Not that nothing has happened since I last blogged. We had a good evening with Mike and Jackie a couple of days ago. It was their [...]]]>
Not that nothing has happened since I last blogged. We had a good evening with Mike and Jackie a couple of days ago. It was their first time on a dinghy so we had the usual fun associated with uncertainty. But no one ended up in the drink although the opposite did happen a few times. (Note – they do advertise the local AA on the net in the mornings but I don’t think we have that big a problem)
Yesterday we moved round to Clarke’s Court Bay as part of our gradual migration to St David’s for our haul out – which we’ve now postponed to Monday. Before leaving it was goodbyes with Matt and Karen from Where II. They are heading west next week so it’s highly likely we’ll not meet up again before they go. There’s a strong chance we’ll meet up in Bonaire in November but that’s not certain. They plan to spend more time in the Venezuelan islands than we do so a catch up is possible.
We met up with Jim at the marina burger night yesterday evening. We also met Dianne from Jabulani anchored nearby. She’s on her own and just getting onto her SSB project and can’t get it to work. I agreed to help out so have been round there this morning. We made some progress but Helen and I will go back later this evening when we’re more likely to get a good signal.
This morning I also had a quick chat with the folks on Lista Light who are due to take our last two 4D batteries. They’re pretty busy with a project list that dwarfs ours so they’ll be round at 8 this evening to look round the boat before we all head over and explore theirs.
The only other excitement this morning was being asked to move a little by the barge that moves the garbage as we were anchored in it’s route. Not sure why it couldn’t go around us but we wanted to get to cleaner water to fill the tanks.
We then motored back down to the anchorage outside St George’s and stayed there for the evening. In the morning we took the bus to the IGA food store to pick up some items we’d not had for a while and to pick up some meats for a BBQ we’re planning for this evening. We also picked up some hooks from the hardware store to further improve the dive/wet gear locker.
After lunch we sailed round to Prickly Bay. More precisely, we sailed round the point and tested our tacking angle against the current. We were going nowhere so we lowered the sails and motored the last couple of miles.
Last night we had Matt & Karen aboard (Where II) for pre dinner drinks and chat. Dinner took a back seat and we had the pleasure of their company until late in the evening. Brain is feeling ok this morning despite prior patterns associated with our evenings with them. Perhaps that’s due to the large amounts of water drunk overnight.
The main plan for today is to have Jackie and Mike aboard for a BBQ this evening. They were the local couple we met on our first hash here on the island and Mike is the one who took us to the airport back in May. We’ll probably make a trip to the local ACE hardware store as we need a few more bits and pieces and we’ll probably install the hooks bought yesterday.
Weather watching has become a lot more important now that the hurricane season has actually turned into a hurricane season. We’ve had no named storms then suddenly there were three, Ana, Bill and Claudette. Bill was the most concerning due to it’s projected strength. It’s still east of us but heading well north – looking much like it going to pound Bermuda. Claudette fired up from the low that caused the carnival parade to be postponed a week ago and ran into NW Florida. Grenada has some risk of being hit by a storm. Although we have insurance this is our last resort. Our plan is basically to either go on the hard to ride out a storm or to sail south well in advance. We have a few places all ready plotted in our chart plotter in case we do have to run.
This coming weekend looks to be very, very wet. This may affect our plans to haul out and will certainly delay the start of any land work on the boat.
What a long day it was yesterday. We walked to the national stadium in time for the listed 1pm start of pageant. Due to earlier rain everything was delayed and things didn’t kick off until nearly 3pm. Once it started it was a bit confused as I think things were out of sequence to accommodate bands that hadn’t yet arrived. The first five bands were what’s called ‘Short Knee’ bands. It is very traditional but from our perspective, once you’d seen one you’d seen them all. The costumes were all very similar. They would come on stage and all stomp around accompanied by a chant to the same rhythm as all the others. For a while we wondered if they would all be like this.
Next came a sort of in between act where the band was made up of several groups. Each group had a theme. A story about vampires and slayers was narrated while each group came onto the stage. In the end it was just more stomping around but with more variety and some falling over and dying.
