7 July 2011 Port Louis, Grenada
It was a pretty good night. We left the fans on, so it was fairly cool and thankfully no mosquitos managed to get past our defences.
I decided that it was time that we switched the anchor chain end-for-end. We normally use only about 40 metres of our 60 metres of chain, so it’s a good idea to flip it over every so often and attach the other end of the chain to the anchor. As with all “simple” jobs on a boat, this took about two hours because we had to lay it all out on the deck and then re-mark it, so that we know how much chain has been let out when we are anchoring. We used special little pieces of flexible plastic which are much more effective than painting marks on the chain or using cable ties. Unfortunately, they are a complete rip off at £4 for eight little pieces, but with no other alternative, I’m biting my lip and buying them.
We went into St Georges to the Nutmeg Restaurant for lunch, where they serve very good rotis. These are like a curried meat and potato pasty, but with a “skin” that is similar to a tortilla but thinner. We shared a Lambi roti and a chicken one. Lambi is the local name for the flesh of the Queen Conch. It’s a bit chewy – I think that I prefer chicken. We wandered around the town in the afternoon, then went to the pool when we got back to the marina and chilled out with other yachties until it went dark.
After dinner, there was a huge thunderstorm which passed to the north of us. The flashes of lightning were spectacular and I fell into counting the number of seconds from the lightning flash to the rumble of thunder. When the count got down to 10 seconds, indicating that the storm was about 2 miles away, I disconnected my laptop from the power supply and put it out of harm’s way in case we were struck by lightning – this had me thinking that I must back up my hard disk drive.
We weren't struck by lightning, but we did have very heavy rain, which proved that our various zip-on flaps on the bimini are effective. We now have the Uber-windscoop at the back and two side panels that stop the rain coming in from the sides, so we remained pretty dry in this down pour. It’s actually very pleasant to be sitting in the cockpit, dry as a bone, listening to the rain pounding around us.
8 July 2011 Port Louis, Grenada
When we got up, it was throwing it down and the sky looked very black. The weather forecast says that the Tropical Wave will be past us by tomorrow, so we decided to stay put in the marina for another day. I feel like a coward, hiding in a marina.
I spent all day keeping out of the rain and playing with our web site. Brett has suggested that I make the web site more interactive, so I'm thinking of adding new functionality, allowing users to register and log in and giving them the ability to add comments to the articles and send us messages. I also played around with adding a forum and allowing users to make and chat to “friends” (like FaceBook), but that’s a lot more complicated.
Glenys caught a bus to Spice Mall in the afternoon and did some shopping therapy. It continued raining after we went to bed.
9 July 2011 Port Louis to Hog Island, Grenada
The sky looked fairly clear first thing in the morning, so we sailed around to Prickly Bay. The anchorage was incredibly rolly, so we went to the chandlers bought Glenys’s new cooker, had lunch and went around to Hog Island which is very calm and peaceful.
I spent the afternoon installing the new cooker. It fits perfectly into the space in the galley which is a relief. However, I didn’t have the correct fittings for the gas pipe, so I had to do a bit of a bodge job and attach the gas pipe with some jubilee clips. It’s safe enough, but I need to get a gas fitter to sort it out. Some of the other gas fittings are looking a bit old, so I might get them replaced at the same time. Boats tend to explode if there is a gas leak. Any escaping gas can collect in the bilges, one spark and Boom!
Glenys tested her cooker and is very pleased with it. We had chicken enchiladas baked in the oven for dinner.
10 July 2011 Hog Island, Grenada
It was a lovely sunny morning. I ran the generator and water maker for half an hour, but the generator started slowing down again and stalled the electric pump on the water maker, so I shut them both down. I was not happy.
I decided to replace the two relays that the engineer had swapped a few days ago. I’d had the foresight to buy a couple of 12V relays at the chandler yesterday, but unfortunately, when I looked at them closely, they were 30 Amp relays and the originals are 40 Amp relays – bugger! Ah well, there was nothing much that I could do about it – I’ll just have to get a couple more tomorrow.
