Starting With a Bang, Ending In Exhaustion

I had this great idea, at least that's how this all started out...

I've been bored lately. Surprise surprise that accounting and statistics are not keeping me at the edge of my seat. So last week I finally got off my bum and went for a bike ride. Boredom was gone instantly and replaced with a nice large smile. Even though I've been about as active as a sack of potatoes, I decided my next trip would be a big one. I set my sights (my great idea) on looping up the west coast, crossing the island and returning through St. George's or better yet riding to the peak in Grand Etang. Bob and I got close to there once by accident, I can surely make the "little" extra bit to the top, right???
Emailing my cycling buddies we set today as the day to go for our adventure. Bob and I were to meet at the white tire, which is a round-about of sorts at the entrance to Lance Aux Epines, about a 5-10 minute ride from our places. I headed out very happy to finally get this great idea, (and in turn my mental happiness), up and going. I took the Monte Tout road (at least that's what I call it, since it doesn't have a name) because it's by far the most direct route. It's also the single most avoided road I know of on this island due to the insane things you have to deal with (goats, kids, chickens, church goers, balls, dogs and on and on litter the streets and pop out from behind everything). I navigated the road fine getting past the many odd looks and pesky parked cars in the middle of the road. Then the fun began... This road has a short but steep decent into a very large round-about. At the junction of the road with the round about is a metal grate which covers the entire width of the road... well ALMOST the entire width. About three feet from the left edge the grate stops, 1.5 inches later it starts again with a small two foot piece of grate. It's quite important to note that the grate has one 1.5 inch gap between each slat. So as I was approaching this intersection (on the left side because we're just weird like that down here), a car just parked itself at the entrance on the right side. Without a second's hesitation a bus (aka minivan) buzzed around it and right at me. This didn't really faze me much as I partially expected it (driving in Grenada is WAY crazier than in the US). I plotted my new route skirting the left side of the road to avoid getting hit and to try not to hit the many limers.
(Limers = people hanging out doing nothing)
I perfectly executed my route fitting my 1.5 inch wide tire directly into the 1.5 inch wide gap between the grates. The whole world came to a VERY sudden stop at this point. I went up and over to the left (thankfully not into the bus) bringing my bike with me. After finding myself in a tangled mess of bike and my own limbs I eventually got my self free and back on two feet. My first priority was getting out of the road. I tried to pull my bike up unsuccessfully and found I had to dislodge it from the grate. At this point I noted that the bottom of my front rim was perfectly vertical (in the gutter) while the rest of my bike and the top two thirds of the rim were at about a 45 degree angle from the ground.... hmm yes we've got a problem. Getting the bike free I discovered the front rim was so tweaked that it wouldn't even roll as it was jammed up against the brakes. There were probably 8 or so locals that were all very friendly asking if I was OK, it was much appreciated, albeit with a little bit of cynicism seeing as these are the same guys who shouted "hey baby!" at Megan (with me at her side in the car) just the day before.
I stiffly walked the rest of the way to the white tire so I could meet Bob. After telling and showing him the bad news I suggested he continue on and ride without me, which he did. I disengaged the brakes which made it barely possible to roll my bike, so I slowly walked my way back towards home. I got an offer to sell my bike which I found humorous considering it's state, but told the guy no. At the very same spot in which I had so rudely been introduced to the cement a bus driver shouted out something at me which I promptly ignored and continued walking. (Similar to the comment to Megan, things are shouted constantly which are best just ignored). A guy on the side of the street also shouted something at me, all I could pick up on was something to do with "fix-it". The bus zipped past me then parked and the driver got out. ... My first instinct was to try to quickly figure out how this guy was planning on screwing with me. So I had my hesitations to say the least. The driver came up to me and said he could fix my wheel. I looked at him feeling dumbfounded and thinking to myself "uh yeah and you can turn water into wine, sure uh huh". He kept insisting that he had the tools to fix this and that he used to own a bike shop. The first guy backed this guy up agreeing that he could in fact fix my wheel. At this point I figured "ah what the hell, this'll make for an interesting day...". I agreed and loaded my bent up bike into his van. I mentioned to him that I had some spare spokes at home (a random but very lucky purchase to bring down here). He dropped me off at my apartment complex and said he had to go change vans. He zoomed off with my bike.
I whipped out my iPhone in a last ditch effort to know what the van he was driving looked like as you can see above as his silver van zooms off. I was left wondering how good of an idea this was at this point. I didn't have any contact info for this guy, not even his name. Hoping he'd come back as he said he would, I walked to our apartment, let Megan know I was off on an adventure, grabbed the spokes and walked back down to the road. About a minute later he drove up (thank god) in a different van.
We drove up to his place which was about five minutes outside the capitol of St. George's. Here he pulled the wheel completely apart, removing every spoke. I had spokes that looked more like corkscrews than their intended form. At this point I remembered that I had my iPhone on me which takes decent photos, but not wanting to be rude or intrusive I simply turned off the sounds to the phone and took one quick shot of Danny (the van driver) and his son taking my wheel apart.
Note the dirty, torn-up, bottom half of an ice chest in the background? That's what arrived when he asked his son to grab his "tool box". How I define things is constantly changing here... So getting back on point, I was very curious to find out what type of large press this guy had that he was going to use to bend my wheel back into shape. It turns out it was a 200 lb brute force press, aka he stood on the rim on his tile porch and pulled up on it bending it back into shape. I was shocked to see he had it almost back to normal already. He messed with it a little bit more and said the wheel would need to be in clamps for a few days to fix the the rest of it. Then he disappeared inside. To my surprise he came back with a complete mountain bike wheel and promptly put my tire and tube onto it. Danny told me I could borrow this wheel while mine was being fixed, then gave me directions on how to get to the peak in Etang Forest.
I was bruised up a bit and a few minor scrapes from the fall but nothing major. My biggest worry was my right knee which had a nasty egg forming on it from the crash. I decided that I really REALLY wanted to complete my ride, so I ventured off for Etang. It was a little odd to see what carnage my wheel had been through and to be up and riding again so soon, but it felt good to be in the saddle. I rode up and up, and up reaching the spot Bob and I had turned around thinking I was about 2/3 the way up to the peak. I continued on up and up and up and up after repeating that a dozen more times I realized Bob and I were still quite a ways from the peak.
Taking a break for a power bar and some water I took a shot of the scenery below...
Considering I started near where the water is in the background I had climbed quite a ways at this point ... but little did I know I still had a long ways to go.
A little self portrait showing I did actually bike up here (or drove with a helmet on!)
This is looking further up the road. This is pretty much what the entire road looks like. You never have any idea how many more corners there are ahead. Just past this point as I was peddling my way VERY slowly up this hill I heard rustling in the bamboo to my left and to my delight I saw three monkeys running around. Just as I was considering slowing to a stop to watch the play I realized the play was actually a dominance battle. After watching the obviously "alpha" monkey chase the other two off it started tearing through the trees in my direction. For what I hope is an obvious reason I chose to just keep on peddling and not stay to play with the monkey.

