July 21
We didn't do much of anything during the day today. Barb made a macaroni salad for the pot luck diner tonight. Early in the afternoon, we got a call from Britt on Sea Otter. He was baking a cake for the pot luck, and his oven quit working. He wanted to know if he could finish it in our oven. He brought the half-baked cake over by dinghy and popped it in. We chatted for about half an hour while it finished baking. Lucky for him we had just fixed our propane system a few days ago.
The pot luck started at 17:00. There were at least fifty people there, who came not only from the marina, but also from the nearby anchorages. As usual, Bob the owner fired up his grill for those who wanted to cook some meat. There was plenty of food and everyone was full. There was even enough to feed two couples who showed up looking for the bar and didn't know about the pot luck. After everybody was done eating and the dishes were cleared, we started karaoke. Pat and I both thought we wouldn't sing since everybody heard our entire repertoires last week. But, there were enough new people and enough alcohol consumed that we changed our minds. The crowd really got into the whole thing and lots of people participated, including some who had never done it before. Remarkably, nobody sounded bad. The worst of this group was better than the best of the people we saw in St. Maarten a few weeks ago. Dave from Pirate's Hideout, who was one of the first timers, was excellent doing a Garth Brooks song. Barb and I retired from the party about 22:00, but we learned in the morning that it continued until past midnight.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 22
I hosted the Coconut Telegraph SSB net this morning. It will be interesting to see how participation in the net changes as more and more boats get to where they are going to stay for a few months. On the subject of getting where they are staying, we said goodbye to Sol Y Mar today. They are moving on south to Trinidad for a few months. We have been with them just about every day since we left Georgetown, Bahamas back in February. It's going to be odd not having them around. But, we'll hook back up in November probably and bounce around the Windwards and Leewards next year.
At 15:00 we went over to Hog Island for the Sunday barbeque at Roger's Beach Bar. We specifically wanted to go this week, because a cruiser who has been here five years is going to show a video of Hurricane Ivan. There is also supposed to be an informal hurricane preparedness talk after the video. The cruiser hosting this had his boat here in the marina at the time, and had a dispute with Bob after the storm. He now is quite vocal when given the chance, badmouthing Bob and the marina. I was curious not only to see the pictures of what happened to the marina, but also to hear if he left his personal feelings out of it. The video was pretty amazing. It was shot from the patio of a restaurant on the other side of the bay, and showed all of Clarke's Court Bay and the marina. Four boats were anchored in the bay, and two were on moorings. The marina looked like it was pretty full. When the storm first hit, the wind was from the north, in the 130mph range. By the time the eye got here, the four anchored boats were gone, blown out to sea. A trimaran on one of the moorings had flipped over and it and the large concrete mooring block were onshore. The other moored boat was still where it started and was fine. The marina had started to break apart and boats were being damaged as they crushed into one another. There is one scene where Bob had gotten aboard a very large motor yacht that was on the t-head of one dock, and had it running full throttle in reverse to try and keep the dock from moving further. Once the eye passed, the wind came back just as strong but now from the south. This made the marina swing around the other way and a number of boats, including the guy hosting this showing, ended up on the rocks with the docks still attached and other boats piled up on them. The lone boat in the anchorage was still afloat and undamaged, but it had drug it's mooring block a couple hundred yards and was only feet away from joining the pileup at the marina when the storm finally abated. There was more video taken the next day of the damage. The couple making the video drove around the marina, and then through the Hog Island anchorage and then Mt. Hartman Bay, the next bay west of here. Lots of the boats anchored in the Hog Island anchorage were fine, but that is probably attributable to the fact that the anchorage is well protected from both north and south, so they wouldn't have gotten the full force of the winds in either direction. There were many boats damaged here too though. One notable story was of an unattended boat that blew out to sea along with two others. When the wind shifted, one of them blew back and re-anchored itself about fifty feet from where it started. This involved passing over a reef both ways without significant damage. The boat is still anchored there today. There were also numerous still photos of the aftermath. The marina damage was significant. The marina does not use pilings. Each dock is anchored to the land by being bolted to a huge concrete pad. Then there are 3700 lbs concrete blocks on the bottom that the dock are chained to every twenty feet or so. The chains anchoring them are long enough that the docks can rise in a storm surge. That's how it is today. In 2004, the docks were twice as long, giving more leverage when they started to move, there were fewer anchoring blocks, and the chains were not long enough, so the blocks were lifted when the surge came. We hope Bob is correct that the changes he has made will