Trinidad to Grenada to Bequia

 

 

 

Trinidad to Granada

Firstly I have to say sorry to Danielle’s partner Paul, as I lost track of days and forgot to wish him happy birthday.  We had so many things happening at the start of the trip that I just didn’t check.   So sorry Paul and a belated happy birthday. 

 

At 11.00 local time we left the customs dock in Chagauramas on our maiden trip of the season to Grenada 80 miles north   fuelled with several cases of Carib and a bottle of rum for me. The forecast was good winds easterly becoming north easterly 7 to 10 knots with moderate  seas 7 to 10 feet.   I don’t think I can remember anticipating  such light conditions, certainly not in the last year.

 

We set the main sail and engined out and contrary to what we had been forecast the wind that we had was, yes smack on the nose.   Afraid unless things changed we would be hearing the old engine for some time.

 

The day was warm and sunny and as dusk fell and I was on watch to see so many dolphins come out to play  with us.  It lifts the spirits to have visitors with so much energy and enjoyment to share.  Still under engine darkness fell and we were resigned to the entire trip without enjoying the sound of the boat skimming through the water.  Still we have to accept what is given and believe me I would rather go in these conditions on what is notoriously a difficult trip heading north, than the mountainous seas that can erupt in stronger winds.

 

We eventually got into the Blue Lagoon at St Georges Grenada at about 01.30 on Wednesday morning.   This is where Port Louis Marina is being built and it had not changed very much since we left in late January.  The channel into the lagoon was still a challenge.  They had left a dredger in the middle of the entrance which hid the majority of the red buoys marking the channel.  They were difficult enough to see coupled with the fact that only two of them were lit.  

 

We stayed in Grenada for a few days giving Glyn a chance to see part of the island.  We took him into St Georges and on Friday we ventured along to Grand Anse beach .  It was a lovely day and we all enjoyed it.  The  beach was not at all crowded, with only the hotel guests baking in the sun in order to imitate the lobsters that were probably on the menu.

 

 

Saturday 22^nd November  - Grenada to Bequia

 

We intended an early start having been to customs on Friday afternoon to book out.  All we had to do was fuel up with the diesel pontoon due to open at 8.30 that would be fine.   8.30 turned into 9.15 and by the time the boat in front of us had fuelled up and the diesel man disappeared for a while, it was gone 10.00 before we set off for Bequia.    The sea was kind and we were able to get 6 hours sailing from HMG – very enjoyable.  She was registering a steady 9 knots but there was a constant 2 knot current which knocked us back considerably.  By 5.00 we had to revert to the engine as the wind turned to north, north easterly and that was the way we were heading, surprise, surprise. 

 

Land fall at night is always scary.  Even familiar territory looks strange in the dark, let alone when you have not approached an island from the direction you are travelling and a white flashing light marking the south westerly corner of the island is not easy to see amongst the backscatter.  However find it we did and I guided us in to Admiralty Bay using the chart plotter, giving directions to Paul and Glyn, who in all honesty could not have seen a lot as it was so dark.   The anchorage is vast and one of the biggest problems is that so many boats do not show an anchor light after dark.  It makes weaving through them so difficult, but we did it.  

 

Anchor dropped at 10.00 time for the dinner I had cooked en-route and a well deserved Carib or two.

 

We are staying in Bequia until Wednesday.   There are some forecasts of some weather fronts coming through, but hopefully by then they will have cleared.  It is very sunny here but there is a strong wind and so I would imagine it would be quite unpleasant at sea.

 

It is a year since we crossed the Atlantic and the ARC 2008 set off on Sunday 23^rd November from Las Palmas to St Lucia.   We wish them fair winds and safe sailing and will no doubt see some of the participants up the islands.

 

Keep watching please and be safe.

 

Helen and Paul

Trinidad – Monday 17 November.

 

Tomorrow is the day that we hope to leave Trinidad for pastures new.      We were intending to leave today but the marine forecast was not favourable and the seas were up to 12 feet waves so, another day in the marina.  We had to move our berth as anaother boat was due in ours.  Just as well, because when we moved the engine died which is not good news for a diesel engine and there has to be a reason or it just to stop.   It is a hangover from when we launched and therefore I have left Paul in the engine room scratching his head!  I am sure he will get it sorted soon.

I must say that I will not be sorry, although as always you make lots of nice friends when you are in port for any length  of time and this is no exception.

 

Josie and Neil from Weymouth off the boat Lucy Ellen and Bill and Pattie out of Rochester New York in the USA who have a boat called Seven Sisters.  Bill came back to Trinidad at the same time that we did and we kept him company in the evenings until Pattie arrived here on 12^th November.  Bill was a fireman and he had some extraordinary stories to tell.   We were invited to Seven Sisters for dinner last night and the evening was good.  They have invited us up to the US virgin Islands to spend the christmas period with them, so it could be nice.