I pushed ahead and continued up and up getting many odd looks from passengers driving by in cars struggling to make it up the hills. The cars barely making it up the hills was a nice little pat on the back but the huge clouds of black exhaust they left behind filling my lungs were a little less than desirable. About 20 feet prior to the actual peak there is a look out point. The below photo is showing the view from this point.
The shrubbery make it not actually as nice of a shot as my previous scenic shot but the altitude is much higher which makes for quite a vantage point in person.
Well I think the above is pretty self explanatory. I made it to the peak, and although there are many peaks in CA that are much higher this was still a hell of a climb. I was very happy to have reached this point and needed the photo to prove it! If your curious why I've lost my sunglasses in this photo (which you probably weren't but I'll tell you anyways), they had gotten to such a lovely state of sweat saturation that I could no longer see through them! mmm yummy!

I remember when having gone to the monkeys previously that they were very close after the peak. I asked a tour guide who had brought some people to that outlook and he said oh yeah just around the corner and you'll see it right there. Well he was right, but he failed to mention there was a nice valley between that corner and the monkeys. Oh well what the hell, I pressed on knowing they had cold drinks there.
Reaching the area I keep referring to as the monkeys I got myself an ice cold Ting (like squirt), and a bottle of water. I proceeded to watch some tourists do their best to befriend the monkeys. If you look to the right of the guy with the white shirt on you'll see a monkey walking along the railing... in the opposite direction of the tourists. (This is a zoomed in portion of a photo from my iPhone so the quality is only so-so). Monkeys have one priority, bananas, when you run out they leave. Very simple, yet tourists still don't seem to get it.
After a few minute break I noticed storm clouds heading my way so I figured it was a good time to head home. Venturing back down this very steep windy hill became an adventure on it's own. I passed two cars and one large truck going down the hill. Yes I was going fast, but there are some fundamental differences in the physics of a two-wheeled vehicle going down a hill that a four-wheeled vehicle simply can't compete with. (Not to mention the adrenaline was quite a kick!) I found my self getting hit with a few rain drops in the beginning then they stopped, I'd hit a flat (slow) patch and the storm would catch up sprinkling on me a bit more. It was an interesting way of keeping track of my average speed.
Eventually I made it off the mountain and into St. George's, luckily for me it's dead on a Sunday. The storm unfortunately did not continue to follow me though and I started to bake. By the time I reached home I literally almost passed out.
Megan quickly helped me regain my strength while also providing the frozen peas for my knee and the frozen corn for my arm. Nothing like some good ol' veggies to help the swelling! I am exhausted, bruised, swollen, sore, and worn out to the fullest... but it was quite a fun adventure.

The Big 600 and the effects of Mud

This past Saturday the 4th of October marked the 600th Hash for the Grenada Hash House Harriers. Once again this has nothing to do with Cannabis. Although I did wander through a few questionable crops, I stick with my story that the plants were left un-harvested. For those not familiar with the basics of Hashing see an earlier post this year in ... March time frame ... i think.
Anyhow for one reason or another this past weekend's hash is only the second hash I've made it on thus far. Even on a little island like this life does get busy and unforeseen obstacles get in the way. I also purposefully avoided any hashes that were held around where we live. I see no point in walking the streets of areas i am familiar with, i like getting lost and covered in mud in the rain forest MUCH more. This 600th was perfect in that regard.

So on to the big day. This Saturday's event was preceded with a torrential down pour that lasted quite some time and provided some much needed rain. It also ensured that this hash was going to be VERY wet and muddy! Some people have asked me where the hash was held. You've got to remember that unless you're a local getting any more specific than the province you're in is essentially hopeless. The directions to get to the hash literally said follow this road until you get to the red gate, turn left there and go until you reach the white house with the green shutters... and on and on. No street names (or VERY few), no area names (such as such and such town), and "landmarks" that pretty much all look the same make getting places a little... interesting. So I cheated. I drove to where everyone was meeting to get rides, the Carenage, and just followed another car up to the hash location. Again I couldn't tell you for the life of me how we got there.

The hash spot was a very beautiful location. One of those multi-million dollar properties in the states which was owned by someone who probably paid less then 50,000 for it. (and probably a LOT less then that.) The picture below is where we parked. Take a look at the hills in the background, eventually I end up sliding and climbing my way across those hills, but I'll get to that later...
Below I turned around 180 degrees to face the party scene...
After wandering through those tents of beer, rum, and BBQ food I came to the edge of the hill to see this nice view...
Before the Hash "hounds" are released the unofficial officials say a few things, give a few hints for the Virgins, and generally try to give you the impression that it'll be a piece of cake with a smirk of glee. It's generally known that anything the person says about the hash is probably only 50% true at best. :)
One of the things being described by the guy in the goofy looking pose is the trail options. Normally there are one or two trails. Usually they are a walkers trail and a much longer runners trail. The idea being that the runners and walkers will finish about the same time. The "runners" trail can seldom actually be ran though and would be better named the difficult trail. This hash, being the special 600th hash had three options, the walkers trail, the runner's trail, the Oh-so-politically-correct-but-annoying-as-hell name of "Iron Persons" trail (as in Ironman). The Iron Person's trail was no longer than the runners trail, it was just much more technical. (aka, guaranteed to make a mess of you). My friend Bob and I decided to of course choose the most foolish trail and proceeded to do the Iron Person's trail.
And we are off! Above is a meadow we came to right off the bat. If you look closely you'll see just a little ways below the tree line dots of Hashers heading off into the rain forest. This was the last, and pretty much only flat ground we were to see.
Above is a site that was quite a surprise... horses! Contrary to popular belief there is more than just four or five horses in Grenada. This heard of 5 or so horses all had ropes of sorts tied around their necks to show they are "owned" but not tied to anything.
Above another shot of the horses, for those like my wife there can never be enough shots of the horses. Sadly the horses were pretty skinny even with all this grass which indicates parasite infestation. At least they seemed pretty happy! I am not quite sure what a Grenadian does with five horses in the middle of the rain forest but hey whatever it was a neat sight.

