More Time Off

Well, we did take a day off to go to the beach but Monday it was back to work. We have been pretty well banned from the boat while the deck is being done since they are sanding and filling and putting primer on and then sanding and filling and putting primer on. They are certainly paying attention to detail which is a good idea and hopefully will result in a better finished product. They actually seem quite good and we were talking to someone who has put their boat up there for 8 years - Tito. Tito says that he has a quite a bit of work done there and he used to be there every moment but after seeing the work they do and how they do it, he now just lets them get on with the job. There is still lots we will be doing but it will be after the deck is finished. In the meantime we have been looking after other things like the dinghy and the anchor and anchor chain - and ourselves.

First the dinghy - since we have been travelling fairly short distances between islands, we have been leaving the dinghy in the water and pulling it behind us. There is a way to get it out of the water using a spare halyard and pulling it up over the side after first taking the motor off and mounting it on the back transom rail. We would then turn the dinghy upside down and put it on the forward part of the deck. We had not been doing that because with Randy and Aleitha in the forward cabin, their hatch would not have had access to the breezes. Besides that, it was a bit of a pain getting the motor off the dinghy, hoisting it over the rear rail and then mounting it.

So - pulling it behind is not a big deal except it slows us down a bit and more importantly algae, barnacles and other unpleasantries attach themselves to the bottom and it looks yucky. So, while we had time, we decided to sand all the paint off the aluminum bottom portion of the dinghy as well as the inside and then repaint it. We will use dinghy antifouling paint on the bottom and marine paint on the inside. This process will take some time but will be worth it.

The other part of the anti-yucky campaign will be to have davits put on the back of the boat that will let us bring the dinghy up, motor and all, and suspend it on the back of the boat. One other really important advantage to this method of transportation and storage is that when we leave here to go south we will be heading into territory where dinghy theft is all too common so we hope this will be a sufficient deterrent to the would be thieves.

Okay. that was an unnessarily long way to tell you about one of the things we have been doing - and I haven't even mentioned the anchor and chain. Short version - we have 3 anchors, a Danforth and the nose part of a CQR (not sure we can get the arm for this but it is too good to throw away) in the front hatch and a CQR on the windlass attached to what was supposed to be 150' of chain. It turns out we only have 120' of rusty chain (I pulled it out and measured it in Nanny Cay) that is not the right size for the windlass (thank you previous owner) and the anchor swivel is in pretty bad shape so we just got 200' of the correct size chain and a new CQR anchor -and that IS the short version of the story.

Now on to good stuff - we needed another break so today we went golfing. We had to rent clubs and it was only a 9 hole course (the only course on the island - bummer!) but it was a neat little course and the price was reasonable. Of course I blame the rental clubs, no golf shoes, unknown course etc etc etc for my score but really it wasn't at all bad. Cheryl was hitting nice shots consistently but I attribute her consistency and my somewhat erratic play on the fact she had a caddie. We had actually started out without one but ended up with one which I will explain.

We got to the course at about 7:50 AM so that we could avoid some of the midday heat. Of course we didn't know the course wasn't open until 8:30 but Charlie - the groundskeeper - supplied us with clubs and balls and away we went. The only thing we were missing was a scorecard, but Charlie said he would send one out to us. We were just approaching #2 green when Albert, a young man of about 20, showed up with our scorecard and pencil. Of course he is also a caddy. We had told Charlie we didn't want a caddy but decided that we would use Albert after all. First of all it wasn't expensive, secondly, the layout of the course was somewhat confusing so we wanted someone who knew where to go and a third reason arose later that we hadn't even thought of.

