August 2011

Monday 1st

First thing check the navtext and get on line to National Hurricane Centre Florida. “91L” appears to be moving north and will miss us.

I am invited to race on “No Fear” and head off at 8:30 for the next bay. We get a poor start in pouring rain that is impossible to see through, but are first around the windward mark pointing higher than all other yachts. We have no down wind performance and when the race is stopped early we are disappointed with a fourth place. We lunch at the Yacht club and catch a van through beautiful scenery above Hilsborough and down to watch a donkey race held around Hilsborough town, greasy pole and beer drinking competitions. There is loud music that you can feel through your stomach all around town with crowds of people in a carnival atmosphere. Back to the slipway for prize giving where we meet loads of new people living the boat life, have a barbecue, and end up on “Loose Cannon” the winning boat for rum and cokes etc. We cram 24 people aboard to exceed their previous record. She is 24ft long. Have trouble getting home as we did not leave any lights on.

Tuesday 2^nd August

Laundry day (with book swap) hear that Jay came out of hospital the previous night and has gone back in again this morning. We meet French Eric (white with dreadlocks) who has been living on his trawler for 25 years. He tells us his friend has been on his boat for 50! Bijorn came aboard to advise on battery situation, we are under powered and need to buy more charging kit.

Wednesday 3^rd August

I remember that I have a dental appointment for some implants on the 11^th and wonder if I can make it. We go to the yacht club to sign up for the Cariacou Childrens Fund Internet connection. A bunch of companies pay towards the connection and hardware, the yacht club offer connections to anyone and you are left to donate to the fund. Another bright idea from the Caribbean...

Trudy checks on line to see if we can get tickets and although this is possible we have to spend ages phoning the UK to pay, get listed and confirm flights as Grenada to the UK is a two sector flight.

Thursday 4^th

We start the engine at 6:30 in preparation for a long sail to St Georges in Grenada. We make good time and are able to play with the sails gibing in light winds until we finally motor in to Ross point and anchor in a mix of rock and dead coral.

We dinghy round to Port Louis marina where we are told they have a carnival special offer with berths at £15 a night for ten nights. This is good news as we can get to England and back in that time. So my trip to the dentist is on.

We have a restless night as the anchor is dragging and we have to move before we start an anchor watch. I fall asleep on watch and Trudy wakes me at 4am. There is no wind so we can get some sleep before motoring in to Port Louis.

Friday 5^th

We moor up on pier S8. This is a super-yacht berth and we are surrounded by 30 meter plus yachts, tall masts, and free-boards that block our view. We search for an electrician but as Carnival is due to start tonight and will run though until Wednesday morning we don't stand much chance. However after a chain of phone calls we get hold of Mark from Grenada Marine who says he will get someone to look at the boat whilst we are in the UK.

Saturday 6^th,

We go into town to the only cash point in St Georges. This is an eventful journey as the music is blaring out of the van as it speeds two meters behind a scooter three up, man with helmet, large dog held by small girl with shorts and flip flops. Dog and girl have no helmets.

We visit the market which includes several rum shops each being less than two meters square but include a bar a fridge and sometimes a seat. There is a wealth of unrecognisable things. We buy shadow bene, avocados limes etc. the limes are really strong, zesty and fresh, the avocados have red skins, yellow flesh and are ripe and very creamy, the shadow bene plant has a sharp leaf. The taste is hard to describe, a mix of coriander, celery and basil.

After the market we catch a bus towards True Blue Bay as we hope to find someone to help with a range of other boat needs, sail bag, bimini, compass, propeller, trampoline etc. We need to walk a fair way and by chance find Prickly bay Marina with De Big Fish restaurant and Budget Marine chandlery. We have a beer before lunch and watch an Alsation pup dash about. It has huge feet that cannot miss standing on yours. It can neither control them nor its legs and careers around generally bumping into everything. It belongs to no-one but selects a couple leaving in a dinghy and leaps into the water after them. We don't see this but are told afterwards by an American girl who arrives in the restaurant asking for help to rescue a dog that cannot get out of the water. (unless it swam to the shore?) Trudy volunteers and climbs over a fence watched by the other diners. Together with the other rescuer she retrieves the dog from the sea. Of course it has to share the sea with everyone else and continues paddling around until eventually collapsing. After lunch we realise that it is half day closing on Saturday and the chandlers closed 10 minutes ago. Oh well, back to the marina for a beer.

