No surprises. We both had a curry. The meal was pleasant enough and we had the place to ourselves. Desert [...]]]> Well – we finally managed to find a restaurant that was open. In fact, it was the one we had first thought of visiting for our anniversary – the Gingerbread restaurant here in Bequia.

No surprises. We both had a curry. The meal was pleasant enough and we had the place to ourselves. Desert was back on the boat while watching “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” which we’d downloaded in honour of our recent Ozzie friends.

Today was boat work. Primary focus was the fuel line to the genset. I had spares for the secondary fuel filter. Flipped this out but it looked quite clean. We managed to find a replacement primary filter ashore. When I changed this one all sorts of crud fell out of the old despite recent draining. After priming the engine all sounded fine. In fact, it sounded better than normal but that could just be wishful thinking. We will learn in time if this has helped.

It is one of my summer projects to beef up the primary fuel filter system. The Pacific is notorious for grotty fuel so a good system coupled with lots of spares is essential. Time just overtook us on this one.

We’ve also rechecked all the drive batteries to see the results of our acid mixing at the beginning of the month. Mixed results. Next step will be to equalize them which we’ll need to do in a marina down in Grenada.

We’ll hang around here while the forecast still looks bad. The winds are forecast to be up in the 20s. The boat will sail fine in these conditions but anchoring behind a reef or low lying island would be bumpy and make Helen miserable. That means getting ahead on our summer projects while we’re here. I bought some earth wire today so I can have a go at grounding the water maker and MPPT casings to reduce SSB interference.

On Saturday, after our trip to Montreal Gardens, we decided to go [...]]]> Ok – so I took the privilege of not writing too much yesterday. It was my birthday after all. This blog is for my own future reference so lest I forget, here’s a little more detail on the last couple of days.

On Saturday, after our trip to Montreal Gardens, we decided to go ashore on Young Island to look around. As it is a private island with a private resort built upon it we were restricted to visiting the bar. Given that they had decently priced cocktails this didn’t feel too limiting.

While sitting there we met a couple from Texas (Sandy & Tom) who had just arrived without their luggage. Their last flight had been aboard a LIAT plane which just reinforces the “Luggage In Another Terminal” expansion of their name. They joined us to chat and we soon learned about each other. Tom was an avid sailor and made a proposition to go sailing which we readily accepted.

The evening progressed with Tom and Sandy coming aboard Dignity for drinks, nibbles and further conversation.

The next morning we picked them up from the jetty at 7:30 in the morning and soon we were off sailing to Bequia. Being slightly east of Admiralty Bay we survived the current and made it there on one tack. As we approached Bequia I turned on the genset a little earlier than we would normally as we’d been using the stored power in the drive banks to avoid running the genset for the last week or so and were getting low on juice. For the first time we’ve experienced the genset gave a couple of ‘burps’ where it almost stopped but picked up again. Didn’t cause us any issues but it was concerning.

I dinghied Sandy and Tom into Bequia so they could explore the town. While they were ashore I checked the water strainer to the engine and cleared out a few small leaves and a baby crab. Not enough to cause issues but I was looking so I felt I should free the crab at least. I also completed my final oil change on the hookah as I had been putting it off and we wanted to go diving.

When Tom and Sandy returned I took them over to the dive site we’d been to before. Finding it was difficult as the bottle float that marked the end of the line to attach the dinghy to had lost it top and had sunk. Furthermore there was at least a knot current driving the bottle down and us away. I jumped into the water and dove down to retrieve the line and after a few goes with Tom steering the dinghy we were safely tied.

The current became a bit of an issue so we kept the hookah tied to the dinghy and limited our swim to the length of the hoses. This was far from limiting as it forced us to look more closely at a smaller area and we saw just as much as ever including a couple of lobsters hiding away.

In the afternoon we sailed back to our intended destination in St Vincent, Buccament Bay, where we’d heard a new Taiwanese restaurant had opened which was supposed to be quite good and had fair prices too. The timing was perfect as the currents would be in our favour at that time. The genset problems continued and this time it cut out. Not that it posed a great risk as we had the batteries now charged – more than enough to get into a safe anchorage. I tried switching to the opposing fuel tank and this time the genset ran fine. Again – we made the trip on a single tack. We anchored in a section of the bay that neither our charts nor guidebook suggested for anchoring. We found a great spot with the anchor biting first time and on inspection it had buried itself without dragging at all.

We dinghied Sandy and Tom ashore and found a taxi to take them back to Young Island. We also found the Taiwanese restaurant but also discovered it closed for the holidays. Not sure if this is just for the carnival week here in St Vincent or for the entire hurricane season. Either way it meant dinner back aboard Dignity.

Our plans for the next few days are now focused around the genset and the weather which is threatening winds in the mid 20s from Wednesday for a few days. As of writing we’ve ran the genset for an hour doing the laundry and it has run perfectly. Maybe I have an issue with the original fuel tank – maybe it was just something in the fuel line. Either way it needs investigation at a place with access to parts and people. Given the current successful test we’ve decided to move round to the next bay, Petit Byahaut, where there is an exclusive resort with reportedly great dining. We’ll celebrate my birthday there. Tomorrow we’ll head back to Bequia where we know the anchorage is sound and try and determine the cause of the genset anomalies while the weather passes over.