Below, this is the start of the "Iron Persons' "trail. There were a surprising number of hashers that chose to do this route as can be seen by the number of people ahead of me.
Below, a nice quick shot off the side of the trail seen above as we head up the mountain.
Below, now things are getting interesting... It's hard to see from this picture but the easy trail ended into a flat faced hill going practically straight up. With vines, banana leaves, and roots as our hand holds we started the true part of the trail, straight up!
Unfortunately from this point on it got so "interesting" that i couldn't take the camera out for a shot. I was always hanging on to something or sliding down some hill (not usually on my butt). So the following photos are of about the second half or so of the hash after we came out of the rain forest. Note the many buildings, all still topless and abandoned, I am assuming from Ivan.
Above this goat was sure to tell us LOUDLY and PROUDLY that this was HIS grass filled house.

Below, this goat decided that standing on top of this small brick pillar (much smaller than it looks) was a good vantage point to watch us humans trot by...
Above, baby goat! You can't help but go aaawwww...

Above, the remains of another house after Ivan...
Above, when walking past this plant I was overwhelmed with flashbacks of a familiar scent... Jasmine! Took a minute to put my finger on it, then I looked at this flower... hmm well yes it's white, and the rest of the plant is green but if this is Jasmine it's on steroids, SERIOUS steroids. This flower was over 4 inches across. As far as I am concerned this is the super jungle variety of Jasmine.

With the exception of the after party which had lots of Carib, rum punch, and all sorts of great BBQ food, that's the end of the pleasantries of the hash. I unfortunately chose the wrong pair of shoes for this monumental hash. I chose a pair of semi-closed sandals, kinda like crocs but material not rubber. Anyhow after getting off the mountain, about half way through the hash my feet were DYING! But it wasn't the bottoms of my feet, it was the tops... I was in mud up near my knees many many times while in the rain forest (and after), this mud was very gritty and easily found it's way into my sandals but not back out. A layer of mud formed under my feet which was similar to having a bar of soap in your shoes. My shoes would hit the ground but my feet didn't stop moving till they were crammed into one end or side of the shoe. Seeing as I was climbing on a steep slope this meant extremes, front back side to side. This constant movement inside the shoe mixed with rough sandpaper like mud ground the tops of my feet. I assumed I was getting blistered by the pain I was in. The solution? Ditch the shoes! Yes I am in a developing country with who knows what in the water and mud and therefore in my wounds but I didn't care. The pain was too great to keep on as I was. After removing sandals I actually did pretty well with the rest of the hash except for the pavement parts which to my wet tender city feet felt more like razor blades instead of rocks.
Below are my feet after the hash... I started to rinse them off, but just the water touching them burned so bad I decided a layer of mud caked on was just fine!


After I got home I showered of course seeing as i was COVERED in mud. Rinsing and scrubbing my feet below is what I found...

What you're looking at is more then 16 open wounds, and this is them looking at their best. For the sake of the reader I didn't take a photo yesterday or today (a day or two after the hash) as all those wounds looked a lot worse as they scabbed, oozed, and started to become infected. Luckily for me I've got a budding Doctor in the house! Although I don't have hooves, a tail, a rumen or fur she was still willing to save my poor feet. If the degree of sizzling from Hydrogen Peroxide is any indication of how infected or how much gunk is in a wound then I had quite a bacterial feast going on as my feet hissed and bubbled quite a bit! Something about all this brought out something I didn't know about my self, apparently I don't like watching my skin bubble and sizzle... I immediately got light headed and dizzy... :) Good proof of why Megan's the Dr. and not me. :) My feet are slowly on the mend now as I hobble around.

In case you're curious, was it worth it? HELL YES!!! Hashing is a TON of fun and I hope I am healed enough to do it again in two weeks! (this time with different shoes!)

ON ON!

The LOOM OF DOOM!

Any of you seen the movie Wanted? It just came out here in Grenada, which is where I experienced it. Other than that this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with Grenada.

So have you seen it? If you like thin plot action movies then you'll probably enjoy it.

I personally had a good time watching it but I've got a few thoughts on it as well. I am convinced this movie was the result of a late night drunken bet... "I bet you a case of beer you can't get a weaving loom into an action movie!... AND I'll bet you TWO cases you can't make the heroes a team of secret weavers!..."
A few years and a couple million dollars later we've got "Wanted".

We couldn't help but laugh as the entry story line rolls out onto the screen ".... a thousand years ago, a secret society of weavers was formed..." Weavers? Seriously?

As if all the imagination was worn out on the idea of the weavers this highly suspect very dangerous sounding society was called... "The Fraternity" DUN DUN DUN! Oh god watch out for the beer bong!

They of course had to blow up the "Loom of Fate" (should have been called the Loom of DOOM since you died if it wrote your name) in the end of the movie.

A lesson in tropical weather

After Ike, Hanna, and Gustav, the inevitable question Megan and I get from all those not on our little rock is "How are the hurricane's affecting you?". Simply answered, they are not. Grenada is south, WAY south. Why is that important? Well most storms form off the tip of Africa around the Cape Verde islands then head north west. The Cape Verde islands are a ways north of us, therefore storms generally pass above us and don't come anywhere near us. To demonstrate take a look at the below picture. (again thanks to stormpulse.com, except for my red editing lines).
Get the idea? So all is well and perfect right? Never a thing to worry about? ......

Well... sort of... Did you notice the large orange circle which encompasses Grenada (labeled as "St. Georges" since that's the capitol city of Grenada)? That would be a medium potential "disturbance"... a what? I've learned a lot about weather and one thing I've found is that these weather guys are very particular about the terms they use to describe tropical weather and few of them make logical sense, but here's the order in increasing level of severity...

Everything below is considered part of a "Tropical Cyclone" apparently the term for "severe" tropical weather.

A "Tropical Wave" WITH the right pressure areas create the first level noted by the National Hurricane Center, a "Disturbance"

Disturbances come in Yellow (Low less then 20%), Orange (Medium 20-50%), or Red (High greater then 50%) potentials for turning into a larger storm. Most that I have seen are low or medium and do not end up being anything.

Increasing slightly in formation and intensity would be a "Tropical Depression"...

Next is a "Tropical Storm" - when it reaches this level the storm has the great honor of being named. If you hadn't noticed they name storms alphabetically. The last storm was Josephine which means "K" is up next. Sweet! Time for a storm named Kris!

If things really start to get interesting (aka the wind speed exceeds 60mph i think), then the storm is classified as an official "Hurricane", there are Category levels 1 through 5, five being the strongest.

Wave>Disturbance> Depression> Storm> Hurricane
Got it? (reminds me a bit of the stages of grieving...)

For any of you from the gulf coast or Florida this is probably stuff you learned in 2nd grade, but for us Californians it's a WHOLE new language.

