Oct 21
Today was a sports day. Haven't had one of them lately. The buzz around here the last couple of weeks has centered around rugby and Formula One car racing. In rugby, England, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were all contenders. There are lots of cruisers here from all of those places, so it was exciting for them. It came down to England and South Africa, and South Africa won that yesterday. Today was the final race of the Formula 1 auto racing series. Lewis Hamilton, has led the series most of the season. That is special here because he is British, but has ties to Grenada. The race from Brazil started at noon, but I didn't go up to the bar until 13:00. Unfortunately, Hamilton finished seventh in the race, which left him tied for second for the season. I haven't paid attention to Formula 1 for years, so I didn't care, but there were disappointed folks in the bar. The race was followed by American football. The early game on Fox (which we were watching in Spanish) was Arizona vs. Washington. Of course, Arizona lost. That game was followed by Dallas vs. Minnesota, and Dallas won. I figure my son was happy because he got to watch both his teams (Arizona & Dallas) without changing channels. The evening was baseball, with Barb hanging in there hoping Cleveland would make it to the World Series. Again, my son will be the happy because the Boston Red Sox won. Other than all that TV watching, the only significant event was that Barb did a load of laundry and timed it perfectly to get the stuff dry on the line between rain showers.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 22
Today we are going to be tourists. We've been here almost four months and have not done much of the touristy stuff. We had booked an island tour with a taxi driver named Cutty. He is renowned to be the best tour guy available, and he does the weekly Thursday tour that is organized for cruisers by a local former cruiser. Tom on Fat Cat knew Cutty and called him directly instead of just booking on Thursday. We thought it would be more fun to do a small group rather than a bus load, even if it cost us a little more. So Tom & Loretta from Fat Cat, Dave & Sue, and Barb & I are the whole crew, and he gave it to us for the regular price of $25 US per person. We woke up to overcast and rain this morning, so there was a question of whether or not we should go. Tom, Dave and I conferred and I looked at the satellite image to see if this rain looked like it would persist all day. It looked to me like the rain would end soon and there was clear sky east of us, so based on my "expert" weather prediction, we delayed our departure until 09:00 instead of 08:30, but we are going to go. I sure hope my prediction works out or I'm going to have a mutiny on my hands.
To better understand the political history of Grenada, which adds background to the upcoming fort and airport stories, I will quote here a brief history that I stole from another website:
In 1967, Grenada achieved full autonomy over
internal affairs, and it became fully independent in 1974. Eric Gairy headed the
nation through the latter half of the 1970s, but his rule was opposed by many in
Grenada who viewed him as a corrupt tyrant.
In 1979, Gairy was ousted in a bloodless coup and the Marxist-Leninist People's
Revolutionary Government (PRG) came to power, headed by Prime Minister Maurice
Bishop. Under Bishop, Grenada aligned itself with Cuba and other Soviet bloc
countries, which alarmed the U.S. and other Caribbean nations. In 1983, the PRG
split and the faction opposed to Bishop had him arrested. In a showdown at Fort
George in the capital city of St. George's, many Bishop supporters were
massacred and Bishop was executed by a firing squad.
At this turn of events, U.S. President Ronald Reagan dispatched a joint
U.S.-Caribbean force to Grenada. They took control of the island, bringing an
end to Grenada's revolutionary government. (One of the reasons given for the
invasion was to rescue U.S. medical students who were studying in Grenada,
though the leaders of the coup had reportedly offered them safe passage off the
island.) The incident, known on the island as the "intervention," continues to
be a topic of discussion. Leaders of the coup remain in jail on Grenada.
From the marina we took the over-the-mountain road to Ft. Frederick which is the highest old fort overlooking St. Georges and the harbor to the west and the inland valley to the east. There are seven or eight forts in the immediate St. Georges area, built by the French or English over the years as they fought back and forth about who owned the island. Fort Frederick was built by the French in 1791. The view from atop the fort is spectacular. Immediately below the fort, on the site of a former British fort is the national prison. It is joked that it has the best view of any prison in the world. It's still a prison though, and as with prisons everywhere it is overcrowded. It was built to house less than one hundred prisoners, and now holds a little less than three hundred. In our pictures from the fort, the prison buildings are a row of long yellow buildings on the next ridge below the fort. All the small outbuildings nearby are on the prison property too and they house the farm works that are part of the facility. There are still prisoners housed here from back in 1983 when the political uprising happened which resulted in the US invasion. Speaking of the invasion, directly to the north of the fort, on the same ridge is a building that was the military headquarters back in 1983. Just north of that was the national insane asylum. The Americans were supposed to blow up the military headquarters, but got the wrong building. Oops. Our bad. Actually, according to something I read since the tour, the hospital had been used as cover. There had been flags and gunnery positions put around it, I guess to be a decoy and say headquarters.
