June 2011 - St Lucia to Grenada

1 June 2011 Rodney Bay to The Pitons, St Lucia
We cleared out of St Lucia, bought a few bits and pieces in the hardware shop and sailed down to the Pitons where we picked up a mooring in between the two Pitons - a very dramatic anchorage. The wind really shrieks down from the hills in huge gusts.

I’ve finally figured out where the water in the engine sump is coming from. When we’re motor-sailing in nil winds, there is a slight drip coming from the propeller shaft seal. As soon as the wind picks up and we are motor-sailing at more than six knots there’s a spray of water coming out of the propeller shaft seal. We avoided motor sailing once I discovered this and we took on very little water during the trip.

I managed to pick up an Internet connection and spent an hour researching the PSS propeller shaft seal and any known problems. There is supposed to be no water coming from the seal, so either the engine is out of alignment causing a lot of side movement in the seal faces or the seal isn’t compressed enough.

We had an early night ready for an early start.

2 June 2011 St Lucia to Admiralty Bay, Bequia
We got up at five o’clock and dropped the mooring at twenty past five. There was no wind at all for the first hour, until we cleared the lee of the island. We then had 15-20 knots about 60 degrees up-wind – it was a fabulous, (if boisterous) sail until we arrived in the lee of St Vincent at about midday.

We motored up the coast, and then sailed across to Bequia in good winds and flat seas. We anchored off Princess Margaret beach at about half past four and collapsed.

3 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
First thing in the morning, we cleared into customs. They asked me when I had arrived, to which I gave a little white lie, “Last night at about half past six” – I knew that they were open until six o’clock and they get a bit crinkly if you don’t check in as soon as possible.

The British guy behind me didn’t play the “game”; instead he told them that he had arrived at four o’clock yesterday. When asked why he hadn’t checked in yesterday, he started to quote international law, stating that he had raised the yellow Q flag and by rights they should have come out to his yacht! I thought that the customs guy was going to drag him across the counter and lock him up, but he simply said that he was giving him a verbal warning and would fine him next time. The Brit didn’t like this at all and had another rant stating that he was never going to come to their country again. I sloped off leaving them to it.

I arranged for the Sam the refrigerator man to come and sort out the freezer again on Monday and then we did some serious shopping. I bought two dive tanks, Glenys bought some canvas to make an “Ober-windscoop”, I bought an 8 foot by 4 foot sheet of marine ply and we bought a case of “Stag” beer. It was a very heavily loaded dinghy that we took back to the boat.

After lunch, I started the generator, started the water maker and then set about cutting up the plywood with my jigsaw. After about fifteen minutes, I popped down below to check on the watermaker and noticed that there seemed to be a bit of smoke below. The generator control panel wasn’t showing any alarm signals, but I could see smoke coming from the cockpit locker (which is linked to the engine room.) I quickly shut down the watermaker and turned off the generator. I tentatively opened the engine room door to be greeted by billowing smoke!

We left the engine room door open and opened the cockpit locker to let out the smoke. Thinking it through, I thought that the generator had overheated because I was running the water maker, the battery charger and the jigsaw. I decided to leave the generator to cool down and hoped that I hadn’t done irreparable damage.

Switching on the inverter, I continued to saw up the plywood. I cut one piece to fill in the space in our bed to turn it from two single berths to one huge king sized bed. I also made a frame to fit into the washboard to hold mosquito netting to keep the pesky little blighters out at night and still give us ventilation in the saloon. It was about four o’clock by the time that I’d finished sanding the bits and tidied up. Glenys stained the bed infill and the mosquito screen.

By now, the generator had cooled down a bit, so I had a look at it. I read the manual which stated that “the generator cannot be damaged by overloading” – it will simply stop generating electricity. That was a relief. I started the generator and saw that the smoke was coming from somewhere behind the engine. Further investigation led me to the exhaust outlet which had a broken circlip. I replaced the circlip and started the generator again – just the same. I then saw that there was a ¼ inch hole in the exhaust outlet casting – bugger! It was getting late so I gave up for the day.

We’ve decided that we need to be sociable, so Glenys went over to “Life of Reilly” to say hello (to Alan & Lisbet) and invited them over for a beer - we’d met them in Prickly Bay about two months ago. They were our first guests aboard Alba after living on board for two months – we had a good time.

4 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
I was up at quarter to seven, working out the best plan to repair the hole in the exhaust fitting. After some research on the internet, I decided that welding the casting was not going to work and that I should attempt a repair with some Marine-Tex, which is an epoxy putty designed for emergency repairs. I cleaned the area around the hole with coarse sandpaper and filled the hole. It will take 24 hours to set hard, so I won’t know if it has worked until tomorrow.

While I was messing about in the engine room, I adjusted the propeller shaft seal to make the two bearing surfaces push together harder. I only moved one bearing about ¼ inch along the propeller shaft, but it was it was a mission having to contort myself over and around the engine.