The course reminded us of home at the end of the summer. The fairways were brown and the greens and tee boxes were green, this being the end of the dry season. As we walked the fairways, we noticed what looked at first like eruptions of dirt of various sizes. On closer examination we found that they were actually cracks in the soil ranging in size from a couple of inches to four or five feet in length. They went down into the soil to a depth of about 12 to 18 inches. Albert told us (AS HE WAS FISHING CHERYL'S BALL OUT OF ONE!!) that these start to appear towards the end of the dry season. I asked him what they did about them and he said they just wait for the wet season because the holes closed right up again. Kind of cool actually. There was a stream and pond on the course, both of which were green, but empty of water. Albert said that the pond filled after an hour of steady rain. We decided it would be nice to come back in a couple of weeks after it has rained for awhile to see what the course is like then.

So, that is the latest in the adventures - not earth-shaking or over-exciting but you know what - these are the things that memories are made of and these memories will be worth remembering .

Grand Anse

Yesterday we took the day off from boat work and went to the beach. We realized that we have not been in the water since we arrived in Grenada. The beach we went to is Grand Anse. It is 2 miles of white sand beach lined with palm trees and almond trees. There are resorts all along the beach, but they are back from the beach and there is a local ordanance which prohibits any building from being taller than the tallest palm tree.

I'm sure that during the tourist season the beach and water would be filled with people. Being off season there were only a few tourists and local families. We watched children digging in the sand and parents getting their young children aquainted with how to play in the water. One young boy had picked up a starfish that he was going to put back in the sea, but allowed us to take his picture first.

We walked along the entire length of the beach. Griff stretched out on a line of black rocks and I walked along an old concrete structure.

This looked like it may have been part of a sewer system as there was a stream going away from it towards the shore. There was another similar structure at the other end of the beach.

There was only one beach vendor that we saw. He was sitting under a spreading almond tree which served as a display case for his windchimes. He also had jars of shells and conch shells displayed on a blanket on the beach.

At the north end of the beach we headed inland to the Craft and Spice Market. Again because it is off season and it was Sunday there was only two or three booths open. We headed out to the road and walked back towards the road than runs along behind the beach resorts. We went to the local IGA to pick up a few essentials, bread and snacks, and then went to KFC for lunch. Normally we would have taken a bus or taxi back to the apartment, but we decided to walk back instead. It is only 1.6 miles away. On the way back we stopped and checked out the cinema. The admission varies from $15EC ($5.50US) for 2 adults on Wednesdays to $20EC ($7.50US) per adult on the weekends. We decided we will try to make it to the movies one Wednesday while we are here. The other thing we want to do is check out the golf club, hopefully this week.

More from Grenada

Here we are again - True Blue, Grenada - or Spice Island Marina, Prickly Bay, depending on whether we are talking about the boat or about us. Weather is still Caribbean weather, although they say the rain is slow in coming this year. Temperatures are around 30-32 in the afternoons and while I am comfortable with that, Cheryl finds it a bit wearing at times. I must admit that it does slow me down somewhat also and by days end I look forward to the air conditioning. I meant to describe the apartment in the last blog but my first attempt was lost and I forgot on the finished product so here goes.

We are on the top floor of a 3 story apartment building that is fairly new. There have been a lot of apartments, including this one, built expecially for the University, which is just behind us, so everything works, although the water is somewhat like the boat, where you turn the tap, the water goes fast, then slows down until the pressure is low enough that the pump kicks in and then it is fast again. Much more pressure here though.

There is a walkway that allows access to all of the apartments on the floor and our apartment is bordered on three sides by this walkway. On one wall we have a balcony door to the walkway and two living room windows and on the second we have the main access door, a living room window and a bedroom window. the third wall is on the bathroom side. There is an a/c unit in the living room and one in the bedroom so we turn the bedroom one on about 2 hours before bed time. The other one we use sometimes and sometimes not. It depends on who has the control!!

So - that boring description is over.

