September, 2010

During early September, a couple of those low pressure waves tried to become cyclonic while passing over us. We had some fresh winds, wind reversals, and torrential rains. It was during one of those heavy rains that I realized one, possibly two,  of our scuttle portlight frames was leaking, and of course by Murphy’s Law, right onto my bed. I spent the next couple of days prying apart the frame and cleaning away all of the old, hard, cracked bedding compound, and re-bedding these frames with new marine caulking. 

For a few days in mid-September, we had three great storms at once, Karl, Igor and Julia, spinning across the Tropical Atlantic, all thankfully five or more degrees of latitude north of us.

During the latter part of September, we oiled all of the cabin joinery. We like working with the wood finishing oil, having used it in two of our homes as well. The job is made harder by having to remove the bedding and mattresses from the two staterooms prior to oiling, and removing all of the books and optical disc albums from the bookshelves. We aim to oil annually.

I’m leaving out detail of social activities and outings as being rather mundane, except to add that we ate at the wonderful Flag Restaurant a couple more times and made friends with Ken and Lynn of S/V Silverheels III, Canadians, who spent an afternoon with us giving us tips about sailing and visiting the Bahamas. We made friends with John and Patti of S/V Anhinga, a couple from the Annapolis area, with whom we shared common Maryland experiences. We also enjoyed a couple of lengthy visits with Frank and Tini, S/V Wildcat, from Holland. Frank was a banker and shared his insights into the world banking crisis and its consequences.

Sometime during September, the upper waters of the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Seas have reached 87 degrees and higher. Joan and I went snorkeling again and found all of the corals shallower than about 20 feet had bleached out and died. Actually, the old brain corals seem toughest. Some of them had bleached but appeared still to have living polyps. Every year since we’ve arrived in the tropics we’ve observed widespread coral death and reef deterioration. We must fear for the very survival of this ancient and once-beautiful reef system.

August, 2010

August brings excitement for us. Our younger daughter, Michelle, is flying to Grenada to be with us from August 3 through 13. She teaches nursing at the Kearney campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Her fall term starts as she returns home. She arrived on time with all of her luggage in the evening of Tuesday, August 3^rd. On the 4^th, we took her to St. George on the bus to eat at our favorite restaurant in Grenada, if not the whole world, Flag Restaurant, run by Sichuan Chinese. Even after living in Hong Kong and China for months, we still think this may be the best place in the known Universe. Most of the staff can’t speak English, but one, a delightful young lady named Li Song-Song speaks English very well and translates for us. After dinner, we walked on through the Stendall Tunnel to the big open-air market so Michelle could take in the experience. She bought lots of spices, herbals, some clothes, and enjoyed visiting with the stall proprietors. 

On August 5^th, we all joined one of the commercial island tours so Michelle could see the rain forest, the spice plantations, the rum distillery, the spice processing plant, and island scenery, the same tour we had taken in June.  On August 6^th, I made Joan and Michelle visit in the boat while I studied grain markets and made another incremental sale of 2010 crops -- crazy marketing year.  Later, I took Michelle on the nearby forest trail through part of the Grenada Dove preserve. We crossed over the bridge to Hogg Island for an additional walk there. We returned to the boat, showered, and got ready for another outing to the town of Gouyave (pronounced “gwav” with a long “A”). This is a small town on the north coast that claims to be the fishing capitol of Grenada. Every Friday night, they close off about a half mile of downtown streets. Vendors set up booths and serve every kind of Caribbean fish and shellfish imaginable, along with side dishes. It’s quite informal. What you buy is wrapped up in a scrap of paper or in a dixie cup and you eat as you stroll to the next booth. It’s also quite cheap. It’s all delicious and I only regret I can’t hold as much food as in my youth.

On Saturday, the 7^th, we made an attempt to go snorkeling with Dive Grenada on the southwest shore. There was a squally storm with a wind reversal and they cancelled their trip, so we went back to our bay and took the dinghy towards the mouth of the bay where the water is mostly clean and took Michelle snorkeling here. At this point, the surviving reef critters looked a little better. The new corals were growing and the tang and parrotfish had grazed down lots of the invasive seaweed. 

On Sunday, the 8^th, we hired a taxi for the afternoon for a private tour. We wanted to show Michelle Belmont Estate, where they grow cocoa trees and process the beans. By the way, they are also certified organic and have a number of vegetable gardens for supply their restaurant, with the excess going to the St. George market. Later in the day, we drove to the north end of Grenada to Sauteurs Bay, and the site of Carib’s Leap. It was here on a 100 foot cliff that the last Carib Indians chose to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff rather than be enslaved by the French occupiers. From this cliff, you can look north over the patch of sea where Kick-em Jenny is erupting. Beyond this lies the islands of Carriacou, Union, Mayreu, and Petit St. Vincent. On a very clear day, you could see all the way to St. Vincent.

