Oct 11
Today we got the rain that we expected yesterday. It rained off and on all day, with brief periods of high winds usually preceding each wave of rain. I picked up a book to read, Bone Island Mombo by Tom Corcoran. We met Tom Corcoran in November 2005 at the national Parrothead party we went to in Key West. He is friends with Jimmy Buffett and lives in the Keys. His five novels have a central character who is a photographer in Key West. Because part of what he photographs is crime scenes, he also is an amateur detective. Well, as usual, it may take me a month to pick a book up, but once I do, I don't put it down. I read from mid-morning until 14:00 when we joined several people in the bar to play dominoes. We were back aboard a little after 17:00, and I read until 23:00. By then, I was past page 200 of 340. I could have kept going, but I knew I wouldn't finish tonight, so I went to bed.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 12
It rained off and on all night, and still is. Bert picked us up at 09:45 for our regular grocery shopping trip. We were back by 11:00 and I was back into the book. I finished it early in the afternoon. During a particularly heavy squall that came through about 13:00, we heard a call on the VHF that a boat was dragging anchor around the corner from us. The lady who first announced it didn't say the boat name. There were a lot of people up in the bar who had gone grocery shopping on the weekly bus from the marina and were waiting for the rain to stop to go back to their boats. I thought it might be one of theirs, so I called on the radio to try and find out the boat name. The lady who originally put out the call never did answer, but after several minutes somebody said the boat's name was Fiddler's Green. Bob was in the office, but heard me on the radio, so he went to the bar and asked if anybody knew the boat. Two guys jumped up and ran to their dinghy and took off in the pouring rain. By then, the boat had dragged into shallow water and was aground in the mud. There was probably no damage, and it hadn't hit anybody, but they'll probably need a tow to get unstuck.
Scotty & Jossie from Jossie Bird, are going to England for three months. They are currently anchored just off the marina, but they are going to put the boat on one of Bob's mooring while they are gone, so it will be more secure. Bob's moorings don't have pennants on them, so you have to put your own line through the eye on the top of the mooring ball. This not easy to do from the deck, unless you have a gadget that the boat stores sell for that purpose. We had one of those gadgets and broke it the first time we tried to use it. Since Scotty is new to all of this, I offered to help him get the mooring by taking my dinghy out and looping the line through the eye for him. After the heavy squall passed, the rain stopped for about an hour, and I could see Scotty was getting ready to weigh anchor. I hopped in the dinghy and went to the mooring ball. I tied the dinghy to the ball and waited. Scotty approached slowly and Jossie handed me the line as they got there. I looped it through the eye and gave it back to her and showed her how to tie it back on the cleat. We then put a second line from the other side on.
About 17:30, we went up to the bar for happy hour. Scotty & Jossie were there as was Tom from Fat Cat. What was intended to be a half hour so Scotty could buy us a drink to thank us for the help, turned into almost three hours of conversation. We had dinner on hold in the oven, so we finally left. On the way back, we saw two of the local cows laying at the end of the north dock under the street light. They normally stay up in the grass areas grazing. Maybe they wanted to go for a boat ride.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 13
We awoke to an unfamiliar sight - sunshine! The showers had quit during the night and the sky was almost all clear. It stayed unusually cool all day though (80 degrees) and the wind blew pretty hard all day. Barb took advantage of the first dry day in a while and did a load of laundry. With the high winds the clothes dried pretty fast and nothing blew off the lifelines.
One of the things Scotty wants to do for storing his boat, is to stow his dinghy on deck. Since he's on the mooring though, he would need a ride back to land. I offered to let him take our dinghy today, so he can get his all stowed, and then tomorrow he will have ours to come back to land and leave. I went out to his boat and picked him up and he brought me back to the dock. We aren't planning on going anywhere in the dinghy anyway, so we won't need it.
