18 April 2011 Tobago Cays
I switched on the VHF to channel 68 at 0730 and managed to pick up the weather forecast from the cruisers net in Grenada – the guy at Island Water world must have a strong transmitter. The forecast for the next five days is light and variable winds, so it looks like a lot more motoring.
I started a “To Do” list because there are a few things starting to go wrong – chart plotter not charging, compass light doesn’t work, slight sea water leak on engine, water tank gauge not working, etc, etc. I sorted out why the chart plotter wasn’t charging (broken wire) and it was time to go for a swim.
We went to Jamesby Island in the dinghy and climbed to the top (30 metres.) The view from up there is spectacular – you can see all of the Tobago Cays and the colours are magnificent. We snorkelled around the island which was OK; the highlight was a sighting of a small Barracuda.
After lunch, we lazed about and had a nap. I processed the photos that I took while snorkelling (rubbish.) At sundown, we went for a drink with Derek (and his friend John) on “Buzzard”. Derek normally sails single-handed and knows Sergio well. He is another person who comes out for the “season” and then puts the boat on the hard in Trinidad for six months.
We had a critical equipment failure today. The freezer has been making gurgling noises and has been running almost continuously. I reckon that there is air in the system and it needs recharging. It’s not efficient now so I’ve turned it off. Thank God the other fridge is working okay – I couldn’t live without a cold beer or two every evening.
19 April 2011 Tobago Cays
We dragged ourselves out of bed at half past seven – it was harder than normal because we drank a bottle of wine with dinner last night.
We spent the morning pottering about doing a few jobs – I finally managed to sort out all of our computer data into a semblance of order. The data was on my laptop and three USB hard disk drives from two PCs that we had at home plus an old laptop that Sergio left behind. There was a lot of duplication, so I’ve had to go through it all, folder by boring folder to consolidate it. Once it was sorted out, I backed it up on a USB drive and stashed it in a “secure” hidey hole along with some important papers and about $500 US.
At about eleven o’clock, we went snorkelling with the turtles and I got some nice pictures of them. After lunch, we went to Jamesby Island and took some pictures of ourselves with the farewell card that was given to us by the people at work (they had insisted that we do this to prove that we were here…) I think that a part on the outboard is broken, because I can’t get it to stay in the “up” position when coming into a beach – another job to sort out.
We went snorkelling around Petite Bateau but Glenys was being stung badly by very tiny jelly fish, so we gave up. It’s funny that jelly fish really affect her and she comes out in big spots that itch like mad – I feel them but don’t my body doesn’t react. This is totally opposite to mosquito bites which bother me for three or four days after I’ve been bitten while Glenys doesn’t get affected as badly.
We chilled out in the evening. I’m currently reading all about Cuba, which sounds like it is infrequently visited and the southern Cays sound fantastic but remote. It also sounds a bit scary because it’s very shallow in many areas.
20 April 2011 Tobago Cays to Petite Martinique
After breakfast, we pottered about doing some jobs. I hauled the dinghy onto the front deck and sorted out why the dinghy wouldn't lock in the “up” position – basically user error. I figured out the mechanism and I was pulling it too high, so it was just going back down – duhhh!
I've been putting off investigating the engine – the engine room is a dark, hot place and I have many bad memories of hours spent sweating over engine problems. I finally picked up enough motivation, got the manual out and figured out where everything is. I was a bit confused at first until I realised that there are two of most things because there is an engine and a generator. I spent an hour identifying where the various filters, pumps & pipes were on the engine.
At about eleven o'clock I started the engine to leave the Tobago Cays and after about 30 seconds, it just cut out. I deduced that it must be air in the fuel system, so I bled the fuel and the engine started. I was pretty glad that I’d spent the hour poking about the engine.
There was very little wind, so we motored around Mayreau, past Union, between Mopion and Pinese to Petite Martinique. We went straight onto the fuel dock and filled up with diesel. The fuel gauge was reading 1/3 full and I was getting nervous because I didn’t know whether it under read or not. I'm a happy man now that I have a full tank of fuel, but £200 poorer for the privilege.
We decided that we would go out for a meal – first one for a week, so we picked up a mooring for the Palm Beach Restaurant after arranging a reservation. We tried to go snorkelling at the north side of the town, in the cut between PSV and Petite Martinique, but it was rubbish so we went to the headland to the south end. The terrain was rocky with poor visibility, but we saw loads of small lobster under the ledges – in one cave I saw 12 of the little devils. I must make a lobster snare.
When we got back to the boat, I went snorkelling to check out the mooring – which was okay, being a large Bruce anchor well bedded in. There were some small rocky outcrops under the boat containing about 12 lobsters – but all very small.
We went to the restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately there was a huge table of tourists and we weren't getting any attention, so I went to the bar and ordered our meal before they ordered theirs - it worked because they soon served us. The meal was OK – we had a bottle of wine so the dinghy journey back and climbing aboard was a bit more difficult than usual.
21 April 2011 Petite Martinique to Chatham Bay, Union
We went for a walk on Petite Martinique, a nice island with very friendly people and a lot of sheep and goats. On the way back we were collared by a guy who runs a charity operation. They dry a particular variety of banana and then produce banana flour. This can be used to make fritters and, when mixed with normal flour, will make banana bread. They give the banana flour away to churches, etc. who distribute it to the needy. We gave the guy a small donation in return for a small sample of the flour.
We went and stocked up on food for the weekend and bought a case of Old Milwaukee beer for $50EC, a litre of Myres Dark Rum for $28EC and two bottles of wine for $10 EC each, which seems very cheap – I think that we’ll be calling here on the way back to stock up on booze. I bought some fishing wire and made a lobster snare from an old aluminium burgee mast that I found beneath the front berth.
