Monthly Archives: April 2011

No land in sight.

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We are 20 miles into our big day. We just had breakfast continental clog your arteries style. Bacon home fries and chunks of block cheese. Can you say we are finishing of the smorgesborg that is left?

Up at 5:30 local time checked the engines, pulled the anchor and out of the bay before 6am and underway with little to no wind to speak of even after we cleared the island we raised the main to use some of the 7knots of beam wind that was out there.

Its gone up to about 12 knots and we have 1 reef in the main, too lazy to raise the last 15 feet, and full gib, cruising along with one engine running as Christine is doing a load of laundry in the Chip storage device. Now we have our clothes lines trying to catch more breeze and make us go faster.

At 8knots that puts us in there just before 3pm when customs starts to charge overtime rates, we’ll see.

Tourists Invade Grenada

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Wowzers what a day, no wonder tourists are always worn out!

Christine and I were up early and we decided to get the show on the road so to speak, and drop the ball and motor to another Bay where we could clear out of the country and see something different. The bay we went is called Prickly Bay. Its has a full service boat yard, island version of West Marine, called Budget Marine, and a small marina. The disposal was at the boat yard so we explored that first dropping of a bag of empty bottles and Christine checked on the rates for storing a boat there. They are already booked up and max width they can handle is 25 feet, we are 25 feet and a few inches, so it would be extremely close.

Then it was over to clear customs and immigrations. Nice office, outside patio where you can fill out the forms and very nice and helpful people. I think this is the first time Christine and Wayne got to see that side of things as we already cleared into the country they could stand around and watch the 45 minute ordeal. Then down to the watering hole to get the obligatory beer after filling out all the paperwork in sixtiplet, with real carbon paper between each page. Thats alot of pressure required.

We had read about a Rum Distillery that does tours and a Chocolate Factory that does tours as well. Next we found a Taxi complete with Rastaman, Bernard that wanted to show us around his lovely island. Of course, where the Rum and Chocolate are made are on the exact opposite side of the island.

We did it all, the tasted / sampled the Rum and Chocolate. 5 hrs later we almost missed sunset on the way back to the boat, which was still right where we left her, for what was supposed to be a quick trip ashore to clear customs. We got back so late that we decided to stay put, instead of going over to TrueBlue bay that was our original thought for tonights anchorage.

We are wiped out, I made some porkchops and grilled veggies – Wayne didn’t even stay up for dinner.

Tomorrow is our long sailday, leaving at first light. Hope that the weather forecast is correct that calls for winds out of the East at round 10knots. If we don’t get the good winds its going to be a very long day. There are a couple of oil platforms about 1/2 way there, so it’ll be alot like sailing the Gulf of Mexico.

Internet in thie bay is terrible, lots of signals but none that stay connected very long, course I’m only using the ‘free’ ones. It works but its painful, we overheard another cruising couple talk about how bad even the pay HotHotHotSpot is, I just put up with it. So no chance for uploading pictures today of all the touristy things we did, even having a monkey sit on our shoulders.

Someone left their dog on a boat in front of us, and its crying. I sure hope they show back up before I hit the hay.

Most Spectacular Day

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I was up early and since I haven’t been able to futz around doing boat chores with Donald this year, I found some of my own to partake. Trying not to wake the others, I worked on replacing a plexiglass covers protecting the ignition switches which was broken in the Med when some errant jib sheets were flailing around. Wow, what a difference clear plexiglass makes, will have to replace the other one too, next time I get motivated.

Christine worked out on the bow, while Wayne checked some emails: a nice relaxing morning. We were the second boat to leave Sandy Island as we were anxious to head to the Underwater Sculpture gardens off the shore of Grenada as our initial destination.

Wind sorta clocked around a bit and were running 120+ degrees off our direction, that means the wind was behind us. So with our newly fixed spinnakers it was time to see what they looked like.

First up, the small one, just because it was the one that was really blown out in the crossing, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t tangled up in the sock as we had to stuff it back in after picking it up from the St Lucia Sail Loft. She went up without issues, the newly patched line across the kite fully visible but holding air in pretty light air, 10 knots.

30 mins of that with still relatively light air, we took her down and out came “big bertha” as Christine affectionately named her on the Atlantic trip. The 2 small sock burns were repaired with brand new panels and she flew big and strong. We cleared the island and ended up with close to 22knots of wind, so 10-12 apparent on the sail and 10 on boat speed. Nice good sailing day, running mostly 120 off the wind, down to Grenada. Wayne was properly introduced to Big Bertha and Christine sunned on the tramps and regaled crossing stories with her favorite sail.

Bacon and Huevos Borachos for the crew breakfast just after we got the sails up and were underway. Wayne adjusted the sails and I made breakfast while we ran one engine to make electricity for the water maker. When both tanks reached 1/2 full, about 1/2 the trip, we shut the engine down for some peace and quiet sailing @ 10 knots.

Snacks just before we found a mooring ball, then a sammich with our fresh lunch meats from an awesome deli in Carriacou called Patty’s deli (exit the dock, turn right, head down the street about 1/8 mile, on right), complete with Boars Head trimmings and a semi fresh baggett. Thanx to Laurie (Cat Tales) and Paula (Magique) for the great tip on Pattys deli! Then we went snorkeling and exploring.

Grand Mal Bay (close to Dragon Bay,m just North of St George’s Bay) – Great place! Mooring balls in the next cove over, day mooring balls for the dingy – not in any of our guides, but nice fun snorkel, if a little bit cloudy. Fun sculpture and lots of fish as its also a marine park. All in about 10-30 feet of water, we were the only ones here this morning, then some local dive boats stared to show up. Pretty amazing sculptures from mermaids to 15+ heads to 15+ bodies, whale tail, to dozen or so masks – amazing that they they could be incorporated into marine life.

We had decisions to make, but decided to just chill here for the evening, its pretty secluded. We can see one tanker type boat in the harbor and some local homes on the hill that haven’t been completed yet, so its not the most idealistic spot, but only 2 other boats located far away from us.

Wayne made some blender drinks, the internet is available so a real pleasant place to be facing the Caribbean ocean, and sunset on the bow later as we are facing West.

grenada is awesome

please come visit