position 12:00.60N 61:44.30W
Freewheel
Julian & Anne Whitlock
Fri 12 Nov 2010 21:07
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Back in Grenada! - 22nd Nov to the 6th
December
After a smooth flight back courtesy of
Virgin Atlantic we arrived in Grenada to be hit with 30c
and clear blue
skies - a shock to the system
after the UK at 10c... Dabs car rental met us at the
airport and we felt immediately
at home - we have used them many
times, they are very friendly
and efficient. Back to Clarkes Court and a
'hello' to Bob the marina owner
and down to check
how Freewheel had survived without us this
time.
She looked pristine on deck and apart from
the barnacles on the hull was very clean inside too.
What a difference
to when we returned to her last
time in Curacao. We had employed Bob to
check over the inside of the boat and
run the battery chargers and
Sean to keep the outside
polished and washed. Unlike Curacao Marine
Services who were a total
failure Bob and Sean
did us proud.
We knew that we had to take the boat out of
the water for antifouling and also fit the new Furuno
depth sounder.
What we hadn't bargained on
though was Hurricane Tomas. End of November
SHOULD be the end of the
hurricane season but
occasionally a late one comes across and this
one was very far south and aiming
directly for
Grenada.
Although Clarkes Court marina is very
sheltered we didn't want to be alongside if a hurricane
should hit so we moved into the next bay
with even more protection from an outlying reef and
dropped our anchor with a LOT of chain far
away from any other boats, removed everything we
could from on deck and lashed the rest down and
waited...
The island shut down - all shops and
offices were closed by law and they opened shelters for the
people to evacuate to.....eirie particularly as the usual trade winds
died in front of the storm. At
the last moment the
eye of the hurricane veered
north and smashed into Barbados and then
St Lucia and St Vincent causing
some deaths and washing houses
into the sea...
When the hurricane passed we were
lifted out of the water at Spice Island Marina and carried
out some maintenace jobs (as always!). New bow thruster batteries,
refurbish the freezer
compressor, rewire the
SSB aerial et al and Sean came
back and did some varnishing.
'Freewheel' - before and after...
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