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In St George, Grenada

by steve, on July 9th, 2009 (Bees Knees, Bristol Rose, Grenada, Where II)

Yesterday we met with the manager at Grenada Marine in St David’s Bay and set our date for haulout where we’ll get some boat work done. While ashore I met Karen and Matt from Where II with whom I stopped to catch up with things (at the bar) and also saw Trish and Rob from Bristol Rose. Didn’t get a chance to spend much time with the latter but we know they’re down here for the next 4 weeks so plenty of time for catch up.

Later, Helen and I popped over to Where II to drop off some books and we stayed a while (not too long).

Our plan for today had been to head for Clarkes Court Bay and then tomorrow go onto the dock in the marina and start equalizing our house and drive batteries. We learned from Jim (Bees Knees) that our new anchor and chain had arrived and it was time to do paperwork so we changed plans and headed over to the lagoon in St George. We’re piggy backing Jim’s order for chain from the US to help us save on costs/effort. We’ll soon see if this indeed worked out.

So we’re here in the lagoon. The paperwork has been done and tomorrow we go with the agent to pick up the goods and pay off customs. I have also booked us into the yacht club slip for three nights and will do the battery equalization here. I have a few cells in the drive banks which have low density I need to see if a good equalization will help. This will mean connecting them up as my house bank and charging them at 15.5V for 8 hours or so. I can’t do them all at once so 3 time a day I’ll need to rotate more in for charging. It will be a pain but worth doing.

This is also the start of summer projects – the list is much longer than the brief one we had for Rodney Bay. While we’re here in the thick of things we’ll be shopping for parts for all the projects.

Tonight we’re buying dinner for Jim as he did all the legwork on the anchor/chain purchase and import which has saved us a bomb compared to local prices.

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Category: Bees Knees, Bristol Rose, Grenada, Where II | Here is my comment

Not a lot

by steve, on July 3rd, 2009 (Bristol Rose, Carriacou, Where II)

So far today’s been one of those days when not a lot has happened. We had some strong winds this morning, stronger than forecast in fact. We saw sustained winds in the mid twenties gusting up to 35 knots. Fortunately we were well anchored and so was everyone else around us.

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.

Category: Bristol Rose, Carriacou, Where II | Here is my comment

Two days in Bequia

by steve, on June 24th, 2009 (Bequia, Bristol Rose, Where II)

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.

Category: Bequia, Bristol Rose, Where II | Here is my comment

My Brain Hurts

by steve, on June 22nd, 2009 (Bequia, Bristol Rose, Where II)

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.

Category: Bequia, Bristol Rose, Where II | Here is my comment
 
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