by Gerry Legister

Created on: April 14, 2008   Last Updated: January 19, 2011

On discovering the Caribbean we came across the little Island of Grenada with a flavored name to compliment its beauty, settling on the north of the South American coast, its impact instantly got my interest with its delicious legendary name the Isle of spice, wafted with other brewing essence like cocoa, cinnamon, cloves, saffron and ginger, but unlike their close rivals Antigua and Barbados to the north.

Grenada has illustrious fascinating mountain views with unimaginable rain forest in which much of the plants and nutmeg spices can thrive adventurously to maturity, the main spice is of course nutmeg which can be used for various products, the nutmeg oil is a commodity often used in soaps and perfume to bring the suspension in settled form, Grenada is the supplier of almost half the worlds nutmeg crop.

the rain forest all over is also inhabited with various seeds of fleshly apricot used mainly to flavor jam and ice cream, with the more familiar brown kernel pungently grated for everyone's favorite rum punch.

Nutmeg has advantageously become the spice of life for Grenada, the island thrived on their good fortune and professional ability to robustly supply abundant measures of the beloved spice feature on their national flag, they have held the record that seemed almost untouchable, until September 2004 when the dangerous sweeping hurricane Ivan came and vent its terrible anger upon the islands dependent industry, the hurricane was so devastating that it wrecked just about everything found unlucky in its path.

It was one of the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever to be recorded in history, and of course the Island felt the brunt of damaging force, even though they had batten down the hatches the force was too strong for the nutmeg industry, and they suffer great losses, hurricane hit Grenada head on , not since 1955 had the island experience such devastation for eight hours Ivan the terrible battered and bruised the unprepared fragile infrastructure with 120 miles per hour force of nature winds tore off rooftops and leveled buildings once thought to have been safe haven, rooting up trees and reducing them to fire twigs, and relegated ships turned to scrap metal.

Well over 50,000 people was left homeless and absolutely shell shock, the ramifications drove syndicate insurance companies to the brink of bankruptcy, the houses that remained standing at the end of the eight hour marathon were covered with green applied leaves, the casualty list showed twenty eight people

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