I decided that I need some adrenaline, so I went up the mast to check the rigging. We have two “Bosun’s Chairs” on board, but both of them looked decidedly dodgy to my mountaineering eye, so I used my rock climbing harness instead. We have folding steps all the way up the mast so it was fairly effortless to climb up. I attached the spinnaker halliard to my harness and Glenys locked it off on a cleat when I wanted to hang around a while. It was a fun two hours and the standing rigging looks okay as far as I can see. We're going to get a rigging survey done in Trinidad which will be a more thorough inspection.
After lunch, we went for a dive on the east side of Mount Hartman reef. It was rubbish. The visibility was only about 5 metres and the reef is covered with sediment. The only highlight was finding six lobster which "will be mine" when lobster season starts.
We went to the Sunday Barbeque on Hog Island and imbibed a few beers.
11 July 2011 Hog Island, Grenada
My mission today was to get some 40 Amp relays for the generator, but it’s not easy out here.
First I had to dinghy ½ mile around to Mount Hartman Bay and then walk two miles to Ace Hardware - no 40 Amp relays. My next stop was an auto part shop about ½ mile away, but they didn’t have any relays at all. They suggested Knights Auto about four miles away, so I caught a bus and asked them to put me off at Knights. After about ½ mile, they told me to get off and pointed to an auto parts shop. The place was definitely not Knights Auto, but they did have some 40A relays – I bought three. I then had to walk two miles back to Mount Hartman Bay in the blistering sun. Fortunately, I spotted a “Subway” and just HAD to stop for lunch in their air conditioned shop. The round trip to buy three relays was four hours (mostly walking).
I fitted the new relays and the generator ran for three hours without a hiccup – queue “Hamlet Music” (Bach’s Air on a G String) because “Happiness is a Working Generator”. I ran the watermaker for an hour and topped up our tanks.
Glenys did some jobs while I was out. She put a second coat of waterproofing on the bimini and painted some anti-slip varnish onto the steps into the saloon, which had become very slippery after ten years of use.
12 July 2011 Hog Island, Grenada
It was another nice sunny morning. I fitted two safety pad eyes in the cockpit – one just by the gangway and one by the wheel. We’ll be clipping our harnesses into these when we sail over night to Trinidad.
Glenys made some bread today in her new oven, which was excellent. The downside to having freshly baked bread is that we can’t stop eating it – this will counteract my morning exercises if I’m not careful.
By mid-afternoon, we’d done all of our jobs and the weather looks very settled for the next few days, so we decided that we’ll sail to Trinidad tomorrow night.
13 July 2011 Hog Island to Prickly Bay, Grenada
We motored around to Prickly Bay after breakfast and bought 25 gallons of diesel to allow us to motor overnight if the wind is light - I didn’t fill the tank because I’ve been told that fuel is significantly cheaper in Trinidad.
We had a short list of things to do before we left for Trinidad. We picked up some safety lines from the sail maker, which I fit along the deck so that we have something to clip our harness to whenever we go out of the cockpit. I also bought and fitted a radar reflector to the rigging.
One of the worries about sailing to Trinidad is there have been a few attacks by Venezuelan “pirates” on yachts sailing in the area. The pirates approach in fast speedboats and board the vessel, typically beating up the people on board at knife or gun point and taking electronics, money, etc. (However, there has not been any problem for about a year.) We discussed our strategy, which is basically to sail overnight and go as fast as possible for the last quarter of the route, which is where there is the highest risk.
We don’t have any weapons on board. I’d like a pump action shotgun, but I’ve compromised with a flare gun which fires 12 gauge rocket flares. I may be able to scare away an attack by firing flares at the blighters.
If we do get boarded, then the thieves will probably use violence to get us to tell them the location of our money and valuables. They’ll probably expect some of it to be hidden away, so we split our money into three different locations and hid our credit cards, leaving expired cards in our wallets. We also hid our two good laptops and left an old one on the chart table to be stolen. I backed up all my data onto a hard drive, just in case.
The plan was to leave at six o’clock and we were ready to go by two o’clock, so we pottered about until half past three when I went to clear out. Customs is supposed to close at four o’clock, but the immigration officer had already left. The customs officer was getting ready to leave and refused to clear me out. There was nothing I could do about it – I’ll have to clear out tomorrow and leave tomorrow night. I was really angry with myself for not going over earlier – I’d been messing about for two hours…
There was nothing else for it – we went to “happy hour” at the bar and got drunk with Rod and Mary from “Sheer Tenacity” and Steve from “Celebration.”