Trying to hike in a hurricane torn area

Hi Folks: Laurie here again. It is the 29th, and we are still in Rodney Bay. Our NYE plans are to go to a (hopefully) informal party at the local yacht club; and we are doing it with a handful of cruisers we know, so it should be a good time.

Last writing I was telling you a bit about us traveling here. It was not a nice trip, and indeed, we have had only a little bit of truly enjoyable sailing since we started from Trinidad. Some of the problem is the amount of north in the wind this season, and some more of it is my fault for trying to sail this boat too close to the wind. The problem with a small cat like Cat Tales is that the skegs are shallow; and in a lumpy sea state, the water becomes so turbulent that the skegs just don’t bite like they should to give us lateral stability. The short waterline and the shallow skegs combine such that Cat Tales cannot motor directly into a strong wind in a lumpy sea; nor can she motor-sail close to the wind like a deep keeled monohull or a long waterline cat with large motors. The only way for us to get anywhere is to get on a proper tack, about 45-50 degrees apparent wind, and get going at least 6 knots so there is lots of water going by the skegs to take the lateral resistance. Any slower or any closer to the wind, and we start skittering sideways as well as forward. Once I get that through my thick head, and accept the extra distance to sail upwind, then it is a little easier going.

I was also talking about the boat repairs, and indeed, Dawn has some pics for you. The big project is to try to get our watermaker working properly. The present theory is that the motor needs better voltage; so we have been running new, heavier wire around the boat. Because a lot of the work requires two people, and more of the work requires getting into compromising positions, Dawn has been an invaluable help. I spent about an hour in the small part of the anchor locker, with my head between my knees and the spare anchor in an unenjoyable, rude place. Other periods have me bunched up in other small places, sweating gumdrops. Ah, the life of a sailor.

Laurie working in the anchor locker for about an hour and a half. He had a difficult time walking when he was finally released!


You can see him in behind all the stuff. He's sitting on a spare anchor and chain!


Wiring job half done at this point with beautiful expensive tinned wire. Let's hope it makes a difference in our watermaker...


If you look really hard, you can see him on the small opening side of the locker.

I think I also said I’d tell you about some of the people we have been spending time with lately. Of course, most of you know John Fallon. He has been a regular here, and since his boat burned in the boatyard this summer, he took up winter residence in a small apartment near the marina. He is in one or another restaurant at the marina, with other friends almost daily. We intend to take him to Martinique and back next week.

We are also enjoying old friends from boats named: Silk Pajamas (US), Hidden Falls (US and GB, now in Bali), Tiger Lily 2 (Can), and Nahanni River (Can). I can’t go into the people too much, but can tell you how easy it is to meet and enjoy good people out here. The type of people who are down here on their own boats are easy-going, enthusiastic, happy, and interesting; with interesting stories of their own past and recent cruising.

Today, we and some of these boats got to the marina, jumped into a bus, and did a 1.5 hour ride to a village called Canaries to do a hike to a waterfalls. As soon as we got there, we realized it might be a bad idea. We started hiking up the river valley road, and were told that the falls, (two sets) were a mess, and were unreachable since Hurricane Tomas, last October 29th. Indeed, the river was filled with the village women doing their laundry, and special compact treatment systems were running and being set up to purify water to be used for drinking. Since returning, we have learned that many of the beautiful waterfalls of St. Lucia and/or their accesses have been torn up by Tomas. We walked up the road for a while, then switched to walking the wide riverbed (to be fair, it was obvious that the road had become part of the riverbed during the hurricane). When it came to wading up the stream, some of our crowd decided that was enough, and we hiked back down, and bussed back an hour to Castries for a big but amazingly affordable lunch. That was lovely, and made even better with ice cold Pitons (local beer). Soo, the bus rides were many times the hiking time, and we need a new plan to get some exercise. Well, that takes us back to the NYE party at the yacht club. We’d better be doing some dancing!

After Hurricane Tomas, the river up in Canaries was washed out and changed dramatically. Notice the car embedded in the mess.