We had the usual Saturday night pot-luck dinner tonight. We had the smallest turnout we have had in a while. A number of the boats that have been in the marina all season are currently over at the boat yard getting their bottoms painted. Also, a number of people in the anchorage who usually come to the dinner are from Australia. Australia is still in the running for the rugby world championship, and it is on TV at another bar across the bay, so I suspect they chose rugby over dinner. There were less than twenty people there, but we still had plenty of food and good conversation. After dinner, a number of people, including Barb, took off, and Bob was busy chatting with a couple of local guys who came in. It looked like I was the only regular karaoke singer in attendance, so I didn't make an effort to get things started. We sat and chatted until almost 21:00, and then I told Bob we ought to blow off karaoke. He was ok with that and I went back to the boat.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 14
Today is Barb's son's 21st birthday. She had to call several times but finally got through to him. He has moved back to Houston after a year in Denver. He is working at his old job in a sporting goods store and doing well. He has recently gotten a chocolate lab puppy. Barb also spent a few hours polishing stainless steel on the outside of the boat. We probably should have cleaned and polished everything when we first got here so it would look good sitting at the dock. Instead, we are getting it all cleaned up now when we are going to be leaving in a couple weeks and splashing it with salt water again.
In the afternoon, we joined twenty other people and charted a bus to the Aquarium Restaurant at Magazine Beach. This is the same place we went a month or so ago. Today is overcast and threatening to rain, but we went anyway. The surf was more active this trip because of all the recent storms. Standing in the water up to your chest was hard as the big waves would push you towards shore and then pull you right back out. We played around on the beach for a couple of hours before eating dinner. Barb bought a spice necklace form one of the beach vendors. Spice necklaces are a popular thing to sell tourists, usually from the cruise ships. The vendors don't tell you that they will be confiscated if you try to take them back to the US, but that's not a problem for us. It is now hanging in the bathroom as a nice air freshener. At 16:00 we were all seated at two large tables they set up for us on the lawn right outside the bar seating area. Just as everyone got seated it started to rain. We all jumped up and moved inside. The staff quickly moved tables around and accommodated us in the regular bar seating area in front of the band. Good thing the rain didn't come just as we got our food. The food was just as good as last time we were here, but the service was noticeably better. Last time the food came out one or two entrees at a time and the sides came after you had finished most of your entree. Today, several staff brought food all at the same time, and the sides were there right after the entrees. To make the end of the trip better than last time, the bus driver this time wasn't afraid to back the bus down the steep hill to get us, saving us the trek up the hill. Back at the marina, most of us stopped in the bar to have a drink before calling it a day. Bob had been planning to join us at the beach, but got working on the finishing touches to the motor replacement job on his big tractor and never got there. But he was just finishing up when we got back, so he joined us for a couple of drinks.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 15
We had a fairly quiet day today. Barb polished stainless for a couple more hours in the morning, and we played dominoes again in the afternoon. The rains have finally subsided and we finally have a sunny day again. The one mar on a nice day was when Barb noticed water on the floor under my seat where the holding tank is. Some investigation revealed that the fitting where the hose from the tank to the pump is dripping. This is surprising since I used Teflon tape on the threads and sealant around the whole joint after it was assembled. Unfortunately, I will have to take the whole seat apart again to get to it and resolve it. For the time being, we switched the head to go straight overboard again, and pumped the tank out, so at least it's not leaking.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 16