Then it went into the fancy costume parade proper. The bands had gone to a great deal of effort with their costumes. Each band was again made up of different sections. The band would have an overall them with each section would have a sub-theme. The 
sections would have the same costume, sometimes having a single participant with a very elaborate costume. Each section would have a different colour too. At the end they would all come onto the stage together in a riot of colour.
The music they would dance to was the usual thumping carnival music with the usual jumping and cavorting that comes with it.
One of the bands had had a few cruisers help out and join in. Matt and Karen from Where II took part. Matt played the ultimate tourist by bringing his video camera on stage with him.
We left after the last band played but before the results of the competition were announced so we have no idea who won the costume competition. Our favourite was “Journey to the Temple of the Sun” which had an Inca theme.
We will get to see all the costumes again this afternoon coupled with the steel bands for the final street parade.
We went back to the boat for a quick bite to eat and to get ready for the night mas. This time we put on our ‘Digicel’ teeshirts and carried our red light sabers to join Jim and several hundred other revelers behind the Digicel truck. As a result of the Pageant delays the night mas start was delayed from 6:30 to 8:30. We turned up just after 7 to enjoy the build up. Part of our Digicel gear included a flask into which we could have as much rum and coke as we wanted poured in throughout the night.
Once the procession started we made our way very slowly around the lagoon and into the Caranage. We danced along with all the rest and both of us from time to time were ‘ground’ by strangers. I’m not sure of the right term for this but it reminds me very much of what Bonobos get up to and it’s very groinal. We enjoyed ourselves while adrenalin kept the fatigue at bay. Around midnight Helen began to fade so we left Jim to the crowd and made our back to the boat falling asleep instantly.
Despite the long day and lots of rum last night we’re in surprisingly good form this morning and looking forward to the final procession this afternoon when everything comes together. Given the experience so far this will hardly fail to please.
The one downside of all of yesterday was to learn that one of the other cruising boats anchored near us was burgled last night while they were ashore. Just shows that there are thorns in this bed of roses in paradise and we do need to take care.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9vVbyMKQo[/youtube]
]]>As we were early we snagged seats right up the front with a great view. Matt and Karen from Where II showed up later and sat with us for the show which started around 8pm. The stage was already set with the first steel band. The evening kicked off with a local singer followed by the bands performance in front of the crowd and a panel of judges. In between each act would be a filler act – usually a dance group (the same one) – which was mildly entertaining. While the filler act played the previous band’s instruments were rolled off the stage and the next band’s gear rolled on.
The bands themselves were quite incredible. The larger ones were more of an orchestra with around 80 players and 160 instruments. Their performance was not just musical as part of the entertainment was just watching the energy of their movement and dancing as they played.
We felt the third band, New Dimension, was by far the best and they eventually went on to win. Their composition took them through quiet and loud segments, crescendos and more. Unbelievably, on at least two occasions the pace and volume kicked up giving a real rush to the audience eliciting cheers. Never seen steel bands like this.
The show finished around 1am. A bus and a dinghy ride got us back to the boat before 2am. I checked my amps used and voltage on the batteries of course before crashing to sleep. Great night out. Unfortunately I forgot my camera. If I can cadge some pics off other cruisers I’ll post them here later.
Tonight is Dimanche Gras – a calypso competition. Not yet sure if we’ll do this one. Carnival proper starts tomorrow morning at 5am. Info on Grenada Carnival can be found at www.spicemasgrenada.com.
]]>
We arrived a few minutes early only to find the place jostling with cruisers looking to sell unwanted gear and those looking for bargains. We managed to pick up some free guides to Australia and an RS232 cable splitter which I need to talk to some of my gear.
Bristol Roses were there looking to sell some of their US charts and guidebooks. Where IIs were wandering around as were the Jacksters.
Helen and I took a little walk up the hill from Whisper Cove and found a lovely plot of land overlooking the bay. It would be a great place to build a home and we wonder why one hasn’t been built there. No doubt someone owns the land and is hanging on for the right event. Here’s a panoramic video from the location.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp6tiiewGuQ[/youtube]
Back at the marina we again bumped into the Jacksters and ended up inviting David and Jacqui over for a curry aboard Dignity.
