Thoughts and More Grenada

First thing right off the bat - it is absolutely great having Julie, Graham, Alex and Amelia here. We could get spoiled with having people we love so close and it could slow us down BUT we need to get "on the road again" .

We have taken turns visiting back and forth and it is so much fun when the kids come out and swim off the boat. They were out the other day and played with some friends they had made from Zen, a cataraman from Rhode Island. Cheryl and I had met them previously and so when they (Zen) went out to St Davids to get some work done, we told Julile and Graham to keep an eye out for them. The kids are the same age as Millie and Alex but the girl is older and the boy younger.

It is also fun to go out to Westerhall where the Perry's apartment is. It is a really nice 4-plex set way back off the main road up a dirt lane. It is brand new and so seems out of place in the "jungle" but there are lots of new houses and apartments that are similarly placed in other parts of Grenada. When we were out there last time we helped the kids with their home schooling a bit and at other times Millie has taken us for a walk to show us all the different food plants/trees around the place and Alex is still showing me the ins and outs of electronic games.

We also met the Perry's at Grand Anse one day. It is a beautiful beach - the type that the advertising posters show when they are trying to attract tourists.

As much as we enjoy being here with the Perrys, we are also anxious to get underway on the next leg of our journey and begin again to visit places we haven't previously been. This brings up other thoughts of the journey that I will share with you.

When we began our adventure, people asked us about pirates and security and being safe. My answer - still a valid one I think - is that if you take care and use precautions and stay away from certain areas, the chance of being threatened or accosted or whatever can be minimized. Our intent initially when we got this far south and got into the less safe zones such as Trinidad and particularly Venezuela was to take all the precautions and not sail in certain areas and make sure we always sailed with other boats etc etc.

After being in Trinidad and trying to decide where we wanted to spend the rest of the hurricane season, we have had a change - not so much of viewpoints but of priorities. As you had previously heard, Trinidad has a lot of violence. While there we became accustomed to thinking of security first - walk in groups, don't go certain places after dark, take a stick in case of feral dogs. This is not to say that all places in Trinidad were like that but before making any plans, security was certainly one of the first things you took into consideration. We had no intention of waiting out the hurricane season down there as some people do so it became a matter of deciding what we did want to do. Our first opportunity - to travel up the Macareo River - was put to rest when Trinidad stopped selling fuel to yachts - or to any foreign flagged vessel. Since we had picked up some parts for Artemo in Trinidad that we needed to deliver to Grenada we were able to fill in that gap but then what?

As I said above, originally I had opted for the idea that it would be alright to visit Venezuela if we took the proper precautions - lift and lock the dinghy every night, lock our lazarettes (deck lockers), make sure everything on deck was chain locked, sleep with the boat locked down and don't go out at night. We had thought we would leave Grenada, travel to Los Tostigos in convoy with other boats and then to Margarita the same way. We could then decide whether we wanted to go to Laguna Grande and Medrigal Village, then Tortuga and finally leave Venezuela via the outer islands for the Netherland Antilles.

After a good deal of discussion regarding the whole scenario as I have just painted it, Cheryl and I both realized that this is not what we signed up for. Sure we could do all of those things in order to visit Venezuela but it would be kind of like deciding that there was a beautiful museum well worth seeing in the middle of an area populated by thieves and murderers. If we took the proper precautions, went in a group, didn't stray from the path leading directly from point A to point B, didn't go at night and realize that we would always be looking looking over our shoulders and in the end could still get robbed, we would likely find the museum fascinating, BUT..............

Bottom line is we signed up to sail on a magical journey, part of this journey being the freedom to choose options that would provide us the most memorable adventure possible - in a positive way!!! The possibilites for options are endless so from this point on, we have decided to let the Gods of Wind, Storm and the Sea be the providers of all the stressors we will encounter. Our focus will be on seeking the beauty and wonder that lies in wait. Flowery? - you bet - but heartfelt!!

One last thing - I feel sadness when, through the research we do regarding where we are going and what we are doing, a recurring theme is the seeming increase in the need to tend to the safety factors of our voyage. I speak to people who sailed here and many other places 10-20-25 years ago and it was not always like this. My belief in the basic goodness of humanity, however, tempered with the knowledge that we can't live in the past and we can't bury our heads in the sand, tells me that this is still for the most part a pretty precious world we live in and we need to work to keep it that way.

Grenada Again but Nearing Departure

Good morning - a couple of things before we get into the "real" blog.

First - Bush Sitter - 1) no cramps from green bananas - they are not the same as our yellow bananas, but are meant to be used when green and cooked. These were really well cooked, 2) there was a constant re-supply of the clean water used to wash hands for the cooks and 3) grass skirts are South Pacific and need to be seen in person to find out what is under there!!!

Second thing - for those of you who might like to make a comment (if indeed there are any people out there still reading our blog (aside from our faithful and very loved commenters)) but are intimidated by the comment procedures - ""you don't have to sign into gmail to comment. Click either Anonymous and then add your name to the text if you wish to be known or not if you don't OR click name and go ahead. Again, you don't have to sign up for gmail"" (And it is SO nice to get comments - it keeps us grounded in Canada and with love.