 

Friday 14^th was my birthday.  I had carried out pressies from Paul Jnr and Cassandra  and Danielle and Paul S and had the pleasure of opening them.  Seven of us  went out for a meal in the evening and it was a good day.

 

We have become somewhat depressed over the last few weeks.  You turn on something that was working well when we left and it just doesn’t work.  Firstly the generator panel that we took back to the UK for repair by Fischer Panda.  They assured us that it was a fuse gone in the panel which they had replaced.  Immediately Paul installed it, it blew the fuse that they had replaced.   Paul had to adapt a switch panel instead.  Then the audible buzzer started and Paul diagnosed that the oil pressure warning light had  packed up and the new one which was supposed to be a direct replacement leaked out all of the oil.  The shop got another new one in and the same thing happened and so obviously the packaging for these was incorrect.  We are having to rely upon the old original switch but Paul has to maintain a close check on the oil levels.   Hopefully we will be able to get a proper replacement from Martinique where the proper Fischer Panda agent is.  Obviously the one in Trini was a pretend job. 

 

Then the long range VHF radio failed, so we have to buy a new one when we get up the islands as we cannot get a recognised make down here and we want to be able to trust the guarantee.  I then decided to check out the email which runs through the SSB radio.  Turned the computer on and guess what – nothing.  It did not work at all.   Many hours went by with head in PC case all to no avail.  It was dead, deceased, it was no more.  With it went all of our navigation charts, ( yes we do have paper ones but the electronic versions make life so simple when approaching harbours, islands etc), our sea based email etc, etc.  Paul Jnr tried to help but it is so difficult when you are thousands of miles away and diagnosing hardware problems down the telephone is not easy. 

 

So next step was to use my laptop and to transfer all of the software onto it.  Easier said than done of course.  The GPS and the radio modem both use a serial connecter (that’s nerds talk for a bit in the computer)  and my lap top does not have any of those and so we had to go out shopping to buy two adapter cables.  The first shop we went in wanted over £100 for the two cables. We then got on the local bus and went to Radio Shack and after being told that they  did not have any, I did the only thing that you can do and looked for myself and there they were.  A mere £50 for the pair!!!!

 

The next thing was to fit them and connect the computer up to the instruments.  The Navigation programme was fine and I got the little boat on the screen showing that they were talking to each other, but the radio I am afraid has been rather problematic and two days of hard thinking has not resolved it.  The auto remote software will not change the radio frequency automatically as it should.  So I’ll try again another day.

 

Apart from that we are now ready to go and we hope to head off on Tuesday 18th  heading for Grenada.   Our real cruising will hopefully then start and we can start to relax. 

See you in Grenada!

Returning to Trini

Here we are again.Far away from the cold rainy weather of England here we are again in Sunny Trinidad for the start of the next round of cruising and relaxation. But oh boy is it hot!! 35° plus and no breeze. There is a category 3 tropical storm heading for Cuba at the moment and it is changing the wind patters and seems to be sucking it await from here.

Nothing changes in Trinidad except for the prices. Inflation is at abut 14% (we are told) and the price of fuel and groceries have gone up considerably. What with that and the fall in the value of the pound to the US dollar, it hits hard.  Still, we don’t need heating on the boat at least.

The Americans here all seem happy with the outcome of the US election and only time will tell if their optimism is well placed.

We arrived in Port of Spain airport at just before 5 pm local time, 40 minutes ahead of schedule but we need not have worried that we would have to wait for our cabbie. Immigration and Customs saw to that. One of the first into the airport terminal, we were the last out. We chose the queue that was shortest but believe me the officer was the most stringent and must have read every paper before her two or three times before raising queries on everyone who went before. By the time we got through Immigration we collected all of our bags which had by now been put on the ground next to the carousel (yes Danielle ALL of our bags). We then trundled over the Customs where we had to declare our boat parts which we were taking to the boat and it must have been a good 45 minutes before we got through his laid back challenges. He gave us a piece of paper and told us that we must report to Customs in Chagauramas within the hour, which is good as it takes at least 45 minutes by road assuming that you do not hit any traffic (not literally) or traffic lights etc.

We finally got out of the airport terminal and prayed that our cab was waiting. How lucky were we, Paul caught him just leaving the car park as he had been waiting for over 2 hours and was giving up on us. We made the distance is just about an hour and visited customs out of hours of course which meant that we had to pay them overtime which seems a nice earner as all of the planes seem to arrive in the evening.