Rewinding to Monday. This really was a bit of a wasted day. We ended up lying in our bunk most of the day. We were hung over, the air was still and stuffy. In the afternoon we went ashore to [...]]]> For you blog hounds an apology first for missing yesterday. Reasons will be given.

Rewinding to Monday. This really was a bit of a wasted day. We ended up lying in our bunk most of the day. We were hung over, the air was still and stuffy. In the afternoon we went ashore to drop off an empty propane tank for filling and to find the cause of a lot of loud music. Turned out it was carnival day in Bequia. A typical small island carnival is not overwhelming. A few places with immense speaker stacks blaring out music and a single truck making an occasional circuit. The best thing is watching the locals. Not that we did much as after a brief walk around we’d had enough and it was back to the boat to continue our day of rest. At end of day we were treated to an amazing sunset that turned the sea blood red.

Yesterday we got back to life with the usual ups and downs. The big up was getting out on the water and diving the nearby site together on the hookah. This was the same dive as I went on with Jim and Anne a couple of months ago. The site didn’t let us down. We saw spectacular arrays of fish, an eel, a huge puffer fish, plenty of spider crabs, a grouper, some angel fish (we think) with long fluttery fins among other things.

We had dinghied out to the site in calm water. As the dive progressed the hookah was under more and more pressure from wind and waves on the surface – at one point kinking the down tube and cutting off our air. By the time our dive finished the wind was gusting fiercely and there was a two foot chop to dinghy back through. Fortunately we were wet any way but had we been dry, in our clothes, we would have been soaked.

Getting the gear back on the boat was a trial. Worse than that really. As I was moving the hookah from one side of the boat to the other to get it to the fresh water shower for a rinse, I slipped dropping the hookah. It landed on it’s side (the rubber tube), bounced, rolled, bounced again, made it past the safety line down the starboard steps and into the water upside down denting the exhaust, breaking the fuel cap and filling the exhaust / engine with seawater. Bugger.

So the time I had expected to be writing up our dive for our blog was spent following the instructions for dealing with submersion of the unit. This involved draining oil, petrol (gasoline), dismantling a lot of the components, driving out the water from inside, cleaning, draining more fuel through the unit, reassembly, re-oiling, refueling and lots of starter pulling followed by, thankfully, 10 minutes of engine running. While doing this we were visited by Matt and Karen (Where II) and Robert (Bristol Rose) who passed us in the dinghies. Robert invited us over for late drinks. Incidentally – boats had planned to go to Mustique on Monday but are still here waiting out weather.

I still need to drain the oil and replace it one more time to remove any water pushed through by the running but that’s for another day. We had run out of time. It was getting dark and we were hungry, not to mention oily. So after a big clean up we had dinner, showered and were off to Bristol Rose for evening drinks. We only intended to stay a short while (we need tee-shirts that say this) but stayed a little longer than planned. Matt & Karen were there as were another couple, Joseph & Melanie (Spectra), who we had not previously met.

Weather is very much dominating our near term thinking. We want to head north to St Vincent mainland. From Thursday there is some blustery weather coming in. If the anchorage we’re aiming for (Blue Lagoon) is protected we should leave today and get settled. Otherwise we will hunker down here for a few more days. We will make our decision later this morning.

As mentioned, this weekend’s round 2 was with Matt & Karen aboard Where II where we were joined by Robert and Trish [...]]]> My own fault. Drank too much last night. The Ozzie’s have a reputation for enjoying their beer and last night was no exception. We did too but regrets are plentiful this morning.

As mentioned, this weekend’s round 2 was with Matt & Karen aboard Where II where we were joined by Robert and Trish from Bristol Rose. They were Ozzies too. Like us they’ve been living in the US for a number of years and brought up their kids there.

The evening ended up being a long one as we didn’t get back to Dignity until 1am.

Both couples are heading south and it is quite likely we’ll see them again in Grenada. That’ll be nice but we’ll have to be more careful with the plonk.

Feeling a bit wasted I really don’t know what we’ll do today. We may end up just scratching this one and spend the day nursing sore heads. To some up how I feel, I’ll leave you with this link.

Today I’ve spent some time aboard Where II helping Matt investigate poor performance on [...]]]> Karen and Matt from Where II came aboard last night. We had a great time getting to know each other and sharing lessons learned. As we didn’t finish all the nibbles we agreed for round 2 on their boat this evening.

Today I’ve spent some time aboard Where II helping Matt investigate poor performance on his SSB – perhaps some of the head banging I’ve done aboard Dignity will come in use. We managed to prove it does actually work (voice and email) and figured out one anomaly which may or may not be an issue – the antenna ground was directly connected to the boat DC ground. I’ve heard conflicting stories on this so we’re trying to see if it’s any better without this connection.

The overall shortwave environment is lousy right now and this morning on our own eqipment (not sure if it is location specific) was very crackly on the morning Coconut Telegraph (or nut net as it’s often referred to). So a poor connection seems to be about as good as it gets. We’ll try again a little later when reception is usually a bit better.

Apart from this not a lot else done today. That’s quite ok. Looking forward to round 2 this evening.