Pirates of the Caribbean

One of the ways the time in the boatyard is made bearable is lunch in the Slipway Restaurant, the home of the best burger in the Caribbean.

But you have to be aware of the opportunistic pirate grackles. Turn your back for a second and they will have plundered your plate and made off with the booty.

LIVING UP A LADDER

Hauled out and blocked nose to wind as always. Edwyn the yard manager always gets his mask and snorkel on to make sure the lifting straps are in the right place. It is one of the reasons I keep coming back here.

I am being extra careful on the ladder as I heard recently that my heroine Jeanne Socrates had fallen from deck level while working on her boat in the yard.

Two attempts to​ ​start​ ​off down the Pacific from Victoria, B.C. - on 19th October and​ ​​on​ ​13th November - were thwarted in 2016. This was planned to be a fourth solo circumnavigation and a second sail nonstop and unassisted around the world but​ ​stormy weather twice caused damage, firstly requiring a return to Victoria for repairs and the next time forcing her​ ​to pull in to San Diego​ for further work.

She​ ​was all set to re-start on​ ​5th​ ​October 2017 from Victoria, B.C.​ ​but she suffered a nasty fall from ​a ladder at ​deck-level onto the hard just a week before her planned departure. She's now recuperating well​, despite several broken bones,​ but has had t​o​ postpone this attempt to October 2018.

So it is Extra Careful Jones on the ladder.

TYRELL BAY CARRIACOU

A quiet passage with favorable winds saw us into Tyrell Bay mid afternoon. Picked a spot well to the left of the two noisy rums shops, However I was so tired I think I could have slept through any amount of drum practice.

Haulout is scheduled for Tuesday at 8.00 am

CARRIACOU ON FRIDAY PICASO TRIGGERFISH and FOUR BIG CRUISE SHIPS

Well it is big girl pants time. The last really nasty looking Cabo Verde wave blew through Grenada and is sitting off Columbia with a 20% chance of further development. Nothing in the Atlantic looks threatening and the ITCZ is quiet.

So I got my snorkel gear on and set off to touch up my bottom with a green scrubber. I was not expecting more than a light coating of fur, boy was I wrong, there was significant fouling 1/2 inch barnacles and some spectacular soft coal growth. It was time to get the big scraper out again and give it laldy. Now I am used to being very popular with the local fish and expect yellowtails blue runners and various grunts to snack on my scrapings. But today we had only one fish and he was very aggressive to other fish.

It was that most outrageously colored denizen of the shallows, a Picasso Triggerfish.

I had wimped out of going to town yesterday knowing that St Georges would be totally rammed with cruise ship passangers we had no less than four. The facilities can really only handle two medium sized jobbies.

The poor revelation had to anchor out and we had one crammed onto the commercial dock.

A side effect of Irma and Maria.

Meanwhile recovery in the islands worst hit is not going well with Political chaos in St Marten.

“One week later, November 10th 2017, the Magic Eight passed another motion discharging Prime Minister Marlin of his duties with immediate effect and resolving to install Acting Prime Minister Rafael Boasman as the new Prime Minister. Popularly speaking, parliament fired the Prime Minister twice and then requested the Acting Prime Minister, in whom, one week prior, they had no confidence, to become the new Prime Minister.

St Thomas

Now 61 days in the dark for our islands.32% power restoration closest to towns

.

Puerto Rico

Maybe 25% has electricity and again about 25% has mains water although I am told that it is erratic.

With only one small cruiseship in I risked the town and did the rounds of post office [ parcel still not arrived. ] optician [ ne replacement lense ] Digicel top up. and a fruitless search for tomatoes.

IT HAS BEEN A LONG AND FRIGHTENING HURRICANE SEASON

Tropical Storm Bret was the earliest named storm to develop in the Main Development Region of the Atlantic basin on record. Bret formed from a low-latitude tropical wave that had moved off the coast of Africa on June 12. The disturbance moved swiftly across the Atlantic for several days, steadily organizing despite its low latitude. On June 18, the organization increased enough for the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to begin issuing warnings disturbance while it was located southeast of the Windward Islands. The system continued to organize, and by the next day, it had developed into a tropical storm. It then followed a very unusual path going South of Grenada. was on DEVCON 5 for Bret.

Then we had another storm go South of Grenada DAVCON 5 again.

Everybody knows about Irma and Maria which devastated islands in the North East Caribbean.

Tropical Storm Rina formed today on November the 7th.

Crown Weather reported over the weekend that there could be some tropical storm development in the week of November 12 that could track from the Western Caribbean towards the islands of Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and the Northern Leeward Islands.

Mean while I am still sitting in Grenada with disturbances rattling along ICZ bringing strong squalls and the threat of rapid development l have memories of Hurricane Tomas that spun up from just such a disturbance to fully fledged hurricane in 18 hours and scared the shit out of Gisela and I as we sheltered in Frigate Bay Union Island.

The last three days have seen 40 knot squalls and rain with a storm to the North and another threatening to form to the East. What about OCTOBER ALL OVER!

I need to get up to Carriacou and get hauled as I want to be in St Lucia for ARC. I have the anti fouling the new prop and some other bits and pieces I will get installed. I will put on my big girl pants and leave on Friday or Saturday unless the threatened storm forms and heads for Carriacou.

WATCH OUT PIRATES ABOUT!

On a lighter note I was treated to a breath taking display of aerial piracy as I enjoyed breakfast in the cockpit. The pelicans are gone so the Magnificent Frigate birds are reduced to bullying the gulls who are fishing for their chicks at this time of year. The frigates try to harass the gulls till they drop the fish. The gulls try to outfly the frigates twisting and turning. But the frigates are relentless.

This pic is not mine but illustrates what I saw several times during breakfast.

The frigates had a big breeding colony on Barbuda which was one of the islands hit hard. Reports say less than 10% of the birds survived and there are no reports of them turning up elsewhere.