help if we weather any storms here. There were many pictures of the two boatyards where hundreds of boats were stored on the hard. It is very common for people to sail south and then rather than stay here all summer, they will have their boats hauled and stored on land until they come back after hurricane season. Since there had never been a hurricane in Grenada, the yards didn't take the same precautions they do now. The sail boats were all parked with just a couple feet between them, with their masts up, and only a couple of jack stands on each side to hold them. When the winds came, they all fell like dominoes. Just about every boat in the yard fell over, leaving a tangled pile of masts and rigging. Reportedly, more damage was probably done when the yard started standing them back up because in the interest of time, they cut things instead of trying to do no more damage. Today, every boat in the yard has six jack stands, and they are strapped to the ground with large straps like are used on flatbed trucks to secure their loads. These straps are hooked to eyebolts that are screwed into the ground at each corner of each boat. They still store them with the masts up, but they are all stripped of sails and canvas. The most amazing thing to me was the lack of preparedness on many boaters part. Granted, a storm had never hit here. And granted Ivan was forecast to take a turn that never happened. But, even so basic preparation, including removing the sails, cockpit canvas, and anything else from the deck that you can, wasn't done. In the aftermath pictures, boat after boat had shredded sails flapping in the breeze. There is just no excuse for that. If you are on the boat when the storm is coming, you take the time and do the work. If you are leaving the boat for even a week during storm season, you should prep it as if a storm is coming. That way your neighbors aren't stuck trying to do it for you. I have been through at least four tropical storms and two Cat 1 hurricanes in Texas, and I can strip this boat in an hour if I have to, so there is no reason not to do it except indifference or ignorance. I should point out that the cruiser hosting the video showing never did say anything specifically bad about Bob or the marina. He was clear that in his opinion the last place you would want to be is in the marina, but he said that as if he felt it was true of any marina. He would rather take his chances tied in the mangroves by himself, which is a fine approach if you have a place to do it.
When we returned to the boat a little before dark, we hoisted the dinghy on the davits. I moved the boat forward a few inches, so there is room between the stern and the dock to float the dinghy in there and attach it to the davits. We only hoisted it enough to be out of the water and left the motor attached. We did this because on our trip to Hog Island today, I noticed that we could barely get going fast enough to get up on a plane. So there must be crap growing on the bottom already. Once hoisted, sure enough there is a layer of growth slowing us down. Another job to do.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 23
I hosted the Coconut Telegraph again today. We were happy to hear Sol Y Mar check in from about ten miles out of Trinidad. They had a pleasant crossing with no problems. We learned on the local VHF net this morning that there had been a dinghy motor theft last night at Hog Island. A boat that is anchored just off the marina had been there from about 15:30 until 21:30. Sometime, presumably after dark, the fifteen horsepower outboard disappeared off the dinghy. It had not been locked to the dinghy as it should be, but it was still odd that this happened in close proximity to the people still at the bar. Roger's Beach Bar is an open air hut, so it was pretty gutsy for someone to mess with a dinghy when they could be easily noticed.
I tackled several small boat projects today. I relocated a cabin fan in the aft cabin. A couple months ago I had installed a new fan on my side of the bed, and in doing so realized that part of the reason the one on Barb's side doesn't work well is that the factory installed it right in the corner where it can't move much air. So, I relocated it to be more away from the wall and hopefully that will help. I had to empty the hanging locker of it's contents to do this, and Barb decided to go through the clothes before re-hanging them to see what we might get rid of. You would think that in the tiny space we have on the boat, we wouldn't have any extra stuff, but we still have way too many clothes. As Barb was sorting through the hanging stuff, she expanded her scope and unloaded another locker of clothes that we never open. If we never open it, there must be stuff we can get rid of in there. A lot of that stuff was clothes for colder weather, which we may need someday, but still she came up with a large plastic bag of stuff that we will donate here. There will be people in Grenada wearing BMC shirts soon. As part of the clothes purging, I took five t-shirts which were size L, and made them into diesel jerry jug covers. I've worn XL shirts for years, so this was a pretty safe bet that I wouldn't need these shirts. The jerry jugs are plastic and will get brittle over time in the sun, so covering them hopefully will slow that process. My last project for the day was to try and clean the kitchen sink drain. The two sinks drain into a common hose, and greasy sludge collects in the plastic parts between the sink and the output hose. I thought I could take the hose off and then take apart the plastic parts to clean them, but I found them all be glued together. So, I guess I'll have to get some Liquid Plumber gel to do the job.