As far as the boat is concerned it is coming along. The teak is all off the deck and the deck has had two coats of resin and two coats of primer put on. They are now using filler to get rid of all the little holes and indentations that the teak hid. When that is done, more sanding and primer. It was interesting to find that on the aft deck, just forward of the twin deck hatches, there was already some filler that had been put on to fill the cracks in a rectangular outline. It appears there used to be some kind of hatch or structure or something on that spot but we can only speculate what it was. The strongest possibility in my mind is there used to be smaller deck hatches there but with the same under-deck storage space. They might have decided that it was too awkward to reach under the deck to store things and so made the hatches bigger and put them slightly more aft. But it is only speculation.

On with the update - Cheryl and I finished taking the rest of the antifouling paint - or at least all we could without a sander - off the bottom. The guys then sanded the sides and bottom in preparation for the awlgrip. Awlgrip, by the way, is a type of surfacing, like paint but much more protective and also nicer looking. It will be applied on the deck in two different textures. The main part of the deck will have a rough texture, like the finishes you may have seen advertised to put on concrete or on decks/porches. It will provide the best footing when we have to work on a wet deck.

The other texture, which will be appliled to the topsides and to the deck part that gets least foot traffic, will end up looking like a car paint job where 7 or 8 coats have been applied and hand-rubbed. Should look nice. They will also be re-doing the waterline stripe, the decorative line and the name on our transom. Topsides, by the way, is the sides of the boat between the waterline and the deck.

Some of the other things we will be doing while the boat is up is (Cheryl and I will be doing most of this) sanding, re-staining and oiling the salon table, nav desk, companionway stairs, companionway ladder, companionway doors and the cover that closes over the companionway. We are also going to (finally) install (with Graham's help) the new SSB equipment we brought with us from Canada and we are having davits made that will allow us to bring the dinghy up out of the water, motor and all, and store it hanging from the back of the boat while we travel or when we are in an anchorage where there may be a chance of it going missing.

So, that is it for the boat and for us - except for the fact that I am really getting cabin fever here at the apartment and we have only been on land for a week and a bit. If my blogs start getting any stranger, you will know I have gone over the edge. Of course I am considered by many to be already past the point of no return so...............how do you tell!!

Before I close, a couple of more "island" things. I think we mentioned the buses here but I am not sure how much detail we supplied. It is actually a really neat system. I did note in the last blog that one of the uses of the horn was to let people know that a bus was coming and available. Well, this is how it happens.

You will be walking down the street and hear a horn. It may be behind you or ahead of you because they try to attract your attention from both directions. They will also - not exactly yell, but kind of a "hey mon" quite loud. This comes from either the driver or the "conductor" who hangs his head outside the van on the opposite side from the driver. These buses are actually 15 passenger right-hand drive vans with sliding doors. There is a small seat attached to the end of the second seat row that lets the "conductor" control people getting on and off. He (or she in one case) collects the money, opens and closes the door and also tries to attract people. Both the conductor and the driver also use one hand when they make their sounds and they point in the direction the van is going. People know the signals and the sounds and the whole thing works quite well. When I mentioned they do it from both directions, if they happen to be going in the opposite direction and you say yes or nod or indicate interest in any way, they will stop. If you cross the road and get in you will eventually get where you are going (there are paper signs on the front windows indicating destinations but make sure you also ask) but it may be after they have picked up as many people as they think they can - or they may just turn around and you're away! Incidentally, it costs less than $1.00 for a ride to just about anywhere you want to go.

Last thing is again the customs of the people. At times it almost seems like we are back walking Katie along the highway with everyone who passes waving hello. Here, when you walk down the street, be prepared to be friendly. 99% of the people you meet, whether they are walkers or workers or just people who happen to be there, will say good morning or good afternoon or sometimes just "Good?" (this means how are you today). It's a good feeling and it reinforces my belief that people are usually just people and further that maybe we could take some lessons in how unnecessary it really is to stress ourselves about "getting ahead" and "buying the toys" and that we have only today to live so make the most of it.

Update and Air Conditioning!

Well, here we are, still in Genada, but since late Friday we have been in a non-rolling, water-gushing, toilet-flushing (without pumping) domocile. I must say that there are goods and bads to this.