Everywhere we go in the islands, we see beautiful flowers growing wild that back home would be expensive house plants. Croatants grow like weeds here and are in almost every yard. Exotic flowers like Bird of Paradise are common. I've included a few pictures of some examples. St. Georges is the largest city in the country and the capitol. I have commented before how amazing it is to see the recovery in just three years from Hurricane Ivan. As we got away from St. Georges, there was more evidence of the storm. Part of that may be because St. Georges is on the leeward side of the island and may not have taken quite as hard a hit, but it also may just be that the city got the attention before the more rural areas when recovery money came in. One of the interesting things of the recovery was replacement housing. Cutty pointed out a tiny house that looked very old but intact amongst a bunch of newer homes that had all been badly damaged. The little survivor was a "Janet house". A Janet house is a house that was built after Hurricane Janet in 1955. Janet was the only recorded hurricane here prior to Ivan. After Janet, the government of Venezuela sent these tiny pre-fab house kits to Grenada. They are all exactly the same and are basically two room shacks. There is a bedroom and a sitting room which would include cooking facilities. Once you know what to look for, they are easy to spot since they are exactly alike on the outside with a unique tongue-in-groove siding. After Ivan, a similar effort took place. The Ivan houses are a little larger, and they are easy to spot since the wood is not too weathered yet. These are also exactly alike and came from the US and Canada. Cutty mentioned that Jimmy Carter was here and involved in the Ivan houses, so they may have been connected to Habitat For Humanity.
Our next stop on the tour was Annadale Falls. These falls are not far off the road and the facility built around them is beautiful, including gardens, pathways and a viewing platform. When we got down to the bottom of the path to the viewing platform, there were four guys hanging out who wanted you to pay them to jump off the ledge by the top of the falls into the pool below. I initially said no thanks, but Dave gave them something to do it and we all got pictures. In our pictures I got the guy standing on the edge and then just before he hit the water. The falls isn't that big, maybe fifty feet, but it was pretty and had lots of water flowing since it has rained a lot lately.
From the falls we continued northeast to the Gran Etang Rainforest. We stopped in the rainforest at a place where there is a crater lake, visitor's center, bar, and souvenir shop. We all went to the bar and grabbed a beer while Cutty looked for monkeys. We walked around the backside of the bar building to a place where we could see the lake. Down the road a couple hundred feet, we spotted a monkey on the shoulder. We called to Cutty while trying to take pictures with the zoom as far as it would go, hoping not to scare the monkey away. When Cutty came over, he whistled and the monkey started to come to us. Turned out we didn't need to worry about scaring him away. He came right up to us and let us pet him while Cutty gave him pieces of bananas. After a few minutes, the monkey went over to the parking area where there was a fence. He knows the drill. Cutty told us to come over by the fence. He told me to stand by the fence so everybody could take my picture with the monkey sitting near me on the fence. What I didn't know was that while I was looking towards the camera, Cutty held a piece of banana over my head, where the monkey promptly climbed to get it. This obviously wasn't the first time the monkey did this, as he sat there and posed for pictures while he ate the banana. While at this stop, we had a nice view of a valley in the forest. There was much damage from Ivan still evident in the tress. Many trees were felled or stripped and even three years later you can see the effects. Grenada is the largest producer of nutmeg in the world, and the majority of nutmeg trees were destroyed. It will take a long time for nature to recover.
Next we headed into Grenville, on the east coast for lunch. Grenville is the second largest city on the island. We came in on the main road and found a parking space. After locking up the van, Cutty led us down the street a little bit and the turned us into an alley. We walked between buildings to the backside of a building that fronted the next street over from where we parked. There was a wide staircase going to the second floor, where Cutty directed us for lunch. Even from the front side of this establishment, you would have to come around back through the alley to get in. We never would have found it if Cutty wasn't directing us. There were a couple of locals at the bar, including one guy wearing a shirt with an Eastern Airlines patch on the back. He looked like he could have just come in from loading baggage. Except that Eastern Airlines went out of business in 1991. We were seated and promptly waited on by Donna. We all got beer and perused the menu. The only this they didn't have today was possum and armadillo. No kidding. They are on the menu, although they had local names. Since Hurricane Ivan, hunting has been curtailed to let the animals rebuild their numbers. I don't think anybody was disappointed that they couldn't order those. The menu listed lunches, snacks, and portions. Under each title were much the same list of things. Turns out the difference is the size of the meal. For instance, a lunch of jerk chicken (which I had) is a full meal including the chicken, peas & rice, callaloo, mixed veges, a salad, and plantains. Jerk chicken on the snacks menu would come with just fries. And on the portion menu it would be just the chicken. Everybody was happy with their meals, and the prices were quite reasonable as the tab for six of us including two beers each was only $75 US.
From Grenville, we continued north. We went through Pearls, where we saw the old airport. There are two old derelict planes there. One was a good sized cargo plane and one had been Maurice Bishops plane. I know my big planes pretty well, and I didn't recognize the cargo plane, so it may have been a Russian built plane. The Pearls airport was the country's main airport until 1986 when it was closed in favor of Point Salines airport which is on the southwest corner of the island, not far from the marina. The Point Salines airport was being built in the early 1980's. One of the issues that got the American's attention in 1983 was the concern that Point Salines was being built by the Cubans for military use. During the invasion in 1983, the runway wasn't done, but it was usable and was one of the more fortified parts of the island. After the invasion, The United States gave Grenada $21 million to finish the new airport. Back to our tour, we drove in the old airport entrance, past the buildings, and out onto the runway. We drove down the runway a half mile or so and turned back onto a narrow road on the other side. It never was clear to me if this was the traffic pattern back when the airport was in use or not.
