and probably an inevitable anniversary of the bagpipe. Ka then also dedicated the cover picture to this special day of remembrance. Pirate Day

Grenada – the going get tough

We are still happy with our choice of Grenada as a hurricane shelter. Even though it’s about to get nastier. September is statistically the peak month in the hurricane year. A powerful depression and a tropical wave are currently building up on the Atlantic, coming from Cape Verde. Both are sure to get a name soon. But we are safe here, because both will pass on a northerly course and leave us in peace.

Ka and I have established a new ritual. We get into the dinghy at around 8.00 in the morning and jet off for 10 minutes to the exceptionally beautiful beach of Grand Anse. Often our dear Norwegian friends Nina and Eirik join us. Then we swim until shortly before 10 am in the crystal clear water and head back. At 10.00 am the beach is closed. Sounds stupid, and it is. But it has a reason.

Brilliant Corona Strategies

As surprised as we were by the first “Talk like the Pirate Day”, the Grenada government was also surprised by the sudden and completely unexpected outbreak of corona. Who could have foreseen or even prepared for this?

Two years was nothing, not the slightest wave. Now the infections are popping up. Hospitals are overflowing and the death toll is reaching village size. Right now, no island in the Caribbean is worse off.

Bad enough. In fact, there are still cognition-impaired people who think C19 is a hoax and rail against vaccinations. If only there were vaccinations against stupidity. So here we are, two years behind the rest of the world. Not surprising for normal people. The Grenadians like it close, for example in a crowded bus. Vaccination is the devil’s work and if the pace continues like this, the 110,000 inhabitants will not be fully vaccinated for another year.

The Delta variant was described by Grenada’s medical director as “completely new”, but still (hear, hear) dangerous.

Thanks god, there is a creative government here. The closure of the already empty beach from 10.00 a.m. did not really solve the problem. Then a lockdown was imposed last weekend and this weekend. No one is allowed out – not us from the marina. Restos, shops and just everything is closed.

And next weekend comes the highlight of creativity and presumably the solution to the problem: all people are to pray for two days to drive out C19. Prayer days, why has no one come up with this brilliant idea yet? The rest of the world will surely watch with the greatest interest to see how effective this strategy works. The world press will surely report.

We’ll try crossing our fingers then. Unfortunately, we are also limited in our freedom of movement and of course we stay away from people. But with Georgie we have a super nice and above all vaccinated driver who takes us everywhere.

When we are allowed out of the marina again on Monday, we will continue our beach swimming programme. We will try out how well you can swim with your fingers crossed. /Holger Binz