Back aboard Dignity is was down to clearing and cleaning ready for our trip to Trinidad. I 
wanted to check and clean the props and decided if I was down there on the hookah I may as well clean the hulls too. I’m beginning to despise this job as it takes all the fun out of being in the water. Down here the wriggly critters are prevalent so despite putting my wetsuit on they still got into my hair and neckline.
The evening came David and Jacqui joined us. We had a great evening sharing stories and the odd joke. I managed to find one that David didn’t already know which, if you know David, is quite a result. In the end they left around midnight, the real one, which is a testament to how much we enjoyed the evening. We have roughly similar plans so hopefully we’ll be bumping into the Jacksters (not literally) from time to time.
Checking the weather this morning it is again looking like Monday evening offers the better weather window for Trini. For a while it was beginning to look like tonight would be better but now the odds are shifting in favour of Monday again. Probably for the best as we’re a little tired this morning.
Final note. Yesterday I discovered a page on the winlink site that shows our current and recent positions on a single page. This gives you a better idea of how we’re moving about and should be pretty good when we’re covering larger distances. I’ve provided a link to it on our ‘Where Are We?‘ page for future reference.
The following pics include views of the boat to give a sense of the place we’re anchored.
]]>The motor sail round to Clarke’s Court Bay was a bit of a pounding – particularly around Prickly Point – as the winds were slightly south of east and waves squeezed into small places. At one point a pair of my swimming shorts blew off the rail (they shouldn’t have been there really). We probably could have quite easily turned to get them but we were squeezed between the shore and off shore rocks in messy water. The economics or risking your boat/home for your swimming shorts made us decided to pound on through.
Once round the point we again took the marked dinghy channel inside the reef of Hogg Island where the waters were much calmer. We found a spot a little away from the main pack in the bay and anchored – our Manson again setting firmly on first bite of the ground.
Fish ‘n’ Chips was again delicious. We bumped into the Where IIs and Jacksters and Bristol Roses (briefly). They’ll all be at the flea market too. We also saw Sweet Carolines. They’re off to Trini next week too but later than us so we may see them down there. We also made new friends with a couple from Durban (Whiskers) who are now on their second circumnavigation. They’re on a similar timetable to us for heading across the Pacific. They gave us some useful information on routing and timing which may lead me to adjust our plans a little.
There’s quite a good weather window tonight for the overnight trip to Trini. It’s just a bit too early for us and it would involve paying overtime to customs at each end. The next window looks like Monday night but continue we monitor the forecasts twice a day in case this changes. I don’t mind paying overtime here in Grenada but I’ve heard it’s a real pain in Trinidad. If we discover tomorrow morning (Sunday) that we have a window that evening I’ll take the bus into St George’s and check out in the morning.
Over the next couple of days we’ll get Dignity ready for the passage south. We’ve heard it can be a little rough so we need to make sure we have nothing loose. We’ve got used to traveling without having to put things away. This will be a chore but a useful exercise.
Friday evening, while on the dock) we were joined aboard by the Where IIs, the Bristol Roses, the Arctic Terns and Diane from Jabulani.
It’s always pleasant when we [...]]]>
Friday evening, while on the dock) we were joined aboard by the Where IIs, the Bristol Roses, the Arctic Terns and Diane from Jabulani.
It’s always pleasant when we have company aboard and this 
was no exception. The conversation was broad but the topic of batteries came up once or twice, either because I was getting the subject off my chest or others were interested.
Saturday morning was spent putting things away and/or back to where they should be. The removed drive battery was replaced and everything cleaned up and reconnected. Bar putting on a shackle (lent by Where II) to connect our new anchor to our new chain no projects were attempted yesterday. I did play catch up on some of my regular checks which have got 
a bit behind. Everything was fine. The morning was also spent catching up on ‘admin’ such as reading remote mail and paying bills – yach.
Late morning I paid and we said our goodbyes. We didn’t see Fletcher the very friendly night watchman but we promised to include his picture on the website – Hi Fletcher. We ate lunch aboard before setting off. Rene, who helps out a lot at Clarks Court Bay Marina, helped us leave. I showed him how an electric boat motors – no noise. I think he was impressed.