Our next stop after the airport was the River Antoine rum distillery. This distillery is very old and still does things exactly as it has forever. It has the only remaining cane crusher powered by a water wheel. We started the tour at the beginning where the sugar cane stalks are fed into the crusher. The stalks look brown and dry as they start the trip up the conveyor belt to the crusher, but sure enough, a large amount of cane juice comes out the bottom of the crusher. At the top of the crusher, one man feeds the stalks into the crusher. A second man is at the output side of the crusher either throwing stalks back in the hopper for a second pass through the crusher, or behind him where the spent stalks are loaded into a railway bucket. When the bucket is full a man pushes it a couple hundred feet down the only railway in Grenada and dumps it off to the side. Another man rakes the pile out to the sides to make room for more. The raw juice runs through a PVC pipe (that must have been replaced since the 1700's) into a series of huge open dishes where it is heated and condensed. The sugar content of the raw cane juice is between 5% and 13%, but to start the fermenting process it needs to be 18%. So they build fires under these large kettles to boil off some of the water content. Eventually, when the sugar content is right, the juice is pumped to concrete fermenting tanks. The fermenting process take place naturally, with no added yeast or anything, just based on yeast found in the air. The look of the liquid in both the boiling room and the fermenting tanks would make you never want to drink whatever comes out the other end of the place. After the liquid bubbles in the fermenting tank for about eight days, it goes through the distilling process. This is where the liquid is heated until it boils. The vapors go through a series of condensation processes to separate the alcohol from the rest. The resulting liquid is monitored by the head guy, watching the specific gravity of the liquid so he knows when it is either 75% alcohol or 69%. For those of you unfamiliar with alcohol percents and proof numbers, most booze sold in the US is 80 proof, which is 40% alcohol. So these two rums are 150 proof and 138 proof. The finished product goes into a locked tank under the floor in the packing room. Every so often, a government person comes to monitor the process of pumping the finished product into another tank. It is measured at this point for tax purposes. Once it's in the after-tax tank, it is pumped into two large Igloo coolers with cheesecloth strainers. From these coolers two people fill bottles which had just had the label put on by another lady. As each bottle is filled it is taken by another person who put the cap on and sticks it into a machine that spins the cap and seals it. This machine seems to be the only concession to anything approaching modern. At the end of the tour, you get to sample the finished product of course. The sampling table is right there in the bottling room and is nothing fancy. There are two bottles of rum, little plastic cups, and an Igloo cooler of ice water. Most of us took a sample (Barb wisely declined). The samples were far from a full shot, but the drill was to shoot the sample and then dive for the water. If you were dinking this stuff in a bar, you would sip it and take a drink of water or coke after each sip. The shot was like I would imagine pouring fire down your throat would be. The five cups of water I had to chase it helped, but I was still tasting it every time I burped for several hours. According to the book, Rums of the Eastern Caribbean, by Edward Hamilton, this is the strongest rum you will find in the Eastern Caribbean, and the most original distillery. It was well worth the $5EC (that's less than $2US) price of admission.
Back on the bus, we continued north a little bit to the beach at Antoine Bay. The road here has been protected from erosion by concrete rubble that has been dumped between the road and the beach, which limits access to the beach. But, the view is great. The beach is a black sand beach with the Atlantic rolling in from the east. To the north you can see Carriacou and some of the little outlying islands off the northeast corner of Grenada. After looking at the view for a few minutes, we turned around and headed south. We retraced our path to Grenville where we continued south along the coast instead of the cross-island route we took to get here. In a number of towns we saw the remains of very old churches. As in St. Georges, many of the churches were large stone buildings that were built in the late 1700's or early 1800's. Some of them have been re-roofed and are back in use, some have been abandoned in favor of new construction, and some are fenced off in the hopes that funds will come form somewhere to restore them. As was the case with many other large buildings, churches, and schools, Cutty pointed the repaired ones out and gave credit to whatever country provided funds or supplies or labor to repair them.
We drove south along the coast through St. David's until we reached La Sagesse Bay. La Sagesse is a very pretty shallow bay with a beautiful beach. Cutty referred to La Sagesse as the most important beach in Grenada. This has to do with it's history. There is a small resort at the head of the bay, and the whole beach is part of this resorts property. The original British owner, who built the resort, restricted access to the beach to guests only. After some number of years, locals who resented him taking their beach access away, rebelled, took the owner out of the resort and tied him to an almond tree in the parking lot. They demanded access to the beach. The details get fuzzy after that, but the result was a law that grants access to all beaches in Grenada. You may not be able to cross private property to get there, but if you approach by water, or by walking on the shore, you cannot be chased off the beach, up to the high-water line. In the case of La Sagesse, new American owners welcome the locals to use the beach and have provided a concrete path from the parking area to the beach which bypasses the main resort area. So, we walked to the beach for a look. The sand here is not the black sand we saw on the Atlantic side, but rather a typical tan sand. While here we discovered loofahs. I forgot to mention that one of the reasons that Cutty is the preferred tour guide is that he knows all the indigenous plants. He has been stopping along the way numerous times to point out flowers, fruits, and other plants. Loofas grow on trees and look like cucumbers hanging from the tree. When they fall and dry out, the interior structure is the loofah. If harvested before they fall and dry, they are eaten similar to cucumbers. If this all sounds far fetched, don't believe me, check out loofahs here.
