Left this morning at 8.15 after the cruisers net finished. This was clearly the best day to head North weatherwise and I thought that I might be part a large fleet but I could only count 7 boats when I left.
I was able to shut off the donk as soon as I got the sails up and we were half way up Grenada before it had to go on again and only for 5 minutes to power through a dead spot.
Once clear of Grenada we made good progress and I even shook out the reef in the mainsail.
Dropped anchor in Tyrel bay at 2.00pm
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
HEADING NORTH TO TYREL BAY CARRIACOU
The forecast looks favorable for Saturday so I am off, leaving St Georges early and if we get a good run I will stop for lunch at Isle de Ronde before making the last leg.
Kick'em Jenny the big underwater volcano is quiet so I will take the passage East of the three sistors but West of Diamond rock.
I will be thinking about the boaters in Puerto Valarta and other coastal harbors and marinas in Mexico and hoping they all left their boats after doing what they could and have sought shelter.
ZeeHag and Bubba the boat cat get my best wishes for a safe passage through the most powerful hurricane to hit Mexico. A thousand year storm.
Kick'em Jenny the big underwater volcano is quiet so I will take the passage East of the three sistors but West of Diamond rock.
I will be thinking about the boaters in Puerto Valarta and other coastal harbors and marinas in Mexico and hoping they all left their boats after doing what they could and have sought shelter.
ZeeHag and Bubba the boat cat get my best wishes for a safe passage through the most powerful hurricane to hit Mexico. A thousand year storm.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Clean clothes Dirty bottom and Very dirty fender
One of the great services offered by Nimrods Rum Shop is wash line dry and fold. Bernadette does a great job for a very reasonable price.
One of the not so great jobs done by locals at least in one case is a bottom job.
Now this is not my boat, mine is lots worse than that. But you can see it is at best only half done.
I only hope that the young man concerned comes back and finishes the job off.
Up to now I have always cleaned my own bottom and while I am feeling older and creakier I thought I would give it a go. Once I was in the water it was not to bad and I cleaned the whole boat in one stint. I had a feeding frenzy below me, smaller snapper 10 inch blue jacks and slightly larger barracuda were whirling around snapping up the stuff i was scraping off. Just a little worrying as the viz was not great and I would not have seen anything large and evil till the last moment. I do not have pics as my cheap underwater camera failed to light up this morning. Maybe it has finally died after 7 years of good service.
But I have another cleaning job to do.
This is my fender which has being a stand in for the promised mooring ball for the last ten or so weeks. The gooseneck barnacles are 50 mm long, the regular barnacles are 12 + mm and the soft coral is 6 + mm thick.
Skip this bit unless you are thinking about having a mooring installed in Grenada.
SEVERAL ISSUES WITH MOORING INSTALLER.
I decided that I wanted a mooring in Clark's Court Bay, one of the key factors was a feeling that I can see the creeping tide of government moorings and I thought that if I had a mooring registered in my name then "grandfather rights" might kick in. But I was also fed up cleaning chain. I discussed the mooring installation with the installer making it very clear that it must be formally registered in my name and that this was a deal breaker. No problem he said, I am already talking to the official. The mooring was installed and it seems to be a good job except that instead of fitting the usual mooring ball he took a fender off my deck and used that instead. For the next ten or so weeks he promised every Friday that he would come the next day and fit the ball. Finally I told him that I was leaving and really needed the ball. No worries he said. I phone him to remind him, yes yes i have the ball and will come and fit it before you go. Well a young man whizzed in on the morning I was leaving and tied a fender to the boat end of the mooring strop and left me to recover my fender. [ Thanks for the help Chris]
This renders the mooring unusable as you have to lift 40 feet of heavy duty chain about 10 feet to get to the strop. Now about the registration, after several weeks delay he tells me that yes the mooring is registered but not in my name but in his company name. So at the moment I have a badly fouled fender to clean and a new hang line to buy. The mooring is not registered in my name but as XXXXXX Marine Services. If I wanted to pick up my mooring tonight or tomorrow I can not do this. I hate having to hassle people to do what they promised and I hate having to deal with people who give you the runaround.
At anchor off Calivgny Island tonight
and my Cuba Libre was enhanced by the splendid sunset.
One of the not so great jobs done by locals at least in one case is a bottom job.
Now this is not my boat, mine is lots worse than that. But you can see it is at best only half done.
I only hope that the young man concerned comes back and finishes the job off.
Up to now I have always cleaned my own bottom and while I am feeling older and creakier I thought I would give it a go. Once I was in the water it was not to bad and I cleaned the whole boat in one stint. I had a feeding frenzy below me, smaller snapper 10 inch blue jacks and slightly larger barracuda were whirling around snapping up the stuff i was scraping off. Just a little worrying as the viz was not great and I would not have seen anything large and evil till the last moment. I do not have pics as my cheap underwater camera failed to light up this morning. Maybe it has finally died after 7 years of good service.
But I have another cleaning job to do.
This is my fender which has being a stand in for the promised mooring ball for the last ten or so weeks. The gooseneck barnacles are 50 mm long, the regular barnacles are 12 + mm and the soft coral is 6 + mm thick.
Skip this bit unless you are thinking about having a mooring installed in Grenada.
SEVERAL ISSUES WITH MOORING INSTALLER.