On Monday the 9^th, we gave Michelle a very long dinghy ride. From Clark’s Court Bay, it is possible to reach the Hogg Island anchorage, Hartman Bay, and Petit Calivigny Bay, all without going out to sea. The mouths of these bays all lie protected behind the great fringing reef of Grenada. Even in death, the reef still protects the inner bays. We had a real naturalist’s day, cutting the engine at times and paddling right into the mangroves to watch and photograph herons and egrets.

On Tuesday, the 10^th, Joan and Michelle took a taxi downtown to see the parade that culminates the last days of annual Carnival. They got pretty good spots to watch and photograph the people and their costumes. I’m a real old scrooge and stayed home to take care of grain contracts and irrigation fuel bills.

On Wednesday, the 11^th, we all took the bus to St. George. First, we stopped at the Lagoon and walked to a grocery, where Michelle bought a supply of Grenada hot sauce (it’s made with Scotch Bonnet peppers and is about the hottest in the world. A dried Scotch Bonnet is a Habernero.) Next, we caught another bus toward downtown, where we ate again at Flag Restaurant. Superlative! After dinner, we walked on through the tunnel to the downtown market where Michelle finished buying her souvenir spices and flavorings. After we returned home, we finished the day with another snorkel near the mouth of our bay.

On Thursday, the 12^th, I took Michelle for another long walk through the Grenada Dove preserve, showing her different parts accessible by the trails. I finally got to show her the endangered dove this time, too. It’s such an eery feeling to spot an animal that looks so ordinary at the time, but is so exceedingly rare and precious. As I stated earlier, there are estimated to be fewer than 100 individuals left on Earth. This little nature preserve is their last refuge. Since I walk in this forest all of the time, I see them frequently. Anyway, after our walk, I took the dinghy to Woburn for carry-out roti again. For the rest of the day, Michelle snorkeled near the marina and I took care of farm business.

On Friday, the 13^th, Michelle’s last day with us, we took her along on our regular Friday shopping trip to the IGA at Grande Anse. For lunch, we took her by dinghy over to Petit Calivigny Bay to a restaurant in Le Phare Bleu Marina. During the afternoon, she packed for her trip home. On the morning of the 14^th, we all went by taxi back to the airport to send Michelle home again. Lovely time.

With the sudden vacuum left by Michelle’s departure, Joan became a little maudlin. To me, it seemed a bit excessive. Within a couple of days, we realized Joan was sick. Meanwhile, phone calls from Michelle revealed that she was sick as well. Checking symptoms on WebMD plus a doctor’s visit reveal that both Michelle and Joan had likely contracted Dengue Fever, probably on the day they went downtown to watch the Carnival parade. While it can be seriously life threatening, it’s usually not so during the first episode. In general, each time you get it, it’s more severe. Death usually results from bursting capillaries and internal bleeding. Joan and Michelle were overtly sick with flu-like symptoms, along with some extremity pain (amongst natives of the Caribbean, Dengue is also known as “Break-Bone Fever”, due to the extreme bone and joint pain) for a couple of weeks or so. Following this period, they felt pretty good but tired rapidly after attempting any activity at all. Back home, Michelle had to skip her first week of teaching. Here in Grenada, I did most of the cooking and housework, and Joan couldn’t even go out for Friday shopping with me for two weeks. Gradually, they got better. Michelle went back to the campus and her job. Joan went back to her usual boat activities and outings. 

During all of this activity, I’m watching the weather, every day, sometimes hourly. This is the peak of the hurricane season.  All the time, throughout the year, low pressure waves form in the tropics, above or below the equator, and flow as a band or conveyor belt around the world. This will be hard for my friends from the mid-latitudes to grasp, but at these latitudes, we don’t have “highs”. All we ever have are “lows” or the interval between lows. Nearly all of the lows are linear. They don’t spin counterclockwise. They’re referred to as low pressure waves or ridges. As the barometric pressure goes down, they may attain the status of low pressure troughs. Within them, you’d find squally winds and heavy rain. As they pass over the western coast of Africa, they generally continue on as they are. If the sea is very warm, above 83˚ F, and atmospheric conditions offer subdued vertical shear, these systems may begin to rotate and strengthen and are termed “tropical depressions”. When the embedded winds reach 34 knots, the NOAA National Hurricane Center in Miami designates them a Tropical Storm gives them a name, and they become a “named storm”. This is already serious for us because our hull insurance deductible doubles for claims of damage by a named storm. However, once at tropical storm status, these storms often continue to harvest energy from the over-warm ocean below and increase to hurricane strength. If at sea, we might possibly survive a Category I hurricane. Anything stronger than this will surely sink our boat and kill us. This is why we spend part of each day studying the weather. It’s also why we’re berthed in the headwaters of a sheltered bay. We take it deadly serious. Being in Grenada, we actually pray that the storms will spin up soon after leaving the African Continent. Once they’re spinning, another natural phenomenon, Coriolis Effect, will inevitably cause the spinning or cyclonic storms to veer to the right as they proceed west. This takes them further and further from our latitude. The further west they begin to go cyclonic, the higher the odds that they may strike Grenada. So far, it hasn’t happened. We have experienced two tropical depressions attempt to turn cyclonic while they were directly over us. It’s caused lots of squally wind and heavy rain, but no life- or boat-threatening conditions. Some time during October through December, the conveyor belt moves south, the sea cools down, and the season ends. 

