to the boat from the Grenada Grand hotel, yesterday we moved onboard.
Good bye Fantasy pool, hello mosquitoes and the still hot tropical
night. Fixing the screens for the hatches has definitely moved up on
the fix it list.
We woke up in the boat yard. Bonanza sits about six feet off the
ground when resting on the keel. Add another six feet or more, and
that's how far up we climb to get onboard. It's unnerving. Funny how
when we are on the water it feels completely different. Only about six
feet to the water and then who cares how deep it is! Water is so much
more forgiving than dirt.
Our launch time was scheduled for 8 am and just after the crew arrived
with the "Stacker". This is a machine used to move boats around the
yard when the quarters are tight. I call it the "Tongs". They
position the "tongs" on either side of the boat and engage three sets
of stands to hold on to the keel. Once set up, the "tongs" lift the
boat and maneuver it into position so the travel lift can move it
along to the boat launch area. Once in position, the travel lift takes
over and move two giant slings under the keel. Next the hydraulic arms
start up, the boat is picked up and driven into the boat launch.
Slings are lowered and next thing you know, the boat is floating and
ready to be driven out into the bay.
So there we were d riving into Prickly Bay with all systems "go"…so
far. Prickly is not one of our favorite anchorages. It rolls. Horribly
some days. The day we launched was no different. The swell was evident
almost the moment we left the launch. Our plan was to drive the boat
around to the more protected anchorage at Hog Island. We dropped
anchor right in front of a boat called Sea Witch. She's a permanent
resident of Hog Island, but the crew was no where to be seen. We
recognized a few of the lifer boats like Lilly Maid, High Elk, Wild
Vanilla and Bird of Passage. We know the crew on a few of these boats,
others we just recognize the names.
The next big step is to hoist the dingy off the bow of the boat and
wrestle it into the water. I would have taken some pictures of this
procedure, but my hands were quite full. After doing this job a few
times, I realized that tying a guide rope to the end of the dingy
would be a big help. This way I was able to guide the 10 foot
inflatable over the lifelines and back into the water beside the boat
as Roy hauled it up and back down using the main halyard. A finely
honed procedure that went remarkably well this t time. As you can
imagine, this task can quickly end in disaster if poorly executed. I
guess we have learned a thing or two over the years.
Dingy launched and outboard attached. Check that the engine starts and runs.
Now it's time for the generator start-up. It cranks and runs then
overheats and stops. Hmmm. Could the empty coolant reservoir have
anything to do with this? Probably. Hopefully. We decide to not think
about the generator problem for now.
Instead we move on to the sails. All sails are taken off and stored
below deck for the hurricane season. Putting the main sail, jib sail
and cutter sail back on is about a three hour project. The trick is to
remember how things came off and then to put them back on in the same
order. At first it's hard to even remember which lines go to which
sails. Of course, you always end up with a mysterious spare. Last year
we cut up the "spare" line to secure the diesel cans on deck. A few
days after we did this we realized that we had chopped up the furling
line for the cutter sail by mistake. Oh, that's what that "spare" line
was for. Now we have a one week cooling off period before any new cuts
are made. We manage to get all the sails and lines and sheets back in
the right spots. Now we are really hot and tired and cranky, so we go
for a swim off the back of the boat. Oh yeah, this is one of the
reasons we do all this work…
We decide to go for a quick dingy ride to say hello to some fellow
Canadian sailors that we met just as we were leaving in July. Doug and
Wendy of Nihini River had just arrived in Grenada with their new
catamaran they had just picked up in St. Vincent. We wanted to hear
about their four month adventure of living in the Port Louis Marina.
I'm not sure I'd enjoy that myself. After a quick chat it's back to
the boat for dinner. We are tired and ready for our first night at
anchor in the calm anchorage of Hog Island.
No problem getting up at the crack of dawn when you've already been in
bed for 9 hours. The sun is coming up at six am and the day is clear,
but not cool. Far from it. The temperature is already over 80 degrees.
We're feeling the heat, no moving all that quickly already. We
initiate our regular routine of coffee and the morning radio weather
shows. The regular suspects were a bit hard to hear this morning. No
copy at all on Eric in Trinidad who usually does a good job giving
upcoming weather in this part of the Caribbean and very light copy on
Chris Parker; the guru of weather forecast for the cruising sailor. I
did pick up Bill from Voyager C doing net control for the Coconut
Telegraph Net. Nice to hear a familiar voice.
After not thinking about the generator, it's time to investigate the
problem. Westerbeke generators are simple machines that come with
excellent instruction manuals. After mulling over the possibilities,
we decide to pop off the top of the cooling reservoir and see if that
makes the pink coolant drain into the system. No easy task because
everything in the back lazerette must be emptied out to gain access to
the machine. Then I go in first to see if I can get the cap off, but
no luck. It's stuck and takes a Roy size grip to get it to let go.
Once the cap is off we pour more of the liquid into the hose. Yup,
that's it. Must have been an air bubble from sitting there no doing
anything for four months. It always amazes me that you can leave
things in perfect working or and a few months later…all these
mysterious problem crop up. Strange.
We realize that we didn't finish with the mail sail yesterday. So down
it comes again so that we can rig up the Dutchman system. Don't ask.
All I'll say is that the Dutchman wasn't all that smart and it seems
like he likes a really complicated system to do a very simple job. It
takes over an hour to sort out the Dutchman. Now it's noon and time
for another swim.
There's still lots of time to make it around Point Salinas and into
the anchorage outside of St. Georges. We want to leave tomorrow for
Carriacou. We head out of Hog Island anchorage into a brisk wind
coming from behind. We roll out the jib sail and head directly West
enjoying a smooth reach that lasts us all the way around the point and
into the bay at St. Georges. Beautiful. Now we are sailing at last.
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