In the afternoon, we went up to the bar and played dominos for a while with about six others. Several of the folks who routinely play dominos are leaving over the next few days also, so the social dynamics of the marina will be changing. After dominos we came back to the boat for dinner. While Barb prepared a meal, I turned on the TV. We don't have cable on the docks, but there are three broadcast stations available. One is all religious programming. The other two are government owned stations that get various programs. We saw some soap opera that has a CBS logo in the corner, and we saw a movie that had a TNT logo. What was really interesting though was to watch the local news. Unlike in the States, there was no mention of murders, fires, car accidents, or other mayhem. Instead, the stories were about goings on in the government that affect the people, stories about community activities, stories about educational programs, etc. It was quite refreshing. I don't know if the lack of mayhem news was because there is a lack of mayhem, or because they don't need to worry about their ratings.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 24
I hosted the Coconut Telegraph once more today. Sol Y Mar had been doing Tuesdays, but Pat can barely hear anything in the marina in Trinidad, so I covered it. After Barb finished working out, we met Maribel & Pete form Paper Moon over at Any Kine Marine. They were having breakfast and we had muffins and juice. The point of meeting them was to go to town with them on a bus. They are getting their boat hauled for the season on Friday but don't fly to the States until next week, so they are looking for a room for a few days. We may want to do that also when we get our bottom job, so we are going with them to check the place out. We only had to wait a few minutes for a bus to come by. We piled in and as we did, a second bus came up behind, blew his horn, and passed us. I'm not sure what the deal was, but as soon as we were in, the driver took off like he was in a race. He had tires squealing around the corners and it was the first time I was actually a little apprehensive about a driver in the islands. We quickly caught up to the other bus who had stopped to pick up a passenger. Our driver pulled alongside and they started yelling at each other. I'm not sure what it was all about, because even though they are speaking English, once they get going with each other, it may as well be Latin. Once the verbal exchange was over, we ripped off down the road again, still squealing the tires around the corners. The van is designed to hold fifteen people, including the driver. Before we got to town, we had eighteen people and one guy had a case of empty beer bottles. It was tight. Once he was full, he seemed to slow down a little, but I'll try to remember what that van looked like and avoid him in the future.
Our first stop was Island Water World. I didn't realize we were stopping here, so I didn't bring my list. Next we went next door to an Ace hardware store. Barb found contact paper there to put over our foam sheet that we keep on top of the fridge for insulation. We also found an ice pick. We have been making our own ice in little plastic containers that Barb then breaks into chunks. She had been using a knife for this, but a real ice pick will be better. We then hopped another bus towards the apartment we are to look at. We got to Excel Plaza and got off. We found the apartments across the street from the shopping center and went to the office. The young lady was happy to show us one of their rooms. Maribel said it was 100% better than the other one they had looked at, and $10/day cheaper. We'll possibly do the same thing while we're out of the water. (You can't run the air conditioning out of the water.) From here we walked a short distance back to Spiceland Mall and the IGA grocery store. We plan to do our shopping in a couple days when we share a cab with Dave & Sue from Pirate's Hideout, so we didn't get anything. On our way out of the mall, we stopped and got two rotis to go. This is the place where we got good boneless chicken rotis last week. Today they have chicken, boneless chicken, fish, or beef. I asked if the fish was boneless, and the guy said yes. So I got a fish for me and a boneless chicken for Barb. We then caught a bus back to near Island Water World, where we got out and got the bus back to Lower Woburn where we started. For two of us, the whole trip cost $16 EC, or $6 US. Not a bad way to get around if you have the time and can take the crowding and driving. In their defense, only the first bus was crammed full and drove bad. The others were quite civilized.
