Cycles of cycles.

2^nd March 2022

Prickly Bay, Grenada

Everything happens in cycles. On a galactic cycle the earth spins around the sun and the moon spins around the earth. Closer to home, things break and we fix them, water evaporates, falls as rain and turn into waterfalls, and winning always end up with us grinning.

Entering Grenada there was another sad cycle that was repeating itself again. Saying another hello and then saying another fond farewell to ‘Cerulean’. For us this was hard, but for Larry and TT it was heart-breaking. This heart break was plain for all to see as we entered a local quiz night with Larry & TT heading things up.

As the questions were asked, answers flowed and tested our knowledge. Our little eclectic group aced in subjects as varied as ancient Greek mythology, Latin proverbs and mathematical theorems (of which Larry & TT could only add silence). With the scores being read out, we were sure our scoresheet had been lost, with time all the other teams had been awarded their positions and there was no other explanation. We were crowned pub quiz champions showing that Larry & TT’s cyclic reunion had been fruitful.

One of the cycles that is constant on Ruffian is that things break and then things get fixed. Just before we left Suriname our boat computer had given some worrying messages, showed the blue screen of death and promptly died. Now that we were in the ‘1^st’ world of Grenada we took to the streets to find a replacement hard disk allowing Iain to unleash his inner geek and complete a broken – fix it cycle.

We scoured every technology shop on the island, enquired inside business centres and searched the sordid bowels of the internet. Everything was negative and we concluded the only way to obtain the disk was to simply get one delivered to London, flown to Antigua, passed to ‘Cerulean’, who could then hand it onto ‘Zen Again’ who’s path we might cross as we head north, and if we missed them then the disk could just chase us around entirety the Eastern Caribbean. What could possibly go wrong with that plan? but with everything in place our phone buzzed and the musical tones of a Grenadian chap upset everything.

Through the Grenadian grapevine the caller had heard what we were after and he happened to have exactly what we needed. In honour of the best illicit dealings, we agreed a price, arranged a rendezvous and decided upon a cash only arrangement.

With the sun rising over Prickly Bay Iain found himself waiting on a dinghy dock, his pockets bulging full of cash and wearing an expectant smile on his face. Right on cue, down the dock walked Jason, presented the goods we were after and walked away happy. It felt like to most dodgy of deals, with the most professional of companies.

Back on Ruffian Iain unleashed his inner geek. Computers were taken to bits, hard disks installed and software downloaded. Like all things the devil was in the detail and he then got uber geeky by editing registries, jailbreaking software and examining NMEA streams. Iain was in his element, but most importantly a broken -fix it cycle had been successfully completed.

Time after time the broken – fix it cycle was completed on Ruffian and with the rain pouring we were now to experience the rain, torrent, waterfall cycle. We’d formed a plan with ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Juliana’ to take a gentle stroll through the rainforest along its well-marked paths and then dive into the clear waters of a waterfall. That was the plan, but the reality was somewhat different.

Climbing higher and higher the rain got heavier and heavier and with our first steps into the rainforest we realised that our reality wasn’t matching our plan. Gone were the well-marked trails replaced by a quagmire of mud, gone was the gentle stroll, replaced by hours of scrambling and slipping down impossibly steep slopes and gone was the idyllic wildlife replaced by razor grass that sliced us to bits.

Every step either covered us in mud or covered us in blood and after 1000’s of these steps we emerged back into civilisation. In contrast to those polished people at the bottom we looked like we’d spent months in the wild, where no part of us was clean and no part of us had avoided the soaking rain. Our reward however was the waterfall which was running at monstrous proportions showing us exactly where all the rain finished its cycle.

This cycle of cycles continued. Yet more broken things were fixed and yet more water falls were explored and in amongst all this we hoped to repeat our first winning cycle. TT was a distant memory and Larry had a new parroty friend heading up the quiz night team. Once again answers flew and scores were read out and once again Larry and his team was victorious. These cycles were winners and, in this case, winners were grinners.