Joan’s overt illness from Dengue Fever lasted for the rest of August. As a consequence, we stayed close to home. I took the opportunity to write numerous letters to friends and get to a few more boat jobs. The engine coolant cap started leaking. I found a replacement. I bought nylon strap and hand-sewed a custom-fitted hoisting harness for our new dinghy outboard motor. I added 3 feet of 3/8ths chain to the dinghy anchor rode and spliced in a new eye. I patched a leaking fender.

On August 30^th, Hurricane Earle, by now a category III, runs over Antigua, Barbuda, St. Maarten, part of the British Virgins and the US Virgins, leaving the first substantial damage of the year in the Lesser Antilles.

July, 2010

During early July, I continued my quest for a small air conditioner. Finally, I ordered a small GE unit, 6,000 BTU, window air conditioner from Sam’s Club in Miami. Their price was just $149. My daughter Michelle helped me find a “Less-Than-Container” shipper, Tropical Shipping, also of Miami. They send a boat from Miami to Grenada every Thursday. After navigating the intricacies of getting this item picked up by a local freight hauler from Sam’s Club - Miami, getting it processed for export at Tropical Shipping, getting permission from Grenada Customs to “add to (my) ship’s inventory”, paying Grenada VAT and Customs handling charges, paying Tropical Shipping, retrieving my new a/c via taxi, I finally started up my new window a/c on Tuesday, July 27^th. My total cost for the a/c, freight and all charges was $282.46. We’ve been living in sublime, mosquitoless, cool air ever since.

Probably the highlight of July, after the air conditioner, was a visit from some more very dear friends. First, let me stress that all the sailors we’ve met have been pretty nice folks. It’s sort of Darwinian selection out here at sea that real crabs would be shunned by the rest of the sailors and would not be well treated by the islanders. They would get discouraged and give up sailing. Even so, every once in a while, you meet people that are just a cut above the rest. They seem extremely intelligent and are interested in the same things you are, but bring a world of stories and anecdotes from somewhere else. We’ve gathered several such couples amongst our list of friends. These particular people are Ralf and Jenny of Johannesburg, South Africa. They sail a 45 ton, 62 foot steel ketch. Her hull is 10 mm steel plate. She was built to survive collisions with ice in the polar seas. Ralf’s career has been in electronics and computers, and he’s rigged this boat, S/V Imvubu, with a world of computer controls and redundant power supplies. He even installed an induction range in Jenny’s galley. Jenny, by the way, owns a software company specializing in insurance software.

We met Ralf and Jenny in Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad, last May. They left before we did and sailed north to St. Lucia where they met relatives from Africa and Europe. They stayed in contact with us by e-mail and planned their trip back toward Trinidad, leaving a few days to stop in Grenada to be with us. We took them out to eat once. We fed them in the boat once. We visited in each others’ boats several times. I took Jenny on a long walk through the forest and across Hogg Island. They were on a schedule and had to continue on down to Trinidad after a few days. 

The balance of July was mostly just work. I had a fair amount of business activity from home, and I watched grain market’s carefully to try to market the last of 2009 crops and make some incremental sales of 2010 crops.

I should mention, too, that there’s continuing activity within the cruising community and adjacent marinas and restaurants. Joan and I partake of some of it. Here at our marina, in their Oasis Bar, Tuesday night is movie night, Wednesday night is hamburger night, along with live-performance music, either by Grenadians or talented cruisers and assorted Ex-Pats. Friday night is fish & chips night. Saturday night is potluck. Sunday afternoon is dominos. Several times this summer, the marina has sponsored cricket matches amongst the cruisers. There have been afternoon seminars on boat canvas projects, general boat maintenance, on cruising to Venezuela, on water painting and jewelry making. Other marina’s and restaurants have menu specials on scheduled nights. Every Tuesday and Thursday noon, an elderly Grenadian lady serves roti across the bay in Woburn, and we rarely miss this treat. I usually dinghy over and get them as take-out and bring them back to the boat to eat in air-conditioned comfort. Every Friday, a taxi operator brings a rather large bus to our marina where folks gather from all over Clark’s Court Bay and the Hogg Island anchorage for a trip into Grand Anse Shopping Center, where the IGA supermarket is located, along with a hardware store and a number of mall boutique-type stores and a bookstore. There’s a food court here, as well as several nearby small restaurants, so we always eat out along with grocery shopping. There’s a KFC here for us when we get a hankering for US fast food. For staying in touch with each other, the cruisers all over the island get together every morning except Sunday, at 07:30 on marine VHF channel 68 on the Cruisers’ Net. First, there’s security and safety massages, then marine weather forecasts, then a buy-sell-swap session, then a social calendar session, and finally, offers and advertisements from Grenada business serving the cruiser community. The activity I describe in this paragraph is ongoing. We can partake if we wish. Our marina has two washers and no dryers. About once per week, I do one or two loads of laundry. Joan usually hangs the clothes on lines I run between the shrouds and inner forestay. When it’s rainy, we hang clothes under the bimini or inside the cabin. About once every two weeks, we give each other haircuts. We’ve also completed sanding, oiling and buffing of all of our interior wood. So, in addition to the white sand beaches, the swaying palm trees, the rum punch, the tropical sunsets, the bikini girls, there’s a whole lot of plain domesticity to this cruising life.