We were back at the marina by noon. We had our rotis for lunch, and I discovered that even if the fish was supposed to be boneless, there still were a few. The contents of the fish roti were much different than a chicken. The chicken roti is chicken and potato, with curry seasoning. The fish one had the fish, and carrots, maybe just a little potato, and while it was spicy, it didn't taste like curry at all. Later in the afternoon, we joined the gang for some dominos. We also said goodbye to Harry & Melinda on Sea Schell. They are leaving this afternoon for Trinidad, where they will haul the boat and go back to the States for four months.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 25
This morning I received an e-mail from our friends Brian & Tammy in Florida. They lived on their boat, Another Road, for several years, and cruised the Bahamas one season. They are the friends I joined in the Bahamas and sailed back to Florida with. The log of that trip is here. Last year, they got an apartment and started doing some major work on the boat, including re-powering and Awlgrip paint on the whole hull and deck. The e-mail I received today was bad news. The boat got hit by lightening which resulted in a fire in the cabin. The boat was closed up tight, so the fire eventually suffocated, but not before doing significant damage. Of course, what didn't burn either melted from the heat, or got covered in soot from the smoke. It's a terrible thing to happen to anybody, and even more so after having just done so much work on her.
Barb tackled a job she has been talking about for months. The bedspread on the aft bed came with the boat fourteen years ago. It is getting threadbare in spots, and the cat recently had an accident on it prompting the project taking off. The bed is a slightly unusual size, so the spread is a custom made thing. Many boats have very odd shaped beds, so buying bedding is a real challenge. We are lucky in that the bed is almost exactly a queen size. It's an inch or two wider at the top than a standard queen, and from about halfway head to foot, it tapers a few inches to the foot. Barb has a quilt that she brought with us from Texas, that she has always been planning to re-hem to fit the bed. Instead of measuring or making a pattern, Barb simply laid the quilt over the bed and cut the excess off the sides where she wanted the new hem to be. This seemed like a good idea until she cut a notch out of the sheet by accident. Now they're custom sheets too. Once the trimming was done, we carried the quilt and the sewing machine up to the bar where there are large tables she could work on. The rest of the hemming project went smoothly, and now we have a new bedspread. The cat has been warned.
In the afternoon, we joined the regular dominoes game. Several of the regular players in this game, like Paper Moon and Sea Schell, are leaving in the next couple of days, so we'll have to find some new players. Once again, we played Mexican Train without really keeping score. I find I play differently when I don't really care how many points I get stuck with if I don't go out first.
In the evening many of us reconvened at the bar to celebrate the birthday of Paul from Sol Magique. Several folks brought musical instruments and played while the less talented of us enjoyed visiting.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 26
This morning we are going to the grocery. To go to the good grocery store requires either two busses each way, or a taxi. We have decided to split a cab with Dave & Sue every week or two and go to the IGA without the hassle of the busses. It's more expensive, but a lot more convenient, especially when you are returning with a load of groceries. The taxi we regularly use just charges us by the hour, so we can run any other errands we may need, and he is there waiting for us when we are done shopping. We stopped first at a health food store where Sue could pick up something she needed. We then hit the IGA. Dave had been told that Thursday was the best day to shop because the container came on Wednesday and was unloaded by then. We found this week there was less stuff on the selves than there had been Tuesday when we stopped by with Paper Moon, so I'm not sure about the predictability of their deliveries. The shelves were far from bare though, even in the fresh dairy and meat departments, so we got everything we needed. On the way back to the marina we stopped at a gas station where I filled the gas can for the dinghy.
My boat project today is to reseal two of my six chainplates. For non-boaters, the chainplates are where the cables that hold the mast up go through the deck and attached into the hull. I paid an idiot in Kemah $2000 before we left to totally disassemble and reseal all six chainplates, and two of them leaked within six months. Guess who I don't recommend to people looking for rigging work in Kemah. Anyway, I had resealed them the backyard way by simply running a bead of silicon around the plate where it attaches to the deck. Not elegant, but it works. Probably what I should have done in the first place. When I first did this, I used Marine Goop which is a very useful silicon sealant. However, when exposed to the sun constantly, it discolors and gets brittle. So, I cut out the remains of the Marine Goop, and replaced it with a bead of 3M UV resistant 4200. Another thing off the list.