Today I did some boat work too, instead of just watching Barb polish stainless, which she did for a few hours again today. On one of our particularly rough passages on the way down here, we got water inside the boat on the starboard side. It wasn't a lot, but enough to make a mess. Where it was apparent on the inside it had dribbled down the wall in several places both in the front v-berth and in the main saloon. It was very noticeable because what was on the wall was wet sawdust. The sawdust is probably leftover from construction of the boat, but there should never be water coming in that would get in this area. This leak is what killed my Sirius Satellite Radio box, since it was bolted to the wall behind the nav panel. The only thing I can think of that could leak here is the hull/deck joint. When a boat is built, the hull is all one molded piece, and the deck is another. After all the stuff is put inside the boat, they put the deck on. It is bolted and glued with 3M 5200 which is a permanent glue/sealant. This joint should never leak. I am concerned that perhaps with as rough seas as we have been in quite often, the whole boat has been able to flex enough that the sealant has developed cracks. Today, I got in the dinghy with a small wire brush and went all the way around the boat brushing dirt out of the groove below the rub rail where the joint is. As I did this, sure enough I saw several places where the original sealant had small openings in it. Whether this is due to age and stress or not using enough sealant during construction, I don't know. What I do know is that the tiniest hole can take in an incredible amount of water when you keep pounding into big waves. After brushing the whole seam, I got the 5200 out. I had bought two caulk-gun sized tubes for this job. Again from the dinghy, I ran a new bead of 5200 along the joint. Unfortunately I ran out of 5200 about ten feet shy of the end of the job, so I'll have to get another tube and finish another day. In order to facilitate getting all the way around the boat on both sides with the dinghy, we had moved it to the middle of our slip pair. After I was done, we pulled it back over to the finger pier, but allowed it to come back so the stern was right up by the main dock. This allowed Barb to work on polishing the davits from the dock instead of having to climb out on them. She worked for several more hours on stainless today, and still isn't quite finished. With the davits hanging over the dock, I borrowed a stepladder from Bob and was able to get up and grease the pivot point for the wind generator, also without climbing out on the arch to do it.
A couple new boats came into the marina today. Toab and Maverick are identical Nordic Tug 42's. Maverick has Rick & Nancy aboard and Toab is single-handed by Rick's 89 year old father. I went over to the south dock where Bob put them and helped take lines. A little later, Kevin & Amanda on Solstice came back from almost a month in the boat yard. That was about twice as long as they expected to be out of the water, but they got everything fixed.
In the afternoon, Bob had to go to town to run some errands, and today is Ashley's day off, so Bob asked if I would watch the bar for him. We went up there about 13:30 and played dominoes with Sue while we babysat the bar. I ended up being up there until about 18:30 when Bob finally got done with things he had to do around the property and could come sit down.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 17
You'd think she'd be tired of it by now, but Barb polished stainless again today and finished it. I got a lot of crap form dock neighbors about making her work so hard, especially when several times they observed me standing by watching. I explained that I don't do it to her level of liking and she would just go behind me and do it again, so why do it twice? While she was working, I wasn't totally relaxing. I trimmed the excess caulk from the port that I rebedded a few weeks ago, pumped the rain water out of the dinghy, went out to Jossie Bird to double check Scotty's lines to the mooring for him, and then when Barb was done, moved the boat back forward in the slip so the dinghy can be hoisted behind it. We hoisted the dinghy for the first time in a few weeks, and found a wondrous amount of growth on the bottom. It was covered with little barnacles, green grass, and black slime. We left the engine on the dinghy and only hoisted it halfway so that I could hit it with the hose. The slime came off easy, but the grass and the barnacles will have to be scraped off. I'll let it dry a couple of days before attacking that.
