Back in Grenada - Home from home

Chillin in Grenada, True Blue Bay Marina, My birthday breakfast, Barefoot bar Hog Island

We arrived in Grenada over 2 months ago. Got the boat ready for our 3 week trip to the UK and returned on 13 May a whole month ago. Quite the locals now – even bump into people in the supermarket when we are out shopping. We have had a bit of work done on the boat so have met quite a few locals as well as the cruising community which is largely resident in Grenada now that the hurricane season is here. A few new cruising friends as well as some old ones from our times in Portugal and Spain. Even ran into a couple Jules and Ken holidaying on the island who turned out to have had Mr Goodchild as the best man at their wedding.

We are relaxing into a very unenergetic lifestyle – mostly driven by the 30 degree heat and the 90% humidity. Our big project at the moment is replacing the black caulking in our teak decks which is reaching meltdown. Quite literally the black is melting in the heat leaving challenging stains on clothing and feet which then gets trampled through the boat. The caulking that isn’t melting is turning to dust and scattering around the deck leaving behind whole areas of wood exposed. So action is urgently required to sort this out.

So far we have busied ourselves with other jobs, fixing taps in the galley, mending rowlocks on the dingy, replacing headlining in the airing cupboard that had fallen down, even doing a dry run of our hurricane plan (yes we do finally have one) in order to avoid getting on with our sticky deck problem. But no more – last week we got out the chisels to get rid of the remaining black stuff and the tape and sikaflex to replace it. It’s painstaking, back breaking, time consuming work. And so far we have only done a piece 18 inches by 6 inches. The boat it 49 ft by 13ft – gulp!

Apart from caulking, we do have a rough idea now of what we plan to do over the next 12 months. This has stood the test of sharing it with a few other cruisers over the past 2 weeks. Prior to that we kept changing our minds depending on what the last person had said. Basically it goes like this

June/July – Grenada
August – Grenada/Carriacou
September/October – Tobago/Trinidad/Grenada
November – Grenadines, St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe
December – Antigua, Barbuda, St Barts, St Martin, Anguilla, BVIs
January – BVIs, USVI, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos
February – Cuba
March – Mexico, Belize, Honduras
April – Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama
May – Into Pacific and Galapagos

Exact itinery and dates tbc but it’s an outline of the route to get us to the Panama Canal and the Pacific next year. Right now leaving Grenada after Carnival at the beginning of August is already looking challenging if we don’t speed up our caulking...

St Vincent and Mustique

Australia Day 26 Jan 2010

Photos of some places we've been lately and by request from many of you a picture of Marks pony tail!

We woke up at around 7.30am as usual but there was no leisurely newspaper read or lazy breakfast.

We had been into the Grenadines sail makers the day before and Ravi had said he could do the repairs we needed to our main sail. On the way over the Atlantic we had put lagging around the rigging but we still had a lot of chaffing on the sail around the batten pockets and one of the battens had actually broken when the sail got trapped behind one of the stays.

Our crew had been gung ho in the early stages of the crossing and we had been flying along doing 8 – 10 knots and covered 190 miles on one day. However, once we noticed the wear on the sails we reefed in the main and reduced speed to around 6 – 8 knots with an average of 145 miles per day. But the damage had been done, so today we had to get the main off the boat and into the sail maker for repairs. Sounds easy. Not with just the two of us and the wind blowing up to 25kts on occasion. Once we’d managed to wrestle the sail off the mast and boom, we then had to fold it on the deck before bagging it and getting it in the dingy to take ashore. You need to bear in mind that our main sail is 5m x 17m (or 15ft x 50ft in old money) of old heavy duty fabric. There were times I thought I was going to be thrown in the water when the wind caught the sail.

We were also taking a deck cushion in to see if it could be cut down to fit our cockpit. We had asked at a couple of charter companies over Christmas, if they had any old cushions they were getting rid of as our bums were getting pretty sore sitting on teak with only Ikea cushions for padding. A chap called John West was in the process of changing cushions on a catamaran and said we could help ourselves if any of the old ones were any good. We staggered away with armfuls. When he realized we were walking back to the dingy dock he insisted on driving us back. Top bloke. We later went back for more cushions with a small gesture of beers and mince pies as a thank you but he had left for the day. Fortunately we caught up with him later at the local yacht club where we managed to buy him a whisky or two but also discovered his team was furious with him for giving away the cushions. Despite the beers and mince pies they had wanted to sell them. They are great cushions and hopefully Chris who is doing the alterations will do a good job getting them to fit our boat.

As well as the sail maker and cushion lady, we did the usual run round – baker, couple of local supermarkets (glorified corner stores), fruit and veg stall in someone’s front garden, plus a gauntlet run through the local fruit and veggie market run by the Rasta crowd, a stint in the internet café and the purchase of some tickets for the Bequia music festival this weekend. In fact the music festival is the reason we are in Bequia for so long. It had better be good - although all the omens are not propitious. Over New Year we made a reservation at a small French restaurant advertising live music from a special guest – the guest never showed. Last week we were in Mustique and spent an extra night on the island just to be there for the Jump Up at Basil’s Bar. We reserved a table and got all dressed up, paid a fortune for a BBQ buffet only to discover that the Jump Up band had missed the plane and there was some kid trying to do a disco instead. More of a lie down than a Jump Up.