Barb bought an external wi-fi antennae from Paper Moon before they left. The built in antennae on her laptop won't pickup the wi-fi signal on the boat, and we figured it would be good to have a spare anyway. As it turns out, her new antennae seems to work better than the one I have been using for years. Mine works fine for average browsing, but if I try to use Skype, it drops the signal every couple minutes. Once Barb hooked up hers, she called her son on Skype and talked for half an hour with no problem. I switch the antennae to my laptop and called my son and talked for half an hour. The result of Barb being online now is that she started catching up on reading logs of other boats we know. I really get tickled when I show up in somebody else's log. In the pictures on our friends Tobias's website we found this picture of me at my karaoke debut. As she further perused the list of boats who use the same web hosting service, she found the log of a boat we knew in Kemah. Lone Star (not the Lone Star we were traveling with earlier this year) is a twenty-five year old wooden sailboat built in England for a Texas family who then sailed it around the world over a twelve year period. It has been in Kemah, a dock over from where I first kept MoonSail, for the past seven years. We had met Miles the captain, and had been aboard this beautiful boat a couple of times. Since we left, they have completed a major refit and are now on a trip around South America. If you would like to read more about their trip you can find their log here.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 27
I have a passport dilemma. My passport is running out of places to stamp it. It doesn't expire until 2009, but I will fill the remaining space before that. You can get extra pages added to a passport, and I thought I was going to have to mail it back to the US to get that done while we are here in one spot for a few months. To my delight, I found out that the US Embassy here can add pages on the spot. Once I made the appointment though, they sent me the requirements for adding pages. One is that you have at least two blank pages left. I guess this has to do with how they attach the new pages. I don't have any blank pages left, so I will have to apply for a new passport instead. I can also do that here at the embassy, but it requires them to send my current passport back to the US. The dilemma is that I have to renew my Grenada visa by August 7. When we flew back from St. Maarten, they only gave us thirty-day visas. So, I need to do the visa renewal while I still have the passport. So off to town I went. I dinghied across the bay to Lower Woburn, where I caught a bus by Nimrod's Rum Shop. This bus driver was only slightly less kamikaze than the last guy we got here. He didn't pack us in so tight, but he was in a hurry. When we got into the outskirts of St. Georges, we found a detour on the main road. We turned off onto a narrow lane through a residential area and wound our way down the hill to the lagoon road where we headed back more or less on the original route. This actually got me closer to where I needed to go. I got off at the Grenada Yacht Club, where the Customs & Immigration office is. I found the office, and went in, only to be told that visa extensions could only be done at the main office. Fortunately, the main office is within walking distance. The guy showed me where to go, and I hiked about half a mile, mostly up a steep hill to the large modern government building. We had driven by this building the day we took the taxi with Pat & Dori to the hospital, but we didn't know what it was then. Inside, I waited for my turn at the information window, and was told to have a seat and I would be called in a few minutes. The office was nice and cool, with real air conditioning, so I didn't mind waiting. I was enjoying the air conditioning so much after my hike up the hill, that I let a young lady who was after me go ahead of me. Once in the office, the immigration officer made an entry for each of us in his hand written log book, and then stamped our passports good through September 30. He wouldn't give us the full time until we leave in November, so I'll have to repeat the process again. There is no charge for any of this, it just keeps people employed. Once done, I walked back down the hill to where the busses pass, and within a minute was on my way back to Lower Woburn. The ride back was much more civilized.
In the afternoon, We played dominoes with Dave & Sue. We did keep score this time, so I had to go back to the normal style of play where unloading your biggest dominoes first is the goal. After dominos, we retired to the boat for a nice dinner aboard. It is nice being out away from the easy availability of restaurants so we eat aboard. I'm sure we eat better and certainly cheaper.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 28
I tackled a boat project today that was a repeat project. Somewhere along the line in the past few months, our Sirius radio quit working. It was not that we no longer get the signal, but the radio just quit. Our Sirius radio is a black box behind the main nav station panel, that plugs into our regular Kenwood stereo for tuning. The Kenwood box no longer thought the Sirius box was there. When I investigated this originally, I found that our deck/hull joint apparently had leaked when we were in heavy seas, and the black box had gotten salt water in it. I had taken the box apart and found a fried component. My brother brought me a replacement black box when we met in St. Maarten, and I had hoped the repair would be a simple swap. I swapped the box a couple weeks ago, and now I get an undefined error message on the Kenwood display. I wrote to Kenwood, and they say the message is coming from the Sirius box. They gave me a number to call Directed Electronics who makes the box. I found Directed Electronics website and sent them a note. Since then I have not heard back from them. It occurred to me that I might be able to get around the problem. The black box is really two boxes plugged together. Half is the Sirius tuner, and half adapts it to a Kenwood stereo. If you have a different brand stereo, that half would be different. The obvious damage to my original box was in the Kenwood adapter part. So, I put the new Kenwood adapter part on the old Sirius tuner part and hooked it back up. Still no joy. So, I sent another message to Directed Electronics, and will call the if I don't get a response Monday. In the course of doing this research online, I realized that since we are Sirius subscribers, we can listen to it online. We have a good Internet connection here, so that will work for the time being. I still hope to get the real radio working before we leave here in November though so we can have Radio Margaritaville underway.