By noon we were hot and sweaty and called it a day. We had lunch, took showers, and relaxed for the afternoon. We have big plans for this evening we hope. Yesterday, Bob came up with the idea to have a burger night. For several weeks, on Wednesday nights, Steve form Liward put together a little pick up band and played for an hour at the bar. That brought in a lot of customers. Last week, Steve couldn't make it, and nobody came even though Bob announced a special priced happy hour, which he normally doesn't have. The band can't make it this week either, so yesterday Bob made arrangements for a local steel drum player to perform for a couple of hours, and he said he would make burgers and fries to sell. Dave & Sue (who are chefs) got involved and explained to Bob that cruisers don't want the typical Grenadian burgers which have a lot of filler in them. As I have mentioned a few weeks ago, we had burgers two days in a row, in different restaurants, while we were hauled out, and they sucked. They were like a bland meat loaf. So, Bob was convinced to make all-beef burgers. Dave & Sue went shopping with Bob this afternoon to get the beef and fixings to go with it. Not knowing how many people would show up, they got enough beef to make thirty burgers. Bob had some of the local variety frozen that could be used as backup. I had made an announcement for the evenings activities on the VHF radio net this morning, but given the short notice, we didn't know how many people would show up. We all worried that if Bob went to all this effort and nobody showed up, that he wouldn't ever try it again. Well, our fears were unfounded. Lots of people came, and the burgers sold out. The pan player was great and played two forty-five minute sets. Dave cooked the burgers, and Marsha, a local lady that Bob asked to help did the fries in a little deep fryer that Bob had. For $10 EC ( less than $4 US), you got a quarter pound burger and fries. Dave cooked each burger to order as people requested them. Even Saturday, the local dog who always shows up on Saturday nights for the pot-luck dinner was there. We figure he must listen to the VHF in the morning to find out where the food action is.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 18
What a difference a day makes. We went from a great day accomplishing work on the boat, capped off by the hugely successful burger night at the bar, to a day of sadness at saying goodbye to friends and anger amongst others. The morning started listening to the regular local VHF net. There is a specific flow to the net. First there is a call out for any emergency or priority traffic. Then the weather forecast is given. Then there are sections for new boats in the area to say hello, boats leaving to say goodbye, people looking for parts or services to ask questions, people trying to sell things to advertise, local businesses to advertise, and cruisers to make social announcements. If you wish to say something on the net, at the appropriate section, you say your boat name and wait for the net controller to recognize you. When they do, you make your announcement. One of the boat owners in the marina has not figured out radio etiquette yet, and routinely breaks in to the net to say things. I specifically refer to him as a boat owner and not a cruiser, because he hasn't cruised at all and has no idea what the cruising lifestyle and the cruising community are like. He has decided to sail around the world, bought a boat that isn't suited for that, and is trying to outfit it for the trip. He has been here in the marina with workers working on the boat seven days a week for the last couple of months. Today during the net he decided to make an announcement about a "serious environmental issue", that being that the water looks black and smells like raw sewage has been dumped from somewhere. He wanted to know if anybody knew who to call to get something done about it. Bob, the marina owner, quickly answered on the radio that this was an unfortunate but normal thing to expect during the rainy season when lots of runoff from the land brings sewage along with it. You could tell from Bob's voice that he was angry that the guy would make this statement about a serious health issue, since it could then affect people's desire to stay in the marina. Our experience in cruising, has shown us that this kind of thing happens all over the place, and here is no worse than most and much better than some. You don't see a lot of municipal waste water treatment plants in the islands. Where do you suppose everything goes? Anyway, after a few more exchanges, the net controller took control and we hoped that was the end of that.
I got busy cleaning the bottom of our dinghy. It had been in the water for several weeks and had a lot of stuff growing on the bottom. Yesterday we hoisted it onto the davits and I hosed off the slimy part, but left scraping the barnacles off until they dried. So, I raised the dinghy enough to clear the dock and then loosened the dock lines so the big boat moved back in the slip, leaving the dinghy hanging over the dock. I was then able to lie on the dock and use a putty knife to scrape the bottom. I had the foresight to change into my bathing suit before doing this, so when I was done and little chips of crap all over me, I could just hose myself off. Once I was finished I moved the big boat back up so the dinghy wasn't blocking the dock.
Our friends Bill & Roxanne on Raven are leaving today. This was the sad part. One of the best things about cruising is the wonderful friends you meet. The downside though is that inevitably, you part ways and have to say goodbye. Sometimes you know that you will probably meet again down the road, and sometimes you know that you will probably never see the people again. About 11:00, a group of us who have been in the marina for months met up at the bar for a farewell toast to Raven. We visited for half an hour or so, and then they were on their way. We helped them cast off their lines and waved goodbye. They are headed west to Venezuela for now, and we will be going back north, so we don't know if our paths will cross or not.
