5 September 2011 Prickly Bay, Grenada
Today was a running about day. We took three bags of dirty clothes to the laundry and went to Spice Island Marine to pick up our mail, which Gareth had sent from the UK two months ago. Unfortunately the Grenadian Customs had classified it as a parcel so, with some trepidation, we had to go into St Georges to pick it up. It turned out to be pretty straight forward; I just had to open the two “Jiffy” bags and show the customs officer that it was mail that had been sent to us and that was it.
By this time, it was nearly midday, so we strolled around the Carenage and into the Nutmeg restaurant for a relaxed lunch, while we opened the mail. There wasn’t anything that we weren’t aware of - 75% of it was junk mail. John and Sunny from “Notre Vie” walked in just as we were about to leave, so we had a quick chat. Sunny’s brother is visiting them and they’ve hired a sports fishing boat to go out looking for Marlin. They may have a spare place, so I might be going out with them on Wednesday.
We wandered into St Georges and picked up a few things before catching a bus back to Spiceland Mall where we did a “big shop” and caught a taxi back. Back on the boat, we had a couple of stowaways.
We’ve been pretty meticulous about making sure that we don’t take cardboard boxes down below because of the danger of cockroaches. I’ve been opening boxes on deck, placing the contents in the cockpit and then soaking the cardboard in sea water to kill any cockroach eggs. On our last boat, we picked up cockroaches in Tunisia and it took five months to get rid of them.
Today, we bought two cases of beer, which I started to open in the cockpit. After removing six cans, I spotted a huge 30mm long cockroach in the bottom of the cardboard case. Don’t Panic Mr Mannering! It took me 60 seconds to corner the little devil and crush it with a beer can. Phew! I started to remove the rest of the beer cans and spotted another one in the case – it only took 20 seconds to kill that one. We’re going to have to be more careful…
When we put the new arch on, I moved the Wireless Internet Aerial and the cables that I have aren’t long enough to connect to the laptop on the chart table. For the past three weeks, we’ve been using the laptop balanced on our knees in the back cabin. It’s driving me mad. Despite this, we managed to have a Skype conference call with Brett and Craig – it was great to catch up with what they’re doing. We’re looking forward to seeing them at Christmas.
I read some recent emails in the evening and one was from some good friends (Steve & Jacqui) who are coming out to Barbados for a holiday later this week. Since we have light winds at the moment, I think that it might be feasible to head east and go to see them. Yesterday we were planning to go west to the ABC islands - it’s funny how plans can change.
6 September 2011 Prickly Bay to St Georges, Grenada
I listened to the “Grenada Cruiser’s Net” on the VHF radio at half past seven and they went on and on for over an hour. It’s dominated by retired Americans who have camped down here for the hurricane season. It’s like being on a holiday camp. They've organised social events on every day of the week – yoga, backgammon, ladies dominos, Spanish classes, volleyball, film nights, film afternoons, potluck dinners, shopping trips, etc, etc. By the end of the Net, I wanted to scream - I’ve got to get out of here.
I went to Spiceland Mall and managed to buy a longer USB cable for the Wireless Internet Aerial. Back on the boat, I rang John from “Notre Vie” and found out that there is a spare slot for me on the fishing trip. I have to be there at half past seven in the morning, so we decided to go around to the marina in St Georges for a couple of days.
We motored around to Point Saline and then had a nice sail for an hour, before motoring into the marina. Once tied up, I set to installing the USB cable for the Internet Aerial. It took me three hours and I just finished in time to go to meet John and Sunny for happy hour in the bar. Glenys and I stayed for a meal in the bar. We had pizza with a Greek salad. The bar is very trendy with a jazz act playing in the background, so it was very surreal - just like being in a hotel.
7 September 2011 St Georges, Grenada
I went to “Notre Vie” for breakfast and then we met the others on the fishing boat – there were six of us in all. The skipper was a Brit called Badger – he is a cockney and sounds like a right wide boy, but he knows his stuff. We went 24 miles to the west of Grenada where the water is 4000 to 8000 feet deep. We spent seven hours motoring around at 7 knots with five lines in the water at all times. We set up a rota system, so that we each took it in turns to take the rod whenever there was a strike.
We only had three strikes – two Dorado and a wahoo. I was number four, so I didn’t get my hands on a rod. However, it was a good day out and I learned a lot more about trolling. I spent $120US on the trip and will probably be spending more than that on new fishing lures and gear.
In the evening, we went to a “pot luck” Mexican at the marina – arranged by American cruisers of course. It was OK, but they have such a bunker mentality and don’t even consider moving out of the marina for a day sail.