As we made out way west along the southern coast of the island, we passed the place where the squatters from the St. Georges Lagoon have been relocated. I don't recall if I have mentioned the squatters before or not, so you get the story again if I did. The Lagoon in St. Georges is a all-around protected anchorage. The Grenada Yacht Club is there, but it is only a one dock affair. While the Lagoon is a popular place to anchor, anchoring there also sucks. The bottom is slimy mud, since numerous creeks and ditches drain into it. There are numerous wrecks and other debris on the bottom from Ivan, some visible and some not. We constantly hear stories of anchored boats dragging because the holding so poor, and it gets quite hot because it is so enclosed by the hills. Well, the land on the point that makes the Lagoon, and the water rights to the whole Lagoon have been sold to a developer named Peter de Savary. The new Port Louis marina and resort will take up most of the water and almost half the shoreline of the Lagoon. Cheap cruisers are up in arms because when the marina is done there will be little or no room to anchor. On the shoreline along Lagoon Rd, there used to be a bunch of squatters. They lived in squalor in tin shacks with no utilities. Since they were on private property, which is now being cleared for the development, they had to go. They had no right to be there in the first place, but the developer donated $1.5 million US to the government to relocate the squatters. The government took the money and built new homes for these people. The controversy over the whole thing comes because the new houses are near St. David's, nowhere near where they were. So, access to jobs or stores is now a very long walk or bus ride, instead of a short ride. Also, if you look at the pictures of the new development, you have to wonder how they spent the money, even if you factor in the roads. It's a very volatile subject here.
The last stop on our tour was Cutty's limin spot. Have I explained limin before? Way back when the British occupied the area, the soldiers on their time off wanted to drink, but didn't want to mix with the locals. So they would go to a bar and hang around outside by themselves. Since they were known as Limeys, the act of hanging around drinking and visiting became known as limin. Limin is an art form amongst people in the islands. I'm not sure if I'm correct, but I think it is much more of a male thing. Anyway, as we drove down the road, Cutty pointed out his house up on a hill. He then said we would stop at "his" limin spot. I'm sure he probably does this with all his tours, so they are used to tourists. We all sat around the one big table on benches made from round tree branches nailed to a frame. As I know I have said before, every rum shop has it own under-the-counter jug that is filled with spices, leaves, and nuts. The one I have tried before was at Roger's Beach Bar. It was highly cinnamon flavored and was in a gallon plastic juice jug. Here, the jug was a real green glass gallon glass jug. It was full of leaves and things. We all took a sniff, but Tom & Loretta were the only ones brave enough to sample it. Cutty poured them each a little and the liquid was a bright green like Listerine. I was still tasting the last shot from the distillery so I declined. After our beer we loaded back up and went back to the marina. It had been a long day of driving, but it was very interesting to get out of the area that we have grown used to.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 23
Today was a relax day. In the morning a new boat came into the marina. Barb had been outside and saw it coming even though we had not heard them call the marina. Bob was over on the north dock, so he obviously wasn't expecting an arrival. The boat, Knotts Gypsy, took an empty slip between us and the shore, and we took their lines as they docked. It turned out they had just come in from a two day trip from Venezuela. They have been here before and Bob knew them. He just didn't know they were coming today.
In the morning, Barb did a load of laundry while I wrote logs. In the afternoon, we played dominoes with Dave & Sue and fellow Texans Bill & Deb from Dock Queen. Bob had to run to town in the afternoon and it's Ashley's day off, so I watched the bar while we played dominoes. A local couple that I have not seen before came in for a couple of beers and sat at the bar sucking face most of the time. That is unusual behavior for Grenada. For dinner Barb made us pork chops, Stove Top stuffing and corn, while a thunder storm skirted the area.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 24
I started The day by making an announcement on the local net. Steve from Liward and his band of local guys will be playing at the marina tonight. Yesterday when I asked Bob if he was planning to do a burger night again, he had said no. I think the events of the past week have him a little tired, and he may be worried that people won't show up if they have gotten any negative impression about the place from the things said on the net last week. After consulting with Dave from Pirate's Hideout, we twisted Bob's arm and convinced him to let us help and we'd put on another burger night. So, I made the announcement on the VHF this morning. Later during in the morning I heard several conversations on the net between boats who were planning to come, so I wasn't worried about having a crowd.
During the afternoon, we got things ready. Dave made the burgers and taught Ashley the bartender how to do it so Bob can carry this on after we leave if he wants. (Yes, you have to teach a Grenadian how to make US-style beef burgers.) We got enough meat to make seventy burgers this time. Last week we sold twenty-eight and ran out. We told Bob we'd buy any leftovers and freeze them. Unfortunately, we only have sixty buns, so we'll see how it works out. I stocked the bar cooler with everything except Carib beer, as we were waiting for the beer truck to get here with more Carib beer. We sent Bob on a trip to the store for lettuce and tomatoes, while Barb sliced onions. Bob left me the keys to the storage room so I could take care of the beer delivery if it came while he was gone. By 16:00, the beer truck still hadn't come, but Bob got back from the store and he had picked up five cases himself. We loaded the beer into the cooler and kept our fingers crossed that it would get cold in an hour. Bob got the deep fryer out for us and we started it heating up. Barb and I will be in charge of fries.