It was a very hot afternoon with small puffs of wind that seemed to come from any direction, which made the boat swirl around making it hard to hide from the sun. Glenys was having a hard time keeping cool especially after she jumped in the water and got stung by a jelly fish again.

The evening was no better, with no breeze and still hot below. While cooking dinner, Glenys finally cracked up and burst into tears of frustration at sweating all the time. We discussed sailing to more temperate latitudes over dinner, and we think that we’ll spend this summer and winter in the West Indies and then head up towards the east coast of the USA for next summer.

Just before bed, I heard a shoal of fish jumping around our boat and managed to catch a small Jack with my spinning rod.

5 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
It was my fifty-fifth birthday today. My main present was the fishing rod that I bought myself a couple of weeks ago, but Glenys also gave me a “Billy” – a small baseball bat for whacking fish over the head.

We went for a hike up to the top of Peggy’s Rock, which is the highest point on Bequia. It took us 45 minutes to walk to the Whaling Museum where the path starts and then 30 minutes to walk up to the top. It’s a nice walk up a ridge, with a faint path in places, but a well-worn path up through trees in other places. It’s especially pretty near the top with lots of Yucca plants along the route. The view of Bequia from the summit is well worth the walk up. We walked back down the same way and back to the boat to have a cooling swim and change for lunch.

When we got back to the boat, I ran the generator for 45 minutes and my “bodge” job on the exhaust seems to have worked, which is a relief.

We went to “De Reef” restaurant on Lower Bay and had lunch with a few beers that turned into a lot of beers as we chilled out and listened to a live Blues band playing. We got talking to John and Bobby from “Notre Vie” who are heading down to Grenada, so we’ll see them around over the next few months.

Back on the boat we had barbequed Jack for dinner and a bottle of wine. It was a very nice birthday.

6 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
I mooched about in the morning and organised the shipment of a replacement exhaust manifold from Fischer Panda in the UK (£130 + £65 carriage). I’m having it delivered to Erica’s Marine Services in Union Island because it will take between 3-5 days to get here. We are planning to be in the Grenadines for a couple of weeks and we’ll be able to leave Bequia whenever we want to. I hate the idea of being trapped here waiting for a delivery (even though Bequia is lovely.)

I picked up Sam, the refrigeration man, at half past ten and he was on-board for five hours. He removed the two high pressure connectors from the compressor and then soldered the pipes with permanent joints. He has the job of Reilly because he then sat around for four hours waiting for the system to charge with Freon and pull down to working temperature.

When he’d declared the job done, I asked him how much I owed him and he said just to give him whatever I thought was fair. I gave him $200EC (£50) which he seemed happy enough with. He’s a nice guy who obviously wanted to get the job right after charging me the full rate last time. While I was taking him back to the GYE dock, I suggested that he ought to put an advert in the Doyle Guide because it would give him more credibility – he thought that it was a good idea.

By the time I’d got back to the boat, it was four o’clock, so I just tidied up and then messed about creating an advert for Sam including a photo that I’d taken of him when he was working on our fridge. Glenys managed to finished Stage 1 of the Ober-windscoop - it zips onto the back of the bimini and reaches down past the aft cabin hatch. The idea is that it will scoop wind into the hatch as well as preventing rain going down the hatch – it’s a real nuisance having to keep getting up in the middle of the night to close the hatch.

7 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
It rained really heavily early in the morning and the Ober-windscoop did its job until the boat veered and the rain came in sideways. We now need to design some side panels to stop that happening.

I had a great morning and managed to complete the wiring for the dive compressor and actually got it to start. I filled the two dive tanks that we bought last week - it took about 50 minutes to fill two dive tanks completely, so hopefully a normal fill with 50 bar left in the tanks will only take 40 minutes. It is however, very noisy – I won’t be the most popular person in the anchorage when I run it. We can now go diving at last, but unfortunately it was a grim, rainy day with constant heavy rain showers which is not the best conditions to go diving.

One of the nice things about being on a boat in the Tropics is that we only have to wear shoes when we go ashore. One disadvantage of this is that it is very easy to stub the odd toe. In order to get the compressor working, I had to empty the cockpit locker, so there was stuff everywhere and while trying to scramble out of the cockpit, I managed to kick the edge of a hatch with my little toe – hurts like mad.

We went into town and picked up our gas tank and a few other bits and pieces (and a case of beer). I gave Sam the advert that I made yesterday – he was very pleased with it. We couldn’t get any cash out of the bank because the system was down. None of the shops could process credit cards either, so we only have $80EC of cash left.

8 June 2011 Admiralty Bay, Bequia
We woke to bright sunshine today. The batteries were pretty low this morning so we ran the generator for a couple of hours – the patch job on the exhaust manifold seems to be holding fine.