8 September 2011 St Georges to Prickly Bay, Grenada
Tropical Storm Maria is heading our way. It should pass through the Leeward Islands to the north of us, but it will affect the winds in our area. This means we can’t go to Barbados because the winds will be coming from the south and the anchorage in Bridgetown will be horrible. The winds are also too light to go to Bonaire. I was feeling depressed about hanging about in the Grenadian Holiday Camp, then I realised that we could head up to Carriacou for the weekend - that cheered me up.
I nipped over to the chandlers to buy some more fishing lures, then we motored over to Molinere Point, picked up a mooring and did a nice scuba dive – the first one for seven weeks. We were caught by the Marine Park boat and had to pay a $10US mooring fee. It’s a good job that they didn’t show up while we were out diving because we didn’t realise that you’re not allowed to scuba dive in the marine park unless you’re with a local dive centre. That’s another nice dive site blocked off.
I re-filled our two dive tanks ready to do a dive tomorrow and we then went for a quick snorkel in the bay. There are some sculptures placed on the sea bed to give interest for the tourists that get brought out here. It’s a good job they are there because the coral is rubbish. I managed to find a school of reef squid which entertained me for a while.
Having paid for a mooring, we decided to stay for the night and leave for Carriacou early in the morning.
9 September 2011 St Georges to Mount Hartman Bay, Grenada
Today was about “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men”. We had swung around during the night and found that we had a real tangle with the mooring buoy. There was a length of 5 mm cord tied underneath the mooring buoy, which had wrapped itself around our mooring rope. It took me twenty minutes to clear it and only after I dived in with a bread knife.
Once free, we motored around the small headland to go north and found ourselves bashing directly into five foot waves and ten knots of wind. We decided that the swell was being generated by Tropical Storm Maria which is 200 miles north of us. After ten minutes, it was obvious that we would be doing this for five hours and that we wouldn’t be able to dive at Ile de Ronde, so we turned tail and headed for Prickly Bay.
I nipped into the chandlers and bought a new shower hose for the aft deck – our old one fell apart yesterday. While I was in there I bought a set of small “birds”, which are designed to be towed along after the boat as a “teaser” to attract fish. They skip along the surface like flying fish and cause a lot of commotion. The idea is that the fish get excited by the teaser and will hit the lure that I’m trailing. With the two new lures that I bought yesterday, that’s about £500 on fishing tackle to date – I think that I’ve caught six fish, so I’d better start catching more.
We motored around to Mount Hartman, filled up with fuel and anchored behind “Foggy Mountain”, who we last saw in Tyrell Bay in June. We had a quick chat with Pam and Jeff and had a quiet night in, finishing off the remainder of the Wahoo that was caught on the fishing trip.
10 September 2011 Mount Hartman Bay, Grenada
I checked the weather first thing this morning and Tropical Storm Maria is now to the north of us and well out of the way. I downloaded a GRIB file which shows a forecast of the wind direction for the next 72 hours and the winds should be south-east, 15 knots tomorrow and then dropping on Tuesday. We’ve decided that we’ll leave early tomorrow for the small island of La Blanquilla in Venezuela, which should take us 30 hours.
I spent the morning doing administration, sorting out bank statements and composing a reply to the Inland Revenue who are making enquiries on my 2009/10 tax return. As they say, there’s no escape from death and taxes.
We walked over to Prickly Bay and checked out. Glenys bought a few last minute groceries and we spent the rest of the afternoon tidying up, getting ready for sea and waiting. We’ve finished the last of our fish, so we had roast pork, mashed potatoes, vegetables and gravy for dinner.
11 September 2011 Mount Hartman Bay to Los Roches, Venezuela (Day 1)
The wind really picked up overnight. At one point, I had to shut our hatch because the gusts of wind kept waking me up. We climbed out of bed at five o’clock to find 20-25 knot winds from the south. The forecast still said 15 knots from the south-east. As the sun came up, we could see that it looked pretty rough outside the anchorage with big breakers on the reefs and there were low clouds scudding across the sky. We decided to go back to bed and wait a couple of hours to see what happens.
At half past eight, the wind seemed to have settled down to SSE 18-22 knots, so we decided to go for it. It was pretty bouncy as we sailed on a broad reach past Glover Island and there was an ominous looking thunder storm to windward of us. We kept heading west. Fortunately, the thunderstorm passed just behind us, but as it went past, the wind increased to 30 knots from the south west forcing us hard onto the wind into the growing seas. We had a grim couple of hours until the wind started to back to the south.
Throughout the afternoon, the wind continued to back and the sailing became more pleasant. We had a fantastic night’s sail with a full moon and 20 knot south east winds, which put us on a screaming broad reach, surfing down the waves. The highest recorded speed was 8.2 knots, which is our record to date.