Again, the blog is overdue. We are sitting in Bequia taking life very easy. We had a great sail to Carriacou;
indeed, although it was fast, a slightly open hatch that we had missed on deck
delivered no water to the interior.
Besides the enjoyable sail, there was one bit of overwhelming
excitement: We were trawling one line
with a new lure, and got a serious bite.
I wrestled the line in (it was bare line, not on a pole and reel), until
we could see that we had a 3.5’ mahi mahi on it, fighting, diving, and slicing
from side to side in a 45 degree arc. I
got down to the bottom step, and Dawn passed the gaff hook just as the beauty
was within 5’ of the stern. As I brought
it around, he seemed to just spit out the hook, and nonchalantly, swam off to
starboard as if he’d had a lovely time teasing us, but remembered some business
elsewhere.
We found Carriacou a little
lonely. The usual hangers-on were there,
but none of our “tribe” of past friends.
We did renew acquaintance with a slightly older Swiss couple – and I,
Laurie, got to work on my French language skills a bit – but the truth was the
extra exertion of the partial language barrier, and maybe my poor skills
ensured that they preferred the many French friends they already had in the
Bay.
We did the usual walks, alone
this time, and also bought some conch, half of which is in the freezer. We also whittled down our boat chores, I
wrote a bit, and we read and took on increasingly difficult Sudoku
puzzles. Wind howled most of our visit.
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| Hiking Carriacou |
On February the 25th,
we set sail for Bequia in a so-so weather window; not just because we were a
little tired of Tyrell Bay, but because a better weather window seemed to be
nowhere in sight. The promised kind east
wind did not arrive at all, and we had blustery wind and waves on the nose for
most of the journey. At one point, while
in the shadow of Canouan, we had the boat rigged with two reefs and one engine
going well above idle. The confused
waves slapped us silly, and the autohelm could not keep us on course. The waves slowed us down to the point that
the rudders were useless. After
convincing ourselves we were not caught in a great mass of fishing gear, I
started the second engine and put both up to 2800 rpm before the rudders and
the autohelm could manage their chores.
Two hours from Bequia, tired of
hanging on and of engine noise, we decided to sail just to get some feeling of success. Cat Tales was allowed to take a tack to a
position 3 miles west of Bequia, and we enjoyed the sail and tacked back and
forth to get closer. As we had at least
two monohulls doing the same thing, we were able to compare strategies. I could go 15% faster than them, but they
could point 10 degrees better and keep a reasonable speed, which averaged us
out in performance.
As usual, we got our anchor down
by 5:30, and could have an anchor beer.
We placed our anchor behind s/v Fido, a 50’ Xquisite catamaran that was
purchased last year by Fiona and Don of Calgary.
Bequia has a new floating
bar! We have been visiting it most
nights after 4 pm, with Fiona and Don, and enjoying acquainting ourselves. One would think the bar would be populated by
people under 30, but we seem to be among the ruling quartile.
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| Floating bar in Bequia. Of course it would have its own engine! |
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| I think we need this at Grand Lake! |
Bequia has had a little bit of
excitement in the weeks before our arrival.
A small boat went out, intending to head south, when a 30 knot gust
destroyed their forestay (actually a cast aluminum bow plate failed – cast
aluminum? Curious). The baby-stay saved the mast, but other
boaters who arrived to help could neither save the jib nor the furling foil
from bad damage. Also recently, a large
charter cat was 30+ minutes out, with a quasi-professional (idonthinkso)
captain put her into motor-cruise, autopilot, and went into the salon to lie
down and rest his eyes. The two guests
were in their stateroom, also napping.
The boat came to rest after double-teeing a nice Amel monohull, putting two
holes and a deep ugly crack in her. The
“captain” of the cat attempted to leave the bay, but the authorities grabbed
him. Again other cruisers came to the
rescue, pulled the booms over (ketch), and hung on to keep the damaged side
high in the water as the scuttled her on the town shore for repairs. The Amel owner, whom we’ve met, is rather
overwhelmed by both the damage and the difficulties being thrown up by the
insurer (which happens to represent both boats, by the way).