I am pleased to report that Helen Mary Gee was just fine. A little dirty but not too bad having been left for over six months. We spent three or four days cleaning her and painting her bottom (Paul turned into the blue man from sanding down the old antifouling) and then refitting the deck and rigging. Sails were collected back from the sail loft where they had been repaired after the damage at Granada week. We ordered some new cockpit cushions and repairs to the spray hood and bimini, before we left in March and surprisingly we are still waiting.

We found a bee had started to build a nest on an old Barnacle which had survived the pressure wash in March. He was busily creating the cells on his own. We found out that he is a very dangerous species of bee whose sting would be three times worse than a normal bee and would cause a fever for several days. I believe it was called a skipper jack, but am most probably wrong, I will have to find out more later.

 

The bee who was building his/her next on our hull

Our launch was not without excitement. The crane guys came around at about 12 mid day in order to lift HMG into the strops so that Paul could antifoul the patches where the chocks had been. However when one of the chocks was moved we found that one of the screws which holds the pad to the metal was about 3 mil proud and had dug its imprint into the gel shield and gel coat causing a split in the surface. We were told that the launch would be delayed for a day whilst the yard put it right. However the man, supposedly the best man in the yard for this type of work came up with some gel coat shield repair that could be used underwater and therefore once the repair was made, Paul could anti foul it and then it could be launched. Brilliant.

We were lifted into the water and Paul started the engine and it cut out. Panic stations. Obviously some air had been caught in the diesel system and he had to bleed it, which he did. Unfortunately the mooring lines had been loosened ready for us to go and the side of the hull went down the side of the metal hoist making nasty scratches in the hull. Still we went around the anchorage to celebrate being on the water again when all of a sudden the engine died again. There we were weaving in amongst all of the anchored boats, without any sails, no engine and no way of propelling the boat to avoid them. The only solution was to glide up to one of the boats, hang on him or her whilst Paul sorted the engine once and for all. No-one was on board the yacht except the two dogs which came out barking at me. After the initial reaction of flipping heck, although they were noisy they were not bearing fangs and so we positioned ourselves so that we were against the deck covers and so they could not bite our hands off.

Minutes later an aperplectic yachtie returned to his boat screaming “have you hit me, have you damaged me” to which we said no on both counts and explained our predicament. Once he had calmed down he was quite helpful and took our lines and started to talk. We proferred him the usual beer and his mood improved drastically.  Paul made certain this time and some twenty minutes later we were off again to find our berth and all went well. We came along to our berth only to find that we were to be moored against a boat called Lucy Ellen which came from Weymouth, as did the owners Neil and Josie. Small world.

Glyn our new crewmember arrived on Tuesday 4 November and he is wonderful. He does not like sitting around doing nothing and he has polished the hull to almost perfection and now he is rubbing down the tired varnish ready for teak oiling. HMG looks really nice and ready for the adventures ahead.

We are waiting for a new battery which actually did arrive on Friday, but the man who was selling it to us told us that one of his customers needed two batteries of the same size urgently and he only had ours and one other. Would we mind him having ours on the basis that he would guarantee a new one for next week. I do hope he is as good as his word as we will be leaving here on the weekend of 15/16. We’ll see!

Keep watching for our adventures when they start (we hope) next weekend.

Love to all

Helen and Paul

 

Returning to Trini

 

Here we are again.

Far away from the cold rainy weather of England here we are again in Sunny Trinidad for the start of the next round of cruising and relaxation. But oh boy is it hot!! 35° plus and no breeze with what seems like 100% humidity. There is a category 3 tropical storm heading for Cuba at the moment and it is changing the wind patterns and seems to be sucking it await from here.

Nothing changes in Trinidad except for the prices. Inflation is at abut 14% (we are told) and the price of fuel and groceries have gone up considerably. What with that and the fall in the value of the pound to the US dollar, it hits hard.  Still, we don’t need heating on the boat at least.

The Americans here all seem happy with the outcome of the US election and only time will tell if their optimism is well placed.

We arrived in Port of Spain airport at just before 5 pm local time, 40 minutes ahead of schedule but we need not have worried that we would have to wait for our cabbie. Immigration and Customs saw to that. One of the first into the airport terminal, we were the last out. We chose the queue that was shortest but believe me the officer was the most stringent and must have read every paper before her two or three times before raising queries on everyone who went before. By the time we got through Immigration we collected all of our bags which had by now been put on the ground next to the carousel (yes Danielle ALL of our bags). We then trundled over the Customs where we had to declare our boat parts which we were taking to the boat and it must have been a good 45 minutes before we got through his laid back challenges. He gave us a piece of paper and told us that we must report to Customs in Chagauramas within the hour, which is good as it takes at least 45 minutes by road assuming that you do not hit any traffic (not literally) or traffic lights etc.