About 14:00 we met Dave & Sue to play dominoes. We had been playing for twenty minutes or so when the fireworks started. The guy from this morning had come up to the office to tell Bob he was leaving tomorrow. He originally had planned to stay three months, and it has only been two, so this changes his dockage rates. As with most marinas, the longer you stay, the better deal you get. Here there is a set fee per day based on your boat length. That gets discounted 10% if you stay more than a week, 20% if it's more than a month, 30% for more than three months, and 40% for more than six months. So, when he checked in, he had paid his estimated dockage based on three months and a 30% discount. Bob had additionally given him another $300 off the whole bill when the guy pressed for a better deal. Well, now that he wants to leave after just two months, Bob recalculated the bill with a 20% discount and added in the power and water usage. That's when the guy went off on Bob. He started screaming obscenities at him, accusing him of breaking his contract and reneging on the deal. Seems to me that when he decided to leave a month early, he was the one breaking the deal. Bob lost his temper and was yelling back, which of course didn't help matters. The yelling got louder as they walked towards the bar where we were playing dominoes. As they climbed the stairs the guy started yelling at us to join him in his case against Bob. He was waving his "contract", which is really just the invoice for his stay, and asking if we wanted to know how Bob was screwing us all. Somehow, I maintained my composure and cut him off and said no we didn't want to hear his story. He kept screaming at us that we were dumb asses for letting Bob "run roughshod over us". Since he failed at getting us involved, he then proceeded to continue arguing with Bob. His argument was that Bob agreed to 30% and the special $300 deal. Bob explained that was based on three months and now the deal was changing because they were leaving early. The guy refused to back down and kept screaming that Bob was stealing $1000 from him. I have no idea where that came from. Bob pointed out the they owed him even more money because he hadn't figured their laundry usage into the bill. By now the guys wife was in the bar also, and they claimed that they didn't know there was a charge for the laundry. He yelled over at us "Did you know there is a charge for laundry?". We unanimously yelled back that of course we did. More proof that the guy has a lot to learn about cruising - laundry's never free. After what seemed like forever, but was probably no more than ten minutes, the guy left in a huff. As he left the bar he was screaming that Bob would be sorry he ever crossed him, and that he would cost Bob $30,000 a month in lost business as he spread the word that Bob was a crook. Don't know where he pulled that number from - actually I do - right out of his ass. He screamed that he would mention that Bob was a crook on the morning net everyday for the next month. Another cruiser who was an innocent bystander followed him out to try and calm him down, but he just got yelled at too. I was surprised that blows weren't thrown, but thankfully they weren't. Bob was visibly shaken by all this and went back to his office to calm down. The end result was the guy said he would be out of here tomorrow. He couldn't leave right now because he doesn't know how to drive the boat. He has a hired captain coming in to move it for him. I pity any hired captain who tries to work for this guy. I suspect they will go through quite a few.
So this altercation put a damper on the rest of the day for me. This was not the type of scene you expect to see out here in the cruising world. It's part of what most of us want to get away from back in the real world. This guy is a rich American who thinks he can buy whatever or whoever he wants, and he is used to getting his ass kissed and getting his way. It infuriated him to not get his way. He seems to forget he isn't in America, he can't sue whoever he doesn't bully into giving him a special deal, and he is a guest in this country. At a minimum Bob could have called the police and had him arrested for causing a disturbance, which would probably then get him an invitation to leave the country immediately.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 19
I got up early this morning, nervous about what might transpire on the radio. Several of us had spoken to Bob yesterday and advised him not to let the guy bait him into an argument on the radio. Sure enough when the net started, here the guy was. He at least almost got to an appropriate place to break in, because when the net controller asked if anybody was leaving, he spoke up. Of course he just started speaking instead of waiting to be recognized. He said while they weren't departing Grenada, they were departing Clarke's Court Bay Marina and moving to La Phare Bleu Marina down at the other end of the bay. La Phare Bleu is where we went to a buffet dinner a couple of months ago. It's a very nice marina, except for the strong surge that comes in almost all the time. It was rougher in there than Emerald Bay back in the Bahamas was, and that's where we broke a dock line from the constant jerking. He said the reason they were leaving was the water quality at this end of the bay. He babbled on about it for about two minutes. Then, without ever releasing his mic key, he went into telling people to beware of dealing with Clarke's Court Bay Marina because there were hidden charges when you checked out. Frankly I was surprised that he left it at that. The net controller handled the situation very well and told him that she didn't think the net was the proper forum for him to air his dirty laundry about why he was unhappy at the marina. He came back and said he thought the net was a tool for communicating information cruisers needed to know. The net controller again told him that while it was, this sounded like something he should be addressing with the marina management. She also told him exactly what Bob told him about the water yesterday - that it happens every year during the rainy season. Eventually he shut up, after a couple of other people chimed in and it was apparent he wasn't going to get the sympathy he was looking for. One cruiser who has been here for years chimed in to say "La Phare Bleu has been warned". I had thought of that earlier - if you were a business owner would you want to take in a new customer who left the previous business on bad terms?