June, 2010

Move into a marina, getting acquainted with Grenada.

After only a couple of days at anchor, it became apparent to me that my overhauled shoulder joint was not up to the rigors of life at anchor. It’s not all that much work, but does require the lugging and lifting of all fuel, water, groceries, laundry, and so on from deck level into the dinghy at sea level, or from the dinghy up onto the deck at about shoulder level. It just plain hurt. I decided to make the best of an indefinitely long stay in Grenada by staying in a marina. We agreed to a price at Clark’s Court Bay Marina, at the head of the bay of the same name. Our slip location is at 12˚ 00.644’ N by 061˚ 44.334’ W, for anyone who wants to find it on Google Earth. It’s a very nice marina, built to withstand all but direct hurricane strikes. It’s nestled into a National Wildlife Refuge, the purpose of which is to provide habitat for the critically endangered Grenada Dove. It is thought that there are less than one hundred of these doves left on Earth. Across the head of the bay is the small settlement of Woburn. If we take our dinghy across, this is where we can catch a bus into St. George. From there, buses may be used to reach all parts of the island.

A description of the buses: They are all twelve passenger Toyotas. They don’t operate on a schedule, however, we’ve never waited more than about 10 minutes for one to come by. They’ll pick you up regardless of passenger load out-island, but in town, at the bus terminal, they won’t leave until the bus is full, and I mean full! They have factory jump seats that fold down over the mini-aisle. Then, the drivers insert little foam blocks in what’s left and select kids with narrow butts to stuff into unbelievably small slots. Then they leave town. They drive like crazy, often reaching 55 mph on brief stretches between curves, even though the curves are all blind; there are people and dogs in the streets; there are impromptu watermelon and roasted sweet corn stands in the streets; the streets are narrow. It’s absolutely frightening, but gradually you realize, you never see an accident. We’re able to reach grocery stores, the main post office, the FedEx depot, two chandleries, many restaurants, the big open air market, lots of shopping, all by these buses. The fare is EC$2.50, or about US$0.94 per ride. The public buses are also the means of transporting children to school.

A description of food in Grenada:  Sadly, Grenada is no where near food self-sufficient. All of the canned and frozen food is from the US or the big South American countries. Much of the produce is Chilean or from the US. The island does have agriculture, and there are seasonal tropical treats. When we arrived, mango season was at its peak. Later came the watermelons and tomatoes and sweet corn. In autumn will come squash, sorrel and pidgeon peas.There’s usually local eggplant, okra, and onions. Another tropical treat is callilou, or leaves of the dasheen plant, that make wonderful soup. There’s a fair amount of chicken produced here, as well as some pork. Cows are rare. We can shop in a choice of several decent-sized supermarkets, or, we can shop in the big open-air market in downtown St. George. There’s also a fish market downtown. Island spices are for sale everywhere. Like most other Caribbean societies, this one has a huge lore of alternative, herbal, homeopathic, etc., medicines and cures. The big market has great displays of natural products for every conceivable medical need. Corollary with food is the people’s health and fitness, and I must say that these folks look great! There’s little obesity here. Most people look like the jog and work out in a gym, although there’s no gym here. The girls are lovely and curvy. The boys look like they lift weights. It’s hard to find junk food here. 

A description of the people. They’re so nice, it seems unreal. Early on, you notice how native Grenadians want to get to know you. They are always offering to help. If you ask directions, they’ll not only describe them, but drop what they’re doing and take you there, visiting the whole way. If you’re sick, they worry about you. If they’ve had good fortune, they want to share it. There’s almost no crime here. The bus drivers always wait and watch to see that the younger school children have made it to the house safely. People with garden produce to sell commonly send their adolescent girls out on the streets to hawk to strangers. I just don’t think I’ve ever been in the company of more loving and lovable people. They’re also an extremely social bunch. Everyone seems to have a garden, and they usually get together to weed or harvest each others’ gardens, usually accompanied by a little beer and some food cooking on an outdoor fire. Apprenticeship of the young is so obvious in the gardens, too, as you see fathers teaching sons how to transplant sweet potatoes or pick okra at the right stage. Their most glaring weakness is that they’re poor business people and competitors. If they had to compete with Mexicans or Chinese or even Americans, they’d starve to death. They’re indifferent about making a sale. They’d rather not be bothered. They’re also essentially apolitical. Most leaders tend to be corrupt. The people accept it as a way of life and don’t get involved.They also don’t have a feeling for animals. You see hundreds of dogs, never neutered, with big batches of starving puppies. You see tethered cows and sheep with no water to drink. Being a farmer and a dog lover, this is very hard for me to see.