The locals, now without running water, go to the river and do laundry. You could hear music while they made the best of their situation.











Water was being pumped out of the river and treated for use by the people.


Children have a way of making the best of a bad situation! This one gave me a huge smile when he saw my camera pointed towards him.

Trip to St. Lucia and Christmas pics

Laurie won a bottle of rum on Christmas Eve at the Yacht Club. This little gal picked Laurie out as the winner out of a few Santa hat people in the crowd!


Here we are on Christmas day at the BBQ held at the Yacht Club. On the right is Denis and Arlene from s/v Tiger Lily and also seated with us is Jenny and Steve from s/v Hidden Falls.

Laurie here. A part of me, likely the part managed by personal guilt, is telling me that it is time we started writing something more substantial here for this season. We’ve been hampered by time, social calendar, and internet connection; but finally, many of these petty excuses are being eroded.

Let’s start with the travel. Our trip up to Bequia was interesting. We got up at 3:30 a.m. the Tuesday before Christmas, and quickly said where is the full moon we were promised? A search of the sky found the subdued golden orb in the western sky, in full eclipse. Although it left us picking our way out of Admiralty Bay between the boats in just about total darkness, it was most interesting to watch the transition back from full eclipse to full moon over the next two hours. Those hours took us to the far side of St. Vincent, where I concluded the wind was so light that I should remove the last reef in the main. We were able to sail much of the trip up the side of St. Vincent, primarily because we kept around 2 miles off. That also got us out of the wild rip-tide that is often experienced around the base of the giant volcano that makes up northern St. Vincent.

The 5 or so hours in the open water between St. Vincent and St. Lucia was pretty nice, and even included some wind direction that had us aimed right at the Pitons. However, the wind died, we began to motor, and then the wind came directly from our direction of travel, making it slow going for the rest of the trip. The rain it brought with it every 30 minutes also became a problem. Indeed, we have been plagued with northerly and often wet winds most of this sailing season. Cat Tales has burned more than half the fuel that we burned all last year, and we’ve barely been out a month, with much travel to go.

Seeing the Piton area of St. Lucia for the first time, from about a mile off, was quite a shock. When we left last year, the area was in a terrible drought, and the Petit Piton had burned for weeks, leaving a giant, steep charred monolith. Just a few short months ago, Hurricane Tomas came through and made a real mess of the area. We could see about a dozen major landslides through the outrageously steep terrain in between the Pitons and in the hills above the little town of Souffriere. It seems obvious which slide killed the nine Lucians, and probably was responsible for the homelessness as well. A major slide came down the hill close to the Grand Piton, just south of the Dasheen Ledera Resort that resides on the high ridge. The scar goes by the Jalousie Plantation Resort, and on into the sea. We saw boulders as big as houses, among the trees, and among the broken coloured concrete that used to be houses in that steep terrain.
The smaller landslides throughout the area looked like cat scratches among the almost vertical hills. Still, these scratches were enough to take out roads, and probably some homes as well. We know things are far from normal.

We carried on until dark, but decided to pull in to a little, steep-walled cleft called Canaries, where we dropped the hook, had a drink and a simple meal, and went to bed. We awoke at 6, hoping to take advantage of the daylight and possibly lighter winds to continue our motor to Rodney Bay. Well, the winds were not light, and it rained so hard that we had to turn the radar on. Between cloudbursts, we would see boats right beside us that we had not been able to see. It was a bit nerve-racking. We had announced our pending arrival on the Rodney Bay morning cruisers net, and then when the sky cleared for a second, and we began to sail past anchored boats, one of them, “Silk Pyjamas”, gave us a conch-horn welcome as we motored by. No small thing.

We had the hook down in Rodney Bay at a little after 9, but waited until 11 for a break in the weather. The break was a trick, and we went through a heck of a rainstorm during the one mile dinghy ride to the marina to clear Customs, and to see John Fallon at “The Bread Basket”.