So... getting back to that orange circle around Grenada.... That is the result of weeks of hard dedicated rain dancing by yours truly, (the weatherman might not agree but he's crazy). We currently have a medium potential disturbance forming north west of us, which essentially means were getting a bit of rain and a nice cooling cloud cover layer for a couple days.

Now if you've been keeping up on this blog since the start you might be wondering "OK, if there are no storms there then what the heck is with all the buildings with no roofs???..... As much as Europeans my enjoy going topless, Grenada does not. Hurricane Ivan forced the subject upon this nation without even the slightest pause for consideration. Below is a picture showing the tracks of all Atlantic tropical cyclones for 2004. As you can see everything was starting much further south then the Cape Verde islands and moved straight west for some time before heading north, hence Grenada got hit for the first time in 55 years.
Hopefully this helps answer a few questions, if you fell asleep a few times on your way though try watching the weather on Fox next time, they'll surely keep you wide awake as they describe the end of the world with each coming rain cloud...

A little reverse logic and other odd bits

I've come across something down here that just doesn't make sense at first. When one is hot, you want a cold shower right? (now if you're Megan it'd be warm not scalding as usual). The idea being cooler water to cool you down. The thing is down here that logic does not work. Trust me, I've tried it again and again. "What's not to work about this?" you ask? Well you take a cold shower, which does feel REALLY great, but the second you hop out your body goes into shock due to the massive temperature increase and starts sweating profusely. Note this all happens in less time then it takes for you to even grab your towel to start drying off. So you finish a nice cold shower only to be covered in sweat... again. Even though it sounds crazy I've learned to take (fairly) hot showers. It's not exactly inviting but getting your self warmer makes the air feel cooler when you get out. It's a little bit of madness but the reverse logic works well. I get a good... oh.. 2 minutes or so before i am covered in sweat, which is much nicer then the .002 seconds with a cold shower. :) If you go straight from the hot shower (dry off) then just flop onto your bed, you can get a good 10 or 15 minutes of dry skin. The act of getting dressed always works up a good sweat. Aren't the tropics fun?
Jumping tracks to a totally different topic, I get asked many times what time zone Grenada is in. When I mention that it's in the Atlantic time zone, which is EST +1, everyone seems to be confused. Everyone pictures the entire lot of Caribbean islands directly south of Florida and curving west from their. Sorry to burst all your bubbles but your way off! To facilitate explaining this I took a snapshot of stormpulse.com's website because it does a good job of showing the US and all the little islands. (Note that the little spec of sand and dirt we live on is smaller then the bullet point to label it... comforting?) So see below...
You might have to click on it to enlarge it to see the details but essentially i drew a circle around NYC and drew a line straight down. As you can see Grenada (also in a red circle) is FAR to the east, hence the next time zone over. So does it make sense now? Hopefully it does... if not grab your self a globe with time zones on it, if THAT doesn't work then just forget it, those two or three brain cells left are probably put to better use.
The red circle on the far left of the US is about where Ventura/Santa Barbara CA is, our second home.
Oh and as you've probably noticed the large Gustav hurricane in the middle of the picture. This is as of 11pm Sat night. Gustav only gave us a tiny bit of rain and nothing interesting other then that. SGU and many others said Grenada is too far south for most the hurricanes and I am finding it to be very true. Everything seems to form off the coast of Africa at about 16 degrees north, near the Cape Verde Islands, then it moves west/north-west. Grenada is at 12 degrees north which means everything starts above us and moves further north. Very little to worry about. As strange as it sounds I do actually hope for SOME minor storm activity our way because the rain feels GREAT and drops the temps quite a bit.

Update: One thing I forgot to mention about the time zone difference. In Grenada, we don't observe Daylight Savings. So during the summer months when EST moves forward an hour we are at the same time, (such as right now). Come October when the time changes again for the US we'll be an hour ahead of EST.

Vehicle License

As many SGU students have found, it is very helpful to have a car around Grenada. Back in March Megan and I made the choice to purchase a Suzuki Escudo (aka Sidekick with right hand drive). I noticed when we purchased this little SUV that there was a good size sticker on the front windshield with an expiration date of June 30th clearly marked on it. As the end of our stay for term 1 came up I inquired about how to get our car re-registered before we left so it wasn't expired when we returned. I was told "You can't register a car early, do it when you come back." With this in mind we took off for CA thinking when we came back it'd be no big deal to get this taken care of.
Thursday (we flew in Wednesday) we drove over to the police station to get our drivers permits renewed. With how relaxed all of Grenada's laws are we didn't really see anything wrong with this. (Although it wasn't the smartest move we've made). We hadn't even gotten out of the car yet at the station when the fun began. A man approached us wearing jeans and an un-tucked polo shirt. People often try to make a buck buy 'assisting' tourists with common tasks in lou of a fee. Since we both already knew what to do to get our permits we tried to brush this guy off but he kept on rambling on in a sort of way which made me think he was more likely speaking Swahili then English. I did notice after a bit though that he started pointing at our 2007 registration sticker.... wait for it.. OH right of course! Then I noticed the words FINE and FEES coming out of his mouth. Feeling rather stuck and not sure whether to follow this guy or hop in our car and run the other way we chose to follow him into the police station as he didn't seem angry or show any intent to do us wrong. We got our permits to drive no problem. This guy speaking some local variation of English walk talking a million miles a minute to the police officers behind the counter. Eventually (after a LOT of talking), I finally figured out that when the "license sticker" NOT a "registration sticker" has expired Grenadian Police take is EXTREMELY seriously. "THAT VEHICLE IS NOT TO BE DRIVEN ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" What also came out of our uh.. discussion... was that we had to DRIVE the car to be inspected, and the inspection place closed in less then 15 minutes. So I can't drive it anywhere, but to get it licensed i must drive it... eventually it came out that the police must write me formal permission to drive my car from one location to the inspection location and back home with specific time limits. After getting this permission I asked "OK after I get it inspected, then what?" They said "DRIVE IT HOME AND PARK IT!!", followed by the previous rant of not driving the car anywhere. The police told me I had to walk back down to the police station Friday morning to get ANOTHER permission from them to drive the car to the Carenage (15 minute drive north near the capitol) to pay for the sticker and pick up the sticker.
Megan and I zoomed off to the inspection thankful they didn't fine us for driving around in such a DANGEROUS car. Obviously any car with an expired license is likely to explode at any second killing thousands. We got the car inspected at what was a typical Grenadian style joint. Picture a warehouse with a few broken down cars parked at odd angles and brush growing up through the hoods and interior. Then add the general scene of a chop-shop, add a some rust, and throw in one large black man with his feet up on a desk leaning back watching a "LIVE FOX News! AMAZING CAR CHASE!!". Some moron in Texas decided he didn't want to stop when the cops wanted him to and this Grenadian Inspection guy had a hard time un-gluing his eyes from this spectacle to even acknowledge we were there.
The inspection went fine other then our horn not working which is odd as it worked perfectly fine prior to our departure, (and started working again today). We drove back to the police station since our permission didn't expire for another 45 minutes. I showed them the green inspection report and that everything had passed after a police lady took it from us looked it up and down with her nose in the air. I asked if I could get permission to drive the car to get the sticker tomorrow morning. The police refused again and again, "we can NOT give permission today for tomorrow".... my reply "but the permission is hand written with the date and time frame the permission is valid for?" They didn't care. Eventually one more mellow police officer chimed in (I think sensing the stupidity in this) and said "sorry it's just protocol". So we left annoyed.
I got up early-ish Friday since I had a work meeting at 11 which I was hosting. I rode my bike back down to the police station to get the permission to drive to get the license sticker. I was greeted by a new group of officers. In their typical fashion they accuse me of doing everything wrong until I prove otherwise, and even then they look at me with contempt and suspicion. I was asked immediately "HOW DID YOU GET HERE!" I replied, "with the bike parked right there". (the sweat dripping from my forehead, the nice three ridges of hair which my helmet formed, and the sweat everywhere else apparently wasn't enough indication). "WHY! do you want permission?!?" We continued round and round for a while and eventually got to the point where this police man just didn't feel like giving me permission. He told me to walk, or take a bus. "Why don't you ride your bike?" me, "because it's a long ways and I was told to come back here to get permission from you". He never gave me permission. I turned around and left frustrated and saying something along the lines of "this is REALLY stupid" which was followed by a shout out "WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!"