First the goods: the floor no longer rolls (although I miss the motion believe it or not), the air conditioner works in the bedroom at night (although we found it too cold the first night it was 25C!), the shower has hot water that is not dependent on Cheryl holding the solar shower over my head and we don't have to pump the toilet.

The bads: we can't jump off the side of the apartment when we want to go for a swim (although we are only a 2 minute dinghy ride from the marina to a nice beach and a 10 minute bus ride from a fancy resort beach), we are stuck in one spot for a while, the heat is more intense on land than when we are on the boat and finally, it is brutally hot working on the boat.

All in all it is a nice break from what we have been doing, but if the Perrys were not coming here to drop off Artemo, I think we would be gone sooner rather than later. We are really looking forward to seeing them.

As we had mentioned earlier, we likely won't be blogging as much for the next while because we don't want to bore you to death and have you stop reading the blog before the next exploration phase of our journey. We will, however, still be putting - I guess you can't say pen to paper, more like fingers to keyboard - anyway, we will still be blogging our thoughts, reflections and experiences so hang in there.

I started thinking today on our way into St George's how easy it is to fall into the trap of comparing things around us to "the way things are at home" and how detrimental that can be to an adventure. Let's face it, there are likely more things we can find different than the same about the way things are done here as compared to Canada. If we choose to compare them focusing only on "that's not like at home", then of course our experiences will be mostly unfavourable. Open the options and the mind and the possibilities are limitless and much more enjoyable.

What began this train of thought was listening to the traffic on the way into the capitol of Grenada - St George's. In Canada and I dare say North America, when one hears a car or truck horn, the odds are good you are hearing the result of impatience, anger, frustration or someone just plain p.....ed off. Here, on most of the other islands and even in Thailand, where we first noticed the horns, it means an entirely different thing. Most of these places I mentioned it is either a courtesy or a notice of intent. It can mean "look out pedestrian on the sidewalk, I am coming up behind you on the road - don't be startled", it can mean "a bus is coming in case you want a ride", it can mean "I'm going to pull in front of you or behind you or will be in your vicinity now" and any number of other things. It doesn't mean "what a jerk you are".

Another difference - the condition of the houses and yards. We could look at some of them and say "how messy" or "those poor folks are needy" or some other judgment based on what it means in Canada. On most of the islands, what is important in a house and yard is not keeping the grass cut short or the hedge trimmed etc etc. So what is important - I can't answer that because I don't know but - I do know that in many of them there are happy kids and clean clothes on the clothes line; in those same small villages I see bright-eyed children who are allowed (and it is safe) to play without having to be watched by their parents and we have received many waves and friendly greetings from within those yards from young and old alike. Imagine strangers driving down the street in the city or town where you live and you wave and smile and greet them just because they are there - done that very often???

I seem to be waxing philisophical here so I will close this blog. It is not that there are no more examples of "detrimentalism" (my new word) but as I mentioned earlier, we would like you to continue reading the blog so I won't frighten you away with any more reflections - not to say I won't in the future but you won't know exactly when.

Up on the Hard in Grenada

Well we are up on the hard in Grenada. Yesterdy we motored from True Blue Bay to Prickly Bay and Spice Island Marine Services - approximately 40 minutes. Griff did a fantastic job of backing into the slip, always difficult with a crosswind blowing. Then there was the question of where to place the lift straps so they wouldn't rest on the propeller shaft. At one point I thought Griff was going to go in head first as he leaned over the edge of the boat to see where the strap was sitting. After Mystic Journey was out of the water it was time for a power wash of the bottom and the first chance to see how badly the paint was pealing and what the effect of having the anti-fouling off the bottom would have. After the powerwash almost all the paint was off the port side from waterline to keel. That side of the boat also had a lot of growth on it where the paint had peeled before. Obviously the anti-fouling does work.













