Position
11:59.8N 61:45.7W
Sorry it’s been
a while since the last web diary entry, but we’ve been busy…
After all the
mayhem of carnival we decided to get Adonde hauled out for a few jobs, primarily
to change the saildrive (gearbox) oil which can’t be done in the water and has
to be done every 100 engine hours – like that’s going to happen. Whoever the
bright spark at Yanmar was who introduced that design feature deserves a poke in
the eye. I expect he tortures dolphins on his day off. Anyway we moved down to
Peaks yard in Chaguaramas for the haul out as they have a nice wide lift that
could accommodate us, and very fine it was too. We spent six days out altogether
– the oil changes took about 5 minutes but needless to say we found a few other
jobs to do…
After
relaunching we spent another few days loitering around and went on a trip up
into the hills and into a mangrove swamp for a bit of nature – a welcome relief
after all the hustle and bustle but frankly I think you can do too much bird
watching. Each to their own. Just to prove it, here’s a bird:
No idea what
kind of bird it is, obviously.
Anyway, after a
peaceful night at anchor in Scotland Bay on the west coast (Parrots, Ospreys,
rain forest right down to the water’s edge, strange noises and beasties) we
headed off back to Grenada, which ended up being 11 hours of bouncing around
into a north-easterly sea (albeit it with an easterly wind) before arriving back
in Prickly Bay, Grenada. Tracy’s stopped feeling sick now.
We thoroughly
enjoyed our time in Trinidad, which ended up being a month rather than the two
weeks we’d planned, and we hadn’t expected to enjoy it as much as we did. We’ve
both been there before but only for a day or two, and I have to say the place
grows on you. There’s lots of talk in the yachting community about the “security
issues”, and there’s undoubtedly a reasonably serious crime problem, but I have
to say we never once came across any trouble, rather we met with great
friendliness and courtesy (not to mention just having a bloody good laugh!)
wherever we went, and were very sorry to leave. It’s a fascinating place in many
respects, being made up of a population of 40% African descent, 40% Asian, and
20% “other” – Orientals, Europeans etc. Now that’s what I call a
multi-cultural society. Special thanks of course to Simon and Jacquie for all
their help (car, carnival craziness etc etc).
Here’s a piccy
of Simon, Jacquie, Hannah and Joe (AKA Crackpot) with Adonde in the background
(Ben, their eldest son, is missing as he’s away at school in the U.K. developing
a healthy taste for Marmite):
So now here we
are in Prickly Bay, where we’ve been for the last week. We’ve been getting some
work done on our mainsail which we’ve just got back, so tomorrows job will be
refitting that and seeing if it works. We’ll probably hang around this area for
a few days longer as there are some nice anchorages along the south coast of
Grenada which we might not get to see again as on our way back south we’ll
probably skip Grenada in order to get to Tobago. But that’s a way away yet as
we’re heading north, up beyond Antigua hopefully before turning around to get
out of the hurricane zone before summer (end of June). Don’t fancy hurricanes
much.
Finally, I’m
trying a different way of laying this out, as I’m aware that the last few diary
entries have ended up being really wide meaning you have to scroll right and
left to see it all, which is most certainly a pain in the arse. I’m not sure why
that has started happening but hopefully this one will work properly…or
not….
