Another And Then blog....

We finished all our boat chores that needed to be done before starting the northern trek and decided Sat. was the day. We motored around the lower tip of the island and spent a night in St Georges harbour. It is always a bit of a hard anchorage to get a good bite on the anchor. We thought we were safely ensconced but after a couple hours we noticed we had drug a bit. Brian swam on the anchor and found by the trails in the rubbly coral we had indeed drug about 15 ft. It was nearly dark and very calm so decided to stay put and wait and see. Brian sat up in the cockpit with the hand held GPS and checked every hour or so. We stayed put but made for a long night with little sleep. 

We left around 8:00 heading for Tyrell Bay Carricou, also part of Grenada. We motor sailed up the west coast until we cleared the main island. Wouldn't you know it but the starboard cam cleat on the traveler stopped holding the line! No big deal, we can use an adjacent jam cleat. Why do these things happen just after you leave the land of decent chandeliers? The sail was quite nice and we were heeled over just enough for the weight of the dishes in the latched cupboard to pop open and eject about half the dishes onto the floor of the galley. I did know Corelle was not unbreakable but Wow did it shatter. Only three cereal bowls were the casualties. But a mess to clean up and now days later we are still finding the odd shard. 

And then...

We are approaching the island of Carricou and the auto helm quit. It does that from time to time when the waves and swells are quite heavy. Brian asked me to put on the engine to help with control. But no water came out the exhaust. Which means the motor will overheat and destroy itself. So we are approaching the harbour and no motor and the wind dies completely. We radioed to Cat Tales who were just ahead of us. We decided we would raft together and get in close enough for Brian to manually drop the anchor. But we were too far out for such a task. The winds were picking up again. As we were deciding what to do next the bow line connecting us broke taking with it the first section of the life lines (high on the replacement list anyway). As it broke something hit the back of my hand causing a nasty bruise.  We released the rest of the lines and put out the jib and started tacking into the harbour. It is a very large open harbour and lots of room for anchoring. For those of you who are laughing by now you know I hate to anchor in tight spots. Others do not even think it's a tight spot. Cat Tales again connected us and steered us to a perfect anchor spot. 

Upon inspection of the motor it was determined the impeller had blown into about as many pieces as the dishes. ( quite remarkable, should have taken a picture, no idea if all the bits were found) The entry to that part of the engine is where the broken dishes were. A quick clean up and fix and we running again. The "anchor down beverage" was delayed about 1.5 hours!

Yesterday Monday we checked out of Grenada and had a lovely sail to Bequai....100% issue free. 

We made our plans to leave at 3:00 am today for the longest leg of the journey to Rodney Bay, St Lucia. But there was a crazy lightening show all night and although no rain YET. We had weather word from St Lucia it was terrible there with 35 knot gusts. Put our friend John Fallon on Stopp Knott on the beach. We was not taking on water with the last news. So we are sitting and rolling in Bequia until it is safe to go. It's been raining very steadily since about 6:00am. We have two new leaks. 

So we will try again at 3:00am. 

Greetings from Grenada

We have arrived in Grenada after a very busy summer at home with visits to the east and the west and Algonquin Park. Over the summer we built decks,driveways,walkways,gardens and planted many trees. Hopefully at least half the trees will survive their first winter.  

We had a bit of trouble on our flight with the airline detecting a Galaxy7 phone on board. After two hours we were taken off the flight and rescreened while they searched the plane. Nothing was found but we missed our connecting flight to Grenada. We had to find a hotel in Miami at our expense ...not their fault they said. But we managed and actually had a very restful night in Miami after we bought a bottle of red wine and found a Subway right next to the hotel. I, Lorna, broke a piece off a tooth the night before leaving also and had to fit an emergency repair into our already too busy getting out the door plan. But all was well and repaired.

When we arrived in Grenada it was a quick and easy trip through the airport and a 15 min taxi ride with a brief stop at a small store for bread, eggs and cold beer. The small apartment style hotel was ready for us with the AC turned up. 

When we got to the boat the next morning we found everything very well and clean and dry. Always a gamble. We were unsure if we could launch on Friday after losing a day but we managed. We have been sitting in the bay since and getting small jobs done in a leisurely fashion. We have had time for a few dominoes games. Today, the champ Brian, is the guy to beat. 

We have had some strange things happen since our arrival. We had trouble when we left in April with the jib (the small front sail) not wanting to come down so the sail repair company came on board after we left and took down the sail and fixed the roller furller. We found a few small plastic looking balls on the deck when we got here. Wondering if the workers had dropped some ball bearings while aboard

 or if they had come out of our rigging somewhere, somehow we gathered them up in a baggy and took them in for inspection. The gal emailed us yesterday to tell us they were lizard eggs. She was quite funny and told us it was good they didn't hatch because we would have had babies to feed. Fortunately we have no sign of lizards dead or alive aboard. 

The swim ladder was swarming with tiny minnows the other morning. Below them were schools of the next size up waiting for dinner. Who knows what was below them. Then there were jelly fish going by for a day or so. No swimming for me that day. But they are all gone now. The water is extremely warm it seems. The metal on the boarding ladder is warmer than the air. 

The super moon has been just beautiful and we have spent the last couple nights up on the front deck enjoying the breeze and the sky. The picture really doesn't do it justice. 

Dawn and Laurie on Cat Tales arrived on Monday afternoon. But my sister Dawn arrived with a sore shoulder so we have tried to assist. Brian was over there yesterday morning and helped Laurie with the heavy two man jobs and I helped Dawn get some groceries. 

So as you can see all is well on Peace and Plenty.