So after a pretty full morning, we had a leisurely lunch back on board and a kip. Mark then went off fishing for the afternoon while I had a swim off the back of the boat. In the evening we had the obligatory BBQ of home-made hamburgers complete with beetroot. Washed down with the cask wine we brought over from Portugal and a large OP Bundy rum and coke. Although Mark had hoisted his huge Aussie flag earlier in the day it had not flushed out any other Australians. There was a boat in the bay with an Australian flag but there didn’t seem to be anyone on board.

All a long way from Australia Day last year spent walking around Sydney Harbour with throngs of Australian families decked out from head to toe literally - I saw one complete family with shoes in the Aussie flag material. All the boats on the harbor seemed to be competing for some prize or other for who represented the best dressed vessel. The media were out in force waiting for a fly past or parachute jump over the harbor – we never found out what it was. Unlike most of the people there, we hadn’t brought a picnic so we eventually headed to Queen Street for our own BBQ at home.

Lisbon

Reflections on 2009

Sitting here on the side of the boat with the laptop perched precariously on my knee, the power cable linked to an extension cable plugged into a socket powered by the generator, I realise just how much I’ve come to accept how even simple tasks are never straight forward on a boat.

Mooring Moments

It’s hard to remember just how green we were in Dover when we first got on Zenna. Mark keeps telling the story of our second day when he was asked by the Dover Marina staff to move the boat to a new berth. He wasn’t even sure how to start the engine, let along get such a big boat away from the dock and moored alongside another much smaller pontoon. Somehow we managed. There have been some pretty interesting mooring experiences since.

We were in Gosport getting the rigging renewed. The boat had no mast as it was off whilst the steel stays were being replaced. It had been a particularly busy day and we had arranged for a diver to come to the boat to check the engine water inlet which seemed to be blocked. We were late and the boat was not where we told the diver it would be. We raced onto the boat, noticing an unusual ripple on the water around the pontoon. I grabbed the mooring lines whilst Mark started the engine. As we pulled away I thought how slick we were getting… As I coiled the lines, Mark noticed a snaking black cable tighten on the yacht’s bow. We had forgotten to disconnect the shore power. I jumped off and grabbed the cable. Pulling it out of the water I realized it had snapped and I was standing on the dock with a live power cable dripping with water in my hand. Fortunately the power socket had tripped and I gingerly retrieved what I could of the cable and climbed back on board. However by this point, the swirling water had pushed us hard against the opposite pontoon and we were pinned by the current as the fierce Gosport tide started to flow out of the marina. The whole situation was not helped as we had only 2 fenders out on the side pinned to the dock, neither in a position to stop us grating against the pontoon. I stood there trying to hold off an 18 tonne boat with little effect except sore shoulders the following day. Poor Zenna still bears the scars today on her port side.

It was the day we started our Lessons Learnt and what would we do differently next time sessions.

Paths Crossing

Cruising around you find yourself running into some people time and again and others not at all. In the boatyard in Lisbon, we got to know Hieko on board Pinta. His crew didn’t drink and you would find him walking the boatyard with a couple of beers in hand looking for company – although his preferred drink was gin and tonic. Whilst we were there, he left the boatyard after 2 years of being on the hard to a great fanfare following a BBQ put on by the boatyard the night before.See pictures. A couple of months later, we were out on a day sail with my brother, Kirsty and her sister Mhairi (Varrie in case you are wondering) who were visiting us in Gibraltar when Pinta came towards us going in the opposite direction towards the North African coast. We had a brief radio chat only to establish they were leaving and heading off down the coast of Africa. However, a few days later we ran into them again outside the chandlery, back in Gib to refuel as the tax free fuel was such a bargain. We ended up with them in a bar run by some Turks who previously lived in Germany and were now living in Spain.

However, the weirdest path crossing came from the couple we got to know best in the boatyard. Sabine and Addie who were getting work done on their sleek US built yacht Annie. When we arrived in the boat yard I was worried about how long we would be there. It was pretty desolate, dusty, hot, patrolled by howling dogs at night and filled with the dirt and noise of the workers during the day. Sergio had assured us our work could be done in 2 weeks which only meant one weekend on the hard. So as we sat in the slings being hauled out of the water and Sabine said hello and welcomed us to the yard, I was horrified when she told me they had been there for 11 months…

If the fanfare for Pinta leaving the boatyard was loud the one for Annie was raucous with all the workers standing on top of the boats they were working on bowing ‘we’re not worthy’ as Addie gingerly started their engine and left the shallow estuary heading for the main Lisbon channel. We had exchanged email addresses and promised to keep in touch and knew we were both heading towards the Canary Islands. 6 weeks later we had picked up our crew in Gib and were heading off on the start of our transatlantic crossing. About 4 days into the passage we spotted a boat off our stern. The first we had seen since we left Gib. Mark got the binoculars out and somehow made out it was Annie. The chance of seeing any boat at sea is remote, let alone someone you know. We managed to make radio contact and both headed for Isla Graciosa on the north east of the Canaries for some serious catching up. As we pulled into the little marina who should be sitting on the opposite hammerhead but Pinta.