Barb did some laundry today, and actually got it all hung and dried without a rain shower coming through. Mother nature seems to sense when laundry is hanging and sends a shower just big enough to get everything wet again, or send you scurrying to get it inside.
Tonight is the regular Saturday night pot luck in the marina bar. We were anticipating a small turnout, since about fourteen people from the marina are off to another event. The event they went to is a hash. A hash is an event for beer drinkers with a running problem. The concept was started in India in the 1930's by British troops stationed there. What they do is lay out a trail through the countryside, marking it with flour or shredded paper. The participants then follow the trail, which may have some false turns added for confusion. They run, jog, or walk at whatever pace suits them. The only prize is to get to the end where the beer drinking takes place. I had never heard of a hash until getting here, but it is a worldwide sport. There is a local club devoted to this called the Hash House Harriers. Given all the people that went to the hash, we were pleased to still have at least fifteen folks show up for the pot luck. As usual we had a nice selection of food, Bob made his grill available for those that wanted to cook some meat, and Bob also provided a large pizza that he got somewhere in town.
After dinner wound down, we started the karaoke. Amanda from Solstice is usually the emcee, but she also is a hasher. She had asked me earlier in the week if I would fill in for her until they got back from the hash. We started by playing a couple of tunes that have the vocals also, and then I got Dave from Pirate's Hideout to break the ice. Over the next hour and a half we played about twenty tunes. I did six of them myself since there were fewer people to con into signing. But about 21:00, the hashers returned. This not only meant Amanda could take over emcee duties, but it meant there were fourteen more people to sing. The party was still going strong when I left about 22:00. I heard voices on the dock shortly after midnight, so I guess they had a good time.
This evening we also saw the return of our dock neighbors, Jim & Amanda on Adventure Bound. They have been back to the States for three weeks. Jim is the co-founder of the Coconut Telegraph SSB net that I have been helping host. They will only be here a day though as they are moving the boat to St. David's to be hauled for some major work next week.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 29
Today was one of my days to host the Coconut Telegraph, and it was the lowest participation I have seen yet. Only four boats checked in, and that included me. We have been hearing ten to fifteen regularly. Perhaps too many people had a big Saturday night. The point of a net like this is to keep each other posted on your whereabouts as we all move around the Caribbean. Part of the problem this time of year is that many of our participants have hauled they boats to be stored for hurricane season and they have gone back to the States. Others still are parked in a marina for four months like us, and they either can't hear because of the typical marina interference, or they figure there's no reason to check in if they're not moving. At any rate, we'll see if we continue the net or try to restart it in November.
We didn't do much of anything the rest of the day. Sunday is always quiet since everything is closed and the buses don't run.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 30
My appointment at the US Embassy is this morning at 09:00. Bert the taxi guy picked me and Dave up at 08:45. Bert dropped me at the embassy and then took Dave to Budget Marine. From the outside, the embassy looks like a nice home. When you look closer though, you noticed the guard house and the heavy fence around the property. I went to the window at the guard house and told them I had an appointment. They made a call and then waved me inside. Inside the door was a metal detector and x-ray machine. All the windows in the guard house were thick bullet-proof glass. I hadn't thought of it before getting here, but I guess they build these places to be potential targets of a protest or attack. Once signed in, I was directed across a small parking lot to the front door of the embassy itself. Inside the front door was a wall of more bullet-proof windows, one of which had a slot for doing transactions. The woman on the other side of the glass welcomed me and took care of the process of applying for a new passport. It was all pretty simple. I had the form filled out already, she made a copy of my passport and drivers license, and I gave her $67. She told me the new one should be here in two to three weeks. I asked if the backlog problem would slow it down, and she said no. The process for getting new passports internationally has always been in place and is separate from the process of getting a first-time passport. It's the first-timers who are overwhelmed. I think the lady was a little starved for someone to talk to, because she went on to explain how Grenada is the only embassy in the world without any computer, and how they lost two of the five people who work there last year due to budget cuts, so now the remaining three wear several hats and are too busy. She also filled me in on the reasons to register with the embassy when you are going to be in an area for more than a month. That way they know you are there in case of an emergency.