We finally got out of the airport terminal and prayed that our cab was waiting. How lucky were we, Paul caught him just leaving the car park as he had been waiting for over 2 hours and was giving up on us. We made the distance is just about an hour and visited customs out of hours of course which meant that we had to pay them overtime which seems a nice earner as all of the planes seem to arrive in the evening.

I am pleased to report that Helen Mary Gee was just fine. A little dirty but not too bad having been left for over six months. We spent three or four days cleaning her and painting her bottom and then refitting the deck and rigging. Sails were collected back from the sail loft where they had been repaired  and cleaned after the damage at Granada week. We ordered some new cockpit cushions and repairs to the spray hood and bimini, before we left in March and surprisingly we are still waiting.

We found a bee had started to build a nest on an old Barnacle which had survived the pressure wash in March. He was busily creating the cells on his own. We found out that he is a very dangerous species of bee whose sting would be three times worse than a normal bee and would cause a fever for several days. I believe it was called a skipper jack, but am most probably wrong, I will have to find out more later. Our launch was not without excitement. The crane guys came around at about 12 mid day in order to lift HMG into the strops so that Paul could antifoul the patches where the chocks had been. However when one of the chocks was moved we found that one of the screws which holds the pad to the metal was about 3 mil proud and had dug its imprint into the gel shield and gel coat causing a split in the surface.  We were told that the launch would be delayed for a day whilst the yard put it right. However the man, supposedly the best man in the yard for this type of work came up with some gel coat shield repair that could be used underwater and therefore once the repair was made, Paul could anti foul it and then it could be launched. Brilliant.

We were lifted into the water and Paul started the engine and it cut out. Panic stations. Obviously some air had been caught in the diesel system and he had to bleed it, which he did. Unfortunately the mooring lines had been loosened ready for us to go and the side of the hull went down the side of the metal hoist making nasty scratches in the hull. Still we went around the anchorage to celebrate being on the water again when all of a sudden the engine died again. There we were weaving in amongst all of the anchored boats, without any sails, no engine and no way of propelling the boat to avoid them. The only solution was to glide up to one of the boats, hang on him or her whilst Paul sorted the engine once and for all. No-one was on board the yacht except the two dogs which came out barking at me. After the initial reaction of flipping heck, although they were noisy they were not bearing fangs and so we positioned ourselves so that we were against the deck covers and so they could not bite our hands off.

Minutes later an aperplectic yachtie returned to his boat screaming “have you hit me, have you damaged me” to which we said no on both counts and explained our predicament. Once he had calmed down he was quite helpful and took our lines and started to talk. It seemed that the proferred beer did the trick.  It

The bee making its nest

usually does. Paul made certain this time and some twenty minutes later we were off again to find our berth and all went well. We came along to our berth only to find that we were to be moored against a boat called Lucy Ellen which came from Weymouth, as did the owners Neil and Josie. Small world.

Glyn our new crewmember arrived on Tuesday 4 November and he is wonderful. He does not like sitting around doing nothing and he has polished the hull to almost perfection and now he is rubbing down the tired varnish ready for teak oiling. HMG looks really nice and ready for the adventures ahead.

We are waiting for a new battery which actually did arrive on Friday, but the man who was selling it to us told us that one of his customers needed two batteries of the same size urgently and he only had ours and one other. Would we mind him having ours on the basis that he would guarantee a new one for next week. I do hope he is as good as his word as we will be leaving here on the weekend of 15/16. We’ll see!

Keep watching for our adventures when they start (we hope) next weekend.

Love to all

Helen and Paul

Heading back to Trinidad

Yes, the time has come for us to rejoin Helen Mary Gee.  Hopefully she will forgive us for leaving her for what seems such a long time.

We leave the UK on Tuesday 28th October and hopefully we will have many new stories to tell.

Keep watching this space

Parasail and us

For those of you who remember our trials and tribulations with the Parasail, I thought it a good idea to update you on what happened having lugged the rather large, heavy sail back from the Caribbean to England.   The day we arrived back we detoured to drop the sail off at Seateach the supplier of the sail in Emsworth.   I must admit the conversation was very strained and it was obvious that Stuart was not happy to see us and we were ushered out of the shop as quickly as possible.  I suppose I don’t really blame him for that.

He duly sent the sail back to Istec, the German company who made the sail “for inspection”.   We wrote a full report and referred to the comments made by our German sail maker in Trinidad who in effect told us that the cloth that the sail was made from was only suitable for offshore work and not long distance cruising.  The minimum weight cloth would have been 1.75 and the sail made for us was estimated at 1.25 to 1.5 ounce.  The fact that the sail ripped from and including the ribbons evidenced that.

We were delighted to later receive an email from Stuart to say that having had the sail inspected he was arranging for a full refund of the cost of the sail.  A great relief to us and we thank Stuart for his assistance.

