July & August we continued whiling the time away in SVG. At one point we were privileged to be the only boat in the picturesque Tobago Cays for 3 days, this will surely never happen again.
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| The reopening of the Rendezvous bar in Bequia
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| Baj proud in front of his new kitchen |
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| Anchored off Petit Tabac in Tobago Cays |
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| These friendly guys love the camera |
Getting creative in the galley has been one of the fun
results of this craziness. Kevin’s bread baking skills have become legendary
and his fishing skills have improved too (we don’t discuss lobsters however),
off the back of the boat he caught a Trevally or King fish which we filleted
and cooked, a Horse-eye jack which we cooked whole and on our trip to Grenada a
Barracuda which made a few delicious meals.
The best rolling pin 
And the most delicious olive
batards
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| Trevally filleting |
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| Trevally feast |
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| Horse eyed Jack - Yummmmy |
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| Horse eyed Jack - ready for the fire |
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| Baracuda - just the right size |
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| These lobsters resolutely evaded capture |
Little crabs love yachts, they scuttle around on the sugar scoops, amusingly they sometimes challenge us as we try to get back on board after swimming. We ended up with a large one who we spotted one day carrying an extra leg, he was eating the cute little guys, earned himself the name Hannibal. One morning I woke up with a plop on my cheek – one of the little guys had climbed all the way up to the open portlight of our cabin and fell in, causing a shriek, mad scramble and little crab flying eviction. I made Kevin put a mesh cover over the opening.
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| Hannibal the crab |
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| Crab Window |
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| Cute Little Crab |
The weather guru’s had predicted a higher than normal probability of tropical cyclones/hurricanes in 2020, it seems they have been right. Every year 21 names are selected for tropical cyclones, beginning with the letters of the alphabet (Q, U,X, Y &Z are not used), in the unlikely event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in a season additional storms will be named from the Greek Alphabet, this has only happened twice in history, once in 2005 and, surprise surprise, again in 2020.
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| Gonzalo Raging on |
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| Kiraku riding it out behind us |
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| Not the full moon, this is the sun behind a thick layer of Sahara Dust, instrumental in keeping storm numbers down |
Frigate Bay is a quiet place normally
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| After Gonzalo had passed we went on a little hike of Union |
Along came Gonzalo, a system that did everything it wasn’t predicted to do, it stayed low aiming straight for the “hurricane free islands” of Grenada and Trinidad, it’s course and severity changed with every report and Grenada and Trinidad’s borders were still closed, making it scarily difficult to determine the best course of avoiding action and place of safety. We based ourselves in Frigate bay off Union Island, a good point to run north or south from if Gonzalo changed course again, the right choice as it was adequate to ride out the part of the storm we experienced. Thankfully Gonzalo did not develop into a hurricane and we did not experience more than 41kts (+/- 70 Km/hour) of wind and storm.
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| Swapping our 38ft for a 60ft FP in Canouan |
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| Safely parked on the hard |
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| Relaxing in the pool at the Mayreau villas - Job well done |
We heard that Tradewinds were keen to store their 8 inactive yachts in Carriacou, a hurricane safe area and they were looking for crew to help deliver. We volunteered, earned ourselves some pocket money and over 5 days we, together with 4 other crews, helped strip and ready the yachts for storage, then sailed them to Carriacou.
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| Slap up meal at Pizza Hut |
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| Farewell Braai at Daffodil's |
During this time we decided that we would feel much more
comfortable if MaXScene and ourselves were in Carriacou where there is a
hurricane hole in the mangroves, so after a quick trip back to Bequia to
provision for 10 – 14 days quarantine and bid farewell to friends we sailed for
Carriacou. We got lucky on arrival, Grenada had just announced that on arrival
from a “bubble” country, a negative rapid test would negate any quarantine
requirement, so we were tested and allowed in. This caused a flurry of
excitement in the next 3 days as this was only supposed to be for arrival by
aeroplane, but we were in and clear.
