Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Category: Cruiser Connections

  • Turtles

    We started the day, yesterday, by moving Dignity back round to Prickly Bay so we could shop for drinks and be close to the turtle tour evening pickup. The short motor round from Hog Bay, with the wind and current behind us, was a breeze.

    INSERT_MAP

    Before it became too warm Helen and I went ashore, walked to the nearby highway and visited a number of shops: ACE Hardware (for a power multiblock), NY Bagels (for a snack), a Cash & Carry and the Grenada Brewery outlet. At the latter we picked up a couple of crates of beer and a crate of Ting which we lugged back to the boat on our trolley.

    We rested through midday. In the afternoon I picked up dinghy fuel from Prickly Bay Marina and made another trip back to the brewery outlet for two more crates of Ting and one more crate of beer. We are now set, drinkwise, for June and July.

    At 6pm we met up outside Budget Marine with Cutty and a number of other cruisers to be taken to the north of the island to see turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs. For the record, among the group were Liz & Bob from Yanena (probably spelt incorrectly) who arranged the group outing, Judy, Jim & Charlotte from Heatwave and Marianne and Theo from Double Dutch. Hopefully we’ll see these folks again.

    The trip north took around 90 minutes. We stopped off about 10-15 minutes before the target beach to pick up our guide who was associated with a local research group. She gave us a short brief on what to expect and some do’s and don’ts – in particular no white torches and no camera flashes as these would disturb the turtles.

    We arrived at the beach around 8pm and began waiting. We saw no action until around 9:30pm when someone spotted some baby turtles hatching and we received word that a turtle had landed at the other end of the beach around 700 meters away.

    We first made our way over to where the baby turtles were surfacing. The average nest has around 100 eggs, most of which will hatch successfully. In this case we saw around six to eight early arrivals scrambling around roughly making their way to the sea.

    A few who had red light torches were able to guide the baby turtles to the sea by shining their light ahead of them as they had an instinct to follow the light.

    Here is a brief video of the baby turtles crossing the sand

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrU1FAqiCNw[/youtube]

    Next we trudged to the other end of the beach to see the turtle reported to have landed there. Along the way we were nervous of treading on other baby turtles that may be hatching and making their way to the sea. Fortunately, I don’t think we squished any. Nor did we see any others. In the low light our eyes would play tricks on us. In the distance I thought I saw a massive turtle but it turned out to be a boat.

    Eventually we made it all the way to the other end of the beach where we found some researchers helping a 1000lb turtle dig her nest. She was having difficulties as her right flipped appeared injured and was not removing sand effectively. The turtle would only begin laying her eggs when she can feel no more sand beneath her. This was not going to happen without help.

    It was exhausting just watching her and eventually a reflex must have triggered and she abandoned this attempt to try elsewhere.

    The researchers knew when we were able to come close to watch. During the early digging we were asked to stand well away which we did. As the hole developed we were allowed to come close. When this turtle made a second attempt she was left alone with just the researchers to help as this was clearly going to be a difficult night for her.

    Fortunately, another turtle came ashore as we were heading back to the taxi. Again we stood off until it was ok to come near. This turtle was fit and able to dig her hole without assistance. Soon we were able to come close and watch. Methodically she would excavate each side of the hole with her hind flippers creating quite a deep, squarish hole for her eggs.

    When her senses told it was time she went into her egg laying trance. In this mode she was practically senseless to what was going on around. We were able to touch her carapace (soft shell) and her fore flippers without disturbing her. She was also unphazed by the researcher holding her rear flippers apart so they could count the eggs and we could see them.

    In order to preserve the species they were prepared to move the nest if it was too damp which would put the eggs at risk. The researchers felt this nest was ok so no preparations were made. Two types of eggs are laid. Normal yolk filled eggs are laid which will produced babies. Around these, smaller yolkless eggs are laid as filler so that the yolked eggs don’t get too much sand between them.

    Midnight approached so we had to head back to the taxi careful again to avoid any possible hatchlings. We saw a third turtle ashore to nest and lay her eggs along the way. It was nearly 2pm before we finally returned to Dignity. We were exhausted and fell asleep immediately. This was a one of a kind day and if you ever get an opportunity to do this yourself, seize it.

    Here is a video of the two turtles we saw digging their nests. You should see the difference between the injured turtle in the first half and the fit turtle in the latter. Enjoy.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iquyH7qJJ6I[/youtube]

    Finally – all the pics.

  • Maintenance & Yoga

    Quick catch up on last couple of days. Monday was an all out maintenance day catching up on lot’s of small things which, added up, took all day. Among the things done were:

    • Fixed the choke on the dinghy
    • Mounted, registered & tested the EPIRB
    • Installed remained of LED indoor lights
    • Mounted Magic Jack phone
    • Drained water from fuel filter
    • Oiled all the hinges and door mechanisms on the boat
    • Voltage and hydrometer tested all 12 drive batteries
    • Finally tidied up all my rubbish and stuff lying around

    I didn’t get round to plugging the hole in or cleaning the dinghy.