Meanwhile, what we’ve been up to: During this period, we wanted, literally, to see the island. We joined one of the commercial tours that took us by bus up to an overlook of St. George, where we could see the old French fort, the harbor, the downtown buildings. From there we went on up into the higher elevations and into the rain forest of Grande Etang National Park. We hiked to one of the seven major waterfalls on the island. We stopped at a spice plantation and saw growing ginger, turmeric, cocoa, nutmeg, citrus. We went on north to stop at the Rivers Rum Distillery, a site that I would nominate for World Heritage status. First of all, they are certified organic. They grow their own sugar cane. They squeeze out the juice in a plant built in 1789, that was originally used during the early British colonial period to produce coarse sugar. They carefully maintain the plant in its original design. If a part wears out, they have a replacement cast just like the original. The cane crushing mill is still powered by a water wheel as it was 221 years ago. In keeping with the “green” theme, they use dried bagasse along with timber culled by highway maintenance crews to fire the still. Their product is not exported, but sold only on the island.

 After this distillery, we drove on to the city of Grenville, second largest on the island, to visit a nutmeg processing plant. With most of the nutmeg trees blown down during Ivan In 2004, they only produce enough now to show the tourist how it used to be done. Even so, it was quite interesting.

Early in June, quite to our surprise, a dear couple with whom we’d become acquainted in 2008, sailed in and dropped anchor just a few dozen yards from us. Neither knew the other was here. They are another English couple, Mike and Barb of S/V Phantasie. A couple of weeks later, in celebration of a Mike’s seventienth birthday, we rented a private car and hired a driver to visit a site known as Belmont Estate. Here, they maintain a grove of cocoa trees. This farm is also certified organic. They harvest the cocoa pods and take them through the process of fermentation, drying, polishing and on to the finished, dried cocoa beans. They do not produce a confection here. Like the rum distillery, much of their facility also dates to the eighteenth century. Another company uses their cocoa beans to produce a Granada chocolate bar -- really tasty. 

During this period, we also strove in vain to find a healthy coral reef over which we could snorkel. The marine environment here in our part of Grenada has received many assaults. I imagine that the reefs were already suffering from the effects of elevated sea temperatures when Ivan struck in 2004. As a Category III, the hurricane would have driven a storm surge ahead of it and then generated waves around forty feet high. Conditions like this just pulverize marine life shallower than about 30 feet. What you expect, and what we see, are huge patches of white sand (pulverized coral), growing up in turtle grass. Scattered around are recognizable pieces of coral rubble. Also scattered around are new, infant corals no more that a year or two old. Occasionally, one finds a chunk of old boulder coral or brain coral that still has patches of living polyps. Rarely, there will be an intact old coral. In keeping with the prolific beds of turtle grass, there are sea urchins in huge numbers everywhere. Most are a short-spined decorator urchin. Some are the familiar Caribbean long-spined urchin. There are a few schools of reef fish. With the turtle grass and abundant sea weed growing on dead coral, there are schools of Blue Tang, accompanied by a few Yellow- and Blue parrotfish. The tang and parrotfish are the “cattle” of the reef, grazing the plants that grow there. Very occasionally, the big predators will enter our bay from the open sea. You usually don’t see them, but see the small baitfish in a frenzy at the surface trying to avoid being somebody’s meal.

Toward the end of June, the temperature has been climbing. The rainy season of the tropics has arrived with a vengeance. Along with daily rains has come hoards of mosquitoes. These are mostly the twilight biters. What this means to us is that in the late afternoon, when our boat cabin has reached about 90 degrees and the humidity is at 100% from the afternoon rains, we must shut up our boat against the evening mosquitoes. If we’re careful, we can run our built-in air conditioner for an hour or so, while we’re running our AC generator for our refrigerator. The other 23 hours, we just sweat a lot. We got to thinking that nothing here was charming enough to live in these conditions into the indefinite future, and that we should look seriously at buying or renting a home air conditioner that could operate on the island’s 50 cycle electricity furnished in our marina. Our boat, being a US boat, has AC appliances designed to use 60 cycle electricity. You can transform voltage but you can’t transform frequency. First, we shopped the appliance dealers and hardware stores. All the island retailers and installers offered were 12,000 BTU units and larger, much too big and too expensive for our small boat cabin. We checked with a marine repair service that advertised rental units for boaters. They wanted $400 per month just for rental. Finally, I started shopping on the internet for units I might buy abroad.

May 28 through June 2, 2010

 Our last day in Trinidad was May 28^th. At about 4:00 p. m., Joan and I walked to Immigration and got our departure papers, and then to Customs to pay our final bills there and get their clearance to leave. At about dusk, we cast off and motored out of Chaguaramas Bay with the Minnie B right off our stern.