So the motto of this story is that if you are considering buying one of these sails, either buy it from Seateach, who have proved to be very honest or from a supplier in your country of domicile.  We have heard of others who bought them from outside of their own country and when they had problems they had no backup.

In our experience

Pluses exceptionally powerful in light winds and gave us good boat speed.

Minuses – 1. just as fussy as a spinnaker.  It requires the pole for control. 2. Will not fly properly if the main is up. 3. get it down before the winds build. Our sail lifted the big lad from Istec and one of my crew off the deck. 4.  In our experience very unstable when the wind builds.  5.  As the main is not up there is nothing to shield it to safely drop the sail (friends of ours on their 49 footer had to use their hydraulics to haul the roller furling mainsail out of the mast to get some blanket for the drop.  6.  When you get the Parasail away you have to stop the boat mid ocean, turn it to wind to set the white sails.  – not easy in bigs seas.

A happy ending.

Summary of events in Trinidad after Carnival

Greetings to all of you. 

Firstly let me apologise for the unforgiveable delay in updating our adventures.   I left you after carnival waiting eagerly for pictures that did not arrive.  Well I should have expected it really but never mind.

Once Matt left we upped anchor and left the wonderful green waters of Chaguramas and headed for the equally green waters of Scotland Bay. It is green because of the rich nutrients that flow from the Orinoco in Venezuela, well that is what we are told anyway.   Scotland Bay  is an area where you can hear the Howler Monkeys in the rain forest and until you know what the noise is it is quite scary.  The different herds of monkeys (if that is the right term) call to each other and sometimes it sounds as if they are only a few feet away.  Hopefully they don’t like water.

As always adventures follow these intrepid explorers.  We chose our anchorage and settled down in the cockpit for our sundowner and watched the evening fall.  Scotland Bay is very dark once the sun disappears and so quiet.  However as we sat there, we saw a very dark inflatable enter the bay and we watched it pass the boats on the right (starboard) side of the bay and following the water line they headed up towards us, we being the last boat on the left hand (port) side.  Hope you enjoy the nautical terms I feel I should include so that you can feel a part of this.  What was this, were they pirates, smugglers or worse.  Yes worse, it was Customs and Immigration, obviously with some spare time and we heard the voice say “yes Helen Mary Gee is on our list” and then “Helen Mary Gee prepare to be boarded.”  We cordially invited them on board, all 5 of them, leaving two others on their boat ready for them to come to their colleagues aid should we turn vicious.   Three sat in the cockpit with me, including the “bossman” and the other two went down below (downstairs)  with Paul.  In brief, they took the boat apart, looking for firearms and drugs.  Now those of you who know us, can you imagine us having anything like this on board, I ask you.  They had the floorboards up emptied lockers, cupboards and each time they had to wait whilst Paul put everything back in its place before moving on to the next area.

Anyway an hour and a half later we waved goodbye to our new friends and promptly sat down for another drink.  Boy that was scary.  Dressed in black with big black boots on.  I did stop myself from asking them to remove their boots to avoid scratching the floor and bringing cockroach eggs on board, but I erred in favour of discretion, not fancying spending the night in prison.

Anyway,  after a couple of days we were forced to leave Scotland Bay as our noble future king of England and his lovely wife were flying in (BA business class) and they would be spending their stay in Trinidad and Tobago on the yacht Leander which was to be anchored in yes you guessed it, Scotland Bay and the surrounding waters.  It was afterall very big and they had to have an exclusion area for security.      We mere mortals were therefore evacuated and had to return to Chag.   It was amusing watching the preparations.  Trinidad is not the cleanest of places and the locals arrive in SB, unload their boats onto their part of the beach where they regularly barbecue, leaving all of the rubbish behind them.  We certainly did not entertain going ashore there as it was clearly a health hazard.  Anyway, this inflatable appeared one morning with what we believed was the clean up team.  They duly took ashore their coolbox and a few bags and there they sat drinking their beer and now and again picking up a bit of litter, mainly that which they had dropped.  At a bout four  in the afternoon they put their coolbox back in their boat and went home.  There  was no appreciable inroads into the mess and we assumed that this would be a daily chore which would end up in a cleaner brighter Scotland Bay in time for the Royal visit. 

We decided a little bit of a treat was in order and booked HMG into one of the marinas in Chag and enjoyed the luxury of the swimming pool, where we could cool ourselves down when the sun was too hot for a mere mortal to bear.  We thought that as Charles was enjoying himself we would too. 

All too soon it was time for us to leave and take HMG over to Powerboats where she was due to be taken out of the water and prepared for her summer holiday on shore, whilst we flew home to the UK to see what lay ahead of us in Sutton Poyntz with our builder friends who were working on our new house whilst we were away.   We are glad that we went home early for our Danielle’s birthday, as I dread to think what we would have gone home to two months later.  Its best really not to get me started on that subject, needless to say we were not amused (as Victoria would have said). It took us up to the end of July to get rid of them and they did not come back to do the snagging list which continues to grow as we find new things.  Any way, another experience.