Glenys did a bit of sewing while I got out all the dive gear and checked it out. We went for a dive on The Devil’s Table – a reef at the entrance to the bay. I was very nervous as this was the first dive that we have done on our own for fifteen years. There was a strong current, so we went up current for twenty minutes and drifted back. Very nice reef with lots of fish life – spotted a couple of nice lobster.

In the afternoon, I zipped into town to get some cash and some petrol for the dinghy and then fixed the dive compressor into its permanent position in the cockpit locker. I filled the two tanks ready for the next dive. Glenys put one side panel onto the Ober-windscoop which I think will keep out the rain.

9 June 2011 Bequia to Little Bay, Canouan
We decided to leave Bequia today, so we went into town to do some last minute shopping before going to the more isolated anchorages in the Grenadines. As we arrived at the dinghy dock, some locals were just pulling a seine net onto the beach. We had a look at the small herring-type fish that they had caught and Glenys bought a big bag for $5EC.

The back toilet is starting to lose suction and I think that it’s on the way out, so I bought a spares kit for £60! I bought another dive belt and some weights and, on an impulse, bought a four foot gaff to help me land those big fish. I’m now up to £380 for fishing tackle. Glenys bought some food and more Sunbrella to make some side flaps for the bimini – we’re determined to be able to keep rain (and sun) out of the cockpit.

We had a cracking sail down to Canouan - hard on the wind (again!), but only 15 knot winds and flat seas. There was a lot of Sargassum seaweed in the water, which was a nuisance because I had to keep pulling in the fishing lure when we snagged some with the hook. The effort paid off because eventually we caught a nice 6lb Dorado. Glenys hove-to while I played the fish – it fought well, leaping out of the water a few times, but I pulled it alongside and used my new gaff to lift it on deck. A quick smack with my new “Billy”, a few stabs with an ice pick into its brain and we had our first Dorado. What a magnificent fish – all blues, yellows and silver.

Unfortunately, I’m not very good at killing fish; I can’t seem to find where its brain is. This results in the fish thrashing about and copious amounts of blood being splashed about, which takes ages to clean up. Also, while gaffing the Dorado today, I managed to lose my reading glasses over the side (which I had foolishly left hanging around my neck.) Make that £420 for fishing tackle…

We anchored in Little Bay, just off the beach in about six metres of water over sand. This is a very pretty place with no-one else - we can see the main anchorage (packed with yachts) about a mile away. I cut the Dorado into steaks and fillets, while Glenys gutted the herrings ready to barbeque them. We had a quick snorkel (which was very good) and our day was gone.

As night fell, we started to swirl around on the anchor as big gusts of wind hit us. We are anchored about 50 metres from the reef and the beach. While it is a lovely anchorage in the sunshine, and it’s nice to be alone for once, it’s a bit worrying in the dark with the sound of waves breaking gently on the reef behind us.

10 June 2011 Little Bay to Charlestown Bay, Canouan
We didn’t drag onto the reef last night, but we did swirl around in the current making it a very hot sweaty night.

We did a few jobs in the morning. I was so annoyed by the hot, sweaty night that I installed a fan above my bed which, in true boat fashion, was a drawn out affair involving the removal of the mirror in the aft heads to run the wiring. Glenys sewed the other side flap to the Ober-windscoop and added a panel to attach the hatch with bungee cord – it looks good.

Later in the morning, we went diving. We took the dinghy north up the coast and dropped the anchor just past the second small bay. It was a nice dive. There was a small one knot current going north, so we drifted for twenty minutes and then swam back. We saw a big “Spotted Eagle Ray” which naturally swam away as soon as it saw us – I managed to get one reasonable photo of it.

Back on Alba, we had pan-fried Dorado sandwiches for lunch and filled the dive tanks. There were some big gusts coming done from the island and I’m pretty sure that our anchor was dragging slightly in the hard sand, so we went into the main anchorage for the night.

There was a huge shoal of Southern Sennet swirling around our boat as we anchored, so we went snorkelling to investigate. They were very bunched together and, after a while, we saw the reason why – a big four foot Barracuda was slowly circling the shoal no doubt looking to pounce on any stragglers.

We had “Dorado in a Creamy Mustard Sauce” for dinner.

11 June 2011 Charlestown Bay, Canouan
We decided to go for a walk to see if we could get up the highest peak on the island. We first walked down to Friendship Bay (because I went the wrong way) and then climbed back up the road to the Atlantic side of the island – very impressive reefs. There must be a lot of tortoises on the island because we spotted four on our walk.

The road eventually petered out into a dirt surface and we came across a locked gate barring our path. We knew that this end of the island is owned by a company running a luxury resort, but the guide book said that you can sometimes get permission to go walking. We could see a small guard house about 200 yards past the gate, so we clambered around the side of the gate and walked up to the security guard – who was asleep. I gently woke him up and he said that we should walk around the road to see the supervisor who may allow us in.

We came across another guy near a small hut and asked him if we could walk up the hill and he said that if we could find our way then no problem. We continued along the road with a fine view of the resort. There’s a lot of construction work being done on one fantastic beach and the rest looks like Disney World with a beautifully manicured golf course as the centre piece.