The laws in Grenada are simply each police person's opinion. They may be written down but that doesn't matter because no one would ever bother to reference them. Every cop has the authority to dictate the law as they see fit, or to what fits there mood. This guy apparently felt lazy and didn't like me so he was a pain in the ass.

The ONE good piece of information I got out of this encounter was that the office with the stickers closed at 3pm, just enough time for me to finish my meeting and catch a Reggie bus to the Carenage.

When I arrived at the appropriate building in the Carenage I asked at the front desk on the first floor, where do I go for the license stickers? She kindly replied second floor. Thanking her we went up stairs and I was quickly reminded that there are two main areas up stairs as this is the same place I had paid for the transfer of title in March. Megan stood in line for us as I went back down stairs to get clarification since the line was LONG and slow moving. "Do we stand in the line up front or go around back to the offices?" When I was here in March we stood in line only to find out we should have got straight to the back offices first. She said, "go straight to the offices". Great! so I went back upstairs, pulled Megan out of line and we went to the back offices. We found the correct unlabeled desk and asked about a license sticker. "You need to stand in line and pay for it first, then come back to me." ugh... OK so back to the front we went. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, paid the license fee which was $260 EC... about $100 USD. While paying we noted a sign on the glass "$500.00 fine or 3 MONTHS prison time for expired registration... EEEK!!! We got the sticker and I noticed the expiration still said June 30th. I asked why and he said "You're LATE!" I asked "Well I was gone all summer and I was told I could not pay early. Can I pay this early next summer so I am not late next time?" The reply, "You can only pay between May 16th and June 30th." Me, "can I move the due date to be earlier so I can pay it on time?", "No."
So NOW I get it, Grenada has so many levels of bureaucratic "protocols" that no one has any idea why they are the way they are (nor do they care), nor any authority to question them (much less change them).
We now know the hoops to jump through, regardless of how silly they may be Grenada's police force apparently takes auto insurance, and license stickers VERY seriously. As a side note though hopping into the drivers seat with an open bottle of beer in your hand is totally A-OK, as is hanging off the back of any vehicle driving down the road. Drinking at any age is apparently totally acceptable. Cars that spew out more smoke then a coal power plant get the green thumb, and vehicles which generally look like they are about to fall into a million pieces pass inspection year after year.

It must be a Grenada specific requirement for all cars, a self destruct mode which activates with an expired license sticker. This of course would cause far more devastation they the hundreds of drunk drivers or people hanging off of cars.

It could have turned out much worse, but it still wasn't exactly a walk in the park either.

ahh the Caribbean life, isn't it great?!

Grenada Take 2!

Term 2! Second term on the little spec of dirt in the Carribean.
First impressions? HOLY CRAP IT'S HOT!!! So we left fairly well adjusted to the temperatures down here, returning after three months in relatively cool CA the adjustment back into Grenada's temperatures and humidity has been hard on our systems. The last term, aka the "dry season", varied in temperature from about 78-83 and around 60% humidity. Comparatively we are now in the "wet season" and the temps are 81-88 and humidity 65-100%. (so far, three days into our stay here) So the numbers indicate only a slight change yet it seems like a massive difference.
It was REALLY nice to come back to an apartment already setup and waiting for us, we had to pay rent over the summer which stunk but having all our stuff setup ahead of time was GREAT!
On the flight down here in January we watched with amazement as lots of SGU students sat very relaxed on the plane and chatted as if they were just traveling to the next city over, not thousands of miles around the globe onto an underdeveloped island in the Caribbean which had been major political unrest only 15 years prior, and devastated by Hurricane Ivan only four years prior. Now we get it. Although traveling makes Megan and I quite anxious we were far more relaxed and looking forward to getting "home".
Although Grenada is more "normal" now, it still ceases to amaze us and make us laugh. For example the first night out walking the dogs I came across a snail. "OK, so what?" you say. Well apparently in Grenada snails get a LOT bigger then in CA. The snail was just mozzing along through the grass. In what has become a normal blogging fashon the first thought I had was "Quick get a picture of this thing!"
As you can see above this thing was pretty darn big. The snail wasn't too fond of being picked up and hauled off his slimy path which probably took him hours to progress to. He's mostly up inside his shell in this photo but as you can see by my hand being right behind him, he's about 4 inches long and almost two inches in diameter. That's one BIG slime trail.