Sunday 7^th, Monday 8^th

We spend the week end drinking Caribs and dinghying about trying to find “Carnival”. It is not until Monday that we realise that the various parades start at 5AM! And this is after partying from 9pm the previous night. We are out of our depth by a long way. However by chance we hear of a warm up for the evening at 4pm on Monday so we dinghy to the Carenage where we experience what we have been missing. The costumes are various colours with each float having its own theme. Costumes are very small; and the dancing is of an extremely lewd nature, a mixture of pole dancing and fornication with several parties all joining in together. No you can't imagine, you have to see it!

Tuesday 9^th

We have to move the boat to a safer berth as we will be leaving her unattended and they are expecting a large swell that may cause us damage where we are. Set off by taxi to the airport for the rip off price of EC$65 in was only 25 in December.

Wednesday 10^th

Arrive Gatwick pick up hire car and off to Dorchester hoping to see Shaun at the White Heart, he's on holiday. We sleep then go to the Cockado for dinner.

Thursday 11^th

Go to dentist and get a dose of temazepam, the rest of the day was well cool.

Friday 12^th

Off to Oxford for the summer sales, (I have run out of shorts) then Dorchester before a trip to the seven stars. It was great to see you all again. Just a pity I was on antibiotics.

Saturday 13^th

Trip to Southampton for some cooker parts and back to Nuneham Courtenay for a curry with Margie and Steve.

Sunday 14^th

Arrive back on Manureva, Electrician has turned all power off so we have a deep freeze and fridge full of rotting food! We go out for dinner and leave it all until tomorrow.

Monday 15^th

Clean out fridge and deep freeze, twice. Contact electrician, he will get back to me later.

4:45 get back to electrician he will send an email. 7:30 read email, he has suggested all the things I requested. The only useful information is that only 2 out of 4 solar panels are working so we are down 150 watts in charging power.

Mahi Mahi for dinner, we eat out again as we have no food on board.

Tuesday 16^th

Call electrician again, he will visit us in the afternoon, so we go shopping to the nearest chandlers and supermarket. All we find of any use to us at the chandlers is some polyurethane polish, we can't buy it because we forgot our yacht papers and it is a duty free shop! We get supplies at Foodland and go back to the boat to wait for an electrician.

Wednesday 17^th to Friday 19^th

We wait for electrician, finally he arrives with 4 out of 8 batteries and over next few hours 8 batteries and a new 100ah alternator are fitted. The solar panels are ok, the solar panel regulator was preventing overcharging the dead batteries.

Saturday 20^th

Prepare to move out of marina, thunderstorms all day so postpone the move.

Sunday 21^st

Moved boat from St Georges Marina to Prickly Bay anchorage. Beer in yacht club two hour happy hour ooh! We listen to an American talking at a Dutch couple. He says they can ask any American, Canadian, Englishman or European and none would have anything good to say about the Dutch! How strange..

Monday 22^nd

We have a list of jobs requiring the boat to be hauled out of the water, antifouling, propeller changing, rudders dropped and greased, sail drives serviced etc. So we try Spice Island Marine for yacht haul-out, no slots available until end September!

Visit Choo light a local Chinese – same as UK but with Conch!

Get a call to say we may get a place in the queue for a haul-out Tuesday. We just need to wait on board.