We then motored around to Prickly Bay as the winds were very low. The waters were calm so we glided along. At Prickly Bay we had our first chance to try our new anchor, a 57lb Manson Supreme. We’ve always been very pleased with our 44lb delta but even when it sets well there is always some hesitation as it ploughs its way into the sand. The Manson just set and let us know it was not going to budge without any hint of needing to settle in. The next test will be getting it out again. That won’t be for a few days. Our first impressions are very good.
We had an hour or so spare before we left for the Grenada Hash so we made a little water and this was when I caught up on my checks.
On our way to De Big Fish where we were going to leave the dinghy we popped by Sweet Caroline to congratulate them on their 50th wedding anniversary. At De Big Fish we bumped into the crew of Cirque de Soleil who we’d last met in Dominica and shared the Boiling Lake hike with (well – just Angie). We had a brief catch up before heading to the roundabout to catch a bus into town. In true local style we hadn’t quite made it to the roundabout when a local bus went past. The conductor had spotted us so the bus reversed and came back round the roundabout just to find out if we needed a ride. It seems crazy but it’s most welcome and a lot of fun.
We were soon down at the Caranage waiting for a pickup. Not long after we arrived, Mike and Jackie who we’d met on the first hash drove by on their way to the hash. They spotted us and soon we were chatting. They made room in their vehicle (they already had two passengers) and squeezed us in. This hash was not too far from town. The numbers were more than we’ve seen before, somewhere between 150 and 200 I reckon. A lot of these were new students at the St Georges medical school. We bumped into more cruisers who we’re beginning to recognize more including Jim from Bees Knees. I spent a little time on battery strategy with Jim (I have a one track mind at the moment).
The hike was basically a big scramble along what would be optimistically described as a single file track to the top of the highest peak around us and then a more leisurely descent first on a wider track and then on roads. Unfortunately we started near the back of the pack 
and many of the students were ahead of us. A number were out of shape and others kept stopping to take pictures which meant progress up the single track was incredibly slow. Whenever we could we skipped past the photo takers to try and pick up the pace. Along the way I lost my sunglasses as well as slipping over and getting a stick go in my eye (youch). I did take a photo when I couldn’t make any progress as the views were pretty good.
On the way I learned my reputation seems to be building. I was asked by Barb (a complete stranger to me at the point) if I was ‘the battery guy’. It seems that someone buying 36 golf cart batteries for their boat is becoming a talking point amongst the cruisers here. A few are beginning to show interest in my throwaways so I’ll be getting on the net soon to start lining up folks who would be happy to take old batteries off us and maybe even pay a little for some of the better ones. I met Diane (from the night before) once again and chatted for a while. Once we were on the road I ended up running the last mile or two. We’ve been constrained to the boat (mainly) for the last week and I felt the need to flush the system.
Back at the start we had a beer each but didn’t stop long as we had an urge for a Chinese meal at the restaurant near Prickly Bay. We started walking into town and made about a miles progress when a bus passed. On it were Devi & Hunter from Arctic Tern and Dianne and Barb. They had been more sensible and waited for the bus without walking. We parted company at the bus station as we had different onward busses to catch.
After dinghying back to the boat we showered then headed into Prickly Bay Marina to make our way to the Chinese Restaurant. It was a little further than we remembered – about a mile walk each way. The meal was very nice and the price even better.
Eventually, back on the boat it was straight to bed and to sleep. That was not without raising the dinghy as we usually do. I did open the drain between the inner and outer hulls and there was barely a trickle. I can close off the dinghy leak project – finally.
This morning my eye is pretty sore and red where the stick went in. Vision is unimpaired so I’m not concerned. Eye drops are helping so I’ll stick to that unless things get worse. I’ve checked on the house batteries. I never reconnected the worst battery. The charge levels this morning are the best we’ve seen. This will be some combination of the equalization and the removal of the crappy battery. The fact that the house batteries are worn as well as the drive batteries tells me they’ve had a rough life and it really is the best thing to replace the lot. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of adding the 4 spare batteries to the house circuit. That will really make life pleasant. The downside would be that we’d spend less time with them over 14V which means I could create a sulphation (or is it sulpatation) problem down the line unless I equalize periodically. If I do lose a cell somewhere I would have plenty of spare capacity in the house bank to remove a pair without suffering unduly until we can find a fair priced replacement. The future looks good.