This passage from Trinidad to Grenada, or vice versa, is usually begun at the onset of night. This allows the captain (me) to check out of Customs and Immigration during the last of their business hours, sail all night, and arrive in time to check into Customs and Immigration shortly after they open for business in Grenada.  It’s not a rough crossing, but also not one on which you want to fall asleep on watch. About 45 miles off Trinidad is a major shipping lane used by all of the Panamax freighters and tankers coming from anywhere  in the South Atlantic, or even the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope, pass on their way to or from the Venezuelan, Columbian and Mexican oil depots and the Panama Canal. There’s almost always the lights of at least one or two big ships in view, and sometimes four or five. This is also the rainy season, and your visibility may be reduced to a fraction of a mile in squalls. You keep your eyes alternately on the radar screen and the horizon at all times. You get lots of practice boosting the gain to see the squalls on the radar and then reducing it to see through the rain to the big ships. Luckily, our Automatic Identification System (AIS) receiver is working properly this season, so we get icons of all traffic on our chartplotter screen as well. The AIS continually calculates and displays Closest Point of Approach (CPA), and Time to Closest Point of Approach (TCPA). On a dim, squally night, it’s just so comforting to know just how close that big ship is going to get in the next half hour, and if you might need to slow down or alter course. The only trouble I had on the crossing was that one of my deck level navigation lights failed and I had to rely on the masthead lights instead. I got soaked to the skin in the heavy rain squalls, but at 11 degrees north, it’s so warm, I just stripped and finished my watch in wet underwear. Joan relieved me at 3:15 a. m. I slept until 6:15 and went on deck to see Grenada a few miles dead ahead. By 8:30, we were anchored in Prickly Bay.

After coiling down, we took our boat papers with us in the dinghy and went to Customs, Health and Immigration Departments to check officially into Grenada. We stopped at a convenience store for sandwich makings and some rum. We went back to Wight Skye, bathed, snacked, had a little rum and took long overdue naps. (I should point out that during lengthy sea voyages, the crew gets into a rhythm of sleep and watch, but on short voyages, the physiology of sleep just doesn’t allow that to develop.)  That evening, we met with Phil and Norma of Minnie B and another couple for some visiting. Prickly Bay, while a very convenient destination, is open to the south and quite rolly as the Atlantic swells come wrapping around the south end of Grenada and enter the bay. We determined to move the next morning to Clark’s Court Bay, open to the southeast, but protected by a wide and massive reef. On Sunday morning, May 30^th, we put the towing bridle on the dinghy, hauled anchor and motored over to Clark’s Court Bay, scouted a little, and eventually anchored in a small side bay, Benji Bay, in 30 feet of water. 

Grenada is an island country and sovereign state composed of the main island of Grenada and six smaller islands.² It is the southernmost of the group of Lesser Antilles known as the Windward Islands, situated south of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and northwest of Trinidad and Tobago. The total land area is 173 square miles. The population is about 110,000. The capitol city, St. George, is considered in most guide books to be the prettiest city in the Caribbean Sea. The racial mix is 82 % black, 13 % mixed black, 5 % European and East Indian. 

Recorded history begins in 1498, when the island was populated by Carib Indians. The first successful attempt to claim and colonize by a European power was by the French, who exterminated the Caribs by the end of the seventeenth century and established slave-based sugar cane production, similar to the pattern is most of the Lesser Antilles and Spanish Main. “La Grenade” became a very successful French Caribbean settlement with unusually rich soil and a very good natural harbor. Grenada was ceded to Great Britain with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. It was made a Crown Colony in 1877. It was granted full independence in 1974.

The second Prime Minister following independence, Maurice Bishop, promised to implement a system of benevolent socialism. He also made overtures to Cuba and the USSR for financial aid and possible military strategies. Not satisfied with the speed and progress toward total socialism, the Deputy Prime Minister, Bernard Coard, lead a paramilitary attack against Bishop and the sitting government. During the coupe, Bishop and seven ministers were murdered. Coard suspended the constitution and put Grenada under martial law.

Fearful of the spread of Marxism in the Caribbean Basin and the use of Grenada to support Central American communist insurgents, US president Ronald Reagan orchestrated a military invasion of Grenada on October 25^th,  1983, using troops of the US Army, Jamaica and the Caribbean States Regional Security System. Eighteen members of the Marxist junta were arrested. 

Grenada recovered rapidly following the demise of the of the junta, only to be devastated by a direct hit by Hurricane Ivan on September 7, 2004. Ivan was a Category III. Some 90 % of all island homes were damaged or destroyed. Thirty-nine people were killed. The following year, Hurricane Emily, a Category I, struck the island on July 14^th. These hurricanes, especially Ivan, blew down most of the island’s nutmeg trees, reducing annual production by 90 %. Grenada had been the world’s second largest nutmeg producer after Indonesia. Besides nutmeg, the island also produces mace, cinnamon, cocoa, ginger and turmeric. 