Small world, even smaller oceans...

The Atlantic Crossing

18 days. 18 very long days. We left Los Cristianos in Teneriffe heading south west until we hit the trade winds then due east. The sun came up the sun went down and we kept on heading east.

We were very lucky with the weather. Pretty constant winds around 20kts with only 2 days when the wind died and we motored. When we arrived in St Lucia we spoke to people who had been hit by squalls of 60kts (a gale is around 50kts) which had lasted for 5 hours. Hardly any rain - when it did fall it was a case of standing under the bimini until it passed a couple of minutes later. And the huge seas I was worried about never materialised. Apart from one day we had long rolling waves of 3-4 meters which you hardly noticed.

But it was still bloody awful! And I'm not doing it again. Even in those light conditions the boat rocked and rolled, rocked and rolled. You could just about put up with the rocking but once the rolling set it in it was a challenge doing the simplist of things like brushing your teeth. Making lunch or worse dinner was for heroes and Mark and Hayden (one of our crew) did more than their fair share. I felt queasy for the first 6 days then very average for the rest especially in the galley.

We had 3 crew join us in Gibraltar for the 5 week trip. 5 days to the Canaries, a week in the Canary Islands, 18 days to Barbados, 2 days in Barbados then on to St Lucia. We arrived at the same time as the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) which has been a lot of fun hearing about other passages. One boat lost it's rudder and sank. Another was abandoned. But several hundred made it. The rum parties have left their mark and we are leaving St Lucia tomorrow for a rest before Christmas.

Some photos from the crossing attached. Fishing was a major occupation and we caught around 12 fish - tuna, dorada and one unidentified. They were very expensive fish given the amount of lures, line, etc that they took. We kept a tally and I think it was 18 to the fish for the 12 we actually caught. We also had a mid atlantic stop for swimming and for Hayden to do some kitesurfing on his birthday which was followed by a lamb roast and a couple of bottles of red wine - went to our heads as it was the only alcohol we had on an otherwise dry passage. The other crew were Dave from Chester and his girlfriend Hazel from Bucks. Dave had done a couple of transatlantic crossings before and was our weather and comms man. Hazel's parents have a house on St Lucia so we got expert local knowledge of where to go when we got here - more rum was inevitably involved.

Thats more like it

DODs Portugal

Couple of Photos of new Zenna newly polished and with the canvas work done in Lisbon. Inside is the new generator sadly not visible considering what it cost...

Drama of the Day (DOD)
We have been noticing for some time that each day there is a DOD. This can strike at any time and ranges in severity. There is generally no warning and there are always repercussions.

Yesterday we managed a triple DOD. We were enjoying our first really relaxing day on the boat. We had rounded Capo de Sao Vincent, the most south westerly point in Europe. This meant we were away from the colder NW swell of the west coast of Portugal and were suddenly in an almost Mediterranean climate. The sun was warm, we were anchored in a lovely bay, we even had our first swim of the trip (although still a bit chilly). We took the dingy ashore, wandered around the timeshare town and sat and had a beer in the little bar on the beach.

Coming onto the beach in the dingy had been easy, but the waves were getting bigger, so launching her for our return journey provided hilarious entertainment for the stragglers on the beach. When Mark finally hopped into to boat and we headed off, the applause was audible. DOD we thought (always dangerous). On board we planned to put on the generator, heat the water, have showers, and some supper and, as it was Sunday, watch Gavin and Stacey on video. Although we have the complete set, we only watch the show on Sundays as a bit of a treat. The brand new generator (more about that later) went on. I waited for Mark to come back on deck to help me get the dingy on the boat. But instead a stony face announced there was a problem as no water was getting through to the generator motor. Second DOD. An hour later Mark had fixed the problem, installing a new part in the water pump. Although it was now 9 o’clock (almost our bed time) we decided to have showers before eating. Half an hour later the generator had heated the water enough to attempt a shower. I even managed to get my hair washed but then discovered I couldn’t pump out the shower tray. Third DOD. Mark managed to fix the problem - a hose that was dodgy. Then whilst I made supper, Mark disappeared for his well earned shower. This was shortly followed by yells for a screw driver. The hose had now become detatched and was dispensing all the waste water into the engine room.

So there you have it. An idyllic day cruising.

Frustrating

Doing this blog is proving more difficult than we thought. Will try to upload some photos of Ze nna after her recent work. New canvas and paint/polish on the outside. Looking very good butnot sure how long this will last. Even got a posing spot in the last marina we were in - along with all the super yachts. Felt a bit cheap doing the laundry and hanging it out to dry...

Here´s hoping this works. I have acatually written a huge piece but can´t copy and paste onthis public computer site.

Nope didn´t work. Will try again somewhere else...