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| These mounting bolts had sheared off, in replacing them the #10 spanner and socket dropped into the great abyss between the outside and inside hull |
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| Only way to reach and retrieve the very important tools now we have a new storage space |
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| Cruising is all about fixing your boat in exotic locations |
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| Reattaching the UV strip on the Genoa where the stitching had frayed |
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| New galley faucet |
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| Old galley faucet couldn't hold its water |
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| Discovered weavils in newly purchased Curry Powder, on cleaning we discovered that the non slip mat had melted onto the shelf |
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| Shelves cleaned up and repainted and curry powder fed to fish |
Control unit on fridge the
cause of frustration and
melting butterKevin cleverly hooked up a LED - it flashes when there
are issues with the fridges operation
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| Emergency tiller bracket in the cockpit deck |
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| Filled and ready to be redrilled and re mounted |
Another job for poly putty, such versatile stuff
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| What we discovered when we removed the bracket |
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| Gary helping to fault find |
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| Patiently fixing the watermaker pumps |
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| Soldered the wire back on inside the water pump |
It seemed challenges are to be the order of this year, our freezer’s thermostat is faulty, the fridge stopped cooling, requiring a replacement of the control unit, the water maker pumps both decided they would join in the foray and things were looking glum as pumps would need to be imported which would be really costly and would take time. Thankfully Gary and Kevin were able to figure out that the brushes needed replacing which miraculously turned out to be a painless affair but that was not the end as the bearings also needed replacement, now they should be good to go for a while. We lifted the emergency tiller fitting to clean it and found the deck was never sealed when it was originally fitted and years of salt water over the deck has resulted in rotten balsa core, so we did some drying and digging and filling with poly putty, now its stronger than ever. The fresh water pump broke, corrosion got the better of one of its terminals, it was replaced with a spare, Kevin managed to fix it and it is now the spare. At the same time we noticed a leak on the raw water pump on the port engine and that the pulley was wobbly, indicating bearing issues, frustrating as we replaced them last year?? Reassembly caused damage to the fan belt, oh boy…
We’ve been hampered with health issues too, not an easy thing when all anyone cares about is Covid, poor Kevin got a skin infection and I ended up with kidney stones and then I contracted Dengue which is absolutely rife in the islands this year, it’s a really horrid disease, painful and fairly debilitating.
Off Da Hook beach bar Carriacou
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| Coconut water laced with rum, in the coconut |
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| Paradise Beach Club Carriacou |
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| Talking heads |
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| Lobsters on the menu at Snaggs |
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| Snaggs beachfront bar |
We popped down to Grenada which last year was buzzing with cruisers and holiday
makers during hurricane season, this year it has an almost forlorn
feeling about it. We nonetheless visited 2 new bays, caught up with friends, made
new ones, got a haircut at long last and then sailed back to Carriacou, this
year this little Island is the popular choice and is absolutely thriving.
Cruiser gathering at Victory Bar, Port Louis marina,
Grenada
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| Genuine bunny chow's with friends, Kevin made the bread loaves |
LaPhere Bleu Grenada - here we discovered Boerewors
September is a special month, it’s Kevin’s birthday and our wedding
anniversary. We had lunch with friends at the Round House for Kevin’s birthday,
followed by koeksisters and Chelsea buns for dessert and for our anniversary we
had bought “borewors” from a German butcher in Grenada and it was pretty close
to the real thing, Kevin made some rolls and we had borewors rolls, what a
treat.
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| Excitement mounting as we head ashore for birthday lunch |
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| Birthday present |
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| Round House lunch venue |
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| The Round House is a beautiful setting |
An anniversary feast of note
Since the last blog it’s been 3 more months of waiting patiently
for some kind of normality to return, for us this has caused a myriad of
emotions, frustration, fear, sorrow, hysterics, sometimes all at once. We are
now almost at the end of the 9th month of the year, we have not
earned any form of sustainable income for 8 of those, yet monthly expenses
continue. The avenues available to us to make money have all been cut off, the
tourism industry worldwide and international travel has closed and even as it tentatively begins to
resume the protocols regarding quarantines and procedures for entering/re-entering
countries are ridiculously restrictive making chartering a “fluid” business,
subject to change on a Governments whim or positive Covid case. A consulting
contract for Kevin had materialised in April, a great opportunity and we were
ready to take it on, then the world shut down and with it our other means of
earning any income. In bewilderment we realised we are in a truly helpless
situation. Whilst we understand we are not unique in this position, we have decided the best solution for us is to reassess our situation in November, the official
end of hurricane season, if there are no work prospects on the horizon we are
going to have to make the hard decision to sell MaXScene, return to the drawing
board and plan for a new adventure….