After the boat was placed in position and up on supports Griff and I spent some time peeling off paint from the starboard side as well. It peels off just like wallpaper - just get it started with a scraper and then pull.

Last night and the next two nights we spend on the boat (our apartment isn't available until the 16th). It was amazing how it still felt like the boat was rocking. When walking on deck we were still holding on to the shrouds and other supports for support. I think part of that was because we had lifted our stern anchor the night before we left True Blue Bay and had spent a rollier night than we had the past week.

Today we were up bright and early and got started on the boat work, I did some more paint stripping and Griff started removing things on the deck. At 9:15 Frankie arrived with 2 workers, Jerry who will be doing most of the deck work and another fellow who started by washing the topsides (the white part above waterline) and then helped Jerry with the teak removal. While they were doing that Griff and I removed all the hardware on deck, hinges on hatch covers, cleats, guides for ropes etc. This was quite a feat, the temperature was 34C with very little breeze and since some of the things were bolted through the deck Griff spent part of the day flat on his back in the hatches. After 5 hours of work by the four of us the majority of the teak is off. Jerry said tomorrow the rest will be off and the deck ready for sanding and the primer coat. We're not sure how many coats of the Awl-grip paint will be required on the deck.

Before After

Sights and Sounds of Grenada

Our first sight of Grenada was actually Carriacou. It is an island north of Grenada, but part of the country. It was there that we cleared in at customs. One of the sights I remember from Carriacou was standing in the police station waiting for customs and reading the board that listed the statistics for accidents for the island. In January they had 5 non-injury accidents and in February there were 8 accidents with one being a fatality accident involving the death of a child, in March there had been no accidents. The previous year they had 48 accidents, no fatalities and 5 adult injury accidents.

On Grenada itself, the taxi drivers we have talked with told us that there are very few accidents. This is surprising considering the way people drive. They all drive fairly fast. At most major intersections they have round-abouts (traffic circles) instead of traffic lights. The local buses, we have taken a few, think nothing of stopping and asking people on the other side of the street if they want a bus, or stopping and waiting for people to catch up with the bus. The buses are actually vans which are privately owned. The fare is $2.50EC approximately $1.00CDN. The fare is paid to a conductor who sits in the back of the van and also has the responsibility of ‘drumming’ up business. To get off the bus you either get off at a regular bus stop or tap on the side of the van and the conductor will tell the driver to stop. Actually the conductor insures a safer bus ride because the driver can concentrate on driving rather than looking to see if anyone wants a ride. There is a main bus depot in downtown St. George’s. Catching a bus there, or anywhere for that matter, you have to make sure that the one you are getting on is going where you want to go. On the upper left corner of the windshield is listed the places the bus stops, but you still need to clarify with the driver/conductor to make sure that is where they are going. The bus we took today had 14 passengers, the driver and the conductor on it.

While on our tour of the island we noticed that a lot of the garden walls and retaining walls along the road were painted red, green and yellow. Dexter, the taxi driver/tour guide, explained that every February 7 the communities have a competition to celebrate Grenada’s independence. The competition is to see who can decorate their property the best. Some of the decorations were quite elaborate with pictures of the political leaders of the time while others consisted of the tires around flower beds being painted.

Saturday in downtown St. George’s was an eyeful of sights. It was reminiscent of our market experiences in Thailand. The streets are very narrow – basically room for one vehicle and one lane of parking. Most of the streets were one way. In the market area one street was closed off and the market expanded into the street. Most of the storefronts were narrow – some went back a long way and others were extremely tiny with only enough room for two or three people. All of the stores were packed with merchandise for sale.

Griff found a little restaurant, Kaycee’s Barbecue, that advertised barbeque so we stopped there for lunch. It was actually a ‘Pay and Take’ place, like our take out, but the owner had a corner set up with one table and we sat there. We had callalou soup yet again. And yet again it was different – pieces of chicken including the bones and crabs. One of the local fellows came over and showed Griff how to eat the crab – bite off both ends of the legs and then suck!! It was actually quite good. The barbecue was different. I had pork, but I’m not sure what cut of pork they were using – not ribs for sure.