We are now getting ready to return to Trinidad on 28th October and take up where we left off.  I do hope that you will keep in touch.  We will be out in the Caribbean until May 2009.  Unfortunately due to me being lame, well I would be if I were a horse as I have damaged my right arm, which will not be a surprised for all of you who know me well.  It means that I have to face the surgeon’s knife in June of next year, and that has put pay to our Pacific adventure for the time being, as I will be unlikely to build up enough muscles and use in my arm to feel that I can successfully help Paul, in the event of big seas and strong winds which I come to expect from sailing.  We have therefore decided to bring HMG back to the Med and explore some of the places a little closer to home.   We could possibly have waited another year to see what transpired, but the thought of another over-summer for the boat in Chag really did not appeal.  It is the only safe place to leave her, out of the hurricane belt.   Whatever happens we will keep you updated and our adventures, I am sure our travels will be as exciting.  I can’t wait for the next trip and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes Helen (and Paul of course)

On to Trinidad

We left Grenada about 10pm for Trinidad and Carnival.  Matt had long expressed a wish to visit carnival but the thought of Trinidad so early in our cruising was something that we did not want to consider.  However, we decided that perhaps carnival was worth seeing and so acceded to the suggestion.

The trip was abysmal; firstly no wind and then up to 20 knots from behind  in rather lumpy seas, we had no alternative but to engine or go miles out of our way to keep sailing.  Every time the wind came up a little we tried again to sail.  Those sails were in and out like the hokey-cokey or  the sun in England!  We got lucky as we approached Trinidad and did have a nice sail through the Boca into the sheltered waters of Chaguaramas. 

The bay was exceedingly busy as we were well into carnival.  We spent over an hour trying to find a good spot to anchor as it is  notoriously difficult  to find a safe steady anchorage.  There are many different tidal influences and it has been know that boats collide with each other as the wind and tide push and pull the boats in different directions.   That done, we made the ever present trip to customs and immigration.  We had heard stories as to just how difficult customs can be for visiting yachtsmen and yachtladies and were expecting the worst and were pleasantly surprised.  UK and other European boats do not seem to have as many problems as those from US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to name but a few.  

We were lucky to be able to book a couple of carnival events.  We booked for Demanche Gras, the show where the winners of the carnival kings and queens are chosen and the final of the calypso competition takes place.  As we were late comers only the more expensive tickets were available.    We were however treated very regally, being escorted to “J” box where we could have the choice of seats right in front of the stage and undercover which was especially good as we had just had a downpour (yes rain) and we thought that we would get wet.  However it did not rain  again that evening.  Just as well because the costumes of the Kings and Queens were outstandingly beautiful and it would have been criminal if they had spoiled by getting wet.   

The stand was empty at that time.  The coach had dropped us off at 6 pm for show start at 7 pm.  As always being the Caribbean it did not in fact start until 7.30   As stated the costumes were stunning and the judges had to chose the best of king and queen from the 20 finalists.  We were disappointed as we were told that under no circumstances would we be able to take photos, as permits were issued only to the media.  Imagine my disappointment when all and sundry were taking pictures and we did not bring our camera.  I would have been able to show you some of the wonderful costumes that must have taken forever to prepare.

Unfortunately Calypso is not how I remembered it.  I was thinking of Harry Belafonte.  The judges assess the competition on presentation and song content e.g. lyrics.  There were fifteen finalists and each song lasted about 15 minutes.  Most of them seem to be very angry at the world and everyone in it for something or other but it was so hard for us and I’m sure we were not the only ones, to understand the very heavy Trinidadian dialogue.  To be quite honest I fell asleep in this part but hey! 

The sad thing was that we had to leave before they announced the winners of the kings and queens and the king/queen of calypso, I assume that this was because they started late and not because I had turned into Cindarella.  Our coach pick up was 12.00 midnight.

As we waited for our bus we were treated to a wonderful firework display.   Because Carnival is so big in Trini, it was televised and luckily as we got on the bus the winners were announced on the radio.  Needless to say that the winners were not the ones that I chose but then I could never win the lottery either.  

Matt had decided to join in Jouvert which was taking place on Monday morning.  This spectacle consists of the various bands with their supporters who in turn throw mud and paint at each other.  Yes quite a spectacle.  The official buses were full and Matt and his friend Christian could not get a place and so they decided that they would stay in Port of Spain on the Sunday night instead of catching the bus back with us.   The owner of the taxi company would not however let them do this.  The reason being that the local gangs were already gathering in the parks and on the streets and it would be foolhardy and unsafe for the two white lads to wander around.   Jessie (the taxi man) agreed that he would fit them in somehow the next morning.  The pickup was at 3 am, such dedication.