Since arriving, we have been caught in a whirlwind of activities. Most daylight hours have us working on small problems on Cat Tales; with the rest of the time fulfilling social obligations. Thursday night, we went to a place called Jamb-de-Bois, which means “Wooden Leg”, where we joined old friends to have a great supper and see a one-man presentation that played Broadway only last week. The man is the son-in-law of one of the cruising families here in the harbour, and put the show on free as a gift to us all. It consisted of two super long, funny, Christmas poems that reminded me of the educational, biting sarcasm of Tom Robbins (I think) who wrote “Skinny Legs and All” and “Even Cowgirls get the Blues” among many others. It was quite fun.

Christmas Eve, there was a cocktail party with snacks at the yacht club on Reduit Beach, Christmas Day brought a barbecue on the beach in front of the yacht club, Boxing Day brought a “leftover party at John Fallon’s apartment, about a 25 minute walk from the marina. We needed that walk, by this time. We have been happy to be reacquainted to this crowd of people, as well as to meet some new cruiser friends at the events. Tonight, we are having sundowners on Silk Pyjamas, some people we have tried hard to spend time with for over 3 years. We have been like ships passing in the night, but tonight we collide. The weather has been steadily improving since our arrival; and we can dare hope for a beautiful sunset to view from their cockpit.

The boat troubles I mentioned are primarily the watermaker, although the “to do” list has made it up to 15 items of late. The watermaker motor, since the factory changes, requires 40 amperes, and the wiring to it just is not up to it. I have checked for voltage drops at every location along the circuit, and have started to run larger wire. As it draws from the big wires to the windlass, I thought it could not be a problem, but my work has resulted in finding that the windlass wires are too small, and we may be doing damage to the windlass. As that is a $5k item, it is worth the $3-400 it may cost to put larger wire to it. Tomorrow, that project gets started.

Well, enough for today. Stay tuned for more on the people we are getting to know, our time with John, and our short-term plans.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to Everyone and all the best in 2011,
Love from Laurie and Dawn
s/v Cat Tales

ST. LUCIA

Laurie and I left Bequia on Tuesday morning at 4:30 and sailed north towards St. Vincent on route to St. Lucia. In a couple of hours, the sun came up and we were in light winds sadly, and at a bad angle. We knew it would be a rather long day before we'd go to sleep in St. Lucia! After sailing along side of St. Vincent with little to no wind, we were finally out in the channel between the islands and picked up about 12 to 15 knots of wind which was on the nose at first, but then finally came to us a bit more out of the east to help us along. We were even able to shut down the engines and just sail! That, however, was short-lived and soon the wind died and the waves and swells went 'wonkie' (my pet term for scrambled up). We could see the pitons on St. Lucia off in the distance for most of the day, but couldn't quite get there! Eventually, the wind picked up considerably, but once again on the nose. We took the sails down completely and motored for the next 4 hours up the coast of St. Lucia and ducked in at a little spot called the Canaries. Ron and Judy will remember the spot well as it was where we saw the squid mating on the reef, quite a sight that was a couple of years ago! (none of us were mature enough to look away!) Anyway, we dropped the anchor just as a couple of young guys from the town came out to visit us on kayaks to see if we needed anything from town. We passed them each a cold beer, wished them a Merry Christmas, and they were happily on their way.

This morning we woke up at 6:00 and were underway by 6:30. On our 3 hour motor up to Rodney Bay, I have never seen so much blinding rain! I was inside looking out and was very much afraid that each time the rain slowed down, we'd be face to face with another boat. Often, we'd come out of it and see a boat on either side of us. The radar was no help at all since it picked up all the rain and squalls and showed it as splatter all over the screen. Needless to say that when we dropped the anchor here in Rodney Bay this morning, there was no need to clean any salt off the boat!!