As we started to walk down into the resort, the Security Manager drew up beside us in a golf buggy and asked us pleasantly who we were and what we were doing. We were in scruffy hiking clothes with small rucksacks, so I guess that we stood out as being different to their normal guests. We told him that we were going for a walk to the top of the hill. He told us that wasn’t possible as this was a private resort. There were very sinister undertones to what he said to us - such a mentioning a 12 bore shot gun with rock salt if he had seen us going around the gate. Basically, he escorted us off the premises. I was slightly outraged (even though we were trespassing) and I now think that the place is more like “The Village” from “The Prisoner “than Disney World.

We chilled out in the afternoon and went to “Foggy Mountain” for a drink with Jeff and Pam.

12 June 2011 Canouan to Saline Bay, Mayreau
We dodged a few squalls and had a great reach to Mayreau. Before leaving, I made up a trolling lure from a herring that I had salted. Just outside Salt Whistle Bay, I got a bite from a big fish. The line quickly whizzed off the reel so I grabbed the rod and gave it a couple of quick tugs. Unfortunately the fish got away – taking my herring with it. I’m guessing that it was a big Barracuda because we were only in 10 metres of water.

We anchored in Saline Bay with “Foggy Mountain” and another yacht. This is such a great anchorage – steady winds and a beautiful beach. I don’t know why people bother to anchor in Salt Whistle Bay which is always very crowded. We went snorkelling on the Wreck of the Purina, which is a world war two gunboat just outside the bay in about 10-15 metres of water. We dived on this 15 years ago, but now it is within the Marine Park and all diving has to be with a local dive centre. There was no current and the water was clear so we had a great time free-diving down to the wreck.

We chilled out after our Dorado sandwich for lunch and then went snorkelling with “Foggy Mountain”, which was shallow but we saw lots of small lobster.

We had “Foggy Mountain” and Krista and Bill from “Secoudon” around for drinks – started at six o’clock and finished at half past nine, lubricated by the bottle of rum that Krista brought.

13 June 2011 Saline Bay, Mayreau
I felt a bit “dull” this morning, mostly due to Krista’s rum which seemed to magically appear in my glass last night.

We went for walk across the island to the windward side and along a nice deserted beach. The beach eventually petered out and we picked up a small, partially overgrown track that continued along the coast line. We came across several small isolated beaches with magnificent views of the Tobago Cays and the turquoise waters over reefs. After an hour, we arrived at Salt Whistle Bay which is a pretty little bay, but packed with yachts. We walked up the hill back to the main village and got drenched by a big squall that caught us out.

We lounged about in the afternoon because it was too hot to do anything.

14 June 2011 Saline Bay, Mayreau
There’s a strong Tropical Wave moving through the area, so we decided to stay here for another day. Our aft toilet has been getting harder and harder to pump out, so I stripped it down and replaced all of the seals and moving parts. Not the nicest job in the world, but at least we haven’t been using it for any “heavy” work for the last week, so it was relatively clear. It works a treat now.

Glenys spent the day sewing - making a slight modification to the ober-windscoop and making a fitted bed sheet.

I’m glad that we stayed because some serious squalls hit us in the afternoon – 30 knot winds and heavy rain. It was a pain to keep having to open and close hatches as each squall went through – a hot, sticky, miserable afternoon.

15 June 2011 Saline Bay, Mayreau
We had another cool, breezy night. There was a short spell of rain, but the Ober-windscoop did it job and no rain came in through our hatch. Our anti-mosquito regime has also been working well – we’ve been putting the mosquito screen on the hatch in our cabin, putting the mosquito frame in the washboard and closed all other hatches. I’ve now gone a week without a single bite – touch wood…

The weather forecast seem to indicate that the Tropical Wave has gone past us, but there was a lot of Cumulus cloud to the east of us in the morning, so we decided to stay put and go to Union tomorrow. I took advantage of the fast Internet connection and added some Google Earth pages to our web site while Glenys did some sewing.

The afternoon was dreadful. We had a few rain showers and then at about three o’clock, the wind picked up to gale force. All the boats in the anchorage were veering about in the 40 knots gusts. We had to take down the Ober-windscoop in fear of it being ripped away. There was two hours of high winds and lashing rain as a front went through. White caps formed outside the bay and visibility dropped to about ¼ mile in the heavy rain. Quite a few yachts were caught out between the islands and limped into Saline Bay in the gusts, gratefully dropping anchor in the relatively calm bay.

The wind dropped off in the evening and it was just a little bit rolly.

16 June 2011 Saline Bay to Tobago Cays
I checked out the weather and the Tropical Wave has now definitely gone past us. It’s Thursday today and there’s another Tropical Wave forecast to come through on Sunday, which should give us three days before we need to be somewhere protected. These Tropical Waves are troughs of low pressure that are generated in Africa and travel across the Atlantic Ocean. Some of them will form into cyclonic (rotating) systems and become Tropical Storms and then Hurricanes, so we need to keep an eye on them.