Steve didn't show up until about 16:30 to set up the band, and he had bad news. The drummer was quite ill and was not able to make it. So, the show will go on with just the three guitar players. Or so we thought. By the time they started at 18:00, they had a bongo player for percussion and a sax player. I have no idea how that happened but it made a great combo. When they played A Pirate Looks At Forty, which has an instrumental solo that Buffett fills with either a harmonica or a sax, the sax player did a great solo. It was particularly good because he had never heard the song before and did the melody solo just from having heard the first two verses. The band played almost an hour, took a short break and then played a few more songs. This will be the last time Steve plays here, because they should be back in the water and on their way north next week.
People started showing up about 17:30 and kept asking when the food started. We started cooking fries about 17:45 and Dave started cooking the burgers at 18:00. When the cooking started there was a long line. Dave cooks the burgers to order, so he usually has no more than eight or ten going at once. This helped us keep up with the fries. Any fears we had about a skinny crowd were unfounded. Bob told me later that he thought it was probably the largest crowd he's ever had there. We sold out the burgers in less than an hour. After the buns were gone, several people were happy to still get a burger and fries even without a bun. The last six burgers were sold to a local family that showed up. When they heard the buns were gone, the guy told Dave to wait a few minutes before cooking the burgers. He jumped in his car and came back with some little dinner rolls to substitute. And we were worried about the success. After the band was done and the burgers gone, most of the crowd stayed for at least another hour before they started drifting off. Barb & I helped cleanup by collecting glasses and bottles from the tables while Bob and Ashley kept up with the bar and the dish washing. I joked that I now have another thing to add to my resume - "Would you like fries with that Sir?"
Overall the night was great. I guess we have come full circle in a week. We had a great evening last Wednesday, followed by the ugly events and friends leaving. Now we have topped the fun of last Wednesday. Hopefully the rest of the last week won't repeat too. We know that several of the boats we have gotten to know very well will be leaving in the coming few days, and that's always sad, but we also know we'll see them again up-island.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 25
Abut ten days ago we had found that there was a slight leak at the holding tank, and we switched to pump directly overboard. I finally got around to taking the tank out again to reseal the fitting that is leaking. Getting it apart was not nearly as hard as the first time, since when I put it back together I didn't use any of the unnecessary caulk that the factory had. I took the tank out, and took it outside. I rinsed it out to get rid of the majority of the smell, and removed the fitting that was leaking. The problem with the fitting is that when it is tightened as tight as it can be, it doesn't point in the right direction to attach the hose. So, it has to be loosened about an eighth of a turn to get the hose on. I cleaned all the sealant off it and this time I ran a bead of sealant around the bottom edge of the fitting so when it bottoms out in the tank fitting, this sealant will compensate for not being 100% tight. I then put a bunch of Teflon tape around the threads, and once it was all in place, I ran a bead of sealant around the outer edge. I will let this sit for at least twenty-four hours before testing it for a leak.
The rest of the day was reading and playing on the computer. The weather has not been great today. It's gotten quite windy and there have been rain showers off and on all day.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 26
We awoke to more rain today. It turned out to be one of those days where we had a heavy overcast that stayed all day, and the rain itself came and went. Not a common weather day down here. This morning is our regular shopping trip. We left a little earlier than usual and went to the fresh market downtown first. This will probably be our last visit to the fresh market this year. We found tomatoes, which have been conspicuously absent from both the market and the grocery store for the past month. We got several other things and met up with Dave & Sue and found Bert. We then hit Island Water World on the way out of town for a couple of parts. Next was the IGA where we did our regular shopping. We got a little extra of some things today, since we will be getting on the move again next week. One thing we have been stocking up on is kitty litter. We brought about a hundred and fifty pounds of scoopable kitty litter with us from the States, and we have just gotten into the last of the thirty-five pound containers recently. In all of the islands, we have never seen scoopable litter until we got here. Very few have litter at all, and those that did just carried Fresh Step's regular clay type. Since we noticed they carry it here, we have been stocking up. They only sell it in fourteen pound containers, and they only get three or four containers in each shipment. We have scored six of them, so hopefully we'll have enough to last until we get back down here next year.
Our last stop of the shopping run was at Budget Marine, where I had to exchange a tube of caulk I bought last week. If you recall, last week I recaulked the hull/deck joint that I suspect of leaking, but I came up about ten feet shy of finishing when I ran out of caulk. Last Friday we stopped at Budget Marine and I found that they no longer carry 3M 5200, but rather a different brand of similar stuff. In my haste to not hold the gang up too long, and since the packaging was unfamiliar to me, I ended up with a tube of black caulk instead of white. Fortunately, I noticed before I opened it, so today I am exchanging it for white.