Remember that shower head I mentioned in one of my very first bloggs about Grenada? Well the fun hasn't ended. The shower head is designed to be threaded onto the water pipe so that it faces perfectly straight down. Whom ever installed it threaded it incorrectly and pointed it slightly down and towards the back wall, which convienetly has a faucet pointing out of it right at hip level. This made getting any part of our bodies from the hip level down wet quite a yoga act. Megan and I decided to ask again to see if we could get this fixed. "Oh sure no problem, how did you deal with that before?!?"... So while we were out the Electrician came and uh "fixed it". Now because it has 240V DC wired directly to it they called an electrician, even though the problem really has to do with the plumbing. Either way we returned to find our shower head looking like this...
At this point you might be saying "ok i don't get the hose thing but it looks ok to me." Lets take a closer look.
As you can see by the red lines it's still far from 90 degrees. At the point of this picture the shower head was still totally clogged up so the water fell with very poor pressure mostly straight down. I have NO idea how or why the Electrician thought it was a good idea to put the hose (see blue arrow) on the FRONT side of the shower head. This makes it impossible to actually get under the shower head to get wet. This used to be on the back side facing the wall with the faucet. Also note our favorite faucet in the red circle to which our hips bump into constantly.
So partially fixed one problem and caused another... ugh. This is when the engineer side in me takes over. Forget asking for help, if you want it done right do it your self. I took off the face of the shower head cleaned it out (see sand and other roof stuff, remember water recycling post?), and put it on with the hose facing backwards as it should be. Of course by unclogging it now the water pours through as it should with higher pressure and is right up against that lovely faucet again... lol! You've gotta just laugh or you'll go crazy. One of these days I'll get the courage up to just take the whole thing off, unwire it and do it all over, but until then we take Yoga Showers.
We're looking forward to another fun term in Grenada!

Summer Blur

I find myself sitting here on the same couch I did when I posted the last blog over three months ago. To say the last three months were a blur is an understatement. Megan and I flew back home to CA back in May (shortly after the turtle post). We stayed in my grandparents house since they spend the summers back in MI. It worked out quite nicely. Megan worked at Banfield this summer, which is a large corporate vet clinic chain that rents space inside Pet Smart. She grew to REALLY love her coworkers and the animals she worked with. Her feelings on their corporate protocols was a little less then excited but regardless it was a great summer job and good experience. It's funny having a wife as a Vet student, dinner discussions were usually about what color fluid projected out of this dog, or what psycho mental issue that cat had. I always knew it had been a good day when she'd come home with a big smile followed by "Guess what I did today!!!!". Her favorite days were when she got to draw blood and/or place a catheter. She was obviously born to be a vet, personally stabbing poor helpless little furballs and sucking out their blood isn't MY idea of a good time, but she seems to enjoy it. ;)
One of the highlights of the summer went about like this... Megan was at Banfield, near her last day. She mentioned to the techs (or "Pet Nurses" as Banfield calls them), that she thought it was odd that she was one of the only employees there that did not have a tattoo. "I am such a wuss I don't even have my ears pierced!". This last comment got everyone quite excited, immediately all the needles of various gauges came out and Megan's blood pressure sky rocketed. The staff "We've got sterile needles and Lidocaine!... We could strap you down to the surgery table!... What? You don't trust a Vet?" Megan left work an hour early that day after running around with her hands over her ears all day. (Her face bright red of course). There was talk of possibly buying a piercing gun and bringing it to the spa party that the staff was going to that following Saturday. Megan freaked. She's always wanted her ears pierced but never had the guts to get it done. We were perusing the local mall for other reasons when we decided to stop by one of the piercing kiosks. Our intentions were to purchase a set of earrings that could be used in a gun so she would at least have ones she liked if they did have a gun at the party. Unfortunately we could not purchase them because they came in some sort of spring loaded cartridge which was a liability. I threw out the option "Well... you could just get it done right now and not have to worry about it anymore..." Megan was still freaked but still more freaked about the idea of her friends who are not "professional ear piercers" puncturing holes into her body. "Well, I would have to have your mom here..." My mom who is always busy dropped everything she was doing and was by my side in just a few minutes. Megan feeling the pressure said Yes. She picked out some cute pink flower studs and sat down in the kiosk. They had two people there and two guns so they pierced both of her ears at once. With a "1, 2, 3, CLICK" it was done. She turned to face me with a slight frown of "well that didn't feel good but it didn't hurt THAT much" she turned her whole upper body to face me. She was stiff as if they had just performed major neck surgery. I laughed but was very happy to see she finally did it. I figured it we got past the wedding without her piercing her ears then it would never happen. That was a very exciting day, followed by a few days of ear ring shopping... lol. I did ask for it so no complaints here.
Another major event of the summer was Megan's sister Crystal got married on August 9th in Santa Barbara. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and reception. It was a casual relaxed event with good food and good times.
Now I find myself sitting on this same (hard) couch wondering "did we really spend three months back there?" it was too fast to comprehend.

The whole time we were in CA though we missed our home, Grenada.

Turtles... the REALLY REALLY big ones!