We motored around to Clifton in Union Island to check if the exhaust manifold has arrived – not yet. We bought a load of groceries and then sailed around to the Tobago Cays. The wind speed was only 15-20 knots but there were a lot of waves due to the swell from yesterday’s squalls. I went and chatted to “Notre Vie” - John said that they recorded over 50 knots of wind yesterday afternoon.

We snorkelled with the turtles and I took a good photograph of a smooth trunkfish – for some reason they seemed to be territorial and coming very close which is unusual.

A few squalls went past us in the afternoon which increased the wind to 25 knots but nothing drastic. The sky looked clear when we went to bed.

17 June 2011 Tobago Cays to Chatham Bay, Union Island
It was a very restless night - we rocked and rolled all night. Big squalls kept coming through, which increased the wind to over 25 knots and brought heavy rain showers. I had to get up three times to close the hatch because the strong driving rain was getting past the Ober-windscoop. Most of the time it’s nice living on a yacht in paradise, but I don’t think that I’ve had an unbroken night’s sleep since we moved on board.

We decided to go back to Saline Bay to get Internet access and then onto Clifton, Union Island. In Saline Bay, I picked up our email, looked at the weather forecast and checked out the delivery schedule for the exhaust manifold which said it was expected to be delivered two days ago. I rang Erika’s Yacht Services and found out that it has arrived. We were only in Saline Bay for 20 minutes.

The anchorage in Clifton was pretty crowded and we had trouble anchoring on our first attempt, probably because it was broken coral on the sea bed. After motoring around for a while, we eventually anchored in 8 metres of water in the main fairway around the central reef – not a very nice place.

We went in to town and found that our package was at customs in the airport, so we walked over there and were told that the person responsible for packages had gone to lunch. I went back an hour later and he still wasn’t there, so I just had to sit around and wait some more. It took 30 minutes for him to sort out the paperwork – half of which was spent trying to work out the product classification code for an exhaust manifold. The duty was only £10 – it didn’t seem to be worth the effort.

I was back on the boat at three o’clock and we decided to go around to Chatham Bay, which was about an hour of nice down-wind sailing. Chatham Bay is lovely. There are only four boats in the huge bay and they are all spread out so everyone has their own space – fantastic.

We seem to have spent the whole day running about, so we collapsed and chilled out for the rest of the day.

18 June 2011 Chatham Bay, Union Island
I had a much better night’s sleep – no rocking and rolling, just a few katabatic gusts. I only had to get up once when I thought that it was raining.
I mooched about in the morning while Glenys took down bimini and sewed some new zips onto the sides to fit some side flaps to keep the sun and rain out of the cockpit. We went for a dive around Rapid Point which was good with nice coral.

After lunch, the Tropical Wave arrived, bringing rain and strong winds all afternoon. As usual in this anchorage, the wind comes down from the hills in shrieking gusts and we were getting gusts of 30+ knots. As darkness fell, all of the boats in the anchorage were veering about in the gusts. We had dinner below and it was still howling and raining when we went to bed.

It’s funny how much we now trust the anchor. We knew that it was well dug in and even though it was pitch black and howling, I soon fell asleep. I guess its fatalism. We’ve done all that we can, so there’s no point in worrying about what may happen – we’ll just sort it out when it does happen.

19 June 2011 Chatham Bay, Union Island
The Tropical Wave passed us during the night and the morning was bright and sunny. We went for a walk over to Ashton, which took an hour – it’s a pleasant little town. I took my phone with me and managed to get a NOAA weather forecast which says that the next Tropical Wave will be here on the 23rd.

Our main objective was to walk up Mount Taboi, which at 1000 feet is the highest point on the island. After a little wandering about, we were shown the start of the trail up the mountain by a local lady – it was not very obvious and looked like a path to someone’s house. It took us an hour and a half to get to the top – the path petered out about two thirds of the way up and I took a couple of wrong routes. At one point, we ended up in the middle of huge patch of cacti getting scratched and pricked by huge thorns – Glenys was not amused. However, the view from the top is spectacular and it only took us 30 minutes to get back down to Ashton.

There were no restaurants open because it is a Sunday, so we walked back to Chatham Bay and had a pork & rice in a beach bar. We were walking for over four hours, so the coca colas went down well.

We stopped off and said hello to Steve and Lynn on “Celebration”. They said they were going to happy hour in a beach bar, so we joined them and met Chris and Anne from “Mr Mac”, and Rod and Mary from “Sheer Tenacity”. Potent rum punches were the only drinks available and I’m afraid that I had four of them. I was apparently very loud by the end of the session. We poured ourselves back onto the boat at eight o’clock and Glenys made her signature “quick” meal of “Huevos Rancheros” before we crashed out.