My only statement to Matt was that he had to clean up before he got back to the boat as he was not coming on board covered in mud and paint.  Meany me.     He arrived back at about 10 am Monday morning ad hopefully you can see my reasoning.

The final day of carnival is Tuesday, the march of the bands which is what it says, but the bands are not men/ladies playing instruments.  They are lorry floats containing the biggest ever sound equipment with the biggest ever speakers you could ever imagine playing carnival dance music.   When they stopped near you the whole of your insides vibrated.  I actually lost the hearing in my left ear for the rest of the day.   The police horses didn’t seem to like it either, the only trouble we saw was when one of the police horses objected and went careering down the road with a helpless policeman on his back, his machine gun jumping up and down as he tried to control the bucking bronco.   He certainly cleared the crowds fast!

Paul  found his vocation when faced with a rather scantily clad girl who chose him to body dance or “grind” .  He readily accepted the challenge and amazed some of the locals with his talents.  I will have to watch him from now on. 

We left carnival to return to HMG but the dancing carried on into the night.  I hope to have some photos for you to share in time, but I am in the hands of a nice Irishman that I met who promised to send me some.  We will wait and see what happens there.

One sad thing that we heard whilst we were in Grenada was that Swagman one of the ARC boats was boarded whilst he was at anchor in St Vincent.  Apparently he was locked in at night and he was told in no uncertain terms to unlock the hatch or it would be opened for him.   He did so but resisted the boarders and was wounded by the guy wielding a machete knife.  They stole jewellery and money.  Not a happy experience and we feel for them. 

Anyway, time to post this for your delights.   I do hope that you enjoy reading our tales.  It is nice to record the events of our trips and it keeps you all in touch with our adventures. 

Love as always and until the next time.

Helen and Paul

Greetings from the Caribbean!!

For you all so that you can see how we spent Christmas Day. Please note the Christmas Tree that Matt bought me complete with baubles. For those of you having difficulty in seeing it, look in front of the steering wheel. The background is Petite Piton in Soufriere, St Lucia.

Firstly a note from Paul

As you are aware Helen has been keeping a record of our cruising and the trials and tribulations. The preparations to do the trip started two years ago and it seemed as if the finish date would never come. Well it did and in a rush. Boats by their nature are never finished and the sea adds to the list.

The knockdown on our first night was unexpected and if we had not carried out the prudent stowing of foods tins etc, plus fitting good strong lifelines Helen and the rest of us would not have been so lucky. That night’s events shook the stuffing out of me and we sailed conservatively for the next 28 hours which probably cost me first place. However just to finish was good.

With storm force 10 mid Atlantic there is no time to be frightened and there was a time when I could have easily stayed in my bunk, but you just carry on sailing as safely as you can. We now know that in 55 knots plus, HMG does 6 knots under bare poles! The seas were awful, confused cross seas which were maybe only 18 feet tall but they seemed bigger. I certainly have no wish to experience them again.

The Caribbean is beautiful as always. The sun is out 95% of the time and the water is 31^◦. I leave the tale to be told by Helen and look forward to seeing you all soon

(Admin: The update from the boat is a rather large one so I’ve broken it down into days instead of one long post. You can find all of the updates in the Caribbean category. All I can say is I wish I was out there rather than in rainy England!)

The voyage continues

18th January 2008

We left Carriacou heading for Grenada. The last time we were out in the Caribbean, Granada was one of my favourite islands, quite cultivated and full of exploration prospects.   I hope that it has not changed too much.

We headed for Prickly Bay on the south of the island as it is one of the main check in ports but as we had already done the business it did not affect us.  Carriacou which I spoke about in my last update is part of Grenada and our visit to Hillsborough documented earlier was enough to last a good while. 

 The sail was good all the way until we reached the headland to head east when the wind was on the nose and so we dropped the sails and engined in to find a good place to anchor.  We have found the benefit of our forward looking depth sounder as there is no buoyage out here unless laid by private enterprise.  This particular coast line is scattered with outcrops, isolated rocks and very shallow shoals.  What you have to do however, is to look at it for it to be of any use. As we engined around the anchorage the keel touched bottom at the end of the marked channel, luckily quick thinking by our skipper and a swift hand to put the engine astern he resolved the problem and we were on the move again.

