12:27.349N 61:29.306W
So here we are, having had a wonderful sail on
Tuesday 26th, for about six hours, north from Port
Louis, St Georges, Grenada,
and have dropped the anchor in Tyrrel
Bay, Carriacou
(pronounced KarryKoo), it just gets better and better. We decided to hug
the little-explored north coast of Grenada to take advantage of the
spectacular views, and watched all the other yachts heading straight across,
but they missed a treat. Unfortunately photographs don’t do the
scenery justice, so you’ll just have to take our word for it, but a
little bonus was that because we did the required “easting” while
being sheltered by the land, we had a good beam reach all the way up and made
better time than the other boats who headed straight up and then had a nasty
bash across the channel, and we saw a few giant turtles resting on top of the
water, taking what look like lots of little sips of air before plunging down
into the deep blue.
Our time in Port
Louis was well spent, and at last the nasty crack in
Talulah’s bow has been properly repaired. After chipping away the
cracked gelcoat (the white stuff), a few layers of grp (fibreglass) were added
(inside and out) then fresh gelcoat was spread over the top of that, and sanded
down and polished. We’re delighted with the result. She looks
as good as new, and is even stronger than she was before.
Another thing we sorted out is the
watermaker. It is now working perfectly! It’s always made good
water, but it’s placed a lot of strain on the generator, causing weird
voltage fluctuations. After asking around fellow cruisers and doing some
investigation work and lots of owners manual reading, it transpired we
didn’t have enough capacitors to do the job properly (I mean honestly,
how on earth is any normal person supposed to know all this stuff?!). So
anyway, a stroll around town revealed a tiny electrical store who just happened
to have a capacitor of the right size (in the Caribbean!!),
a few connections later and “hey presto!” The learning curve
is steep my friends, it’s very interesting (really!) and it never ends.
We also changed our main halyard (the rope we use to
haul the mainsail up with) again. We did it last in Portugal, with
one we bought in Blighty just before leaving. It turns out we were
“stitched right up” and were sold the wrong line for the job, and
so our super-soft, kind-to-the-hands line has been replaced with new tough
stuff and seems to work very well. No wonder we had such problems with it
on the Atlantic crossing.
We took time off boat work before we left Grenada to
catch a bus one evening (a hairy ride up half built roads along the east coast)
to Gouyave for “Fish Friday” – fishermen and vendors sell all
kinds of cooked fish, from fried fish patties to lobster, from their stalls
… with rum in hand, and a tummy full of fish, the evening turns into a
bongo drumfest, with some great dancing ….. On Monday
25th we left Port Louis and it felt
so good to be anchored out again, feel the breeze, (outside St George’s) and we spent the evening
catching up with a few friends anchored nearby.
So now we have been anchored off the island of Carriacou for a couple of days.
Its gusting away, the pelicans are having a feast from the nearby reef, we have
dinghied up to the Lazy Turtle bar, taken a bus into Hillsborough, the main
town, and made more sun awning for the bimini (to get more shade in the
cockpit). The inhabitants are either farmers, fishermen or seafarers, and
its lovely to see goats and chickens running around. Every few hours a
wooden fishing boat will pull up to Talulah and offer wine, rum or fish from
their boats. Our first morning Roberto brought us some mangrove oysters
which he picked from the mangrove swamps only a few hundred yards away.
As he sat tied alongside, we gave him some rum and for an hour listened to his
great tales as he opened our delicious oysters and gave us some limes ….
Wow, what a breakfast we had !!!
Ouch!! You gonna need more than a plaster to fix
that! Talulah’s port bow gets repaired in Port Louis Marina, St
Georges, Grenada
“Feelin’ da ryddim” Bongo drummers
at Fish Friday in Gouyave, Grenada.
Dramatic Islands,
on the passage between Grenada
and Carriacou.
Roberto, the mangrove oyster seller proudly
displaying his wares.
Oysters for breakfast… yum!
Cheer up mate, you’re in paradise.
(Carricaou.)