    Today started with Yoga hosted by Devi from Arctic Tern at Clarke’s Court Marina. The session was an hour long and included a variety of positions, some strenuous, some very relaxing.  We both ended up feeling quite relaxed.  The session reminded me of some of our karate warm ups back in the UK (10 years ago!!!!).  I kept thinking we’ll be doing a ton of press ups or a couple of hundred kicks next.

    The hydrometer checks yesterday revealed some cells reading too low. Usually this means the sulphuric acid has sulphated onto the plates which can only be reversed by equalizing the batteries. This means charging them in isolation at 15.5V. The drive battery charger doesn’t do this so today’s mission was to find a charger on the island that did. Jim from Bees Knees accompanied me as he was looking for something similar. I was reasonably hopeful as one of the stores I called in the morning said they had one. So it was a matter of walking all around St George’s looking into various stores.

    In the end we came up a big zero on the charger. Even the store that said they had what I was looking for didn’t. The day wasn’t a complete waste of time as I picked up some materials to beef up and expand the number of hand lines I have aboard. I also bought some additional leader wire and crimps to attach to the lures I bought in NJ. Best of all I learned that Island Water World will equalize batteries for you for free. If it turns out they’re not ok at the end of a nights charging they’ll gladly sell you a replacement.

    Back on the boat I upgraded my two old hand lines giving them better bungees and I made up a further two hand lines.  I also put leaders onto all the lures I bought in NJ.

    So all this dictates our next few days. Tomorrow morning we’ll motor back to Prickly Bay. During the day we’re off to the wholesalers to pick up beer and Ting’s (a local lime/grapefruit concoction I’m getting addicted to) and more food. Tomorrow evening we’re off turtle watching. On Thursday we’ll move the boat to St George’s so we can offload the batteries to Island Water World for charging. This may take us to Saturday where we will go on the moonlight Hash. With a bit of luck we’ll be heading north by Sunday or Monday with four lines out catching fish all the way.

  • Grenada Hash 2

    Saturday morning was the shopping trip. We first dinghied ashore and walked around to New York Bagels only to find them closed on Saturdays. We kept on up to the main road where a bus had spotted us and was waiting, the conductor out on the street to hurry us on. We alighted at FoodFair and picked up as much as we could reasonably carry. So far we are minimizing the amount of frozen food we’re buying as we have yet to turn on the freezer and relying only on the fridge/freezer. From an energy budget purpose we can power all our refrigeration, lighting, water making and computer usage from solar as long as we don’t turn on the fridge.

    Just after 1pm we picked up Jim from Bees Knees and made our way to the Caranage Café to be picked up for this weekend’s Grenada Hash. The location was about 15 minutes further on the road we took to Seven Sisters Falls yesterday so the route was familiar. We were collected by one of the St Georges University student busses so we had plenty of room. On the bus we got to know Scott & Joalie (check) from “Excuse Me” and Richard and Laila from “Nebula”. Scott and Joalie are avid wind kiters. It turns out we saw them (and they saw us) when we were anchored off Maria Island in St Lucia. Also on the walk were Devi and Hunter from “Arctic Tern”.

    This hash was a lot more arduous than our first hash. It started with a steep climb with many having to take rests before reaching the peak. Even though we started around 4pm the heat and humidity did not help at all. Shortly after our steep climb we encountered an equally precipitous descent which was challenging in terms of trying not to fall on top of those below and to avoid those tripping and falling from above.

    For a while things got a little easier although the general elevation of the walk seemed to be climbing inexorably upwards. We were presented with one or two ‘choices’ in route but given our position in the pack it was always obvious which was the wrong turn. I ended up losing Helen and catching up with Jim and when we were presented with the choice between the ‘Runners’ path and the ‘Walkers’ path we chose to walk the runners path as it offered more views and even though we were walking, we had a good pace.

    We were treated to plenty of great views although from talking to Helen, who took the walkers (shorter) path they saw most of the same. We saw the old airport strip and beautiful lush valleys. High up we walked through a village with a partially built church with palm trees outside painted Caribbean style.

    Eventually, all the climbing was made up with even more precipitous descents than encountered earlier. I managed to slip down a bit. One chap behind me lost his footing and somehow flew down the slope turning and twisting without falling. The ‘path’ we were on turned into a short jungle trail before following a rocky brook where we could avoid getting our feet wet hopping from rock to rock. We eventually made it down to river level where Jim and I caught up with Helen who had got ahead of us by taking the shorter route.

    The walk followed the river for a while past thick rainforest and clusters of bamboo before coming within a couple of hundred feet of our destination: rest, food and beer. Our hopes were lifted only to find there was no direct route to our destination and it was back to hard climbing (and slipping) and descents through plantation.

    We did finally make our destination. Many were pretty exhausted from the ordeal. The beer, BBQ chicken and oil down (local food) was most welcome. At the ‘devirginizing’ ceremony Jim was welcomed into the Grenada Hash and received his certificate as well as a liberal coating of beer.