While writing this blog I am reminded of the sounds of Grenada. We are moored a short distance from a hotel restaurant. It has live music almost every other night. Tonight we are being serenaded yet again by the pleasant sounds of a saxophone. This has been the case for a number of the nights – saxophone, steel pans (drums) and vocalists. On the whole it has been quite enjoyable and they are usually finished by 10 pm.

Ruminations and Things

Well, here we are on our own once again. Randy and Aleitha left on Tuesday and it was “not nice” to see them go. We shared a lot of experiences, a lot of laughter and a lot of close friendship while they were here. This is the second time we have travelled with them on holidays (this time was holidays for them, journeying for us!!) We had previously gone to Isle de Marguerita, Venezuela with them and discovered how much fun we had together. Anyway, when the plane we thought they were leaving on flew overhead (#1, the airport is very close #2 they weren’t on that plane!) both Cheryl and I felt sad and far from home.

This blog will be on nothing specific and the pictures Cheryl adds may not relate but bear with us. We can’t have adventures every day.

We had decided when we bought the boat that at some point during the first year we would remove the teak decks and replace them with something more suited to the tropics. Now before you start thinking “how can they bear to remove the teak, teak looks so nice and rich, why don’t they just refinish it etc etc etc”. Well, it is true that teak looks nice and rich and handsome when first installed. Furthermore, if you are in a climate such as that around say Vancouver, it will last a long time and is definitely worth refinishing. Unfortunately, a tropical climate is not kind to teak. The UV weakens the staying power of the wood and the holding power of the glue and although it can be refinished or replaced the cost is prohibitive and we have seen some refinished decks. They not only no longer looked like teak; they in fact looked like a bad attempt to refinish “something”.

So, to get back to our decision to remove the teak, it was only a matter of deciding when and where we would do it. A lot of folks opt for Trinidad to get work done. When Trinidad first became “the place to do work” the labour was the cheapest in the Caribbean and the jobs were for the most part well done. As well, Trinidad is outside the “box” (the hurricane belt). Now this may still be true to some extent – it is still outside the hurricane belt for example - BUT according to quite a few of the people we have talked to other things have changed. Costs can still be quite cheap but apparently now you get what you pay for so if you buy cheap, you get cheap. We have heard some real horror stories about some of the work. Keep in mind, however, that as is true in most similar aspects of life, when you start asking about something you invariably get the worst case scenarios. It is like breaking a limb or getting an ailment. People never tell you about the good things they have heard – it is always “you broke your arm???? My brother broke his arm….died two weeks later”. One further item re Trinidad, and this is one of the more recurring themes, is the safety. Now people who travel know that there can be dangerous areas anywhere you go – the idea is to stay out of them. The problem in Trinidad is that there seem to be more of them and particularly around the areas of the marinas where of course you have to be if you are working on the boat yourself. Again, refer to “worse case scenarios” above and take the information with a grain of salt BUT….

Back to teak and Trinidad – three of the couples we met from Canada had told us we should check out Grenada when we got there. All three were storing their boats here – two had previously stored in Trinidad – so when we got here we started to research availability of what we wanted – a place where we could work on the boat ourselves as well as have a pool of talent to do the things we couldn’t and all at a reasonable cost (as far as boats go!!). We also wanted to be able to feel we could walk from the marina to wherever and feel safe at night. Final answer – we are putting the boat on the hard in Spice Island Marine at Prickly Bay on the south coast of Grenada. We expect the work to take 4 weeks or so (we are scheduling a lot of jobs for ourselves on the boat that we have put off because it will be easier if the boat is dry i.e. checking the bilge outlet valves, checking the packing on the prop, checking some bearings) so we decided to rent an apartment while we are here. We could stay on the boat in the marina but A/C, a non-rocking bed and a shower that turns off and on with faucets sounded too good to pass up.

