boats and genips

It was very still and humid today. In fact, the past few days have been without breeze and much more humid. And while the breeze almost always comes from the east, we've had days where it has blown more from the north. Fortunately - it still feels manageable - and cool enough to sleep. I may, however, reassess the situation tonight.
Max is back to school this week. To be perfectly honest - this realization only occured after Mark drove by the school, called me on his mobile and exclaimed "there’s a lot of parents dropping off children at Max's school right now."

It's amazing how quickly you can get children out the door if you need to.

Fortunately, we live about two minutes from the school. And after all, it's pre-school! (After that little bit of Monday morning excitement, I did triple check Julian's school calendar to confirm that he started Grade One the end of next week...)

With Max in school, Julian and I have been together this week and we've juggled a little work and little play.

This morning, we made our way to the boat yard to oversee the boat being hauled out. Typically, the IC24s and other boats of various sizes are hauled out mid-end of August and put on cradles or stands until the end of hurricane season. I had not been down to this particular boat yard in a couple of months and it was a very different scene from an earlier visit. The yard was full of boats neatly lined up. Even the marina and the lagoon area had a far greater occupancy level. Everyone had completed their seasonal preparations and boats were safely tucked away.

Amazingly, for this part of the world, the entire boat hauling operation was extremely efficient. Boat towed over, lifted out of the water at the scheduled time, gently placed into its cradle - and nothing broke.




Of course, what this also means is that we can't do any sailing on this boat for a month or two.

On a completely different subject matter and with no idea how to segue to the following subject matter, we have an enormous genip tree in our yard. I had never tasted (or even heard of) this little green grape-like fruit. In fact, when a friend was over and pointed to the heavily clustered fruits hanging from the tree, I thought she was pulling my leg with a name like "genip". I had visions of it being one of those lines you feed a newcomer so they are easily identifiable when you go to a store and ask for "genips". Ah yes...a genip....here’s another one….



But sure enough, these little things that taste like a cross between a grape, lychee nut, and a plum are a popular treat in the Caribbean. You can also find them in Spain where they are called waya. The downside to the genip is they are a lot of work. For the amount of sweet, juicy pulp you get in each fruit - there is a lot of careful snacking around a good sized pit. So far, I am the only one in our family who can bother to eat them. Julian just wrinkles his nose and says, "no thanks."

I've noticed they sell genips by the branch at fruit stands. Hmmmmm. Well maybe if Julian and I are bored on Friday.....