A couple weeks into the semester Megan and I started hearing whispers about sea turtles. Eventually the whispers changed to giant sea turtles. Then the bad news came in, the facts. Yes there are giant sea turtles in Grenada, BUT they only come out at night after dark. They also only come to the most remote beach on the island, which of course is the furthest point away from where we live. Next the uh not so great news kept coming in, to see the turtles you have to sign up for a Sunday night trip with the research group which is tracking and monitoring the turtles.... for a 11 hour shift, 7pm to 6am.
This news was less then exciting to say the least. Megan has class 9:30am Monday, and does not function well on less then 8 hours of sleep. Asking her to work on 2.5 hours or less was more then just unrealistic. The sign-ups came and went, we wanted to go but just couldn't see making it happen, "probably next term".
Luckily for us there is a tour guide group which posted an event on Facebook to go see the turtles in conjunction with the research group. And best yet the trip was 6pm to midnight and on a Wed night when Thursday was a holiday. PERFECT! We quickly signed up!
Due to previous bus experiences (see the waterfall trip), Megan was leery of sitting in the back of a bus flying around bumpy windy roads at night. Contacting the group I proposed following behind the bus. The day we were to leave, Laura, Bob, and their daughter, India, joined us in our car. Thanks to Bob's negotiations we got a nicely reduced cost (since we weren't using the bus service).
Off we go, me at the helm chasing a white bus with a big blue stripe. There was nothing more important to me that night then to NOT LOSE THAT BUS! It was a little challenging but I managed. There was one pit stop along the way to allow a poor young British tourist to loose her dinner off the side of the road. Off we go again making darting turns down roads which look like they wouldn't go anywhere and eventually landing us on a very bumpy dirt road on the beach.
We eventually stopped at a small shack which was to serve us some dinner. A bit sketchy? ohhh yeah! Food cleanliness?... Food what? Seeing as it wasn't till 9pm when we finally reached this place we didn't care. Gobbling down the BBQ chicken we were recharged and ready to see some turtles.
Above, you can see Megan on the left in pink, India on Laura's lap, and Bob on the right as everyone enjoys dinner.
Prior to going on this trip there were a few things that we knew about ahead of time. One, you can't use normal flashlights - at the time all we knew was that you needed to cover them with red cellophane. Also we knew that headlights, the flashlight thing with an elastic band for around your head, was greatly preferred. Of course finding something specialized like a headlamp was impossible in Grenada. So instead I bought and borrowed a couple little flashlights, covered the ends with red cellophane and then mounted them to the bill of two hats we had. When we arrived I was quite disappointed to find out that the 9 LED flashlights I was using were too bright! bummer... so essentially no one could use their flashlights except the tour guide.
As the group poured out onto the beach in total and complete blackness we were all quite shocked to see we only had to walk about 50 feet onto the beach to find our giant Leatherback Sea Turtle. Standing in complete darkness (except for two very dull red lights) made even seeing this monstrous beast very difficult even though it was within inches of us. Eventually eyes adjusting I was astonished to see the size of this turtle. Comparatively our turtle was only a medium sized one at a bit over 5 FEET LONG! My facts could be a bit skewed but what I understood the guide to say was that they are often about 6 foot long full grown. That is one frigg'n HUGE turtle.
So what the heck is a sea turtle doing on land anyhow right? They come on shore this season to lay eggs. They find the perfect spot, similar to a dog finding the perfect spot to do their business, it doesn't look any different they any other patch of sand to us but for some reason the turtle thinks this one spot is just right. The researchers count the eggs and ensure that perfect spot truly is a safe and good location for the eggs. If it's not, they will re-locate the eggs to a better location. The researchers also microchip the turtles for traceability, essentially they insert a chip the size of a grain of rice just under the skin in an area the turtle has almost no sensation in. Then when they find turtles they scan them and can tell what turtle each one is, and track their measurements (if they grew).
So now that we are seeing this ultra incredible sight we want to share it with everyone at home and prove that we actually saw what we said we saw, right? Out comes all the cameras... now here is where that whole red light thing kicks in. Turtles use the reflection of the moonlight on the crashing waves to determine what direction the ocean is. Essentially when they are done laying their eggs they move towards light. This system works great when nature is left alone, but enter us humans and you can see how beach side property completely screws them up. They either can't get back to the ocean or don't come on to shore at all in the first place, hence they are an endangered species. Now, red light is dimmer and different enough that the researchers can use it to work around the turtles without messing them up too bad. Except when the turtle is all done, at that point all lights must go off. We learned this the hard way... more on that later.
So everyone's got their cameras ready, but we cant use any light, so no flash. This leads me to a question, do you know what the single most important influence on photography is? LIGHT!!!! Now, we're all on a beach with an amazing Leatherback sea turtle in front of us which our naked eyes can barely see even with the dim red light and cameras can't see a thing. Luckily for me I know a little (not a lot) about my camera and photography. New digital cameras usually won't take a photo unless they can establish focus on the subject, the camera cant focus on solid black. First step, put camera in manual focus mode. Cameras work on a simple mechanism, the more light available the quicker it can take a photo. Hence all your night shots are usually blurry, because you couldn't hold the camera still long enough, even though that same amount of time worked just fine for outdoor soccer shots. So secondly I needed to hold the camera PERFECTLY STILL for about 20 seconds, that wasn't about to happen without a tripod. What is all this equating to? A big long winded excuse for blurry red & black hard to distinguish photos... see below... :)

Above - Most the photos taken are from behind the turtle using the little light the guide had to light what you see. We were always in back to reduce the amount of light in the turtles face.


Above - this blurry lump is a turtle head, one of only three shots I have of the front of the turtle.
Another thing to note, although there looks like there was a lot of light in these photos that is due to altering the contrast and brightness a LOT. The original photos are black with a slight red glow.
Above - that was the money shot! the best shot I had of the night. all the white you see on the turtles back is just sand which the turtle flung up there while digging.

above - this shot is of a researcher with his left arm holding the turtles left rear flipper out of the way while the guys right arm catches a few eggs (the white blobs). This shot is thanks to a very nice British girl and the only other person on the trip with an SLR, who I later found out was staying in our apartment complex. (Convenient for swapping the couple good shots we each got out of the 40 or so I took).

At one point we did get to each take a turn touching the turtle. It's hard to describe what it felt like other then like leather. The shell was soft but firm. The ridges down the shell were very hard and almost barnacle like. I reached down further and felt the turtles hind leg and flipper. The skin was silky smooth and soft, not at all what I expected. The flipper was a bit harder but still pretty soft. Through all of this the turtle really didn't seem to care about us. With the exception of getting confused about the lights. The shots i have of the front of the turtle were taken as it slowly turned towards me and started moving in my direction. I was only a couple inches from her in that head only shot. We quickly turned off all our lights and the turtle re-oriented herself and headed off to the ocean.

Now, so you have an idea what the turtles actually look like, I Googled the leatherback sea turtles and found the below images...



These guys are doing exactly what we were doing. Either this photograph was taken before they knew about the affects of flash and white lights or the photographer got a nice chewing out right after this shot was taken.

Megan and I hope to go back up there again before sundown and hope to see a turtle or two come ashore when there is still some light out, doubtful but hopeful. This trip probably won't happen for a while but I'll make sure to post about it when it does. This was quite an experience.

Grenada 2008 Triathlon

First off it's been ... over a month since I last posted, time sure flies. This is not to say we haven't been up to anything interesting in the past month, I've just been a bit lazy i suppose. So on to the Tri.
A friend/classmate of Megan's at SGU, Jenny, brought her nice Cannondale road bike down a couple months back. I bought a mountain bike off a departing student about the same time. We started riding about once a week since then. It wasn't long after that she brought up the Grenada Triathlon. She wanted to do the whole thing her self but thought it'd be fun if three of us did it as a relay. I was totally for that, having done this once before for a sprint tri in Oxnard, I knew it would be a blast. Jenny did the searching of her fellow class mates and first convinced Hedda, a great avid runner to join. Then after some looking she convinced Katie to join as the swimmer. Katie kept warning us that she had not swam much at all in the past 8 years. I still knew she'd do far better then myself as my swimming has been limited to the dog paddle, and 1700 meter swim equaled me on the bottom of the ocean floor.
Fast forward to this past Saturday, race day! I was nervous as usual prior to any event and couldn't eat much of anything. The race was scheduled to start at noon, which is a terrible time considering the heat and wind but oh well. In typical Grenada fashion things got delayed and the race started about 1pm. Prior to race start the four of us Jenny (going solo), Hedda, Katie, and myself were lucky enough to enjoy the cool comfort of Hedda's mom's cottage which happened to be right where the race started. The Olympic distance Tri and the Sprint Tri were both the "main attactions" but prior to them there were many smaller races held. "Tri-a-tri" which is a super short distance tri for first timers, and other tris for young kids. The highlight of these pre-events was the "6 and under Tri". I seriously had no idea there ever was such a thing! Below are some photos of this fun event. I didn't have the camera in hand for the swim unfortunately, it consisted of about a 10 foot long, 3 foot deep, parent assisted swim (splash as much as possible). Followed by the kids running into the transition area to grab their bikes for the next portion of the race...