    After feeding and lubrication it was time to reboard the university bus.

    As luck would have it the bus drove right by Grenada Marine where we had left the dinghy so our trip home was not only simple but also free – a cruisers delight. We dropped of Jim back at Bees Knees and it was back home to Dignity to rest though not before watching the first episode of the recent series of 24.

    Here follows the slide show from yesterday with more pics than shown above. A reminder that if you click on the slide show you will be taken to the Picasa website where you can see the pictures much larger.

     

  • Work Complete & Seven Sisters

    Scott has finished the work aboard Dignity. In performing the upgrade he discovered some arcing on the 72V cables and to be on the safe side replaced the area where the heat had built up. This involved several trips to local stores to hire and pick up gear. Friday was supposed to be Scott’s day off and we had ordered a guide to take us around the island from 11am. Instead, we used him from 11 to 1 for running around. In the end Scott completed the work and were able to set off on our shortened trip around 2pm. All this work has been courtesy of CatCo/Lagoon so we are very grateful for their care and attention and, in particular, Scott’s diligence. This would have saved us a bigger problem later so this is all good.

    Our shortened tour took us to the seven sisters which is a series of waterfalls in the interior of the island where the land is more rainforest than the dryness of the coast. Getting to the falls requires a 30-40 minute hike. Fortunately it had been quite dry recently so the path wasn’t muddy. When we arrived at the falls only the last two falls were visible. We were presented with a choice to either stay at the two falls/pools or to hike on further to the top of the seven falls. We were told that we could follow the falls down but if we did, we would have to make the final jump over the penultimate falls. It looked high but doable so Helen and I decided to do this and leave Scott to swim.

    It took another 15 mins to climb the path to the top of the seven falls. Getting down the series of falls did turn out to be quite tricky. We had to find paths down rocks, scramble down fallen logs and make our way down a slippery slide. When we arrived at the jump we discovered the water below was about 10ft deep and the drop, at about 12m seemed just too high to feel anywhere near safe. So we decided to go back up the river and series of falls which were told could not be done. We made it by helping each other. Without mutual aid it would have been impossible. It was all worth doing as we got to see some fantastic places and had a lot of fun scrambling around.

    Our guide for the day, Mike, was terrific. He hung around even though we turned up late and was happy to accommodate our shifting schedule. He also was a good source of information on the island as we toured around.

    Back on the boat we had pizza ashore while running final tests on Dignity. Everything checked out fine.

    This morning we dropped Scott ashore and said goodbye to Anne. They’re sharing the taxi to the airport as they’re on the same flight. We’re feeling pretty exhausted this morning and ideally we’d have a quiet day. However, we need to do some semi-serious food shopping and this afternoon it is the bi-weekly Grenada Hash which we want to do. Tomorrow we’ll head round to Hogg Island for the Sunday beach BBQ. That’ll be relaxing for sure.

    Quick recap on recent fixes. The water maker is running fine after replacing the salinity probe. The pure sine wave inverter has worked wonders for our internet connection. We’ve not had any of the annoying drops and much less interference on VHF ch 68. The internal wireless is working great too with the new wireless hub.

  • Happy Birthday and Au Revoir Anne

    Yesterday evening we were invited out for dinner at De Big Fish by Jim for an early celebration of Anne’s birthday and to officially say goodbye as she’s off to Maine on Saturday morning. Devi and Hunter from Arctic Tern were there too. We had good food and a surprise cake. As ever, the company was excellent.

    This is the downside of friendship while cruising. Good friends eventually say goodbye or at least au revoir. Anne will be coming back to Grenada in November but by then we expect to have headed west. We may again meet up in the western Caribbean but we can’t be certain. We will remain optimistic that this is not goodbye forever.

    While we were eating, Scott had gone to town for some R&R. We had left him the dinghy to get back to Dignity. Around 10pm we received a call from him because he’d spent the last hour trying to start it and had, in great frustration, given up. Being a boat tech all his life he did not concede lightly. I made a general request for assistance on VHF 68, the local cruisers channel, and was answered by Sue & Bill from Unchained. Bill came to the rescue picking me up from Dignity and dropping me off at the dock where Scott was waiting. I managed to start the motor fairly quickly. Scott was feeling a little humbled by this. I think this was down to the broken choke which had I had jury rigged a while back and knew how to fiddle with correctly. I do have the spare part now so I’ll have to expedite this fix.

    Thanks Bill.

    The final piece of excitement missed in yesterday’s blog was the excitement surrounding my lost flip flop while on the dock at Prickly Bay Marina. Back in the US I had bought an extremely comfortable pair of flip flops. I had left them, with several others, on the port transom. A little while later we could only find one of them. We looked around the boat in case someone had moved it and came to the conclusion it must have been knocked or blown overboard somehow. We searched everywhere around the dock and I even went out in the dinghy to search. No luck. I was cross and despondent as I’d barely had them down here for 24 hours. Having given up the search we did find it. It was on the bed in our room. It must have been knocked through the small porthole by accident. Hurray.