So back to today. We don’t intend to do much. We think we’ve earned it.
]]>So the realization that was dawning yesterday, that was confirmed today, is that these batteries have had it. Two years for a bunch of lead acids is not impressive but these are cheapos and they’ve been in charter so maybe this is not so bad.
We’ve decided to replace the drive banks and the house banks with Trojan 6V batteries. I can fill the space of the house bank with 8 of these increasing my capacity from around 500Ah to 880Ah. This should be a bigger effective increase as I very much doubt we’ve had anything close to 500Ah of capacity on our house bank.
I need to keep the capacity the same for the drive banks so this means another 24 batteries which will fit in 2/3 of the space. This will be a big improvement in terms of accessibility and weight. Thanks to a recommendation from Matt from Where II I have found someone willing to sell me 36 of these batteries (4 for spares) for a pretty decent price down in Trinidad. The order is confirmed and, touch wood, we’ll be picking them up early August. It will be nice to visit Trini for a week or so but we must get back for carnival here in Grenada.
Once we have these in place I’ll be a lot more relaxed without having nagging worries about the batteries. I know we’ll look after them so we should get a decent life out of them.
Today has also been ordering day from the US. We now know pretty much all the parts we need for spares and priority project completion. The windlass alone justifies the cost and effort of shipping our stuff down here. Everything else we send along saves us further $$$$s. Our shopping so far today has been :
- Sacrifical zincs for the genset
- Dry bag
- Cheapo GPS to be hooked to VHF radio & SSB
- Cable for above
- New VHF radio with capability for helm remote
- Helm remote and cabling
- Hand held emergency water maker for ditch bag and last line of resort for water maker failure/contamination
- Genset impellers
- Windlass
- Spare galley foot pump
- Fan to replace borrowed one put in bedroom
- Primary fuel filters
- Secondary fuel filters
- Oil filters
- Spare water pump
- Jacklines
- 36 6V Trojan batteries
I still need to find a spare fuel pump.
What else. From yesterday’s account I forgot to mention we had a go at fixing the leak in the dinghy. I think it was mentioned a while back that water gets between the inner and out hulls. This time we’ve sealed around the water drain as this looks like a possible source of ingress.
I also compared topping lift shackles with Where II and now feel comfortable with our new one. I’m therefore crossing that one off the list.
Just about to have dinner with Helen so signing off. Later, Where II and Bristol Rose are over for talking. Just talking. Honest.
]]>We also made some new friends. Two British couples were there. Jackie [...]]]>
We also made some new friends. Two British couples were there. Jackie and Dave from Jackster as well as Jamie and Lucy from Bamboozle. They’re both heading west in a similar time frame to us and hanging around Grenada for a bit so hopefully we’ll meet up again from time to time.
Today the focus switched to equalizing some of the drive batteries. I hooked up three batteries in parallel, disconnected our house batteries and used the jump leads to connect the charger to the paralleled drive batteries. The jump leads warmed up fairly quickly so I soon took off one of the batteries. I took hydrometer readings of the problem cells every hour.
For the first couple of hours there was no apparent change in the readings. Ominously, unlike the good cells, the problem cells were showing little if any bubbling from the high voltage being applied to the batteries.
In time, the worst cell began to bubble and as the hours progressed the hyrdometer readings went from terrible to not so terrible. After 7-8 hours the batteries were quite hot so I stopped the session.
Towards the end of this period I took detailed measurements of the house bank. These had been on trickle charge overnight following their equalization and had since been disconnected from each other and any load. In theory they should all have been reading around 12.7 volts. Three read 12.6V and one read 12.4V. The latter battery and one of the others had poor hydrometer readings on single cells (out of six). I tried equalizing the 12.4V battery on its own. It sucked up current and became hot quite quickly. Not good news. I then tried the other house battery with poor readings on it’s own. The poor cell improved quickly but the battery heated up even quicker. It never produced a good reading but it was heading in the right direction.
