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| Check out their Caribbean Flextime hours! |
It is a hot, windy Sunday, and, after a hike with s/v Aspen,
s/v Peace and Plenty, and s/v Moody Blues ((Gene and Susea (the spelling is
another story)), Dawn has left me on the boat to read, fix stuff and write while
she goes with the crowd to play dominoes.
We had a fine sail up to Carriacou on Monday with
Aspen. Aspen took the traditional route
to the tip of Grenada and motored even further upwind to make the last couple
of hours through the open ocean easily and on one tack. Cat Tales stayed off Grenada, turned the
motor off as soon as the refrigeration and watermaker chores were done, and
ended up off Carriacou by 7 nautical miles.
So, we arrived an hour and a half after Steve and Maria. Purity apparently has a price.
As a shakedown cruise, it was a success. However, we hit some real rough water in the
area known locally as "Kick-em-Jenny", and one particular plunge
between waves had us changing immediately between 6.5 knots and 2.5 knots with
one hell of a bang. It made me quite
appreciative of the $650 US I had spent in October on welding for the forward
crossmember. The crew, rather used to
violent changes to velocity, had little trouble, just big eyes.
Peace and Plenty presented both of us with an offer of
dinner by radio while both boats were hours out, and at the appointed time, we
enjoyed French wine, French cheeses, and French pate, with many choices and
trimmings in Lorna and Brian's cockpit.
It was a wonderful evening, and a long one.
Since then, we've been rather social every second day/night,
with quiet days in between for reading, repairing, and recuperating. As well, we have been joined by friends
aboard Moody Blues, mentioned above, with whom we had bonded in 2008. It has been great!
Wednesday was declared a beach day, and we went to the north
shore: Paradise Beach, where our friend Curtis runs a little place called Off
de Hook for sitting, reading, swimming, drinking, eating, and haircutting (he
has a barbershop attached). We've
mentioned this place many times before as it is spectacular, with beautiful
white sand and a commanding view of many of our favourite islands of the
Grenadines. We have had our Holiday
pictures done from here a few times, and you will see that we have done it
again. This time, the best shots and the
choreography were courtesy of Susea, who even has a Steve Miller Band album
cover to her credit.
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| Major photobomb on Brian and Lorna's Christmas photo. Who was that idiot??! |
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| Susea trying to get the best shot of all of us poor subjects! "Work with me, work with me!!" |
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| Lorna and Brian without Laurie! |
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| Dawn & Laurie with Union Island in the background to the right |
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| Maria and Steve from s/v Aspen |
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| Susea showing us how to model for a photo-shoot! |
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| Susie and Gene s/v Moody Blues. Job done!! |
Friday morning, we determined we'd take a local bus to a
community on the far side of this little island, called Windward.
Once we got there, we chatted the driver up
about what we wanted to see, and it became plain that he could and would be our
guide for a couple of hours.
We got to
see two local boats being manufactured (heavy timber from Guyana, planking a
yellow pine from Honduras), a rather ancient well, and a major, old graveyard
being assaulted by the sea.
Regarding
that, we pieced together that the increase in sea level over the last 150 years
has been exacerbated by the mining of beach sand by some unscrupulous
contractors to cause even relatively new graves to fall to the mercy (or lack
thereof) of the sea.
I think you will
agree that the picture is quite something.
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| Graves and erosion! |
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| Malcolm, our bus driver and the crew of us wandering around the sights of Windward, Carricou |
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| Boatbuilding in Windward |
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| Ancient well |
Friday night we attended a party at Tanty Lizzy's Seaside
Fountain. We warmed up at a sundowner
bar nearby, then joined other cruisers and locals for wine, a wonderful tray of
local food, and the sweet sounds of a cruiser who calls himself Barracuda,
accompanied by two other musicians.
There were some humourous antics on the dancefloor among the cruisers and
locals, but it would be unfair to describe them. Also, the decorations were decidedly
"Valentine's Day-ish", with only red and white balloons, red and
white ribbons, Tanty Lizzy's big and beautiful red dress, and of course big
hearts; but who would be so fussy to mind? Just think, they don't have to
re-decorate for Valentine's Day!
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| Christmas Party at Tanty Lizzy's |
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| Not only can Tanty Lizzy cook, you should see her dance :-) |
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| A good time was had by all! |
So, here we are on the odd day again: we've had our hike, Dawn is presently at the
Slipway Restaurant sipping beer and playing dominoes; but there is more to
come. The eight of us are scheduled to
hit the Lazy Turtle Restaurant for pizzas tonight. Stay tuned.
Technical:
The batteries are not causing too much trouble. We run the engines in the morning with the
refrigerator cold plate and for the ham radio, but rely on solar, wind, and the
old batteries to keep the freezer working, so we're still better off than boats
without solar and wind. The engine room
boards have been soaked in fresh water to get the salt out of them so they
would dry properly, and this week, we dried them and finished painting
them. We also located a vent that has
been allowing salt water spray to do the damage to them and attached a
home-made elbow out of a water bottle and duct tape to see if it can be managed
(we need the air but not the water). The
work on the older snap screws for the salon window covers must have been the
sources of leakage, because the last few storms have resulted in a dry
bunk. The sunbrella cover over the
engine controls in the cockpit has been re-stitched by Lorna. Well over two hours were spent on my sandals
that completely fell apart during our tour of Windward. Whoever is selling sandals to Canadian Tire
need to understand that there are some glues that do not dissolve in
water. A two-year-old could have
disassembled the sandals. Now, 3M 4000
caulking is making these worth the money, but I want compensation for the time.
I have a volt meter that is wired through all three battery
banks, allowing a toggle switch to provide the voltage of each. It is fused on the negative return wire, but
our boat surveyor insists that to be safe and conforming to codes each positive
lead has to be fused. I installed these
this week, although I got dizzy from rolling my eyes at the need.
Regarding our slow approach to Carriacou, we suffered from
large waves and a pinching course, but also, the tide was coming in to the
Caribbean sea from the Atlantic (filling the headwaters of the Gulf Stream),
and the outrageous differences between our heading and our COG (course over
ground) suggests that in the deep water between the major islands we were
getting pushed to the west by up to two knots.
Our new electronics, with such great reporting of all things GPS allows
us to also see that whenever Cat Tales' speed through the water drops below 5
knots, we suffer significantly increased leeway. Therefore, pinching is a poor option - bear
downwind and enjoy the speed.