Note the training wheels! Don't for a second think these kids weren't taking this seriously though! This was TOUGH STUFF!

This little guy wizzed around no training wheels needed. He did however need some serious directional help from Dad in blue. Offical number on shirt? Check! Number written on all limbs? Check!

Watch out Olympians! This little guy will be kicking some serious butt in a few years. He transitioned from bike to run prior to some of the kids even getting onto their bikes! A very determined and fast little guy!

A female athlete here a bit stressed about where to go. Mom closely by her side made sure she found her way.
Jumping off the bike mom assists as they run to the transition area to drop off the bike!

Another little girl on her way in from the big bike ride!

With the helmet and the bike back in the transition area she's off like lightning! (well relative lightning anyhow ;) )
Little girl number two closely on the other girls heals you can see the determination in her face.

Needless to say it was a hilarious event which we all enjoyed immensely. The little kids did an awesome job. On to the main event...

Here is our motley crew from left to right, Hedda (runner), Katie (swimmer), me (cyclist), and Jenny (doing the WHOLE DANG THING!). This is just prior to the start of the race, all of us still standing up tall and straight. The three of us (Hedda, Katie and I), had to come up with a team name while registering. Thanks to Hedda's brilliance we are known as the HIPPOS! Dangerous and fast! (Did you know hippos have been clocked running over 30 mph?!)

Just prior to the race Katie gets pumped up! Notice the sea of red swim caps and how few yellow ones you see? That yellow signifies crazy, aka Olympic distance. Katie is just about to swim 1500 meters, that's about 1499 meters further then I'd make it, even with 'Water Wings'!

So a quick overview of the Tri. The Sprint try was one lap swim (750 meters), 3 laps cycling (12 miles), and 2 laps running (3.1 miles). We (including Jenny) did the Olympic Tri which is double everything 1500m swim, 24 mile bike ride, and a 6 mile run.

Unfortunately we caught this big harry guy in the way of the photo behind him facing the camera is Jenny suited up and ready to kick some butt.

AND THEY'RE OFF!!! Can you see the yellow cone way off in the distance? Lets just say that's the short side of a rectangle and you can't even see the other cones off to the right. The Olympic swimmers swam this two times!

Here's Jenny flying out of the water as if she just did that swim in her sleep.
Katie following closely behind, came streaming out of the water to hand off the anklet to me.
In a relay Tri the electronic microchip anklet you wear (which records your time) is the "baton" that is handed from athlete to athlete. In this race the rule was the previous athlete had to place it on the next athlete. Katie is very quickly strapping me up!
Katie having kicked butt on the swim pauses for a quick shot (not looking the least bit tired), as I run off with my bike to the cycling course. She of course proved how amazing of a swimmer she really is, regardless of not swimming for the past 8 years.
Here I am completing my first of six laps. Although it looks as though I am already laying down on the job, i am attempting to "get little". This is not easy on a mountain bike.
Jenny screams by here doing a much better job of "getting little".
As can be seen from this shot Jenny is a nice narrow bullet shape, "little". The smaller you get the less wind resistance and with the REALLY strong winds here that was a big factor. On my big fat tired mtn. bike i did my best by just laying low.
Jenny is now flying through her run makeing it look effortless. Don't forget by this point she's already swam 1700 meters, rode 40Km (24 miles), and is now into a 10K (6.2 mile) run. Jenny's hardcore!
Here I am still putting along on my mountain bike. Yes that's a cop on my butt and no he's not trying to give me a ticket (although his lights and siren were going full force). This is one of those race indicators you either love or hate. If the cop is in front of you that means you are the very first athlete on the course and they are clearing the road for you... but in my case I had the proud distinction of being dead last! In addition to leading the first athlete they also follow the last. The sounds of his motorcycle struggling to go as slow as I was kept this very clear in my mind.
Yeah I was about ready to lob a tomato or what ever I could at the cop by this point. I know he was doing his job, but man was it annoying! Thankfully this was my last lap. On lap four I was already being asked by race officials "This is your last lap, right?!", and again on lap five. I could see they were relieved on my last lap that they could finally stop standing in the sun directing traffic. It wasn't the most encouraging thing to hear/see, but hey whatever I finished! And I did it as quick as I could!
Dismounting I ran my bike into the transition area where Hedda was waiting.
As I mentioned before it was my job as the previous athlete to remove the anklet from my ankle and place it on Hedda. This is a FAR harder task then one might think. Simply running after biking 24 miles was challenging, then to bend over and do something requiring dexterity was challenging enough that Hedda checked to make sure i could do it as i fumbled around. :)
Hedda literally sprints off to do her portion, the 6.2 mile run.
After my bike ride I was very low on energy (too little to eat prior) and the world kept turning blue. I promptly sat down before gravity forced me to the ground. I of course laid back right into a huge ant nest and proceeded to get bitten like crazy by tiny black ants. Megan ensured I had plenty of fluid (i downed five bottles of water in about 20 minutes, it's hard to intake enough water in this heat), and food. A nice thing about being on a tropical island is that tree ripened bananas (not pulled off green like they are for the US) are very accessible and tasted GREAT after the ride.
Here's Jackie one of our cheering crowd! The support was really awesome! The section of people cheering for the Hippos was louder then any other on the course! GO HIPPOS!!! We couldn't have asked for a better fan club! Thanks Megan, Jackie, Elise, Chad, and Kris (Hedda's Mom)!
Hedda booked it through the race with grace, serious speed, and a huge smile. This won her the "Most Spirited Athlete" award at the BBQ banquet Sat night.
Hedda finished in great time. We all had a blast
Jenny came in a ways ahead of us finishing very strong. I am SO impressed she did that whole thing, and faster then the three of us combined!

Saturday night the Grenada Triathlon organization had a BBQ banquet for the athletes and an awards ceremony. Jenny, Megan and I attended. Apparently relay team genders are determined by majority rules. I found this out the hard way when the 2nd place FEMALE Olympic distance relay award was announced to The Hippos! I thought it was hilarious receiving the female award for my team, being a male of course.

This is a shot of one of our three identical medals. The back is smooth metal which I plan to have engraved with "2nd Place FEMALE Olympic Distance Triathlon"
Just as impressive if not more so Jenny won 1st Place for Women 20-29! Picture coming soon!

I had an awesome time. I couldn't have asked for better teammates! Thanks Hedda and Katie!! Thanks also to Jenny, for without her encouragement none of us would have ever done it!