June 2011 - St Lucia to Grenada - Page 4

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.