Position 13:0.6N 61:14.6W

Well now. It has been, let us say, a very long time…almost a year in fact since we updated our poor neglected blog. Oops. There are reasons for this of course, amongst them the fact that we haven’t been up to much with which to entertain our adoring public, along with a general lack of interest in composing the top bloggage to which you have become accustomed. And so we thought it was high time that we put matters to rights, sort of, with this missive. This may well in fact be the last blog that we write, partly for the reasons that I’ve stated above, but also due to the fact that we won’t be renewing our subscription with the people that host the blog. Mailasail (the very splendid host) provide the blog facility as part of a package that includes email acceleration for those times that we are using a satellite phone to send a receive emails, and since we’ve sold our satphone there doesn’t seem much point in maintaining this service – it’s not particularly cheap, and of course we’re tight. Depending on future events we may of course start another blog using a different provider in which case we’ll let you know in order that you don’t miss out on anything, you lucky old sausages.

Anyway, what have we been up to since we last wrote, I hear you asking. Mmm. Well, we spent a wee while down in Grenada, recovering from the exertions of writing the last blog entry of course, but also we hauled Adonde out of the oggin for some routine maintenance, including painting the bottom with antifoul and all that yucky stuff. Shortly after relaunching we headed up to Tyrell Bay in Carriacou to receive our visitors in the shape of Sarah & Trevor (Tracy’s sister & hubby) for their annual visit. They visited us last year in Grenada but we thought they’d like a change of scenery this time so after their flight into Grenada they hopped on a small twin engined plane to join us in Carriacou. This time round they seemed to have escaped “the curse of Crawley” and the weather was generally very good. Phew. And what’s more Trevor seemed to avoid any serious injury and went home relatively unmarked, which was novel, although he did lose his wallet (which we found a week later). Well, they almost escaped the curse of Crawley:

Checking back through our logbook  it seems that we then returned to Grenada after our visitor’s departure before heading back yet again to Carriacou. I’ve no idea why we went back to Grenada, maybe we hauled the boat then and not earlier as I said just now, but I suspect you don’t really give a stuff and nor do I. Anyway, on the trip back up to Carriacou we caught a couple of nice Tuna so were quite pleased with ourselves when a bit later on the reel started screaming again (there’s a clutch which slips when a fish takes the lure to avoid breaking the line, and a ratchet which makes a fantastically exciting scream as the line pays out, and usually results in us spilling our tea). We slowed the boat as best we could and I started reeling the fish in, not without some effort I should add. When we eventually got the fish to the back of the boat the reason for all that effort became clear as the fish was a bloody great Wahoo, maybe 5ft long. Very exciting, and we couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken the line and disappeared like all the rest. So there I am, rod in one hand, gaff in the other trying to get the point of the gaff under his chin and drag him aboard without falling in myself, Tracy hanging on to my harness all the while, when BANG! No, he didn’t break the line, he broke the bloody rod, which broke the line and so bye bye fishy. Bugger. Actually we weren’t overly disappointed at losing the fish since we already had some, or even too upset about the broken rod, it was just a real shame that we didn’t get a photo as it was such a beautiful fish, and big too. Yeah, alright, it’s another fishy tale but you should know by now that we are people of honesty and integrity and wouldn’t lie to you. Really.

See, told you. Top one’s a Tuna, skilfully photographed to make it appear bigger than it really is.

Anyway, we had an appointment in the Grenadines. Simon was flying into Canouan from his home in Trinidad so we headed north and spent a very pleasant while sailing between the islands up there. Simon was only with us for a long weekend but we managed to fit in visits to the Tobago Cays (beautiful reef fringed islands, turtles galore, etc etc), Union Island and Mayreaux before returning to Canouan for his flight out, and a good time was had by all. And our hangovers have almost completely gone.

We, of course, were in no particular rush so we spent a bit more time exploring, including a few nights at Mustique, holiday island for the rich and famous and us. What a surprise that place was, surprisingly welcoming, in fact no-one fired at us at all to keep us off the Island so that was nice. We even stopped for a drink at the self-proclaimed “World Famous Basil’s Bar”. It’s world famous alright but for all the wrong reasons if the price of the beer is anything to go by. Only had the one. Still, the scenery made up for it:

And don’t think you’ve got away with only one fishy tale, oh no here comes another one. On one of our trips to Bequia some time before Simon arrived, we’d had a good fast sail up from Caouan and were sailing into Admiralty Bay, just talking about dropping the sails and motoring in the rest of the way, when off went the reel again. Very loud and very fast. Yippee! Only problem was it turned out to be an enormous Marlin, leaping out of the water and doing all it could to shake out our troublesome lure. Now usually in these circumstances we (I say we, I mean Tracy) furl away the genoa to lose a bit of speed while I leisurely reel in the fish. This time of course we were doing 7 knots in one direction, the Marlin was doing 30 knots in the opposite direction, and it was only a matter of time before the line broke, as indeed it did. But what a fish. We never had a hope in hell of landing it but it was terrifically exciting watching it’s acrobatics. I don’t know for sure how big it was but it was somewhat bigger than me that’s for sure. Brilliant, and it didn’t even break our new rod. Just broke the line, nicked the lure and bent the rod holder. Well worth it. Later on it was reported that I was staring into my beer murmuring “a f%&!in’ Marlin” repeatedly. Well so would you. Needless to say no photo this time either but as you know we are people of honesty etc etc etc.

And so we headed south again, back to Carriacou (which remains our favourite place) and Grenada for the hurricane season. Not much to report here but somehow the months went by and all of a sudden it was November and we received our third visit of the year (a record!) when my sister Sue turned up for a week, having left husband and kids behind in London. We enjoyed showing her around and we all had a great time, and she learnt a bit about what we do with our time living on a yacht, i.e. not much but she can now see how the time disappears! She also brought a huge lump of Stilton cheese amongst other goodies which was very splendid indeed…Here we are enjoying a lobster each:

Sue somehow developed a rash over her eyes while she was here, possibly a reaction to some eye shades she’d worn on the plane. It was decided that the best course of action was to bathe the affected area with the most high-tech medication available, i.e. a wet teabag. Didn’t work of course but it made us laugh…

Hot on the heels of Sue’s visit we stuck the boat on a mooring and flew back to London for an overdue visit. It only rained non-stop for the first week so I suppose we got off lightly…Tracy stayed up in Banbury with her family for a week longer than me and on her return to Grenada we set off north again, and I’m writing this from Bequia where we shall be spending Christmas and New Year with many friends before heading up to St Martin and then who knows where…

You may have noticed that there’s not a single photo of Tracy on this blog, there’s no mysterious reason for this, it’s just that the only pic I could find she wouldn’t let me use as it’s an unflattering one of her holding up a filleted Tuna. She is still here, honest.

Some of you will know that after ten years or so of this cruising lark we are selling the boat, which is another reason for abandoning the blog, so if anyone out there feels like making a cheeky offer do go right ahead... Interested parties will find our ad at http://apolloduck.net/105408.

And that, my friends, is that. All that remains is to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a truly splendid New Year!

Hasta la proxima…