After the radio nets, I went out to go up to the bathrooms. One of the local guys who works on boats, was cleaning the boat next to us. He saw that the pissed off guy appeared to be getting ready to take the boat out. He asked me if they were going out for a sail. I told him that they had an argument with Bob and were moving to La Phare Bleu. He laughed and told me his opinion of the guy, which pretty much meshed with everybody else's opinions. He had worked for the guy for a while, but said it was not worth the money to have to deal with an asshole. He said the guys working for him now all do it just because word spread that he was throwing money around.
Being Friday, we joined Dave & Sue at 09:30 for our weekly shopping trip. We had to hit both boat parts stores as well as the grocery. Dave and I got everything on my boat parts list and met up with the girls just as they were finishing the grocery shopping. The bus load of other cruisers was there by then. I had been afraid that the pissed off guy might choose the time when all the cruisers were waiting for the bus to create another scene. I was happy to learn that he had not, and happy to learn that they had left the marina just before the bus left. We were humored to hear that even with their hired captain, they had trouble getting out of the slip. Apparently they had their retractable centerboards down and they hit the underwater block and chain that anchor the docks. This spun them around sideways and they almost hit another boat. When last seen they were headed south in the bay. The scooter they have been using to get around town is still at the marina though, so there may be more interactions with him before it's all over. We finished our shopping and were back at the boat about 11:00. The afternoon was spent aboard, writing the logs and playing on the computer. Late in the afternoon, the scooter got picked up with no further interaction with anybody as best I could tell.
Late in the afternoon we got a call on the sat phone from Carson Cooper at Radio Margaritaville. He has been trying to contact us for a while to get back in the habit of doing interviews for his morning show. We still have a very intermittent signal on the sat phone, so we got right to the interview. We had several minutes of good connection and got the interview done in one take. Right after we stopped recording, the signal started to break up. We chatted another minute or so and then it dropped entirely. So, it worked out perfectly.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 20
Today was a pretty lazy day. I even took a nap early in the afternoon, since tonight is pot-luck/karaoke night. When I went up to take a shower about 16:00, there was a large crowd in the bar watching the rugby World Cup final game. Just as I walked by, the game ended with South Africa the champion. Since most of the people watching were from England, there weren't many cheers. Barb made jambalaya for the pot-luck, and we were up there about 17:30. There was a small crowd, with only one couple who aren't staying in the marina. I wonder if that was coincidence or related to the controversy over the water smell from a few days ago. As always happens with the water quality, it is fine now. Even with the small crowd, which was fifteen people, we had a good time and an excellent selection of food. After sitting and visiting for a while, we fired up the karaoke machine. Amanda from Solstice is back in the marina so she resumed her role of karaoke DJ. The usual suspects of myself, Dave, Irling, Bob, and Amanda took turns singing. There was a local couple there with their little girl who was less than two years old. The little girl entertained everybody dancing to our singing. Barb left early with a headache (must have been the singing), but I closed the place down about 22:30. When I got back to the boat I wasn't sleepy yet and Radio Margaritaville was just starting to broadcast the live concert from Las Vegas, so I stayed up until midnight listening to that.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.