We left to go south fairly early this morning. Right now we’re approaching the northern end of Grenada. The winds are not too strong so we’re taking our time.
Would you believe it – we caught a fish. On the biggest lure we have we caught something like a sixteen inch barracuda. This is the smallest one we’ve caught so far but it’s been filleted all the same. I definitely need some practice at filleting as again I made a mess of it. The lines are all out still so maybe we’ll be able to add some more meat to this evenings fare.
We’re heading for St David’s where we intend to discuss this summer’s haul out which we intend to do mid to late August/early September coinciding with the peak period of hurricanes.
In the early afternoon we had a brief snorkel then walked the beach. While snorkeling we spotted a lobster in only 4 feet of water. That was a surprise as normally we find them only in deeper water. Maybe it’s because we’re out of season and they can be bolder and get away with it.
Back on the boat it was sleeping and reading for a while before we made bread and cake. We finished the day by watching “There Will be Blood” – a very interesting movie.
Today will be washing day and we’ll stay around here until at least tomorrow – maybe Thursday. It’s nice being off the net and being disconnected for a while.
]]>On Friday I dropped off our new dinghy cover with Andy at In Stitches as it needed additional protection where it rubs against the davit. No price was agreed for the extra work but he seemed reasonable about cost.
Friday [...]]]>
On Friday I dropped off our new dinghy cover with Andy at In Stitches as it needed additional protection where it rubs against the davit. No price was agreed for the extra work but he seemed reasonable about cost.
Friday evening we ate (and drank) out at Lambi’s with Karen and Matt from Where II. We were picked up and returned by Karen and Matt in their dinghy. Going ashore involved a beach landing which was straight forward (unlike leaving the beach when Karen fell in the water). The steel band started about an hour later than we were told and the place wasn’t crowded, unlike our last visit. Helen and I were merry enough to dance for a while to the live music. We all ended up on Dignity for nightcaps. Returning we found Andy had dropped off the dinghy cover while we were out.
We ended up spending the most of yesterday, US Independence Day, alternating between lazing and planning the rest of 2009/10, an exercise which is continuing today and still requires a lot more effort. I am recording all of the results of our research in Google Earth and organizing the information hierarchically as well as against place holders. I’ve also put together a spreadsheet where I’m recording all the cruising areas between Grenada and New Zealand (which is now our current preferred goal for December 2010 start of Pacific cyclone season), the amount of time we think we want to spend in each and the distances between each cruising area. The spreadsheet will compute overall time needed and spread any differences across the cruising areas. With this we should be able to knock up a rough set of milestones from place to place which no doubt we’ll ignore once we’re into things.
The general point is that it is forcing us to look into places, understand some of the key concepts such as distance and where we can or can’t go, the relative sizes of the various groups of islands, specific areas we definitely want to visit and making us choose the general direction across the Pacific. As it stands, the route across will be Panama, Galapagos, Marquesas, Society Islands (Tahiti, etc), Southern Cooks, Tonga, maybe Samoa, Fiji, NZ. At a higher level still we’re beginning to favour using Australia as a base to explore the Far East rather than putting Dignity on the hard in Fiji. That would mean our 2011 itinerary would be to leave NZ in April to visit Vanuatu (formerly known as New Caledonia), maybe the Solomon Islands and then back down to Australia.
Once this is all done, we’ll publish the derived itinerary and the Google Earth notes. They should be of interest and could be useful to others.
I did go ashore yesterday to find Andy and see what the cost of the extra work to our cover was. He wasn’t in the shop and he had put together no bill for it. Maybe he’s done it as part of the original effort – that would be nice. I can’t be sure if this is the case so left my email just in case. While ashore, I bumped into Alan and Anne from Freya of Clyde who we shared an island tour with in Dominica. It was nice catching up. They’ve been here in Tyrell Bay for two weeks now and will be heading south to Grenada soon and then onto Trinidad for the summer. It’s possible we’ll run into them in Grenada.
Today we felt we needed some exercise so we broke off the planning work and went for a walk. We left the dinghy at the ‘yacht club’ which is really just a dock and haul out facility. We headed south and the road we were on soon turned into a mud track – the mud having a clay texture which clung to our flip flops.
On the way back we climbed a hill which overlooked Tyrell Bay. From there we could see the islands and reefs on the south east of the island where we intend to visit quite soon.
Speaking of which, our intentions are to leave Tyrell Bay tomorrow, head round the north of the island and tuck in behind the reefs on the east coast. We’ll then make our way south to the anchorage we saw today before making our way back down to Grenada and the start of our summer projects. This then is our last cruise away from things until we get going again after the hurricane season dies down. Unless of course we get some extra time and head south for a bit. We’ll see. The more we look at next year the more we realize we need to get everything done early and be out of Grenada as soon as we can.