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| This is just one of many callilou leaves that Laurie washed, diced and chopped for the soup. There might have been as many as 30 leaves! Some soup still left in the freezer! Sorry about the pic being sideways. |
Yesterday we joined an organized
Rum Shop Tour, and followed a crowd around to six different shops. It was absolutely fun, and a great way to
meet people. The first was a major hike
up the hill, off the road to a place called the “Tree House Bush Bar”, at
noon. The last four rumshops were a bus
ride over into Friendship Bay, but also high on the hill. Great views and good fun. We finished off with quesadillas back in
Admiralty Bay at Mac’s Pizzeria, and got home exhausted at 9 pm.
Michelle and Al of Tarantella
arrived in the Bay while we were gone, and we have made arrangements for drinks
at the floating bar tonight.
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| The view from the Treehouse Rum Shop after a uphill hike to get there! |
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| The second rumshop on our tour. We would have missed this one if it wasn't pointed out as a bar! |
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| This rumshop even had a washroom...bonus! |
THE PATIENT
This will not be a continuous
addition to our weblog, but is meant to answer a few questions. I am feeling fine, and really feel I am
gaining strength and stamina. In
Carriacou, we culminated our walking with a 3 hour hike with significant
climbing involved, and it seemed no problem.
This week I swam continuously for over 1000 feet without too much
difficulty, although slowing down when breathless was definitely part of
it. I notice that past injuries are
worse than before, however. A bad knee
is now a really bad knee, and I cannot walk long without slipping on my brace. A locking finger joint is much worse, and a
second finger has become locking with great pain. I’m still hopeful that this stuff goes back
to normal, or to a previous status. Pain
from the incision is almost nil, and pain from interior work is long-gone. There is a bit of searching for a new normal
with respect to bathroom habits, but it is not an inconvenience. Now you know more than you wanted, ha ha!
CAT TALES TECHNICAL
Dawn worked through some raw
materials that were placed on board, and created a pile of single-person
folding cockpit cushions. Pretty spiffy.
We installed an oil pressure
gauge on the starboard engine and got pressure reading within an acceptable
range. Disappointingly, I could not get
the gauge to thread into the port on the port side engine, and gave up. It has no unhealthy symptoms and I stopped
looking for trouble. Yes, my Yanmars
quickly dirty their oil, but I will just accept it at this point, and enjoy the
season.
New 900 psi fittings and a new
gauge were placed onto the watermaker assembly, but leaks continued. After consultations on the internet, I simply
increased the wraps of Teflon tape, and got that solved. Next, we found a serious leak at the depth
sounder through-hull. I bought some
stuff that was meant to work under water from the chandlery, and spent an hour
working in the water sanding the area clean of bottom paint. Sadly the product did not work well – the
bottom of the tube of caulk was hard, and I suspect that the rest of the tube
was poor. It acted mealy as soon as it
was in contact with salt water, and made what I call a poor bond to the boat
and sounder. I attempted to stem the
tide inside the boat by unscrewing the sounder’s flange, placing both the
caulking and two layers of neoprene, and closing the flange down. It was still leaking hours later, but I gave
the flange another turn and it dried up.
I will allow the laminate to dry in Grenada on the hard, then do some
glassing to level surfaces inside and out, and reinstall the equipment with 3M
5200.
Good news is that the newly
bedded and newly gasketed escape hatch is totally dry. We might tackle the starboard one before
leaving for Canada. Bad news, is that
some leaks showed up in the salon windows during the rough slog from Carriacou
to here. We’re still tracking these
down.
I was thinking of rewriting a
Jimmy Buffet song about “Boat Drinks” to tell the story of Boat Leaks. “Boat drinks, Jimmy he sings about boat
drinks. I just wonder what he thinks, there
goes my bilge alarm. Boat leaks, I spend
my day looking for boat leaks; no time for drinking or song. Walking, I start all my days walking – I need
to buy some more caulking – there goes that damned alarm...”