We dingied into the inner lagoon in the pouring rain, where we met our friend John Fallon for a good long catching up chat and a meal at the "Bread Basket". Besides John, we were met up with many other old friends who stay in this area. John lost his boat "Stopknott" in a fire in June right here in the boatyard in Rodney Bay. He is renting a small apartment near our friend Edgar and either taxis to the marina or gets a lift with Edgar. We hosted Edgar and his team last year in Bequia for the big regatta there when they raced their J-24 "Loose Canon". John is actively involved in taking the marina to task and hopes it will work out in his favour and be tidied up by mid January. The Caribbean often has it's own timelines for doing things, so we'll see how that date works out. We'll spend Christmas with John and his friends at the local Yacht Club and then we'll take John up to Martinique for a little visit and then return him to St. Lucia before we head northerly again.

Laurie is carrying on with boat chores and is on his knees working on the watermaker motor as I type! During our passage, we added 6 more things to his list. We thought we had that side window all sealed, but in this rain, we realized that it's back on the list once more!

I had a nice message from John and Delberta telling me how much they enjoyed the underwater pictures. Thanks for that. I'm not sure we'll see that kind of snorkeling again until we return to the Cays in the spring.

Take care all!

Dawn (and Laurie)

Tobago Cays - photos for you!

I have been having lots of fun with my new underwater camera. Here are a few shots from the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines in the Caribbean.

We are watching the weather and will be heading to St. Lucia shortly to visit with John Fallon for Christmas.

We dinghied over to the section of the Tobago Cays that is roped off to protect the turtles. This is where one feels very privilaged to swim with such graceful and beautiful creatures. Most of these turtles are the "green turtle".











Laurie and Maurice are equipped with banana to feed the fish. We discovered this particular part of the reef last year to be especially fish friendly. After awhile, we discovered that a few of the charter boats bring loads of people to this particular blob every day and the fish know what to expect! What a delight to see squirrel fish and rock hinds, and parrotfish swimming right up to us for a bite of banana!


These are Blue Tangs, which usually travel in large schools as they nibble on the reef.








Here is a sweet little wrass; they're only about 6 inches long, but very beautiful!



The rock hinds are usually quite shy and hide when you visit, but not these ones from this particular spot on the reef. They came out in plain view as you can see looking for the expected piece of banana from visiting swimmers!





A face only a mother rock hind could love! They're so homely, they're cute, don't you think?



Eagle Ray digging in the sand to loosen up bits of food. The cowfish follow him and take advantage of whatever he kicks up.






The parrotfish are lovely and colourful! This one is about 2 feet long!



Cowfish!



This is not zoomed in! He was looking for banana on my camera!






Petit Tobac Island in the Tobago Cays, is where parts of "Pirates of the Caribbean" were filmed. We went there for a picnic lunch.





This Sue and her visiting friend Kathy from Canada. We are on Petit Tobac island.


On our way out of the Tobago Cays, Maurice was getting things ready aboard Strider when I was able to take this beautiful picture of their boat with a rainbow. The sail to Bequia that day was beautiful, although, as usual the wind was a bit on the nose!

Tobago Cays

We're anchored in the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines and just bought a giant loaf of banana bread from Walter, our favourite "boat boy"!

I have taken lots of underwater pics and will share when we get back to Bequia and Internet later this weekend. Until then, we'll swim and snack and get back to you later.

Dawn

Finally, some pics for you today!

We are heading over to Union Island today, but I thought it would be nice to get a few pictures up for you. Congratulations to my neice Heather and her hubby Tom who had a baby boy, Hunter, earlier this week!

This is Monos Island, where we spent the better part of a week in Trinidad trying to stay safe and away from the rat race.


St. Georges - another hilly walk!


St. Georges


Snorkeling off Sandy Island. This is a rock beauty and it was taken with my new underwater cannon camera.


Porcupine fish, calm as can be, not showing his quills!


The one and only Laurie Corbett


Cowfish


This Gentleman sang to us in the morning and caught fish in the afternoon!


S/V Aphrodite: Andreas and Cordula from Germany


Curtis, our friend from Off de Hook showing off his new hat that we gave him as a gift. Lorna will recognize this hat!!


