24 May 2007
It is first
light 0600 hours and we slip the mooring and head away from Marigot Bay and
head south towards Grenada. The morning is calm and sailing is steady as we
approach the area of The Pitons we sight our first large ship encounter, a
large passenger liner is heading towards us off the starboard bow we pass each
other within a couple of hundred metres. As we continue south and leave the
protection of St Lucia the wind strengthens and the seas pick up, before dark
we reef the sails, this will be what we do every day as a safe measure. By
doing this if we do get hit by storms or strong winds during the dark of the
night we will be better off.
(Out from Marigot Bay)
(First encounter with sea traffic)
(In the lee of St Vincents Island)
(Seas are not bad)
(The first sunset and many to come on this voyage)
(Nancy enjoying sunset)
Tonight
will be a first full night sail not that we have any concern. We sailed well
during the night and we find ourselves approaching the coast of Grenada at 0400
hours in the morning so we decided to drop the mainsail and just sail with
little headsail and wait for daylight before we enter.
25 May 2007
Grenada
We entered St Georges, Grenada at first light and found the
harbour and dropped anchor. This is our first country where we have to clear in
as a sailing vessel, so following the guide book I as skipper is to go ashore
with all our paperwork, passports and ships papers. Crew have to stay on board
until the skipper has cleared in.
(Entering St Georges Grenada)
I went ashore and found the official’s office which is
located next the Yacht Club, there is a queue so I hop on the end. The bloke in
front of me gets a little sick of waiting and goes to the club’s nearby bar and
buys a drink. Next thing he is jumped on by an official that had been standing
close by, obviously observing us without our knowledge, the bloke was told to
get back on the end of the line.
When it comes to my turn it becomes hard one I am partly
deaf and two we have a language barrier, I do not speak Spanish and although
they speak English it is hard for me to understand. Never the less we get
through albeit the officials being a little grumpy with me.
I get back to Alana Rose and Nancy has had a bad time,
whilst I am ashore we dragged anchor although we did a 5:1 ratio depth/length
of chain, apparently the harbour is very silted and you need to put a lot more
chain out. Nancy was alerted to the dragging by a fellow sailor and he helped
Nancy whilst I was ashore.
Now we are secured we went ashore to look around and have
breakfast. St Georges was hit by a hurricane two years prior and there are
still a number of damaged buildings around, The buildings identify with a lot
of history on the hill is a castle and is now used by the police.
We went to a waterfront cafe and had some local food which
was quite nice. When I went inside to pay for it I notice on the wall was a
mural of the whole world identifying where we were, then I looked at how far it
is to Australia and thought shit what have I done. I won’t tell Nancy this for
some time yet.
(St Georges is located in this basin shaped bay and well protected)
(Streets of St Georges)
(The Green striped place is the Cafe we had breakfast)
(These guys are water taxis)
(The castle on the hill, the cream coloured building is the police station)
(The tunnel that goes through the hill that the castle is on the water front is the other side of this tunnel and the stairs go to the castle.
(Me walking inside the tunnel it is one way to vehicles)
We went to the chandlers and purchased the HF Radio antenna
and associated items, they also had a Honda 2 Kva generator on special for US$
1,200 SO I also bought that rather than run engines when we need to top up
batteries.
We had a good visit but it was time to go.
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