When I came out of the embassy, Bert was waiting for me. On our way back to the marina, we saw one of those island things that I love. In the States, we have so many rules and procedures to follow that sometimes nothing gets done. We have rules to protect others from us, and worse yet, rules to protect us from ourselves. In the islands, things just get done, without worrying about any rules. Case in point - as we drove, a slow moving SUV came around a bend from the opposite direction. A red flag was being waved out the rear window of the SUV by a female passenger. We slowed way down and watched to see what was around the corner. Here came a lowboy eighteen wheeler carrying a large tracked digging machine, taking up nearly the whole road. Bert pulled as far to the minimal shoulder as he could and the truck passed. There were no "OVERSIZE LOAD" placards on the truck. No flashing lights. Frankly I'm surprised they had the escort car. There was a guy sitting up on the roof of the digging machine in case they came to a low wire that needed to be lifted for them to pass under. Of course nothing but his good balance was keeping him in place up there. Simple.
Back at the marina, we found Jim & Amanda preparing to leave. They are headed over to St. David's, to Grenada Marine to be hauled and do some serious repairs to their deck where it has absorbed water. They plan to come back over here now and then to party with us, so we look forward to seeing them again. We spent a couple hours in the afternoon playing dominos with Dave & Sue and then retired to the boat for a quiet evening about 17:00. I turned on the TV to see what was on, and found the last fifteen minutes of Oprah. The feed for this was coming from the CBS station in Erie, PA. I have no idea how that works. AT 18:00, Oprah was over and they switched to a solid half hour of local commercials. They were so bad that they were funny and I sat there watching them. They all had the same background music and I was really tired of that song when I finally turned it off.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
July 31
This morning we took a trip. Sol Magique is in the pair of slips next to us. Like us, they are on the down-wind side of the pair of slips and are constantly being held against the dock by the prevailing winds. With Adventure Bound and Sol Y Mar gone, we both have the option of moving across our slip pairs and being blown off the finger pier instead of against it. There is no wind at all this morning, so Paul and I are helping each other move our boats. No starting the engines or anything, just untie the lines, attach two long ones to the other side and pull the boats across the slips. We did it so good that Paul's wife Ginette stuck her head out of the companionway after we had moved them, and didn't realize they had moved until she looked around. We thought we'd surprise Barb too, but she popped out just before we started to move MoonSail. So now we are secure on the other side and I don't have to listen to the annoying squeak of the fenders always being mashed against the dock. I'm hoping that no other boat comes in next to us so if we have a big storm I'll have the option of spider-webbing lines to both finger piers.
Speaking of storms, we have had our first attention getter. A low is forming east of us that could become a tropical storm before it crosses the islands. Last night the forecast said it could affect us, but this morning they have moved the forecast track further north towards St. Lucia. Even though we hope we are far enough south to not get hit with a major hurricane, a tropical storm or tropical storm force winds from a hurricane passing north of us still may need to be dealt with, so we have to be on our toes and watch the weather everyday even though we are parked.
A couple hours after moving the boats, the wind shifted to the west. The wind almost never blows from the west here, but now it is blowing us against the dock we moved to. It is pretty light and is only because of some local squalls moving north of us, but it was pretty funny that right after moving, the wind turned around.
We spent the day reading and playing dominoes. It has been very overcast all day, but it never rained until mid-afternoon when the sun came out and we had a brief shower. We started our domino game with Dave & Sue fairly late, so it didn't end until about 19:00. We were the last ones to leave the bar, and I think Bob appreciated an early night. He is here from 07:00 until the last person leaves the bar, seven days a week. We went back to the boat and had a repeat of last nights dinner of chicken enchiladas.
I got an evening e-mail update from Chris Parker, the weather guy. The potential tropical storm looks like it is falling apart and will be north of us in any event, so we can rest easier .
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.