Like the other islands of the Lesser Antilles, Grenada is of volcanic origin, rising up out of the sea during eruptions resulting from the Caribbean Plate overriding the Atlantic Plate. Today, the island contains three easily recognizable calderas. The island volcanoes appear extinct, but just a few miles off the north shore, a sub-sea volcano is very active, erupting or quaking continuously. The new volcano, named “Kick-em Jenny”, rises from the abyssal plain to within 600 feet of the sea surface. Soon, it will likely create a new island.

Economically, the island nation is a mess. Following the loss of its export crops from the hurricanes, Grenada now lives on tourism and a few quaint cottage industries. It’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 110 %. GDP real growth is a negative 7.7 %. Thirty-two percent of families are below the poverty level. Inflation is 3.7%. Unemployment is around 35%. Luckily, its population growth rate is only 0.468%, ranking 196^th in the world.

Even though the French have been gone since 1783, 53 % of the population is still Roman Catholic. The Anglican Church claims 13.8%. All protestants combined make up 32 %. The Rastafarians claim 1.3 %. 

2. Information on Grenada condensed from Street’s Cruising Guide to the Eastern Caribbean, Martinique to Trinidad, by Donald M. Street, Jr. 1974, 2001. iUniverse.com, Inc., Wikipedia, and CIA  World Fact Book.

May 6 through May 28, 2010

During this and the next day, I also engaged a professional surveyor to inspect Wight Skye, in connection with our lifetime guarantee against blisters and hull integrity. I also engaged a rigger to inspect the mast and standing rigging aloft, and to help me bend on the sails after we had left the yard and were afloat. The surveyor came at about noon on Thursday, as the yard was getting ready to launch us. By mid-afternoon, we were in the water and had moved over to CrewsInn Marina. Nice to have water, power, and air conditioning. As soon as we were fast in our berth, I ran up the national ensign as well as the Trinidad and Tobago courtesy flag.

Over the next couple of days, my helpers came to the marina and worked on cleaning and polishing. Joan and I deployed the bimini canvas and our deck tents. On Saturday, May 8^th, the rigger came with a helper.  He climbed the mast, inspecting as he went. Before he descended, he rove the upper ends of the lazy jacks through their blocks on the mast cheeks. Then he, the helper, and I bent on the jib, stays’l, and mains’l. We were lucky to have a nearly calm day. This is not easy work. The jib is a really large sail and difficult to handle. The main must have the battens installed as it is raised, and also have the three sets of reefing lines rove through the reef points and tackle, all very difficult in a fresh wind.

After about a week in Trinidad, business from home began arriving via e-mail, and I had to take some time off boat work to do some farm business. I also spent a miserable half day standing in line to buy local SIM cards for our cell phones. We also took time to provision and do laundry. Then, I spent another miserable half day waiting in the local chandler, Budget Marine, for the Trinidad Customs agent to arrive with a pad of paperwork required for me to take delivery on a new dinghy. After the episode in the store, we had to drive to the nearest Customs Office, hire a broker, and have him pass my purchase documents, my ship’s papers, my passport through the window to another Customs agent. Finally, they let me have my dinghy. Let me say that if you think bureaucracy is bad in the US, you need to travel abroad more.

The new dinghy leaked. The dealer arranged to have it fixed under warranty. Upon getting it back the second time, we mounted our old Mercury 9.9 outboard with some trepidation. In July of 2009, while we were anchored in Admiralty Bay, Bequia, a terrible squall struck and flipped our old dinghy upside down, wetting the outboard motor with seawater. Even though we immediately took it to a mechanic and flushed, drained, cleaned, and oiled it, it never ran properly after that incident. As we feared, it didn’t run right this time, either. It seems the jets in the little carburator continue to grow or collect salt scale or corrosion and clog up repeatedly. We determined not to put any more money into this but to buy a new outboard. We chose a new 18 hp Tohatsu. We were lucky to be shopping outside the US and to be able to buy a 2-cycle outboard. Environmentally incorrect as they may be, you just get so much more power per unit cost and per unit weight.

During these first three weeks in Trinidad, we got to witness an historic national election. The deeply entrenched People’s National Movement Party (PNM) and it’s corrupt Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, were voted out of office and replaced by the United National Coalition Party (UNC) and a new female Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bessessar. It was carried out with no violence and apparently little or no voter fraud or ballot stuffing. There was the potential for racial tension too, since the PNM tends to be the party of Black Trinis and the UNC the party of Indian Trinis, but that didn’t surface either. We were very pleased and proud of our Trini friends. Also during our time in Trinidad, it rained every day, sometimes several times each day. 

By about the 25^th of May, we were thinking it was time to leave Trinidad for Grenada. We worked to get new jugs of extra diesel fuel on deck, along with our jugs of water and outboard gasoline. I re-checked all of the service points on the engine. Since a couple of incidents of piracy off Trinidad earlier this year, it’s gotten to be popular practice to find other folks wanting to make the trip and go in company with them for mutual protection as an impromptu convoy. We found a couple, Phil and Norma of S/V Minnie B who wanted to go, so we made our plans to leave, sailing in company with them.