20 June 2011 Chatham Bay, Union Island
I had a bit of a hangover this morning (seems to be a Monday thing), but I forced myself to do my exercises for 30 minutes. Glenys got on with making some side flaps for the bimini then we went for a dive at the same place as Saturday – nice dive site.

There’s a shoal of Bonito (small tuna) which have been active in the bay since we got here. The Bonito are chasing shoals of small bait fish and attacking them from below. This causes the bait fish to flee for the surface and the Bonito make spectacular leaps out of the water sometimes travelling 10 metres before crashing back into the water. In addition, the Sea-gulls, Boobies and Frigate Birds are all flying around attacking the bait fish from above.

While Glenys was making lunch, I saw a shoal of bait fish jump out of the water close by our boat. This was shortly followed by chaos as the sea birds arrived and bonito started to splash around us. I rigged up a small lure on my casting rod and after only a couple of casts, hooked a Bonito. It’s only a light rod and reel, so the line whizzed out and it took me five minutes to land a nice four pound Bonito - great fun and dinner for two days.

21 June 2011 Chatham Bay to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We decided to move on today, so we first went back to Saline Bay to get an Internet connection to check the weather. It was a long hour motoring straight upwind into lumpy seas – we’ve decided that Alba sails better than she motors. The weather forecast says that the next Tropical Wave will arrive tomorrow night.

We decided to go to Carriacou and possibly spend the night at Sandy Island which is a lovely little deserted island. We sailed across to Clifton in Union Island to check out of St Vincent & The Grenadines. It was blowing 25 knots and Glenys didn’t seem too happy. I went ashore and left Glenys on the boat.

Forty minutes later, we pulled up the anchor heading for Carriacou. We motored out of the shelter of the reef into steep, five foot seas and turned into wind to put up the main sail. We hadn’t agreed a plan, so I ended up shouting at Glenys to do things, while struggling in the strong winds and seas. Glenys was trying not to motor into the reef and it was chaos. We eventually got the sail up and turned downwind.

I then started shouting instructions to get the jib out. The seas were 6-8 feet by now with strong gusts of wind and the final straw was when I told Glenys off for letting the boat veer upwind in a strong gust - she shouted “Well do it yourself “ and I had to jump onto the steering wheel. She wasn’t happy – our first row…

About fifteen minutes later, she had calmed down and we had a cracking, if boisterous sail down to Carriacou (with me steering.) We hit 7.9 knots while surfing down one wave. Half way across, the fishing reel screamed out and I hove-to before grabbing the rod. I didn’t “set” the hook and when I got the fish close to the surface, it jumped clear of the water and the hook came out of its mouth. A Barracuda – I think. It was difficult to manoeuvre with the big seas and strong winds, so Glenys vetoed me putting out another lure.

We anchored in Hillsborough, had lunch and went ashore to clear into Carriacou. An hour later we had done the administration, bought some food and a case of beer. We pulled up the anchor and motored past Sandy Island – it was still blowing 20-25 knots and it’s a bit exposed, so we carried on to Tyrell Bay.

There were lots of boats anchored so we chose a spot and dropped the anchor in a nice big patch of sand. I snorkelled down and the anchor was well dug in, but we were a little close to “Foggy Mountain” and another boat. I was too tired to bother to move, so we stayed there – done too much anchoring and moving about today.

22 June 2011 Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We woke at half past six with strong 25-30 knot gusts and driving rain. I got out of bed, put the Ober-windscoop away and put up the spray hood. I went back to bed for an hour.

The day was a series of squalls going through with rain and gusts of wind. All the boats were veering about which made us go closer to the other two boats. There was a bit of a lull at eleven o’clock, so we decided to re-anchor. We tried to anchor a couple of times in one spot, but both times we were dragging in loose sand and coral. After a parade around the anchorage for ten minutes in the 25-30 knot gusts, we finally managed to anchor in a sandy patch, next to “Sheer Tenacity”. We ended up a little bit close to “Mr Mac”, but after 40 minutes of messing about, I couldn’t be bothered to try again.

We spend the rest of the day chilling out. I’ve started to teach myself the clarinet again, which is difficult because my lips are exhausted after five minutes. We went for a quick wander about on shore. It has changed a lot from fifteen years ago, but it is still very relaxed ashore.

23 June 2011 Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We tried to get our laundry done, but lots of places are closed because it is a holiday – Corpus Christi.

I talked to a French guy who does steel work and welding about my design for the Alba Arch. His workshop is actually a heavily modified trimaran which is moored close to the Yacht Club. He seems to know what he is doing and we had a long chat about various design points. I need to go back to the drawing board and alter the shape a little bit. He reckons that it will be considerably cheaper in aluminium because he wouldn’t have to polish it after welding. I’m not sure about aluminium – it will be a lot lighter, but all of the tubing will be thicker and I’m not sure if it will look better in stainless steel.