I decided that I wanted a mooring in Clark's Court Bay, one of the key factors was a feeling that I can see the creeping tide of government moorings and I thought that if I had a mooring registered in my name then "grandfather rights" might kick in. But I was also fed up cleaning chain. I discussed the mooring installation with the installer making it very clear that it must be formally registered in my name and that this was a deal breaker. No problem he said, I am already talking to the official. The mooring was installed and it seems to be a good job except that instead of fitting the usual mooring ball he took a fender off my deck and used that instead. For the next ten or so weeks he promised every Friday that he would come the next day and fit the ball. Finally I told him that I was leaving and really needed the ball. No worries he said. I phone him to remind him, yes yes i have the ball and will come and fit it before you go. Well a young man whizzed in on the morning I was leaving and tied a fender to the boat end of the mooring strop and left me to recover my fender. [ Thanks for the help Chris]
At anchor off Calivgny Island tonight
and my Cuba Libre was enhanced by the splendid sunset.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
BIG POWERBOAT REEF RESCUE
The powerboat Hawk found itself on the reef in Secret Harbor. The reef is marked on the charts and discussed in the guides. I wonder what the driver was using?
Luckily he went aground on a rising tide although there was only inches to go.
We could not get him off an hour before HW.
But at HW the dinghy gang plus a couple of big tenders and some serious bow thruster work by Hawk loosened the grip on the reef and he slid off.
I suspect there was some serious relief felt aboard the powerboat.
Luckily he went aground on a rising tide although there was only inches to go.
We could not get him off an hour before HW.
But at HW the dinghy gang plus a couple of big tenders and some serious bow thruster work by Hawk loosened the grip on the reef and he slid off.
I suspect there was some serious relief felt aboard the powerboat.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
SMALL STUFF
Mostly I don't sweat the small stuff but the last few days have been trying.
MOORING
I got a local guy to lay me a mooring. Which he did and I am happy with mooring and he was pretty prompt.
But he was supposed to register it with the government in my name. He now come up with a story that says he has had to register it in his name along with some others.
When he laid it he did not have a buoy so borrowed a fender from me. 7 weeks of promises every Friday [ he drives the shopping bus ] and I still have no mooring ball. So it looks like I have to abandon my fender when I go North.
COOKER
My Force 10 cooker has 4 burners three are small, one of the small ones has always been wimpy but the others are now wimpy too. This did not matter as the big one did the business and I could swap things around.
But the flame failure device on the big one has failed and it turns out that I will have to dismantle the whole top of the cooker to get this fixed. An attempt to do so soon showed that a key part is cast from a very low grade alloy and that the screws used are made from something close to cream cheese. N.B. This is a seriously expensive, top of the range, supposedly MARINE grade cooker.
I called in a local called David Benoit who is the goto guy on cookers and between us we managed to drill out and clean out 3 burners. So the good news is my coffee will not take 30 minutes to make in the morning.
WILD WET AND WINDY
I was planning to be up in Cariacou by now. The hurricane center keeps warning of waves coming off Africa with "potential". Well we have just have had a succession of these waves giving 30 knot + squalls thunderstorms and heavy rain. One just like these developed into Hurricane Tomas with no warning and only 18 hours from Carriacou.
FINALLY MY ONLY IN AMERICA MOMENT
Man injured by pine cone in San Francisco park sues the US government for $5m. Ha I thought another crazy. But it turns out that the guy got beaned by a 7kg "Bunya" pine cone which fractured his skull.
Which reminds me not to walk under coconut trees as around 150 people are killed by falling coconuts every year.
MOORING
I got a local guy to lay me a mooring. Which he did and I am happy with mooring and he was pretty prompt.
But he was supposed to register it with the government in my name. He now come up with a story that says he has had to register it in his name along with some others.
When he laid it he did not have a buoy so borrowed a fender from me. 7 weeks of promises every Friday [ he drives the shopping bus ] and I still have no mooring ball. So it looks like I have to abandon my fender when I go North.
COOKER
My Force 10 cooker has 4 burners three are small, one of the small ones has always been wimpy but the others are now wimpy too. This did not matter as the big one did the business and I could swap things around.
But the flame failure device on the big one has failed and it turns out that I will have to dismantle the whole top of the cooker to get this fixed. An attempt to do so soon showed that a key part is cast from a very low grade alloy and that the screws used are made from something close to cream cheese. N.B. This is a seriously expensive, top of the range, supposedly MARINE grade cooker.
I called in a local called David Benoit who is the goto guy on cookers and between us we managed to drill out and clean out 3 burners. So the good news is my coffee will not take 30 minutes to make in the morning.
WILD WET AND WINDY
I was planning to be up in Cariacou by now. The hurricane center keeps warning of waves coming off Africa with "potential". Well we have just have had a succession of these waves giving 30 knot + squalls thunderstorms and heavy rain. One just like these developed into Hurricane Tomas with no warning and only 18 hours from Carriacou.
FINALLY MY ONLY IN AMERICA MOMENT
Man injured by pine cone in San Francisco park sues the US government for $5m. Ha I thought another crazy. But it turns out that the guy got beaned by a 7kg "Bunya" pine cone which fractured his skull.
Which reminds me not to walk under coconut trees as around 150 people are killed by falling coconuts every year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)