May 2 through May 5, 2010

May 2 - 5:

After eight months at home in Nebraska, we flew back to Trinidad on May 2nd, arriving at 10:15 p. m., and stayed in an airport motel. By noon on the 3rd, we had taken a taxi and returned to Power Boats Yard in Chaguaramas Bay. While Wight Skye was still on stands in the yard, we stayed in a small efficiency apartment in the boat yard. Right away this day, we ran into our dear friends from England, Paul and Jane, S/V Shian. We made plans to meet in the evenings for the next few days, before they haul Shian and fly home. Meanwhile, I made arrangements with a couple of yard workers to begin cleaning up Wight Skye, waxing her cabin, decks, and stainless steel. We also installed a couple of teak pads in the bowsprit to keep the anchor rodes from contacting the bit of topsides paint they seem to chip and scratch sometimes. I had a diesel mechanic look over the engine again concerning a fuel pump problem. He found a wire had been knocked loose from the temperature sender. This is part of the safety shutdown system on the engine that disengages the fuel pump for high temperature or low oil pressure.

On the next evening, Wednesday, May 4th, we arranged to ride with Jesse James’ Members Only Maxi Taxi to travel across Trinidad to the Atlantic Shore at Maturo Beach and watch Leatherback Turtles come ashore to lay eggs. This beach claims one of the largest populations of Leatherback Turtles in the world during their egg laying season. This clearly will have been the ultimate experience of the cruising season if not of a lifetime. We were awestruck.

The Leatherback is the largest of all sea turtles.1 The species is unique in having a soft covering and no shell. The Leatherback is also the fourth largest of all reptiles, the three larger all being crocodilians. The females of these turtles do not reach sexual maturity until they are at least six years of age. Thereafter, they tend to lay eggs every second or third year, laying up to nine clutches of about 115 eggs each during their laying year. The eggs hatch in about 60 to 70 days. About 85% of them are viable. The females appear to have a sperm storage mechanism, so that they do not need males between successive batches of eggs, although the Trinidadians that watch over this beach say that there are males in the water just offshore. Clearly, the reproductive strategy here is that of huge numbers of offspring followed by high mortality of eggs and hatchlings. Survival rate is something like one to two percent.

The females only come ashore during the night. We could not use lights or take flash pictures as they came up out of the surf, because white lights confuse and disorient them. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes for each female to lumber and struggle up the beach to a point about 40 yards above the surf line and five feet above sea level. Then, she spends another 45 minutes or so, using her flippers to excavate a large nest hole. She removes about two thirds of a cubic yard of sand. Then, she drops her bottom into the pit and lays her clutch. While she’s laying, we were allowed to use flashlights and take flash pictures, as she goes into a trance and isn’t bothered. When she’s done laying, she buries them with the sand she had removed and very carefully pats down the cover. Then, we must turn off all lights again lest we disorient her as she makes her way back down the beach and into the surf.

The turtles we saw were a good six feet long, four feet wide, and would have weighed not much under a thousand pounds. A young female just sexually mature may weigh 550 pounds and be around three and a half feet long. The largest commonly observed are six and a half feet and weigh up to 1,500 pounds. The largest ever measured was ten feet long and 2,019 pounds. When not laying eggs, the turtles are strictly pelagic. They’ve been observed in all seas and from the surface to about 5,000 feet deep. They are fast swimmers, having been observed swimming at 21.92 miles per hour. While it is not known if they actually migrate, a radio-equipped Leatherback was observed to have swam 12,427 miles over 647 days. They are endothermic and maintain an internal body temperature up to 32.4 degrees higher than cold seawater. Clearly, they would not be doing that in our 85 degree Atlantic Tropical water. The earliest fossils of Leatherbacks date to the Upper Cretaceous, about 110 million years ago, quite a successful species. It’s just such an awesome sight to see these great, ancient reptiles come lumbering up out of the nighttime surf.

1. Scientific information here is from our guide and from Wikipedia and our own observations.

Introduction

During the years 2007 through 2009, I composed rambling monthly accounts of our cruising adventures, based on my ship's log, from the time Wight Skye was launched into the ocean. I sent these notes directly to friends and relatives who had expressed an interest in following our adventures.

During 2007, we sailed from Clear Lake, Texas, across the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Peninsula, and up the US East Coast, reaching Block Island, Rhode Island. In the autumn, we made our way back south to Morehead City, North Carolina, before heading out into the open Atlantic, across the Gulf Stream, and south-southeast to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

During 2008, we sailed down the arc of the Lesser Antilles, west to Bonaire, and back north the the Virgins. During 2009, we sailed once more down the arc of Lesser Antilles, ending up in Trinidad.

This season, due to a prolonged recovery time required by shoulder joint replacement surgery, we've only moved from Trinidad to Grenada, where we've holed up in relative safety during the hurricane season and to let my shoulder finish healing. I've decided to move my sailing notes to a blog, allowing those friends and family who still have an interest in our adventures, to follow at their own pace as I make posts.