We had lunch and then walked up to the top of the second highest hill on the island (Chapeau Carre 945 ft). We didn’t have anything to help us apart from a small map in the pilot book that seemed to indicate a path at the other side. We managed to find it OK and the view from the top was very good.

In the evening, we treated ourselves and went out for a posh meal with “Mr Mac” and “Foggy Mountain”. The restaurant was called The Round House in a small village bizarrely called “Bogle”. It’s a totally round little building with round windows and the roof is supported by a carved tree – kind of like a hobbit house. The meal was very trendy – my fish was piled up on creamed potatoes and drizzled with sauce, etc, etc. It looks like the next Tropical Wave will be with us in four or five days’ time.

24 June 2011 Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We dropped the laundry off and caught a bus to Hillsborough and then another to a small village at the North end of the island called “Windward”.  The ride to Windward on the buses was colourful as usual. Coming from Tyrell Bay, we stopped while one guy got off and spent a few minutes talking to some guys on the side of the road while everyone else sweated in the bus waiting for him. In Hillsborough, we were treated to a tour of the town while we went to a store, so that an old lady could buy two big sacks of animal feed. On the way to Windward, we were jam-packed with people, but the driver still stopped and talked to two ladies who were waiting at the side of the road. We drove to the top of the hill, three people got out and the driver backed down the hill to pick up the two ladies. I reckon that the drivers know where everyone lives because the passenger just gives a subtle command like tapping twice on the window and the driver magically stops right in front of their house.

“Windward” is supposed to be the centre of traditional boat building in Carriacou, but everything was shut up – probably because it is another holiday today. There isn’t anything else going on there so we went for a walk with the aim of walking up “High North”, which is the highest hill in Carriacou – only a foot higher than Chapeau Carre which we climbed yesterday.

We found a small trail through mangroves to a nice beach (yawn!) and continued on a dirt road/track around the north of the island to Bogle. It was a very pleasant walk, but it was hot so we couldn’t be bothered to try to get up to the top of the hill. We stopped off at a rum shop in Bogle and had a nice cold coke before getting on a bus back to Hillsborough.

We had roti in a bar in Hillsborough then went back to the boat and collapsed.

25 June 2011 Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We declared a chill-out day.

Every time that we go for a walk, we have to search for the paths. I’ve managed to pick up some information on hikes from various sources, but there’s no “magic” resource on the Internet, so I’ve decided that I’ll create a Caribbean hiking guide and put it on our web site - I think that it would be useful for other cruisers. I spent the morning writing up some hikes ready to publish. Glenys chilled out, read a book and did a few little jobs.

In the afternoon, we went for a look around the mangrove swamp, which wasn’t very interesting – we saw two seagulls, a small jellyfish and some tiny mangrove oysters. Back on the boat, I started to redesign the Alba Arch.

I managed to catch a nice little Jack before we went to bed, which we can have for lunch tomorrow.

26 June 2011 Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
We woke up to grey skies and rain. The weather forecast shows that there is a Tropical Wave about 240 miles to the east of us approaching at 15 knots so it should be over us in 16 hours. We decided to stay put and go down to Grenada in a couple of days when it’s gone past. Our anchor is well dug in here and Tyrell bay is a nice protected anchorage.

It kept raining in the morning, so I did some more work on the web site and Glenys chilled out. I ran the water maker for 45 minutes and then stupidly left the rinse valve open for ten minutes and pumped the newly made water overboard again. I had to run the water maker for another 45 minutes - Duh!

Both Glenys and I have noticed the odd clunk on the steering, so I checked the cable and thought that it was a little loose, but unfortunately I had no manual. Thank goodness for the Internet. It only took about five minutes to download the manual and see how to adjust the cable tension. I found that one of the locking nuts on the steering cable adjustment was loose and re-tensioned the cable.

I did some more clarinet practise – I’m up to lesson 6 in “A Tune a Day”, the finale of which is “Abide with Me”, which I play at the speed of a slow dirge – Glenys is not impressed.

27 June 2011    Tyrell Bay to St Georges, Grenada
The weather looked settled this morning and the forecast said that the Tropical Wave has gone past, so we decided to head south to Grenada. Unfortunately, the engine wouldn’t start and I had to bleed the engine again – I really need to get to the bottom of the problem.

We had a lovely broad reach in 15-20 knots and sailed past Ile de Ronde.  It was very settled weather and there is a great dive site at some isolated rocks called the Sisters just off Ile de Ronde. Unfortunately, we had left a bit too late to anchor for a couple of hours – ah well, next time.

As usual, we were trolling a fishing line and, off Ile de Ronde, I had a bit of trouble with Boobies who were insistent on diving to try to catch our nice, red plastic squid.  After one of them actually caught it (and quickly dropped it), I decided that I didn’t want to unhook an angry Booby, so I pulled the line in until they lost interest.  I had three bites on the trip and hooked two barracuda, but unfortunately lost them both.  The first one was a nice size (2-3 foot) and we lost it because we didn’t slow the boat down, so I struggled to gaff it properly – I was gutted.

