19 December 2011 Prickly Bay, Grenada
I felt much better this morning and ready for a day of running about. At half past eight, I rang the shipping agent, but disappointingly, the ship was only unloaded late yesterday and we won’t be able to pick up the crate today - bummer. I sent another email to Geest-line and finally received a reply back at lunchtime that my shipment has now been released.
We went out for a walk to the hardware store and I bought some spares for the outboard. Glenys carried on to Spiceland Mall to do some Christmas shopping, while I went back to the customs in Prickly Bay to get a “Permit for Ships Stores”. This document proves that I’m on a “Yacht in Transit” and will reduce the duty down from over 30% to 2.5%, which is well worth having.
20 December 2011 Prickly Bay, Grenada
We went into St Georges to pick up our crate. The mini bus that we picked up was a nightmare because he took us all over the place trying to fill up his bus before going into St Georges. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded but I was keen to get the crate.
After our 45 minute journey, we went to Hubbards Shipping and obtained the first set of paperwork without any problem. We then walked to Leslie Associates who told us to meet a guy called Hudson at the port gates, who was to help us through the process.
Hudson wasn’t at the gate to meet us, so we paid $2EC to gain entry to the port at a kiosk window and then queued for 15 minutes to go through the security check. Hudson met us inside the gate, took us to the warehouse and soon found the crate. We opened it up with the tools that I’d brought and a customs officer came over to value the shipment. I gave him a detailed manifest and invoices totalling £1540, but for some strange reason he gave us the customs form with a valuation of £1650 – bastard.
Hudson took us back to Leslies because we had to fill in a special “Customs Declaration” form because of the reduced duty with my “Permit for Ships Stores”. Clutching our growing number of forms, we then went to the Customs office to get them to approve the “Customs Declaration” form. They were really rude and made us wait for 30 minutes while they messed about. We paid our 2.5% duty which was £45.
We went back to the Port to pay the port fees and get the crate, but Hudson had managed to lose the “Bill of Lading” form. Glenys and I then had to walk all the way back to Hubbards Shipping to get an authenticated copy. Just after noon, we returned to the Port and bought a sandwich and a coke before going into the Port to continue battle. We found Hudson, who in the meantime had found the missing “Bill of Lading” tucked away in some other papers – Ye Gods!
We had to hang around for 20 minutes waiting for Hudson to get us put onto the Port computer and then I had to walk back to the gate and pay $7EC port fees, while Glenys stood in a queue for 30 minutes, before we finally had the paperwork to leave the port with our shipment. Hudson arranged a pickup truck for $60EC and we paid him $70EC. We managed to escape from the port at half past one after 4½ hours of dealing with the crazy bureaucracy.
We managed to fit everything into the dinghy for a single trip, dumped it all in the cockpit and collapsed with another sandwich and a coke.
It was like an early Christmas with all of the stuff – Series Storm Drogue and chain plates, various tools, dc to dc converters, hubs, gizmos for the computer and an underwater camera strobe (my Christmas present which I wasn't allowed to look at). It only took us an hour to stash it all away after which we collapsed and had a nice cold beer.
We had a nice quiet evening in – the boys and girls arrive tomorrow, so this will be our last chance to chill out for a couple of weeks…
21 December 2011 Prickly Bay, Grenada
It was windy last night with a couple of very strong gusts. The forecast is for over twenty knot winds on Friday which is when we plan to sail up to Carriacou, so it will be a bouncy trip six hour trip. This made me think about man overboard drills, so I dashed out after breakfast and bought a “Life Sling”. This consists of a U shaped floating sling with a long floating rope which is attached to the boat. The idea is that if someone falls overboard, we will throw the sling to them, circle around the victim allowing them to grab the floating rope. Once they get inside the sling, they have some buoyancy and are attached to the boat. We can then pull them alongside and use a halyard to winch them on board if the seas are rough. I feel happier now.
We picked up our sons and their girlfriends in the afternoon and had a cold rum punch waiting for them after their long flight from the UK. We went to the bar for happy hour and had a pizza.
It’s fairly cramped having an extra four people on board. We’ve put Brett & Tash in our cabin, Craig & Kristen in the front cabin, so Glenys and I are sleeping on the floor and the berth in saloon.
The plan is to stay in Prickly Bay for another day and then sail up to Carriacou the following day.
22 December 2011 Prickly Bay to Mount Hartman, Grenada
It blew a hooley last night. The forecast is for strong 20-25 knot winds tomorrow with 9-12 ft seas. This means that the passage between Grenada and Carriacou will be a very hard 4 or 5 hours of slogging into head winds and big waves. We’ve decided to delay the sail up to the Grenadines for a few days and go to Hog Island for Christmas Day.
We all went into St Georges. I had to do two trips in the dinghy to get everyone ashore and it was so windy that I was soaked by the end of it. We walked to the fort above the town and then wandered around the market while Glenys bought some vegetables. Everyone really liked drinking coconut water directly from a coconut hacked open with a machete.
