What has happened to ORIOLE?
Oriole
Sat 28 Mar 2015 20:45
Admiralty Bay, Bequia. 13:00.53N 61:14.32W
On Tuesday 17th March at 0500 we slipped our lines from Crews Inn, Trinidad and made for the Boca, the steep sided channel to the north. However the little green boat which indicates our position on the chart plotter refused to move from the dock! I tried everything to get the system to work and eventually the computer crashed. The previous day it had all been working well. All this was before 0600. I thought for a moment that we were going to have to resort to paper charts, but the trusty ipad came to the rescue and the paper charts remain in the chart table stowage! We had an initially quite bumpy ride to Grenada but having made ground to windward we were able to bear away and had a romping sail for the last half of the trip to Prickly Bay where we arrived shortly after 1700 (something of a record).
We had a rendezvous with Bob Goodchild, the surveyor, who we met up with in the relatively new marina in St George's. He had a good look at the work that had been done and we went thorough the mass of paperwork for our final insurance claim - 16 suppliers of parts and services and around 80 sheets of A4. Within a few days of putting in the claim, the final payment is in our bank account. Amlin (Haven Knox Johnson) our insurance company have been enormously supportive and we have been overwhelmed by help of the claims manager and surveyor. We even got an interim payment so I could do an ISA when we were a bit low on funds.
We will not make Carriacou on this tack ...........
.........even with the mate concentrating.
Although the wind has now returned with something of a vengeance and we are experiencing the Bequia blast up to 30 knots or more, we had a glorious sail in quiet, clear, sunny weather to Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, almost a year after the ferry went out of control and caused all the damage. We were welcomed by many of those who had helped us and we had a relaxing few days catching up with local friends. On Sunday afternoon there was a delightful floating concert given by a very sexy Grenadian vocal duo FLOM (For the love of music). They also had lovely voices!
We took a particular interest in the fact that the engine of the errant ferry is In pieces on the car deck. That has not stopped it breaking free from the dock when it's lines parted and needing a tow to get it back! It will probably never sail again. Potential dive site??
A gentle sail took us to Chatham Bay, Union Island, one of our favourite anchorages, and then on to Admiralty Bay where we were welcomed by local mooring operative Phat Shag alias Fitsey who had kept mooring for us. There, unsurprisingly were a few friend and we have not lacked for interest and welcome.
Oriole is going well and looking great and we think we have cured a slight but irritating deck leak - nothing to do with the accident.
What is the plan now? There is no publishable plan yet and we will see how the spirit moves us. At the moment there is quite a lot of wind in the forecast but we are planning to go north for a while and need to be back in Trinidad by May 8th.