Off de Hook Owner Curtis brought our a couple of gentlemen to sing to us in the morning. What a treat!! We came in for pizza later that day to enjoy his beach and company!


Maurice and Sue and their company from S/V Strider who came to visit us this August in New Brunswick!

Carriacou

Sorry, no pics today either. We just cannot find good internet signals. This one comes to you by ham email as well.

Friday's passage from St. Georges, Grenada to the little island of Carriacou should have taken only 4-5 hours, but we took closer to 7.5 hours. We left at 9 am after the morning VHS and HAM nets, and had some really rough patches. The first three hours behind Grenada were not so bad. We had all sails up in winds up to 18 knots, and actually passed a 42' Lagoon catamaran and a 44' PDQ catamaran. As we headed northeast towards a tall bald island called "Kick 'em Jenny", we got into very squally conditions, bad current, and too much north in the wind. It was wet and bumpy, with winds gusting to 29 knots.

Our hairiest moment occurred when we were attempting to furl away some of the jib during a squall. I had let some sheet out, so of course, the jib began flapping furiously in the high wind. As I began pulling in the furling line, the snapping jib hauled out the other sheet, and whipped it into a ball by the mast. The wind took that opportunity to shift, so we accidentally came about, and were in trouble. Without the starboard sheet, we could not trim the jib to either carry on in the tack or to change back to our course. Also, I could not start an engine, as we were backing up over the fishing lines we were trawling, and we did not wish to foul our propellers and rudders. Somehow, we got turned back to the normal course, and I braved the wind to go on deck to untangle the sheet. Rather stressful, wet work.

By the time we got far enough north to tack into Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, we were two hours to the west. We made it and had the anchor down before dark. Although it seemed to rain on us all afternoon, the sky wouldn't give us a drop to wash off all the salt that built up on the boat. Still, we had an anchor beer or two, cooked up Dawn's favourite, K-Dinner, and had a relaxing evening.

Yesterday, we spent the morning fixing things, including the windlass, which had stopped easing the anchor down. The problem was a bad relay switch in the remote control. Rather annoying, that - It costs just short of $200, and it was obvious that it leaked salt water into the switches. I have a friend, Maurice on Strider, bringing a new one up from St. Georges. The afternoon included a lovely walk to Paradise Beach. We have pictures that you'll see soon, hopefully. The evening highlight was a plate of curried conch from the "Lambi Queen" restaurant. It was easily the best dish we have had this year, with rice and pigeon peas, plaintain, daschene, cucumber, tomato, cole slaw, christophene, and carrot. The curried conch was just right, and the sauce made the rice very tasty.

Today, we're going over to a little sandy spit called "Sandy Island", where we can snorkel or visit Paradise Beach. There will be NO Internet there either!

Safe and sound

We're safe and sound this morning. Hauling up anchor and moving the short distance to St. Georges. We're working through some of our chores. Not too much exciting happening, so we'll be in further touch later.

Sorry about the lack of pictures. We're waiting for a better Internet connection.

Our plan is to be up in St. Lucia by Christmas to celebrate with John Fallon.

Cheers,
Dawn

Prickly Bay, Grenada

We came around the corner to Prickly Bay this morning, and are tucked up into a spot near the Tiki Bar / Pizza Parlour. The 1+ hour trip was fine, with minimum salt on the boat. Salt would not be tragic, as there is a 70% chance of a thunder shower today. We have so-so internet at the moment.

Last night, we went to the St. Georges Yacht Club with two other couples who made the trip from Trini with us: Sue and Maurice, and Kathy and Greg. Over beer and barbecue, we relived our 19 hours of discomfort, telling our best and worst stories. Apparently, Maurice had stayed relatively dry until after nightfall, when he looked over the side and marvelled for a short moment at the phosphorescence given off by the disturbed microbes along the side of the boat. He lingered too long, as the sea jumped up and gave him a mighty, sloppy lick. He could add being salty and soaked to being tired and bruised. Kathy and Greg were the last to come in to anchor, but had to fight another half hour with their ground tackle, which had formed a giant, impenetrable ball in the locker below the bow.