]]>We did see Karen [...]]]>
We did see Karen and Matt from Where II yesterday afternoon. We’ve agreed to mee at Lambi’s this evening for dinner and live music. The weather, touch wood, has calmed down sufficiently for this.
I noticed today we’ve been made one of Bristol Rose’s favourite blogs. We had wondered if we’d meet them here too but they’ve shot down to Grenada for insurance reasons.
]]>We checked in at Hillsborough then made our way round the corner to Tyrell Bay where we’ll hang out through the forecasted bad weather for the next few days. Where II are here so no doubt there will be beers involved with this stay.
Now that we’ve changed countries it’s time to publish our recent tracks. These are our tracks for our recent stint in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
View 2009 Grenadines 2 in a larger map
The dinner at Bogles Round House was delicious. We dinghied ashore and found our way to the restaurant by the light of our dimming torch. Inside there was room for four tables. Along one side was a bench with the main support being and enormous lower jawbone of a whale. From the pics you can see the building is made of stone and wood with various wagon wheels and iron spider webs forming the windows.
We both had French Onion Soup for appetizers – perhaps the best we’ve ever tasted. For main course Helen had a Tiger Prawn Creole and I had a Lamb Shank. As with all good restaurant food the presentation was wonderful but the portions never quite large enough. Although I was sorely tempted to try their chocolate cake for desert, we decided to have banana flambé back aboard Dignity while sipping sparkling wine we’d bought earlier.
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This morning our anchorage became a little rolly so we move a short way south to calmer waters. Tomorrow we’ll check out of Grenadian waters and head over to Union. Today we’ll just relax.
We took on board 81.4 gallons of diesel. The last time we refueled was 117 days ago in Dominica. In that time we’ve run the engine for 99.4 hours. This means [...]]]>
We took on board 81.4 gallons of diesel. The last time we refueled was 117 days ago in Dominica. In that time we’ve run the engine for 99.4 hours. This means we’ve run the generator on average 0.85 hours per day at a rate of consumption of 0.82 gallons of diesel per hour. This covers all our motoring, laundry, water making and household use. The week we were away is counted but this is canceled out by the extra hours spent motoring as a result of the recent maintenance tests. All in all, not bad I think. Recent activity, now that we’re not using the freezer but using the laptops a lot more, has brought the hours per day down to around 0.7.
We’re currently anchored north of Hillsborough close to the Bogles Round House restaurant where we have booked dinner for this evening. Bit of a splash for us but what the hell. It should be good. We’re looking forward to this.
We’ve had a walk into Hillsborough this afternoon, about 30-40 mins each way, to stretch our legs. We’ll stay anchored here for the weekend before checking out of Grenada on Monday.
No internet connection so back to SSB.
This does affect our near term plans. We’re not aiming to be in Bequia for our anniversary on Saturday any more. If the sail is ready this morning and the wind allows us to hoist it we’ll sail round to Petit Martinique this afternoon and anchor there overnight. We’ll do some shopping and refueling there on Saturday then returning to Carriacou on Saturday afternoon. We’ve been recommended a number of times to go to the Round House in Bogle, Carriacou for dinner on Saturday.
We did get out yesterday to visit the mangroves nearby. It made for an interesting break. At one point the waters were crystal clear and we could see many fish swimming below. A couple of boats had tied up in there for summer as well as there being a couple of old wrecks. At times we turned off the outboard and listened to the silence.
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stitching outfit at 3pm for the one hour fitting. This involved screwing on a number of eyes onto which the cover could be tied and some minor adjustments. The work took two hours as Andy, the owner, was often distracted into conversation or by talking to passers by who wanted to take a look at his motor bike, for instance.
In the picture it looks a little wrinkly as we still need to put additional pressure into the dinghy. The dinghy cover has two parts. The blue cloth is comfortable to sit on. The black material is tougher and protects the dinghy from abrasion. Hopefully this will extend the dinghy’s lifetime by some years.
Yesterday we also gave Dignity a general clear up (at least Helen did) while I replaced the outside speaker which buzzed a lot due to a blown cone. The new speakers were large so I had to enlarge the hole. With the hand tools I had this 
was difficult but in the end I managed it. Outside sound is now much better.
In the evening we went ashore to the Lazy Turtle pizzeria for dinner where we had a vegetarian pizza which was delicious. The place was quite busy as a group of locals had turned up to celebrate one chaps 70th birthday. We recognized most of the crowd which just goes to show what a small place this is and, perhaps, we’ve stayed too long.
Today we’ll be off as soon as we have our headsail back and it’s fitted. This won’t be until early afternoon at the latest. We may use the time this morning to dinghy over to the mangroves and explore. Should be interesting but probably won’t take too long. Maybe we’ll look at the projects list. More likely the books will come out.
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