July - September 2020 – SVG to Grenada

 

 

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.

 

The reopening of the
Rendezvous bar in Bequia


 

The turtles never disappoint

Baj proud in front of his new
kitchen

Anchored off Petit Tabac in Tobago
Cays

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

Trevally filleting

Trevally feast

Horse eyed Jack - Yummmmy

Horse eyed Jack - ready for the fire

Baracuda - just the right size

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.

Hannibal the crab

Crab Window

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.

Gonzalo Raging on

Kiraku riding it out behind us

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

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.

Swapping our 38ft for a
 60ft FP in Canouan

Safely parked on the hard

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. 

Slap up meal at Pizza Hut

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.

 

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

Only way to reach and
retrieve the very important
tools now we have a new
storage space

Cruising is all about fixing
your boat in exotic locations

Reattaching the UV strip on the Genoa where the 
stitching had frayed

New galley faucet

Old galley faucet couldn't hold its water

Discovered weavils in
newly purchased Curry
Powder, on cleaning we 
discovered that the non
slip mat had melted onto
the shelf

Shelves cleaned up and
repainted and curry 
powder fed to fish

Control unit on fridge the
cause of frustration and 
melting butter

Kevin cleverly hooked up a LED - it flashes when there
are issues with the fridges operation

Emergency tiller bracket
in the cockpit deck

Filled and ready to be redrilled and re mounted

Another job for poly putty, such versatile stuff

What we discovered when we
removed the bracket

Gary helping to fault find

Patiently fixing the watermaker pumps

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

Coconut water laced with rum, in the
coconut 

Paradise Beach Club Carriacou

Talking heads 

Lobsters on the menu at Snaggs

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

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.

Excitement mounting as we head ashore for 
birthday lunch

Birthday present

Round House lunch venue

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 9^th 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….