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.