After sorting out the photos, compiling the video’s and writing yesterdays blog we up anchored and sailed round to St George’s. Although the forecast was for around 15 knots of wind I left in the first reef on the mainsail which was fortunate as we had sustained winds of 25 knots for a while as we headed around the SW tip of the island.
Had a little fuss coming into the ‘lagoon’ in St Georges. We were right behind another boat as we were entering who was a little hesitant about which spot to pick. He turned to port so I turned to starboard. He changed his mind and came back in front of us so I slowed down to avoid collision – technically correct as I was behind and the stand on vessel according to the rules of the road. Next he took another look at a spot to port so again I turned to starboard. The other vessel again changed their mind and this time their turn put them a little behind us. Rules of the road give us the right of way at this point. I turned slightly to head for a spot I now wanted. As the other boat passed he called me inconsiderate. Oh well. Won’t lose sleep over this one. I only mention this to fill an otherwise short entry and to highlight the high emotion that often surrounds anchoring (usually between those aboard and only sometimes between vessels).
The rest of the day was occupied with taking two of the drive batteries for a free equalization at Island Water World (great service guys), a bit of food shopping, reading, eating and a early sleep after the late night before with the turtles. Of all the capital city anchorages we’ve seen down the islands, this has to be the best although it has a slight odour and I’m now in the morning feeling a little bitten.
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.
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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
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.
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.
Having been so busy for the last couple of weeks we took Sunday off and ignored all the chores on the boat. We motored around to Hogg Island where we know the waters are very flat and, of course, the beach BBQ is thrown on Sundays. As we left we waved goodbye to Cat Tales who were anchored nearby. Upon entering the anchorage by Hogg Island we motored all the way to the bridge and back to see if there were any patches where there was a decent internet signal. There weren’t so we picked the best spot, for anchoring, that we could find and settled down. We read for a few hours until Jim showed up to swap movies. We then went ashore for the BBQ where we met the Arctic Terns and ate yummy BBQ fish and veg.
Today it’s catch up. I’ve already installed the remainder of our LED lighting and mounted the phone we use for Magic Jack. I need to tidy up the junk around the boat from all the unpacking. I want to finally fix the leak in the dinghy and clean the underside and install the replacement choke knob on the dinghy. Shouldn’t take too long but all needs to be done.
We’ve also arranged to tag along with some other cruisers to watch turtles nesting Wednesday evening in the north of the island. This time of year we could be lucky enough to see turtles laying AND earlier nests hatching.
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.