Our plan was to go to the Nutmeg restaurant for lunch, but they had no fish, no chicken, no beef and could only make shrimp rotis – they were waiting for a delivery of food. Why on earth they didn’t pop down to the supermarket next door is beyond me. We didn’t stay.
Plan B was to go to Grand Anse where we bought lunch from a local food stall who do excellent pork and rice and ate it in the park by the beach. Craig, Tash, Kristen and I went for a walk along Grand Anse beach while Glenys and Brett went to Spice Island Mall to do some food shopping.
As I was transporting Glenys and Tash and the shopping back to Alba, the outboard quit on me again. Neil from “Lucy Ellen” came and rescued us and then kindly went and picked up the others from the shore. I eventually managed to get the outboard started, but don’t know why it is cutting out – it only seems to be when we’re in bouncy waves, so I’m back to a fuel problem - I think. I tried to get the local Mariner Agent (Anro) to look at it but they’re really busy and can’t do anything for a week. I ran the small 2.5hp outboard for a few minutes and it seems OK, so as long as we don’t have to go very far, we’ll be able to cope if the 15hp engine packs in completely.
There was a very big swell coming into the anchorage and the wind was gusting 25+ knots making Alba rock & roll. Tash was feeling seasick, so we decided to motor around to Mount Hartman Bay. It was a very bouncy ½ hour ride around the headland in big 9 foot seas, but they seemed to enjoy this short, sharp introduction to sailing. Mount Hartman is a wonderful anchorage – almost flat calm.
After dinner, Brett decided that he wanted to do some fishing and, after he caught a small snapper, Tash wanted to join in. Between them they caught four reasonable fish – one’s a nice 3lb horse eye jack.
They enjoyed the whole day having seen the colourful market, been crammed onto the noisy local buses, eaten local food, done a little bit of sailing and caught some fish – not bad for a first day.
23 December 2011 Mount Hartman to Hog Island, Grenada
Brett was up before the rest of us, chilling out and watching a turtle bob its head up every ten minutes. I gave him a quick lesson in filleting fish and he had our lunch cleaned before breakfast was served.
We had mango and cereal for breakfast and then motored around to Hog Island. I thought that the anchorage would be very crowded because of Christmas and the strong winds that we’ve been having, but there was plenty of room.
After our fish sandwich lunch, Brett and Tash went for a walk on Hog Island while I took Craig and Kristen to do a bit of snorkelling – it was rubbish. There were big breaking waves on the reefs, so we ended up on the edge of the anchorage in very, very murky conditions. The damn outboard stalled again and then, to make matters worse, the starter cord jammed, so I spent a few hours messing about with it. I managed to get it going again, but I’m not very confident that it will keep going.
Everyone chilled out for the rest of the afternoon reading and napping. We went to Roger’s bar for sundowners. There was a Christmas party for one of the local guys and most people were pretty drunk by the time we got there. Brett and Craig were pinned into a corner by one of the local guys for half an hour of incoherent babble.
We had to paddle back because the outboard stalled, but I noticed that the electrical wiring leading to the stop switch on the throttle arm is sparking in the dark – could that be the problem?
We had dinner on board.
24 December 2011 Hog Island, Grenada
It was Christmas Eve today, but no rest for the wicked. After breakfast, I managed to fix the outboard. The wire from the stop switch was worn though exposing bare wires and when they touched, the outboard was cut off. I was really pleased to find this intermittent fault.
Brett had nearly run out of cigarettes and had a panicky quiver in his voice when he found out that we wouldn’t be near a shop for four days, so we zipped over to Whisper Cove Marina where we bought the healthy combination of beer and fags. They had no bread left, so we went to Hoburn and found a small grocery store open where I bought bread and on a whim, two coconuts.
Everyone chilled out for the rest of the day, swimming to the beach and reading. In the evening, I made a Pina Colada from the coconuts – what a lot of effort.
25 December 2011 Hog Island, Grenada
Christmas Day. Glenys prepared a fine breakfast of blinis and gravlax with scrambled eggs, all swilled down with a glass of buck’s fizz.
After opening our presents, Brett, Craig and I went snorkelling on the reef where we had a good time even though the visibility was poor. When we arrived back, we found that Glenys had started to prepare the Christmas dinner, but the damn oven was cutting out again. This is a repetitive problem which I don’t seem to be able to fix – all I have to do is bend the gas cut-out sensor so that it’s in a slightly different position over the burner, but it keeps moving when it gets hot. It’s very annoying because it’s a $1000US oven and only six months old.
After our big roast pork Christmas lunch and a few bottles of wine, we all went for a pleasant walk around Hog Island and then called in at Rogers Bar for a sun downer.
We had a buffet dinner and into bed exhausted – nice Christmas Day.