In the afternoon, we played dominoes with Dave & Sue. Mid-way in our game, Bob came in to ask for our help moving a boat. The boat on the end of our dock is a sixty-five foot sailboat. This boat was expected to be gone by now, but has had some problems. The former owner has been contracted by the new owner to move the boat to St. Maarten, and he is here by himself trying to get it ready to go. Bob was contacted yesterday by a one hundred foot boat that wants to come in today, so he needs to move the sixty-five footer to a slip on the south dock. Even though the slips on the south dock are only forty feet long, they have large mooring balls out in front of them, so a large boat can attach a bow line to the mooring ball and then back up into the slip and be secure. Since there was just the one guy on the boat though, he would need some help. Bob took his small power boat out so that he could loop the bow line from the sailboat through the mooring balls eye. I was to go on the sailboat to handle the bow line, while everybody else went to the dock to take dock lines. I untied all the dock lines from where the boat had been and pushed the bow out into the wind so we could pull away from the dock. I jumped on at the last minute to ride around on the boat. We motored around to the south side of the south dock and approached the mooring, where Bob was waiting for us. The line we were to use was on deck and was not coiled cleanly, but had just been pulled out of a locker. I got about fifty feet uncoiled and tossed it to Bob as we approached. The guy driving the sailboat didn't slow down enough though, and Bob had to let the line go and back his boat away in a hurry to avoid a collision. I retrieved the line and we tried again. This time we approached slower and Bob stayed a little further away. I got the line to Bob, he got it through the mooring eye, and then tossed it back to me. Meanwhile the boat captain had the sailboat in reverse. So by the time I got the line back, we were moving backwards. I didn't have a lot more line free from the pile, and didn't have a chance to make the line fast on a cleat. This left me screaming to the guy to come forward while I strained with all my might, hanging over the bow pulpit trying not to have to let go of the line. We did come forward and stopped, which allowed me time to make one end of the line fast and start to unravel the rest. I told the guy to just let the wind slowly blow us back into the slip as I played out more line. At this point we realized that his dinghy, which was tied and chained with a lock, to the back of the boat, was going to be on the wrong side and in the way as we got in the slip. I stopped letting out line and held us there, while he found the key to the lock, and moved the dinghy to the other side of the boat. By the time he finished that, we had been blown way out if line with the slip, so he had to use the motor to move us around and get us in. This took a number of tries, but finally we got close enough to get a stern line to the gang waiting on the dock. We slid the boat back into the slip and made all the lines fast. I seemed no worse for the wear except for getting a lot of dirty water on my clothes from the wet line. I realized later that my upper chest and shoulders were kinda sore from the tug of war moment though. We all went back to the bar and resumed our dominoes game, with Dave coming out the big winner.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 27
This morning we were awakened by a strong squall coming through. The wind picked up to over thirty knots followed by heavy rain. The rain lasted for about five minutes and stopped, and the wind dropped back to about fifteen knots. This pattern repeated itself at least five times through the course of the day. Between the squalls the skies remained heavily overcast and the wind kept blowing between fifteen and twenty knots. The result was a nice cool day where we probably never topped eighty degrees.
I tackled some projects today. Yesterday I had put a plug in the output fitting on the holding tank and filled it with water sitting on the dock, so I could see if it was leaking anymore. In twenty four hours, it has not dripped, so I reinstalled it in the boat. As with the removal, the job went a lot faster this time. I then finished the caulking project on the hull/deck joint. I only used about a fifth of the tube of caulk, and of course once opened, it won't last, so I tried to think of anything else that needs resealing. I didn't come up with anything, so I tossed the remaining caulk. I'm sure another project will rear it's ugly head in a day or two where I could have used it.
The other thing I did today was reset our battery monitor. Since we have been plugged in to the shore power here, we have been getting an error on the battery monitor that indicates that the voltage has gotten to over fifteen volts, which shuts off the charger. After sending an e-mail to Xantrex, the manufacturer, I got a response that said to do a deep reset of the monitor. To do the deep reset, you have to disconnect power to the unit by unplugging the fuse, which is located under the main saloon floor by the batteries. I did that and after I did the monitor acted even stranger than it had. I reset it again, and it still didn't seem right. One more time, and it seemed ok. I then had to go through and reset the options which I have set differently than the factory defaults. After I did this, I noticed that every time I waked across the main saloon, the monitor reset again. I was afraid that maybe I had broken the wire where it goes into the fuse holder, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it just wasn't screwed tight.
Adrianne, the boat bottom cleaning diver was in the marina today to clean several boats. We are on his list, since we will be getting underway in a week or so. Our bottom shouldn't have anything on it, but the prop probably does. You can't put anti-fouling paint on the prop, because the friction with the water will just take it right off. When you use the boat regularly, it's not a problem, because that same friction keep stuff from growing on the prop. But in these waters, sitting still for even a few weeks can result in a nice crop of barnacles on the prop, which turns it into a big egg beater instead of a propulsion device. Adrianne went under and cleaned the prop and shaft, and said they weren't as bad as he would have expected. He told me he had just cleaned one of the power boats that has been sitting here for several months, and their props were so encrusted that it probably would have damaged the transmissions if they had tried to go without cleaning.