Where were we - Sunday after the 'oildown we did some minor work on the boat - replaced some teak strips by our fairleads on the deck and changed a couple of clips and rested. And then it rained for a while.

Monday we had a bit of an adventure. We had not gotten fuel since we left Grenada in July and we had not gotten water since leaving Trinidad on September 4th. Unfortunately the fuel depot that is directly in front of us here in Prickly Bay has got piping problems so although we put it off as long as possible, our water needs dictated that we find an outlet so we headed around the corner to Martin's Marina in Mount Hartmans Bay. Nice trip of about an hour although we didn't put up any sail as it was a short trip and against a 10 kt wind. After finally finding the diesel fuel pumps (separate from the gas pumps) we tied up and filled up. I took the gas jerry cans down to the other end of the dock and filled them after putting the diesel in. In the meantime Cheryl was filling the water.

Leaving Prickly Bay

So where is the adventure you ask. Well it happened as we were leaving. We were docked for fuel at the end of a T-dock and our port side was facing towards the entrance to the bay which of course put whatever swell there was directly into the side of Mystic Journey. The dock man had gone back to the office after we paid so we had to cast off by ourselves and almost immediately after we let the lines go and I started the boat moving, squall winds hit us squarely broadside from the port side. We may have mentioned before that although it might make sense that you would know when you are going to feel the winds from a squall because you are being rained on, in fact sometimes the strongest winds come prior to the actual rain cloud getting there. Picture a hurricane - the winds that blow clockwise around a hurricane are usually strongest or at least just as strong on the outer perimeter (were you ever at the end of the line on the ice while playing Crack the Whip?). Anyway, the winds of a squall act in a similar fashion.

When the winds hit we looked up and saw the rain clouds out past the mouth of the bay but by then we were being driven into the dock on our starboard side. I guess in hindsight I should have immediately stopped the boat, re-tied a couple of lines and waited but at the time my concern was that the fenders (bumpers) on the dock side would not be enough to keep the boat off the dock and we would end up with, at a minimum, our paint job on that side being ruined. I also didn't know how long or how strong the squall might end up getting so I kept the boat moving.

Well, this strategy might have worked alright EXCEPT a rope from the front of the dinghy, which was up on davits at the back of the boat, got loose and blew onto the dock where of course Murphy's Law dictated that it get caught on an immovable object, a dock cleat. Cheryl yelled at me to reverse but I had been paying very close attention to the fenders as the movement of the boat brought them up the side of the boat, closer and closer to a position where they weren't protecting anything, so by the time I heard her and it registered in my somewhat antiquated brain cells so I was able to take action it was too late - the front end of the dinghy had torn loose from the davits.

By this time we were in neutral, the boat was being held in one spot against the dock by the force of the wind and I was able to get to the back. The rear of the dinghy, which was on the off-dock side of the boat, was still being held by the davit so I lowered that into the water, jumped into the dinghy (well, not really jumped - more like lowered myself off the back of the boat!!) and unhooked all lines from it except for our tow line, which is what had gotten caught and which we had used in pre-davit days to pull the dinghy behind the boat. So here we were, dinghy now in tow behind us but with the rain now starting to arrive and pinned to the dock. Did I mention that the wind chop, or waves produced by the squall, had increased quite a bit and were also having an effect on Mystic Journey's position against the dock. It was move the boat or ???

Right about then a French gentleman arrived from a catamaran that was anchored in the bay. He had seen the front of the dinghy drop and knew there were problems so he came over to help. I started to move the boat backwards down the dock at this time because with the wind that strong, once we cleared the dock we expected to be blown sideways and if we had gone off the front of the dock we would have gone into water too shallow for the boat.

The next few minutes were hectic (even more so than before!). As we edged backwards along the dock the fenders kept riding up and the boat kept threatening to "kiss" the dock. We have a strip of wood/stainless steel that protrudes about 3 inches out from the side of the boat about 15" down that sometimes helps but by itself is not enough. Our helper was on the dock alongside trying to fend the boat off and he also would re-insert the fenders between the boat and the dock as they were pushed up by the boat actions. We finally began to clear the dock but of course as soon as that happened the part of the boat that was clear, the stern, was then pushed even more. At that point getting the bow of the boat clear without the stern swinging all the way around and hitting the dock on the other side became the problem. I applied more power to get us past that point more quickly which of course effected the fenders but finally we were clear! At this point the boat was still being swung by the wind so rather than try to overcome that, I did the jujitsu thing and let the wind and boat motion become part of what we needed to do, get completely clear of the dock. (Sorry no pictures of Mt. Hartman Bay and Martin's Marina!! HA HA)

Returning to Prickly Bay

Mission finally accomplished and we turned out to the bay mouth and left Mount Hartman Bay with only a sample of red paint on the side (later removed) and a really good lesson learned as a reminder of how the Gods of wind and wave do what they want. We are the ones who need to make the changes and adapt/assimilate what they teach us. Oh, and the damage done??? Obviously we made a good choice of craftsman when we chose Nick to do our davits as they were intact. The total damage was one rubber dinghy handhold detached from the dinghy (re-glueable), one shackle (replaceable) and one velcro strip which we had more of. And I guess a bit of my pride was bruised but not forevermore.

The Damaged Dinghy