Tuesday 23rd

The 7:30 am "cruisers net" is receivable on VHF channel 68 in Prickly Bay so we get to know about weather, yoga, painting classes, film club, musician jams, cooking classes, restaurant specials, live gigs, yacht services, shopping trips etc. This service has a standard format and protocol with details of security issues, weather, arrivals and departures, social events, treasures of the bilge, commercial services and general announcements. You call in your yacht name and await for the request to speak. As part of this “net” you can call in with “Treasures of the Bilge” if you have anything to sell, give away, or need to buy. This morning a Dutch guy called in saying he had a grumpy wife and did anybody want her. The American operator ask him to repeat – I guess she didn't believe what she'd heard. He repeated the request and added he wanted to swap her for a blond bimbo....The operator asked for the next request – no sense of humour.

We have been on solar and battery power for two days now and, so far, with new batteries we are self sufficient without starting the engine. Great news.

As we are now in clean water, Trudy can swim again so dives to check the propeller connectors as these need to be changed.

Wednesday 24th

We hear that we can get a haul out on Friday and that we can include anti-fouling during the free 4 days ashore. It looks like a good deal. So we investigate what paint has been used, soft anti-foul, this rubs off slowly and does not require any scrubbing if you sail every now and then! Sound good, if we need to go for hard anti-foul this would cost extra as we will need a further sanding and an extra coat of barrier paint.

Thursday 25^th

In the bar we discuss the various merits of soft and hard anti-foul and discover that the soft we have on the boat already is the worst kind. We will need to put the same on again or go to the extra cost of sanding down the hulls to bare epoxy.

Friday 26th

Our haul out is postponed until Monday.

Sat 27th

Re visit the St Georges market and buy some more plastic baskets. Trinkets etc.

Sun 28th

We visit Terry and Julie on “Melvin” a 3700 Lagoon and swap books and ideas on keeping cool and avoiding mosquitoes. Later in the Tiki bar we meet an Aussie who has been sailing for about 25 years and delivered his latest child on the galley table. We are told by a number of experts (there are a lot around) that we should have chosen hard, not soft anti-foul.

Mon 29^th

We haul out the boat, this is a delicate steering manoeuvre with a need to fit a 23ft wide boat into a 25 ft gap with concrete pontoons. In addition our fenders are about a ft in diameter. We are perfectly lined up and all goes well until we are told to go back as there is no one to receive the boat. Great! With a side wind we need to reverse her and try again. We succeed without a bump, huge sigh of relief. All I have to do now is sign a declaration to say that the boatyard are not responsible for any accidents, breakages weather etc...anything. Everybody signs, there is no where else to go within 150 miles and they are the cheapest for 200 miles.

A welsh guy Steve (Liverpool supporter, I can tell from the tattoos) invites us out to his boat for a meal its a good relaxed evening where we swap information and ideas and we end with a list of stuff we need to buy.

Tues 30^th

We are told that the whole anti-foul needs to be sanded back and discover a load more evidence of osmosis. We agree to extra work and decide to go for the hard stuff. A lucky break as it turns out to be £50 cheaper a gallon – we need six! This fits in with all the opinions we received.

Next we are informed that we need to change the rudders. Is this ever going to stop?

We arrange a visit from a surveyor, minimum call out 2 hours at $150.

Go to the Quiz at the Tiki bar run by the owner, Darrel, a guy from Nottingham. He only came here to service swimming pools and eventually decided to run the bar. (We later find out that he gets deported for bad mouthing a judge and bigamy!)

Wed 31^st

Discover blisters in barrier coat for anti-foul it needs to be sanded back and repainted. I replace the ridge and deep freeze compressor mounts.

We meet Bob Goodchild the surveyor, after introductions and a quick view of the rudders he says they are OK for a cruise around the Caribbean but will need to be changed for an ocean passage. They should last another year. Apparently some professional sailors do not even notice when they lose one! The best bit, he doesn't charge us a thing.

We hear that our electrics have arrived from Raymarine and Herve can fit them on Monday, lets hope that we are back in the water by then.