The anchorage we are in right now, prior to going on the hard – True Blue Bay is actually quite nice. We are moored on Horizon’s (a charter company) mooring ball which means for 40 EC – Eastern Caribbean – dollars we have access to showers, 2 swimming pools and various other perks including WiFi in this bay. We also drop the computer off whenever we go ashore and they plug it in to charge it. This saves us running the boat extra time so we can use the inverter to charge the computer. On one side of the bay is St George’s University, which I think was mentioned previously. It is quite a large American school offering medicine, nursing, BA and BFA. As a result of it being there a lot of student housing is available in apartment buildings that were erected after the 2004 hurricane that destroyed 90% of Grenada housing. What I’m trying to say is the apartment we got is new, it’s nice and it is close to the marina as well as to where we are now. In fact we can see the end of True Blue Bay from one corner of the apartment complex and vice versa - we can see one corner of the apartment building from the boat.

So, that is the update on where we are and what we will be doing for the next while. We will still be blogging faithfully but it may not be as interesting as some of you said you found some of our sailing stories. Oh well, c’est la vie – it is all part of the adventure so stick with us.

Thanks For The Memories

I thought I would include some of the memorable occasions from Randy and Aleitha’s visit that didn’t make it into the blog.

Martinique – eating sandwiches made from baguettes while sitting outside of the supermarket; Aleitha taking pictures in the library and then seeing the sign saying photography was not allowed.

St. Lucia – seeing munchkin sailboats in Rodney Bay – a sailing school out for lessons; Randy and Aleitha setting out to listen to jazz, but unable to go because the dinghy motor would not run properly.

St. Vincent – finding a munchkin rowboat; Griff turning into Our Favourite Martian; trying Callilou and Pumpkin soup; seeing the sets from Pirates of the Caribbean; Griff diving in to retrieve a towel that had blown off the deck only to discover that it was about 50ft down not 20ft – the towel stayed on the bottom.

Bequia – Randy buying Griff a fishing rod and then getting the line tangled while showing him how to use it; Aleitha getting her hair braided; Randy diving in to retrieve a rug that had blown off the deck only to find out we were going to throw it in the garbage; the guys having to use the ladies’ washroom because the door to the men’s washroom was locked and nobody in the restaurant had the key; seeing cows grazing amongst palm trees; having diesel and water delivered to the boat by barge.

Canouan – teaching Randy how to close the sail cover to protect the main sail; learning the ropes; picking up a mooring ball.

Tobago Cays – buying bread from Walter, the boat boy with a mouthful of gold teeth; the colour of the water; seeing turtles close to the boat.



Union Island – speaking with Lisea in the restaurant about her trip to Toronto; watching sharks in the pool by the restaurant; Randy borrowing the dinghy so he could take Aleitha back to town to buy her a hat and then ending up playing pool with some of the locals.

Carriacou – Randy trying again with the fishing rod and asking one of the boat boys if there were any fish in this ocean, the boat boy had just offered to sell us some of the fish in the bottom of his boat; Randy drooling over a motor boat that anchored next to us – he did like his speed; Griff using up all of his air while diving.

Grenada – The Three Caballeros sailing to Grenada while Griff sat in the pulpit taking pictures; walking through downtown St. Georges on a Saturday morning, taking in all the sights and sounds of the people; seeing the remaining devastation from Hurricane Ivan and the rebuilding that is still ongoing; houses on stilts rather than closed in basements so the rain can run down the hills and it also gives a place to hang clothes.

Miscellaneous – playing crib every night, men and women won about equally over the three weeks; getting The Wards hooked on playing ‘Brain Age’ every day on the Nintendo DS; watching them both become more comfortable with the physical part of sailing – putting up and taking down of sails and taking turns at the wheel.