This evening is the Saturday night pot luck. We had a good turnout of about twenty people, and lots of food. Barb had made a cake and a potato dish, because we thought there might be a light turnout, but we had plenty. After eating and chatting for a while, we fired up the karaoke machine. Amanda from Solstice has left the marina, so I was in charge of karaoke tonight. It was just the usual suspects who sang, myself, Dave, Bob, and Irling, but we had good time. You know we've been doing this too long though when the audience knows what songs we sing and starts making requests. About 22:00 we started winding down and each did a final song. This will likely be our last pot luck and karaoke night, so we wrapped up with Bob singing My Way.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 28
This morning Barb did a load of laundry after it appeared that the weather was finally going to clear up so we could dry. I spent the morning reading and playing computer games. In the afternoon, I went up to the bar to see if there was any football on. Sure enough there was, and it was truly international. The NY Giants were playing the Miami Dolphins, in London, and since we were watching the South American Direct TV feed, we heard it all in Spanish. The Giants won.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 29
I decided to fix something on the boat today. Next time I do that, somebody stop me before I break two other things. Actually, the day started with two boats leaving the marina. Dock Queen, a Texas based trawler with Bill & Deb aboard, left for a haulout and bottom job. They will then be headed north along with us. The other boat was Ira on Lone Fox. Lone Fox is the sixty-five foot wooden boat that was damaged here during Tropical Storm Felix. He is heading back to St. Maarten/St. Barths where he will be doing charters on the boat. After those departures, I got to work.
Today's project is to replace two more tank vents. There are six tank vents on the boat. One is for the fuel tank. Two are for the fore and aft waste water holding tanks. And three are for the three fresh water tanks. These vent things go through the hull, high up on the side, just under the rub rail where the deck and hull are joined. They are made of some kind of zinc alloy pot metal far eastern crap that doesn't like salt water. The result of this metal vs. water war is that the vents kind of bubble up and clog themselves. What the corrosion doesn't clog, salt does. I replaced the one that vents the aft waste water tank a few weeks ago when I did the whole rebuild the head/holding tank/macerator pump thing. Since then though, we noticed a new phenomena with one of the fresh water tanks. The first thing we noticed was that it acted like it was empty when it wasn't. We normally get at least five days from each thirty gallon tank, and tank one acted empty after two days. When I tried to refill it, the water would back up like the tank was full, but then go down and I could put more in. After some thought I realized that a clogged vent could explain both symptoms. When I was recaulking the hull/deck joint, I poked at the vent from the outside, and the outer part just fell off the boat. Based on this problem determination last week, I went to Island Water World Friday and bought the remaining two vents that they had. I knew they had them because when I bought the first one a few weeks ago the computer said they had three. The vents are located in the area of the forward head. Our forward head is used for mega storage, so the first task was to move more than half the stuff stored there to somewhere else. Once that was accomplished, I had to remove the cabinet that was along the hull. This turned out to be much easier than the aft head had been a few weeks ago. The cabinets in the aft head are part of a one-piece molded fiberglass unit that makes the whole room. In the forward head, the cabinets were a screwed in wooden unit that was easily removed. Once the cabinet was out of the way, I could see where the vents were obscured by the flange of the fiberglass inner liner, just as they were in the aft. Time to borrow Bob's saws-all again. I cut a chunk out of the flange and now had access to the vents for the forward head waste tank, which we don't use, and the number one fresh water tank. The vent for the number two fresh water tank was also in view, since the factory had seen fit to already cut away a portion of the fiberglass there. It turned out that the vent I broke off a few days ago was the one for the holding tank, not the fresh water tank, which explains why it still acts funny. I took the hose off that one and then broke the exterior clamshell off the second one and found it just solid with corrosion. This hopefully explains the fresh water problem. The hose to the vent for tank two is kinked to a point where it probably doesn't vent at all either, but I don't have enough new vents to replace it now. We installed the two new vents and replaced the hoses on them. One hose was a few inches shorter, since I had cut through it with the saws-all. I then also put some electrical tape on the 110v wire that I nicked with the saws-all too. Speaking of the 110v wiring, we may have solved a mystery pointed out to us by the guy who surveyed the boat back in FL in late 2005. He had noted that something was amiss in the port side wiring. While all the 110 outlets worked, the "third prong" of several outlets didn't have continuity. This wasn't a big deal, and he just mentioned that I may want to take the outlets apart and look for a bad connection. Well, two years later, here I am taking the outlet apart in the head to get the cabinet out, and there is the disconnected green wire. The factory had chosen to try and mash four wires into a butt splice designed for two wires, and one fell out. I redid it in a better fashion so now they are all connected. I put the cabinet back together and that part of the job is done.
Remember the opening statement about fix one, break two? Well, we have always had some kind of water leak in the forward head. We didn't know if it was from the port window, or the overhead hatch, or the chainplate. Since we had most of the stuff out of the head and I could move around, this would be a good time to do a leak test. I got the hose hooked up and first blasted the port window. I concentrated on hitting it right at the point where the window should seal to the frame, expecting it to leak at the gasket. But it didn't. Then I moved to the overhead hatch. I hit it right under the forward edge like a wave would. Barb was watching below, and started knocking on the window and yelling to stop. The overhead hatch was leaking a little bit where the seam in the gasket is, which is easy to fix. The bigger problem was now the port window had water pouring in. Looks like it isn't the window gasket that leaks, but rather the bedding where the port is sealed into the boat. It only leaks when the water is running off the deck from above it. I redid this on the opposite side of the boat a couple months ago. So, while the stuff is all out of the head, I'll see if I can't take out the port and re-bed it between rain squalls. There are four long screws holding the inner frame to the outer frame. None of them wanted to unscrew easily. I hit them all with WD-40 and waited half an hour to resume the task. I got two of the screws out, but the top two, which were encrusted with salt from years of leakage, wouldn't budge. I resorted to using Vice-Grips on the head of the screws instead of a screw driver, and this gave me the necessary torque to snap them both off instead of unscrewing gracefully. No turning back now. With all the screws off and the inner frame off, I tried to remove the port from the hull, but it wouldn't budge. I hammered and pried, but got nothing. I asked Barb how I did this a few weeks ago on the other side. That one put up a fight, but came out. I finally gave up for today.
