Carnival

Carriacou, Grenada

We got wind of carnival starting in Carriacou, so we checked out of the Grenadines and headed off to Grenada. Most people think of Grenada as the island that the US “liberated” in the 1980’s, but it is a country made up of a number of islands, one of them being the large island of Grenada. Carriacou is the northern island, known for having over one hundred rum shops and only one gas station.

We had a very pleasant sail from Union Island and pulled into Hillsborough Bay to clear customs and immigration. While there, we asked about the schedule for Carnival and were told the “Pageant of the Bands” was to start around 2:30. Little did we know that we had a lot to learn about Grenada. We rushed back to the Berkeley East to get the camera. We weren’t exactly sure what the “Pageant of the Bands” was, but we assumed it would involve musical groups and the music had started to blast from giant speakers in town.

This was our Grenada introduction to GMT. In the rest of the world GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, which is time zero for the zero meridian and used as universal time, but in Grenada it stands for “Grenada Maybe Time.” After hanging around on the street with some locals and tourists, stopping in the local bar for a beer, walking around the town, buying some Wahoo and taking it back to the boat, hanging in the street, stopping in the rum shop for a beer, hanging around on the street, it was getting dark and still no bands. A second set of large speakers had started blasting loud music to compete with the other giant speakers, so the sound was a loud jumble.

There were a number of people wandering around town in various costumes, but no pageant or bands yet. As the sunset we got the sense that something must be wrong, it was now well after 2:30, so we walked around town and found a large crowd outside a walled off area. We worked our way through the crowd and inside the walls to find all of the costumed carnival participants performing for the judges.

The open yard was full of people in brightly colored costumes. Over the loudspeaker they were announcing the wining bands. Our second lesson of the day, a “band” is a group of people in similar costumes, usually representing a school or church. Each band also has a king or queen who leads the group.

The winning Queen

With all the awards announced, the bands started parading through the streets.

Then the steel pan band started to play.

The next day we went into town for the next “Shakespeare Mas.” This is a uniquely Carriacou event, where roving groups of competitors dressed in brightly colored outfits engage in a battle of wits using lines from Shakespearean plays. The competitors face each other while one recites lines and the other listens. When he makes a mistake or misses a line the other competitor strikes him over the head with a flexible rod. The competitors have padded headdresses lined with paper for protection, and they make a loud noise when they are hit. No one is hurt and it is all done in fun, but I guess you better know your Shakespeare!

We fell for it again

Later that day was the “Parade of the Bands.” From the night before we now knew what a band was and we should have known it wouldn’t start anywhere near the planned time. We came into town an hour after the supposed start, walked around town, walked around town some more, stopped at the rum shop, walked around town some more. At this point most of the other cruisers gave up and went back to there boats, but we stuck it out, and it was worth it.

Once it started the parade included the king and queen.

The bands from the prior night:

and kids who couldn’t stay up last:

Everyone was having a great time!!!!

One thing we noticed in all of our walking around town is that there where more New York Yankee baseball caps and Obama t-shirts than you would see in New York City. Obviously the people of Carriacou are in touch with two of America’s greatest pastimes, watching baseball and politics.