Easter weekend starts tomorrow, so we want to make sure that we are somewhere quiet. I’m sure that the loud music will be blaring away in the towns. Bequia has a sailing regatta over the weekend so we are planning to arrive there after Tuesday next week when the partying has finished. We motored over to Chatham Bay on Union Island – no wind again.
Chatham Bay is lovely. We anchored quite a way out to be alone. After lunch, I got out my clarinet for the first time and had a play about. Glenys dozed in the cockpit. We then went snorkelling around Rapid Point. I took my snare with me but only saw one very small lobster. We saw a Green Turtle grazing on something on a rock, but when it saw us it took off like a rocket – unlike the relatively tame ones in the Tobago Cays.
I ran the generator and the water maker for and 50 minutes this afternoon. I’ve started to run it for about an hour, every other day. This seems to be keeping the batteries full and we’re generating more water than we are using. It looks like we are using between 60 and 75 litres of water each day. We drink about 4.5 litres, so the rest must be going on our one-per-day showers, cooking and rinsing down with fresh water after we’ve been swimming.
22 April 2011 Chatham Bay, Union
I was very tired this morning – it’s either the exercising, snorkelling and generally running about or the big rum punch that I made after dinner last night. I did my exercises anyway – that’s a whole week now and I’m up to 30 press ups each morning. Unfortunately, we don’t have any weigh scales, so I don’t know if I’m getting rid of my weight. I feel a bit trimmer so that’s good.
We went for a two hour hike after breakfast. After dragging the dinghy up the beach, we walked up a small path to a col on the island where it joined a dirt road. We turned left and walked up to the top of the small peak on the north side of the bay. After that we walked back down to the road and found a path which goes along the side of the ridge, slowly climbing towards Mount Taboi (1000ft). The path was pretty overgrown, we didn’t know where we were going and we ran out of water, so we gave up and went back. The next time we come here, we’ll go up with long trousers and more water – I'm fairly sure that the path carries onto Mt Taboi (1000 ft.)
Back on the boat, we lounged about reading until three o’clock, then went snorkelling, which was okay, but no lobster…
I spent a couple of hours, compiling a list of frequencies for weather reports and learning to use the Single Side Band radio – pretty dull stuff. Glenys read a book on bread making – we’ve been having trouble with the local bread because it seems to go mouldy after a day or two, so I’m looking forward to having nice freshly baked bread (when she gets some yeast.)
23 April 2001 Chatham Bay, Union
I spent most of the day messing about with my dive compressor. I first had to get it out of the depths of the cockpit locker, then I had to print the manual which came on a CD – thank goodness I’ve got a laptop and printer. After reading the manual and staring at the compressor, I’ve decided that it looks simple enough to operate and service.
Glenys meanwhile, found all of the life jackets, harnesses and safety lines and inspected them. We have six basic “blow-to-inflate” life jackets, two harnesses and two safety lines. We are going to get a couple of nice CO2 inflatable life jackets with built in harnesses for us.
After our lunch of Quesadillas (with home-made tortillas), I made an attempt to start the compressor using the boat’s ring mains. Unfortunately, when starting, the motor draws more than 10 Amps, so the trip blew. I thought that I might have a problem, so I've already bought a gadget called a “Soft Starter” which uses electronics to smoothly ramp up the motor and is supposed to reduce the starting current. I spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out the wiring for the motor – I even had to take a relay apart to find out what it was doing. I don’t understand induction motors very well, but I think that I know how I need to wire it all together.
We went snorkelling at 3 o'clock and I managed to find a reasonable sized lobster, but it was too deep in its little cave to get it.
Before dinner, I finished off the circuit diagrams for the compressor circuit and measured the cockpit locker so that I can design a frame to hold the compressor in place near the top of the locker.
24 April 2011 Chatham Bay, Union
It’s Easter Sunday today, but no Easter Egg. Quite a few squalls went through last night and there was a major one just as we were waking up. I’ve not been able to get any weather forecast for a few days, but the last that we heard was that there is a trough north of us which is causing all this weird weather. This is such a nice anchorage that we decided to stay here another day, go to Canuoan tomorrow and onto Bequia on Tuesday or Wednesday.
I spent most of the day poking about the boat finding things and staring. I lifted some of the floorboards to find out where I need to run the cable for the compressor – that will be a 4 hour job… I got the barbeque working – it took me 30 minutes to find the regulator for the small gas bottle. I also checked how much cooking gas we have got – one bottle has 100 psi and the other has 50 psi. It will be interesting to see how much gas we actually use.
Glenys opened the emergency “grab bags” and checked what we have – these are to be taken into the life-raft when we abandon ship. All the flares are very old – Sergio must have brought some from a previous boat because they expired in 1992, 20 years ago! We will buy a set of replacement ones. I had brought some things that we had in our grab bag on “Glencora” so those went on the pile as well. Glenys has a list of what we have now and we’ll compile a list of stuff that we actually want. On a similar note, I found the manual for the 406MHz EPRIB and ran through the test procedure – it still works and the batteries don’t need replacing for another year.
I lifted the life raft out of the cockpit locker and placed it in front of the windscreen so that I could measure up for fitting it there. I removed the instrument panel and I can just about reach half way inside that raised part of the deck. This will allow me to fit some bolted eyes to strap the life raft in position.
I looked at all of the manuals and invoices that Sergio has left behind. Some of it is redundant so I threw a load away. This means that we now have five carrier bags full of rubbish. I went through most of the spares as well – just to see what we have. Pretty comprehensive, but I need to make a list of what we should be carrying for the more complex equipment.
Glenys made some soda bread in the afternoon, which we had with dinner – a little heavy but tasty.