 Having anchored we were quick to survey the local bars and restaurants.   We also had to start to investigate the best place to leave the boat when we return to England.   Grenada was hit by hurricane Ivan a few years ago and again by Emily the following year.  Many boats were seriously damaged.  Insurance companies now exclude hurricane damage from insurance policies unless of course you are at sea at the time.  So the answer is to get the boat launched should a hurricane be forecast, get aboard and go out to sea.  No problem!  The insurance company then pays out the proceeds claim to the next of kin as we would probably be dead.   So I will say to Paul and Danielle that will not happen!  We will definitely pass on that idea.  Tropical storm Olga was as much as I want to experience in a lifetime. 

 We phoned the insurance company and they said that we could leave the boat anywhere we liked but we would not have cover.  This ruled out Grenada in our mind, as, although they use special cradles and tie down the boats, they are only in fields and the rain that accompanies any large storm would turn the field into mud in no time and loosen any land pegs that they use.  Furthermore the cost of the storage was comparative to the south coast of England.  We are therefore left with two options Venezuala or Trinidad.  Problems for another day!

 When we were in Pettite Martinique at the boat launch we met several VIPs from Grenada and they were trying to persuade us to enter the sailing festival.  Paul doesn’t need much persuading to go into “racing mode”   To make this possible  we would have to have the boat measured.  That seemed to be a challenge in itself.  An appointment was made for the measurer to do his best but we had to take it to Port Louis Marina  as they could not do it whilst at anchor.

 Port Louis was recently sold by Peter Desavery (the owner of the launched boat in Carriacou) to Camper Nicholson Marinas.  We arrived on 23^rd January.  Port Louis is at the lagoon in St Georges.  As you go into the approach there are a number of red buoys, but they are bunched in a rather confusing way rather like a group of teenagers on the street corner.  There was only one green buoy in amongst them.  You then look at the red buoys a little closer and you see that the  top of one or two of them iare green.   This totally threw us.  We decided to keep all of the red buoys to our starboard side and head towards the single green buoy which proved to be the correct decision.  We were later told that the workmen dredging the channel in preparation for the super yachts that would be using Port Louis, tended moved the buoys around like chess pieces but without the strategy of chess.  I think they got great amusement watching the yachties navigating the narrow channel in this way. 

 The first appointment for the measurer was at 12.00 on Wednesday.  He arrived at about 3.00 pm to say that it would now be midday on Thursday.  It changed to 3.00 pm  He arrived at 4.30.  It took him about 2.5 hours to do his measuring and commented that he would give us details on Friday. 

 We went into race week without any idea of our CSA handicap which was probably just as well because it is doubtful that we would have taken part had we know what it was.   We were told that he would give us three scenarios  depending on the rig that we wanted to use and so we waited.   It appears that the chances of success are weighed very heavily in favour of local boats.   For most of the regattas they have two classes – racing which means that you can fly a spinnaker  and cruiser which means that you don’t.      We were therefore against locals one of whom had taken a chain saw to the bulk heads in his 46 foot boat  to make it lighter and it turned out that we gave him time.  No account is taken in CSA measuring of the weight of the boat, just the speed potential of the hull.    However, that’s enough  of such technical bits. 

 Needless to say Paul was furious when he found out the handicap on the eve of the last day of racing so much so that he refused to put the boat at risk any more.    We had taken out some of the local lads on the boat, one to add a few more bodies and two for them to have a little sailing experience.  They thoroughly enjoyed themselves, but their inexperience caused difficulties.  On Sunday we had a hole punched in our new headsail.  I spent from 3 00 pm until  8.45 pm patching and sewing the repair. 

On Monday when Matt was not on board because he went to his friend’s wedding we were even lighter crewed and once again the sail was not released properly and another hole appeared next to yesterday’s repair.  I was to say the least upset.  My fingers were so sore and the thought of doing it again was absolutely soul destroying.    However Georgie, who had been sailing with us because her yacht was being chartered and the guests did not want her on board, came up trumps and did the majority of the repair for me.  What a star!

 We skipped prize giving on the Tuesday night as the fun of the event had been lost on us.  The next morning however we found out that we had been awarded a prize firstly for allowing ourselves to be hijacked from cruising and secondly for bringing our home onto the race course.    They gave us a Yamaha 2 horsepower outboard which we had to collect from the local Honda dealer.  A very nice gesture.   We had to jump through hoops to get customs clearance to export the engine which took about three  hours.

 One of the guys that we took out was called Cecil.  Cecil is a larger than life Granadian and has lived in England for much of his life, in Thamesmead.  He was back on his annual 5 week holiday and was so thrilled to be invited on the boat.   He said that he would arrange an island tour for us by way of thank you.   The tour was excellent.  Unfortunately the drink/drive laws in Grenada are somewhat lax.  Kevin, the driver, was very practiced at driving with a beer in one hand.  At one point he was decanting a bottle of Carib into his Heineken can, whilst driving and he did not spill a drop.  We are told but hope it is not true that as long as you can lean against the car with one hand without falling over, you are safer to drive than walk!