Moorglade's Voyage - Goodbye Grenada and heading North again: Part2

Goodbye Grenada and heading North again: Part2

Moorglade's Voyage

Ted Wilson

Mon 4 Apr 2011 18:42

4 April 2011

And so up early 0n the morning of 2 April, with the intention of leaving at 9 to sail to Carriacou. Of course by the time we had changed the headsail, checked out of the marina, done the myriad other little jobs that always seem to occur to someone just at the last minute it was 10.45 as we motored out of the harbour, past the cruise ship and hoisted the sails. The track was close to the wind, which was quite light in the lee of the island but with vicious squalls from time to time but at least the for the early part the see was relatively flat. Just North of Grenada is an underwater volcano, which has an advisory exclusion zone round it. Ted had frightened me with talk of how the gaseous emissions could cause the water to lose buoyancy so I wanted to be sure we avoided it but that took us even closer to the wind once we had cleared the headland at the top of the island. The rest of the passage was a bit of an unremitting slog, interrupted by having to pass close between an island inhabited by 20 people and some rocks, which the pilot recommended for their nesting birds, where there were potentially fierce currents. I slept for the last 2 hours and we decided to go to Tyrell Bay rather than Hillsborough, our original destination, as it was slightly closer and it was getting dark, and, in any case, seemed to be a nicer place, after re-reading the pilot. One of the first boats we spotted on entering the bay was Gloria, subject of an earlier blog from St Lucia. On that occasion they departed before I was able to get a photo so this was an opportunity I was not going to miss again.

As today was Sunday we have spent it putting up the sunshade, guarding the boat against some pretty dodgy attempts at anchoring, and doing a dinghy tour of the bay. Hopefully tomorrow we explore the island by bus and will go to Hillsborough to clear customs before leaving on Tuesday for Union Island, the first to the St Vincent Grenadines.

I thought this blog was complete but after a delicious supper of corned beef fritters and bananas flambé cooked by Ted, our attempts to watch a DVD were interrupted by a lot of loud shouting. The dodgy anchoring referred to above was about to end in tears. A chartered cat with a French crew, not anchored properly, had swung back onto an American boat, whose owner was making his feelings known in no uncertain terms. The cat was between him and us so when their efforts at escaping revealed that they had fouled the American anchor chain and were towing him behind, we leapt into action with fenders, warps, boat hook and French dictionary. We took the cat alongside to stop it careering around and causing damage - they only bumped off us once and the American had a bowsprit - and the general agreement between the three parties was that it was too dark to dive and see what the problem was, so the American put out an additional anchor and after some explanation from Ted about how to get their winch to work without electricity (flat battery?) the French were able to dinghy an anchor to a point that still wasn't as far away as Ted would have liked, but at least held them from relying on ours. None of the French I learned at school seemed to equip me to deal with the issues that arose, not least trying to ask them to maintain an anchor watch! We will remain like Siamese twins until dawn breaks and casts some light on the problem. And to think the pilot described this as a peaceful anchorage where all you would hear was the slap of dominos from the beach bar!

Actually the next morning was a bit of an anti-climax. We slept peacefully all night and awoke to find they had resolved whatever the problem was - no-one seemed to sure - and were waiting for us to release them before heading out into the bay to find a different anchoring spot. They gave us a cold bottle of sparkling rose and a few hairy moments as they charged off and them seemed to be determined to turn in the smallest possible space, at full speed and head back towards us but they missed us by 6 inches and by dint of rowing like fury, John, the American in the other adjoining boat, narrowly escaped being run down in his dinghy.If I'd been them I would have slunk off as far away as possible to try and forget my humiliation, but they seemed shameless and only went about 100 yards before anchoring again. It appeared that they might have spent their anchor watch reading up on anchoring techniques as they made a slightly better hand of attaching the anchor this time and touch wood everyone has been safe. We entertained John and his British wife Ronnie to breakfast and a moan about the French and charterers.

We then took the bus to go to Windward, strangely on the windward side of the island, and famous for being the home of local racing boat building (and not much else). The bus journey was memorable for taking detours to pick up stuff from what appeared to be a shopping list, which was dropped off further down the route with its grateful owner. A couple of times someone flagged the bus down just to give something to the driver to deliver to someone later. With this level of service London Transport eat your heart out! Perhaps we should get Boris out here to give him some ideas.

Once in Windward we chatted to an oldish bloke who was building a rather fine boat. He said it was his retirement activity and he was planning to race it in the Carriacou festival later in the year. It was a bit like a ghost town with good views over to Petite Martinique. While we were waiting for the return bus we had a drink in a wayside bar. Its outside board promised exotic drinks - Manish water??- and fruit juice, but all they seemed to actually have was Guinness or Sprite. However the cups entertained Ted.

Once back in the capital - Hillsborough - it was time to visit the officials to clear out. Immigration seemed to be having a photocopying crisis as we were given the blank original of the required form and instructed to take it to the nearby grocery store and get 3 copies (obviously at our expense). Then back to the office where carbon paper was inserted between the sheets (I didn't realise you could still buy it!) I was disappointed that by the end of the process we had been relieved of our gold edged card announcing to anyone interested that we were not carrying any terrible diseases.

Then after a bit of light shopping it was back on the bus and back to the boat for a quick swim (Kay) and a nap (Ted) before taking the sparkling rose over to Gaucho, John & Ronnie's wonderful old wooden boat for a sundowner. As is the way the sun was long down before we left and fortunately didn't have far to go in the dark. We had thought we might eat ashore but it felt too late by then so it was pasta and sauce and finish his blog.The observant among you will have noticed I had to split it in half as it got too big. Whether I will actually be able to send either of them is a moot point as so far we have been unable to connect to anything, apparently due to Cable & Wireless providing insufficient bandwidth. I thought it might be better in the middle of the night but so far - no.