Sailing to Carriacou
Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sun 11 Sep 2016 12:00
So the girls went to sailing camp for two weeks in Grenada and swore a lot. It seemed that way anyhow. 'What did you do today?' we asked them every evening and the reply was invariably, 'Well, I told so and so to...' with the creative list endless and all the kids running around during the day and hurling insults like boat kids who may or may not have spent one too many hours onboard with their parents. Apparently there was some sailing in between. At the time we only knew this for sure because about midway, Lulu fell out of her sailing dinghy in St George's harbour just after it rained and got the mother of all ear infections. Cue more swearing.
Anyhow, with two weeks of sailing camp and Lulu's ear infection fixed after another two weeks, we finally left Grenada to come up to its little sister island, Carriacou. Just north of Grenada and crossing a channel with an underwater volcano called Kick'em Jenny which has the accolade of being one of the only volcanos in the Western Hemisphere that can erupt without any warning, once you get past the enormous farty bubble threat, Carriacou is known for her clear waters and laid-back sleepiness. In fact, we'd seen her lightly-populated shores before, sailing south in April on the way to catch a plane. 'We'll be back!' we told ourselves. And where are we now? September. It only took us five months to sail the 30 miles back.
With the usual transitional September feeling approaching, we've been scratching our heads in our anchorage and coming to the conclusion that if Quest wants to go anywhere, we can't keep putting roots down in a hurry. In fact, Jack ended the conversation before we left with, 'And I'm taking the washing line down!' The washing line that snakes around Quest and transforms her from ocean crosser to very efficient laundry. I stared at the tips of my fingers. Ok.
Truth be told, I didn't really know I was doing it; trying to settle down everywhere I went. Meanwhile, Jack has been throwing his arms out with increasing frequency and saying, 'We can't keep cruising forever! It's hard enough trying to run a business and school the girls and live without going crazy in such a small space, no matter how nice the setting is.' Well, he's right of course but you know when you're sitting there, being told off and the same eye-rolling action is going on in your head if not on your actual face. Just like that.
So an hour after we left, we caught Barry the Barracuda coming up Grenada's coast on the Caribbean Sea side. We didn't take him though since we're not really into eating barracudas. Apart from their toothy smile and ciguatoxic potential which is mostly present in the big ones, they're too strange and funny underwater, staring at you like you're from another planet and they're the meanest gangsters of the sea. We let Barry go and took in the millpond waters instead until we got to the farty volcano in the Grenada channel and the trades winds came out.
We started sailing again. And then Jack had to do something and I was doing something too so he turned to Lu and said, 'Lu, just hold the helm for a sec.' Lulu jumped up from her usual position of lying prostrate on the cockpit bench. 'It's not the same as a dinghy where you hold the tiller the opposite way to you want to go, right?' she said, her face pressed with lines that matched the bench's surface, grabbing Quest's wheel. Jack shook his head. 'Oh wow,' he breathed a few moments later. We looked up, puzzled that something was wrong but he was staring intently. 'Lu, which way do you turn Quest if you want to bear away from the wind?' She squinted ahead, took in the angle of the wind and motioned the turn on the steering wheel, completely correct. 'This way.' 'And to turn Quest into the wind?' She jerked the wheel just slightly. 'The other way of course.' His voice was triumphant, 'You learnt loads at sailing camp!' Now, this is the bit I love. The kid's little rosebud mouth, delicate and generous at the same time, the same mouth since the moment she was born, pursed into the smallest of smiles and said, 'Well, yeah.' She kept that same smile going for the next two hours. Two hours! The winds weren't so strong but helming Quest is never easy since she's such a big girl, full of guitars and saucepans and dive gear and marine biology books. 'Lu,' we said as we approached the popular anchorage of Tyrell Bay in Carriacou in the middle of the afternoon 'do you want to let go now?' 'Can't I just sail into the anchorage?' she asked, her hands still firmly attached to the helm. I looked at Jack sitting behind her, his chin lifted up to catch the breeze. 'Are you sure we can't keep on cruising forever?'
Love from Quest and her crew xx