The second one was huge – about five feet long. We slowed the boat down and it took quite a lot of effort to get it alongside, at which point I was starting to doubt whether I wanted something with lots of very big sharp teeth on board anyway.  Also with such big predators, there is the possibility that they it will have ciguatera which is a nasty neural disease.  As I was debating what to do, it gave a great leap out of the water, bit through the nylon leader and escaped - problem solved.

We anchored in the bay outside St Georges which seems to be a bit rolly, but we want to go and do a dive in the area, so we are staying.

28 June 2011    St Georges to Prickly Bay, Grenada
It was a hell of a night – we rocked and rolled all night.  It was so bad that I had to lie in the “Recovery Position” and grip the bed to be stable.  I didn’t sleep very well.  We were up at seven o’clock, had breakfast then motored over to Moliniere Point and picked up a Marine Park mooring.

The dive was very good.  I knew that there was a wreck down there somewhere and I was very pleased with myself when I led us straight to it at 20 metres depth.  I even managed to surface about 5 metres from the dinghy, rather than having to sneak to the surface to have a crafty look at where we are.

We had a great reach to Saline Point and then a remorseless bash upwind under power to Prickly Bay, where we had pan fried Jack for lunch and then crashed out for the afternoon.

In the evening, we decided to “go socialising” and went to “De Reef” bar for happy hour and dinner. We joined “Notre Vie” and had a pleasant evening.

29 June 2011    Prickly Bay, Grenada
We woke to the sound of thunder, shortly followed by gusts of wind and heavy rain.  We spent the morning planning the various jobs to do, with the intention of going shopping in the afternoon. Unfortunately after lunch, the weather took a turn for the worse, so we spent all day hiding from the rain and squalls. The anchorage also became very rolly, which is a pity because we can’t move to Hog Island until we’ve done our shopping.

I spent most of the afternoon re-designing the Alba Arch.  I think that I’ve got it sorted now and we’ll be able to have three solar panels instead of one, which will help keeping our batteries charged.

We also worked out our long range plan (subject to winds & whims), which is:

Short term, we are thinking of going down to Trinidad in the next two weeks and then be back in Grenada for the first week of August so that we can go to the Carnival.

This means that we need to get the boat ready for some night sailing.  We need to fit safety lines on deck so that we can clip on if we need to go outside the cockpit, also there are no adequate clipping points in the cockpit.  The lifejackets that we have are very “low tech”, so we need to buy two good ones with harnesses built in.

30 June 2011    Prickly Bay to Hog Island, Grenada
We went shopping.  Our first stop was the chandlers where we bought various bits and pieces.

Glenys has been complaining about her cooker.  The oven door doesn’t seal properly and it won’t heat up above 200 degrees Fahrenheit.  In addition, it’s rusty and looking very tired.  The chandler’s has an ENO cooker which is the model that Hallberg Rassey currently fit into their new HR43s.  Glenys went into buying lust and wants it. While I was in the boat yard, I visited TechNick who does fabrication work and talked through my design of the Alba Arch.  He agreed with most of the design and will be giving me an estimate in a few days’ time.

We went to the shopping mall, did a “big shop”, took a taxi back to the marina and lugged everything back to the boat.

After lunch, we decided to go around to Hog Island, so as a precaution, I bled the fuel and there’s still some air in the system - it’s very irritating because I haven’t found any leaks.

The route into Hog Island is a little tricky because you have to navigate through reefs. There are supposed to be buoys marking the reefs but they are not reliable, so you need to visually navigate through the winding channel.  Unfortunately, a rain squall hit us just as we were entering the reefs, which lasted for five minutes and made it quite exciting as some of the buoys were indeed missing and our visibility dropped to 50 metres.  We managed to get in without running aground and anchored next to the mangroves on the north side of the anchorage.  There are approximately 50 boats in the anchorage, but only about 20 look like they have anyone on board – many of the boats are on moorings or tied up in the mangroves.

Once settled, I did some drawings of the ENO cooker and it looks like it just fits into the space.  I might have to do some minor alterations to the woodwork at the bottom and move the gas shut-off valve, but it looks like we’ll buy it – Glenys can’t wait.

After two or three weeks of having no mosquito bites, I managed to get 8 bites this afternoon from No-see-ums in the boat yard and I was bitten three times by mosquitos in the evening, so we went from MOSCON 4 to MOSCON 2 – (kind of like DEVCON 2 which is the USA Defense Readiness Condition – “High state of alert but not yet at war”).

MOSCON 2 involves protecting our bedroom as night falls - by putting up a mosquito net in the aft cabin, turning on the mosquito killer and keeping the cabin door shut.  When we go to sleep the cabin door and side portholes are kept shut and the fans are on.  I may spray myself with insect repellent if the wind drops to a light breeze and the little buggers can find me.