That is where I’ve left it for today. Part of me feels these batteries have been somewhat abused at some point in their past and we’re now seeing the results. Part of me realizes there is more to do to learn the extent to which they can be recovered. It seems that focussing on individual batteries has a greater opportunity for recovering bad cells so that’s what I’ll do tomorrow.
Also accomplished today was cleaning out the chain locker, removing the old chain and putting in the new and switching the anchors. Unfortunately we don’t have the right sized shackle to connect the new anchor to the chain so we may have to got to town tomorrow to pick one up.
We also were introduced to Mick and his son Ian who live aboard their boat nearby. They’re supposed to be terrific at boat work. We dicussed our need to install a second anchor roller and windlass. They’ll do more work than our professional quote for less so we’re lining them up. This also means we need to get our new windlass ordered and shipped along with all the other stuff we need which is much cheaper in the US.
No other projects closed off today but did some research including, if it comes to it, replacing all our batteries. Haven’t come to that decision yet but it may happen so I may as well be ready for it.
Aside. It’s now mid-July and so far we have had NO tropical storms in the Caribbean even though hurricane season started in June. This doesn’t correlate to having fewer storms but locals are saying it feels cooler this year and that means there’s less energy in the system. That could mean we’ll be unmolested down here in Grenada. Lets hope so. Having said that, looking at the NOAA website just now I see a depression forming on a tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic and, for the first time this year outside of the gulf of Mexico, there is a warning. Something to watch.
]]>My plan for the drive banks are to take three batteries at a time and parallel them up to make a 12V bank which I’ll then substitute for the house bank and repeat the equalization process. This also allows me to take the house bank off line and let them settle for 24 hours when I’ll give them a full test. That way I’ll know if I have any issues to attend to.
Other projects have been attended to today.
I have fitted an on/off valve on the pipe that allows water from one water tank to overflow and fill the other. This allows the water maker to top off both tanks. However, this does represent a risk. If for some reason our port tank becomes contaminated, this system could push the contaminated water over to the other tank and we could lose potability on both sides. Not a big issue when we’re close to somewhere to sail to and work on the problem but this could be a literal killer in the ocean. I had thought of buying a bunch of jerry cans to keep spare water in case this happened but in one of my many talks to Jim we cottoned onto the idea of simply isolating the tanks from each other. The valve I have put in allows us to do just that. So in the future, before setting off on a big trip, we’ll fill both tanks then isolate the port tank. We’ll live off the starboard tank refilling it when necessary. If we lose that, we can go over to the port tank and ration. As a backup, backup we have one jerry can, the water in the hot water tank and we’re ordering a handheld water maker for last resort. This project won’t be closed until I have tested the system to be sure no air locks are being created and water does still flow between the tanks when it’s supposed to.
Another item off the list is fixing the fast button for our electric winch. Turned out a connection had come loose. I squeezed the connector with my pliers and refitted it. It’s now on nice and tight.
I’ve also installed the replaced shackle for the topping lift line. It still looks a bit small and I’m not happy. Where II is in the bay near us. I may go over and look at how there’s is done before I close this one off.
Now that we’re on shore power we tested all four air conditioners. We had these put on for the years we expected to be in charter – not really for our selves. They need to be checked on and used from time to time just to keep them in order. I found two of them not working. In both cases it was issues with the sea water cooling line and in both cases I managed to fix the problem.
Trish and Rob from Bristol Rose popped over earlier to talk WiFi and other boaty things. Well – that’s what Rob and I talked about. It was during my showing him my AIS setup that I was able to spot the problem with my foot switch for the electric winch.
It’s getting near to 5pm which is happy hour here. Looks like we’re going. It’s also burger night tonight which was fun last time we did this about 2 months ago. Almost a different crowd by now. We know Hunter and Devi from Arctic Tern are here as Hunter helped us dock and we bumped into Devi earlier. Their boat is docked on the next pier. I believe they’ll be at burger night too. I’ll have to make sure I’m near Devi as last time I was able to swap my coleslaw for her chips.