The sleeping was great last night, and we are in good humour, almost totally recovered from the crossing. I have only one 4" wound across the back of my hand from when a 5' sailfish (yes, five foot) attacked my brand new lure while I was hauling it in to check it. He/she tightened the line around my hand and gave me a mighty yank before relieving us of the $20 lure and leader. I was occupied with my hand and the line, but Dawn saw him leap in all his glory, completely clearing the water. I guess you call that "sportfishing". It is almost a shame that my hand will likely heal without a scar. It would be a great opportunity for a story.

We plan to be here for a few days: do some walking possibly to retrieve some limes from a tree we found last year, rewire the watermaker for the higher amperage that the new configuration requires, replace the primary fuel filters since motoring during the rough crossing would have allowed all the tank fuel to be bypassed and poilished through the filters, and get ourselves sorted out. The flatter water might allow us to remove some of the wax that had to remain on the boat after rains stopped that job in Trinidad. Tonight, we will go to "Da Big Fish" restaurant, to have callalou pizza, meet old friends, and enjoy live music. We'll try to sit at the same table we shared with Mike and Anne O'Brien last April. It is great to be here.

Grenada

This morning, I woke up knowing I was on the boat, listening to the surge of the waves hitting the shoreline, however, I had to really come awake to know just where the boat was anchored last night. After 17 hours of a rocking and rolling nasty trip with the wind almost on the nose and the waves cascading over us, we finally made it here into St. Georges at 9:00 pm. We came up from Trinidad with 4 other boats and saw each other in the distance from time to time during the day while chatting with them on the VHF radio occasionally to check on everyone.

It's always a concern to leave Trinidad for such a long trip after the boat has been laid up for 6 months. Although we do everything thing we can to refresh seals, hoses etc etc, you never know what you might miss until it happens, and it COULD potentially happen out there in the 'big ocean' with no land in sight. Andreas of s/v Aphrodite tells us that last year his engine quit just outside the channel on the way out of Trinidad. Since he couldn't get back in with only sails, he decided to sail to Grenada. He made radio calls outside of Prickly Bay in the dark and some dear soul came out and towed him in with their dinghy. He found out that his fuel had developed a large cloud of algae and it had clogged the feed to the engine.

Last night, after 16 hours on the water but out of the major chop but in the dead of night, Maurice and Sue's engine sputtered to a halt. Maurice identified the problem of a clogged fuel filter, did a quick change while standing on his head and continued the last 30 minutes to set the anchor safely outside of St. George's Bay. We could have responded to their call for help, but they managed to get the situation under control without assistance. We're all so glad to be here this morning without incident!

We have yet to get to shore today to clear customs and immigration. Laurie is busy putting our Trinidad and Tobago dollars away and digging out his Eastern Caribbean dollars (EC), we divide by 2.5 to get the exchange. Laurie and I are both stiff and sore from hanging on yesterday and he mentioned this morning that it is a bad day to switch to half and half coffee!

All for now.

Dawn and Laurie

leaving Trinidad on Thursday morning

We sitting here in a calm and sunny bay in Chaguaramas, Trinidad this afternoon and I have sweat dripping off my face in many places! It's 35 degrees with high humidity. We have decided to make the plunge and will head to Grenada tomorrow morning at 4:00 am for a 12 to 14 hour trip. We will be going with Strider (Maurice and Sue) and Aphrodite (Andreas and Cordula). We'll sit here for another hour and then go check out with customs. They insist you leave shortly you check out, but we'll all be sneaking around the corner to Scotland Bay and sleeping there until the alarm rings tomorrow at 3:30. Customs is a bit overly fussy here!

Can't wait to get to Grenada where there is a bit more breeze to cool things off...to say the least of the colour of the water - turquoise is always better than pea green! Laurie has already decided that we're eating callilou pizza at 'de Big Fish' tomorrow night in Prickly Bay in Grenada!