This is a big week with Jake's 6th birthday on the 27th. He is very excited. Isabelle announced that she would like a baby sister for her birthday, unfortunately with that only 3 weeks away we probably will not deliver. Fortunately Jake is focused on his fishing pole, which I have stashed on board so at least there we will deliver.
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Given we are still a cruising boat and the kids were below watching movies, we had to be careful about the angle of heel as we made this beat to windward. Thus we began flying a single reef in the main and a triple reef in the genoa, effectively cutting the sail to a 95% jib. Our competitor was flying full canvas, main, jib and cutter. We were easily making 5 knots with the gusts pushing us to 6 knots. For the fun of it we were also fishing as well as for the electric energy towing our water generator. The first hour yielded very little change in the relative position of the two boats.
As we came out of the lee of Canoan, the wind dipped ever so slightly, and we shook out a reef in the geona. Suddenly we were closing the gap. We gave them a faint, showing a pass on their lee side, then hardened up, took yet another reef out of the genoa and ran up onto their stern, barely a half a boat length away. After a momentary stare down, we effortlessly moved up their windward side. We put them in our wind shadow and our lead quickly grew.
The the squall came. 35 knots of wind, lashing rain. We reefed ourselves back down, slowing to 4.5 knots. The competitor still slogging after losing their wind to us, took in their jib.... and turned on their engine! Powering forward dead into the squall. Needless to say our lead vanished and we were again behind by 1 mile, with only 11 to go. We knew though from watching the squalls pass while we were anchored in the Tobago Cays that the strong one brought a temporary but nice SE wind shift. We prepared and when the shift hit, we let out our reefs and pointed up to 50 degrees, picking up speed to 7 knots.
The wind slowly shifted to the ENE again, settling just below 15 knots. We shook out the remaining reefs, working now under full main and genoa. We rounded Admiralty Point 1 mile in the lead.
We are now anchored in Bequia, enjoying this beautiful island and its favorable orientation towards boats of all kinds, having formally a successful whaling station, a strong fishing tradition and a good boat building tradition.
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This week we left Grenada/Carricou and moved up into the southern Grenadines, visiting Petite St. Vincent, Petite Martinique and Union Island. The fishing has been thinner though I was able to get one more lobster.
We did have a near scare. The water maker failed due to excess salinity above the preset threshold. Running through all the possibilities, bad salinity probe, membrane in need of cleaning, bad membrane or loose connections, I only had the ability to look into the last item, having no membrane cleaning supplies or salinity testing equipment. Very fortunately another cruiser came to our rescue, notably having both cleaning supplies and a hand held salinity probe. We ran the water maker, bypassing the automated salinity alarm and tested the output with the hand held probe .... the water quality was excellent, alas only a faulty automated salinity probe. We have water, which I find better than the alternative .. rum rations only.
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The sail up to the Grenadines held a little bit of everything, no more than 30 minutes out we were hit with a squall that kept building until we had 30 knots of wind and a downpour of rain. Quick work was required to get the sails reduced as we had a full main up. We then had little wind and motored up the coast hugging the depth contours, which rewarded us with a Black Fin Tuna. This was the first fish we have caught trolling, Jake and Isabelle had a blast helping us land the fish. As we left the coast of Grenada the trades began to fill giving us between 13-19 knots of wind. We set sail with a double reef in both main and Genoa making good between 30 and 80 degrees averaging 5 knots, depending on the wind flow around the islands. Our course took us right over Kick'em Jenny and undersea volcano that last erupted in 1989.... but still. We were able to make Carricou in one tack, pretty good for the easting we had to do. We are now anchored off of Sandy Island, which as one would guess is very sandy, though only about 100 yards long.
The fishing of late has been outstanding. I finally found a clean reef on the south side of Grenada (they tend to be covered in algae, which I understand is seasonal, e.g. it is warmer now so more algae) and was able to take a nice sized lobster. Then on the sail up in addition to the Black Fin Tuna we also caught a Mahi Mahi, both smallish, but good fish none the less. After we had anchored we cubed the tuna and ate it raw, a fabulous treat.
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We were also able to get out a do a little spear fishing, though with limited luck. The fish and lobster were all very small. I took a shot at one lobster expecting to have to let this one go as well. I was surprised as it fought vigorously nearly pulling the spear from my hands. I fought with him pushing back into the cave and trying to drive the spear tip deeper. Finally when I thought that I had the spear well buried I began to pull the lobster out. Well it still had significant fight left in him. As I got it closer to the edge of the cave I noticed that the spear tip was clean through the lobster into a grey mass, which turned out to be a 2 foot reef shark. I pulled both out wedging the shark on the coral so the spear exited. The shark gave me an annoyed look and swam off. And of course the lobster was too small so back it went. I think next time I am going to keep the shark.
Another cruiser hosted a dinghy float chili feed. All we had to do was show up and tie our dinghy off and he served chili, well prepared I might add. There were about 15 dinghies that attended all tied and floating together eating, drinking and eventually swimming and splashing. Good fun and kudos to the hosting cruiser, very brave to offer free food to a bunch of poor boat people.
Isabelle has fully taken to swimming without a life jacket, even diving under water and looking around. She is very proud.
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Isabelle has decided to give swimming without her life jacket a shot the last two days. We always let the kids decide when they are comfortable on these type of things. She is doing very well, a natural really, so I suspect she will be off and going pretty quickly.
An unfortunate story, but last week a Hallberg Rassy 53 (so about 13 feet longer than us but otherwise very similar to our boat) went up onto a reef here in southern Grenada. They were on the reef for about 4 hours give or take waiting for the tide (which is not much down here) to give them a little more water. While we did not see it, apparently they used halyards off the top of the mast tied to anchors to heel the boat and provide the leverage to pull her off at high tide. The damage did not sound terrible, maybe a loose keel bolt or two and some damage to the rudder. The boat was anchored next to us and left about 4 in the afternoon, I thought naturally making the run towards Trinidad. Instead they moved about 5 miles along the coast. At that time the sun is to low to see the reefs in the water.
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We moved about 5 miles along the coast of Grenada to Prickly Bay, mostly to enjoy some new scenery and explore a different part of the island. The water in this bay is cleaner as it is more exposed to the ocean. A couple of boats we have met along the way are in here as well. Everyone just chilling and enjoying Grenada until the end of Hurricane season, which thankfully thus far has not been traumatic.
While Rae Ann schools the kids I am working on and endless list of boat projects, endless because at least two new ones get created each day. It has been fun to explore Grenada as you use the local bus system, which charges about .80/per pax for any distance. The busses stop everywhere and anywhere.
Well time to go put more drops in my ear.
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