We went and took showers and then went to the bar for a few drinks. I don't think I mentioned, but the wind has been howling all day and several squalls have come through. So getting off the bouncing boat for an hour sounded good. We visited with Dave from Daniell Storey, and Ernie from Joat Mon, and Bob. After a few drinks, we returned to the boat where Barb made pizza and I wrote the logs.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 30
I contemplated what to do about the problem port some more this morning. I am afraid that if I put the necessary power into getting it out of the deck that I'm going to damage it some more. I checked both Island Water World and Budget Marine and neither carry Bomar ports, so I can't buy one locally if I damage the old one beyond repair. This one port is showing old age signs of the Plexiglas in the window itself cracking, so total replacement probably is in order. But not now. I went outside and ran a small bead of 4200 around the perimeter of the frame. This will stop the leaking and although it doesn't look great it will do for now. I sent an e-mail off to Bomar to make sure the port is available (it's listed in their online store) and also to get a quote on new screens for all the ports. I'll have the new port shipped to us in St. Maarten when we get there in a couple months.
While fixing leaks, I made an attempt at sealing the overhead hatch too. It is leaking where the seam is in it's gasket. I put a dollop of silicon sealer on the seam and then closed the hatch with wax paper under it so the silicon doesn't stick to the frame. Although we never use these hatches, I don't want to permanently stick it shut. Hopefully this will do the trick. Now it's time to repack all the stuff we store in the head. I repacked the cabinet with everything that came out of it and had room left over. We double checked that we weren't forgetting something and then filled the space with something else. We then reloaded the shelf, which holds the large, very heavy, duffel bag of spare parts. Given the angle of attack, it was all I could do to muscle it back in place, but I got it. Once everything was stowed, we again marveled at how there seemed to be less stuff. I guess it's just stows better when it's first packed and after things get moved around nothing fits right again.
We went up the bar for happy hour. A number of boats are planning to leave the marina and head north Thursday, so we had a nice gathering on our next-to-last day all together.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Oct 31
One of the things about the cruising life that never ceases to amaze me is how plans can change in an instant. At about 06:50 this morning, I thought I heard a knock on the boat. I had been awake, but was still in bed dozing. I knew it couldn't be Dave from Pirate's Hideout, because his knocks usually make us jump out of our skins. I poked my head out of the companionway and found Bob on the dock. This was very unusual for him to be looking for us this early, unless he wanted me to make an announcement on the net or something. When he started talking, I could tell he had something more serious on his mind. He got to the point quickly and asked me if we would consider staying here to run the marina for him while he went home to Toronto for a while. While I was a bit surprised by this, it was also ironic, because Barb and I had talked a week ago about offering to do exactly that. Bob is here seven days a week for at least twelve hours a day. He needs a break. I told him we would come up to the office after the radio nets and talk about it. I went back to bed and told Barb what was up.
Of course we couldn't go back to sleep, so we got up, and while listening to the morning nets, we made a quick list of questions to discuss with Bob. We went up to the office about 08:30 and sat down with him to see what he had in mind. His hopes were that Barb could manage the bar and I could run the marina. He feels he needs to go home for a month or so to take care of things there. If I have never explained, Bob is a native Grenadian, who spent most of his adult life in Toronto. He has a business there with a foreman who was supposed to retire three years ago, a wife, child and grandkids, and a home that needs some attention before winter. I don't know when he last went to Canada. His wife comes here for a couple weeks every couple of months. She has been here twice since we have been here. Bob's proposition to us was to at least stay through December, so he can go home for three or four weeks. He also made it clear that if we wanted, he would love to have us stay on as managers, so that he could concentrate on building the next phase of his desired development. There are lots of things he would like to do here, like add a restaurant and pool. Eventually he hopes to build a small resort. Anyway, we have committed to stay through December and then take it from there.
So, the day was spent thinking about things from a different point of view. Barb started thinking about how to improve the record keeping for the bar, while I was thinking of what I need to know to actually manage the marina. I'll need to learn how to use the billing system on the computer, how to use the credit card machine, what is expected of the other employees, what keys open what, and on and on. Bob went and got a cell phone for us, but when we tried to use it, it wouldn't work, so he has to sort that out tomorrow. He has a spare car we can use so we can run errands as necessary. Bob won't leave for Canada for a couple of weeks, so there will be a lot to learn.
If you have never read the book Don't Stop The Carnival, by Herman Wouk, you should. It's a good book about a NY theatre publicist who runs away from it all and buys a hotel in the Caribbean. The ensuing nightmares of running a business in the Caribbean, especially if you're not a local, is hilarious. We have told Bob several times that he is Norman Paperman, trying to make a living at his dream. And here we go jumping on the carnival ride.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.