Finding Nemo – Bequia & St. Lucia, The Grenadines, December 5, 2023

After Union Island Ron and I decided to head to Bequia for a few days to take advantage of a nice safe anchorage and some good snorkeling. The Devil’s Table Reef here in Admirality Bay was sadly fairly bleached but the reefs were the best we had seen since Blue Tang in Puerto Rico and every bit as nice as Tobago Cays. The reef has some good wildlife and we also decided to snorkel the Strathman Tug which was very cool and oddly Titanic looking. It was purposefully sunk here in 2023 and sits upright with a mooring ball to a attached your dinghy. Check out our photos.

Since we had decided to head home for Christmas this also gave us some time to work with the weather and make some progress Northbound. We started with two reservations but initially thought we would make it at least as far as St. Lucia and perhaps to St. Martin. After a couple of cool days snorkeling, we headed north directly to St. Lucia. We had read quite a bit about a rash of boarding that has been happening in the southern islands and due to this decided to skip St. Vincent again and go direct to St. Lucia and this had some interesting surprises. We stopped here last year but stayed on the north side of the island in Rodney Bay. This year the ARC, which is a group of several hundred boats coming over from Europe happened to arrive before we could make it north which means Rodney Bay was completely booked this year. So we went again with plan B and decided to check out Marigot Bay and it was very ritzy but nice.

After checking into customs, we went and got a beer at the restaurant “The Hurricane Hole” and boy this place was shady as shit. I watch the bartender take about three shots of top shelf liquor for free and the wait staff put any cash paid for drinks go directly into their pocket! Note to self. We were on a mooring ball which was pretty heavy on the no-see-ums too. But since we were here and had a couple of days before we could move north again, we decided to check out the snorkeling at the mouth of the bay. It was actually pretty nice and we saw turtle, sea snakes, lobster, and about a dozen lion fish. If the jelly fish weren’t so bad and we had not gotten stung about a dozen times we would have considered going back.

Lately between the weather, actually having a schedule to get north, and wrestling with the schedule issues the ARC creates, we were struggling. We had only one reasonable choice (which wasn’t even that great) but we decided to take it and head north since there was little after this to move. Once again, based on the boardings we decided to skip both Martinique and Dominica (which was pretty scary last year when we went so neither of us were interested in heading back). We initially planned to go to Guadeloupe since the weather was not as bad as predicted we kept going and made the 28 hour, 200 mile jump to Jolly Harbor in Antigua which is where we sit now. It was a long trip but we made it, even with the 5-7 foot seas, making for a salty ride. The upside it Jolly Harbor has the best Mexican food we had had all through the Caribbean all of last year at La Cantina. Yeah!

It seemed we didn’t have any further good weather opportunities to move from here to St. Martin, which was what our original plans and reservations were based around. This means once again, our plans are changing. The good news Jolly Harbor Marina is very nice, secure, and a good choice to leave the boat to go home for Christmas so after securing our reservations here, we changed our flights and are now headed back to Columbus to see the kids a week early. Here we go!

It’s Been Nice Knowing You – Le Phare Bleu Marina, Grenada – November 6, 2023

As with every trip, it never starts out as planned.  We had looked into buying a new life raft and needed to head over to the other side of the island to the store to look at them.  Ron had been chatting with the store owner and we had an appointment at 10:00am for him to review with up so we had planned to pick up our rented car for the day at 9:00am.  Well, of course there was an issue and the rental car didn’t show up til about 9:55am so we were inevitably late in getting there.  After a rather terrifying drive over, to our surprise, the owner stood us up and wasn’t even there.  I think I have lost count of the number of near-death experiences We have encountered as this place is one of the worst places we had tried to drive (worse the Costa Rica and St. Lucia) and on top of it all…it was raining.  This led us to the decision to keep our existing life raft and now we had rented a car for nothing. 

The poverty here is surprisingly high as the average salary here is only about $1000 per month (average not minimum).

In order to make it worthwhile, we changed course and decided to do some provisioning.  Ron has been working to fix our fridge and in addition to replacing the fan he also had been adding Freon so it would stay cold.  It appears to be working and we headed over to Spice Island Mall where there was an IGA that actually had my veggie burgers and the ONLY place I have seen them.  $400 later we had a cart full of food with finger crossed the fridge was fixed once and for all as it seemed to be holding it’s charge now.

After this we had heard you can buy beer directly from the Carib Distributor and it is not only cheaper but also available in cans which is important since the bottles are far too much weight and trash.  Once we actually found the place, we waited about an hour and a half to get in but I think it was a successful field trip.

After many days of boat work, the boat was mostly put back together and we decided to take off for some fun and snorkel nearby. We were sadly disappointed since the visibility was poor and nearly all the coral was dead. It’s not surprising based on how warm the water is and we really saw was a few reef fish. Based on what we had heard from our surveyor Grenada has been highly overfished and there is little left here based on what there was in the 80’s & 90’s.

It’s Splash Day Again here in Grenada and boy are we glad!  Ron sweet talked the marina office and got our launch date moved up from November 3^rd to today and I don’t know how but I think a few other boats didn’t get their work completed and we just got plain old lucky!  This is good for reason #2 which is our Airbnb runs out today as well and if we couldn’t get launch…we were staying on the boat, on the hard, without air conditioning which I was less than interested in doing. 

It’s been a busy day since last minute we also found out we needed a survey for insurance!  Sailing hubby found the only surveyor on the island and somehow got him scheduled to do our survey the morning of our launch so we didn’t have to pay to get hauled out again.  Once again…lucky!  Even better is that our survey went great, our boat is valued $80K more than we bought it for with all the upgrades and improvements, and it is completely dry inside and out.  He also did a moisture measurement on the hull which is 100% dry and that is pretty rare.  Anyhoo…by late afternoon we were surveyed, launched and docked for the night!   Whew!

But now we are submissive to the weather again and it says our only weather window to go south to Grenada is tomorrow morning so there will be no moss growing under our feet. After a bumpy maiden voyage to kick off season #4, we had tested her out, and are moving along once again. The end of the day brought is to a very nice marina (Le Phare Bleu), with air conditioning once again to more thoughtfully clean and organize the boat. Only one snag along the way, (because there is always something to fix), was the fridge stopped working. Good thing I have a very crafty husband who diagnosed the issue – a dead fan – and he was able to get it fixed so we didn’t loose any food to spoilage.

We are now sitting enjoying a bucket of Stag beers with real vegetarian food at the lovely marina restaurant!  Yeah – finally!  Oh, and it now Halloween.  Trick or treat from the tropics 😊.

So far, it’s been a bust – Carricou, Grenada, October 24, 2023

We were excited to get here.  We made it here without much ado.  That is where the good news ended.  To say things have gone smoothly would be a severe understatement.  Allow me to expand on this thought if for no other reason than to use this post as a reminder not to do this ever again.  Let the elaboration start here…

What has gone wrong:

• The heat here is indescribable.  While it says ~88 degrees, with the humidity it feels like 102+ degrees everyday without change.  On top of that, we have a hurricane (Tammy) to the north which has taken all of the Tradewinds, so the breeze is 1 knot – no lie.  Remember in the cartoons where bugs bunny could cut a donut out of smoke?  It’s kinda like that.
• I have been spoiled being back in the states and Ron and I have gone out to eat nearly every night the last few months so to come here and there be one restaurant with anything vegetarian on the menu was a bit of a shock.  You can only have pizza so many times in a row.  The other restaurant with anything potential vegetarian is an Indian restaurant and Ron won’t eat there.  On top of it, not one of them actually has air-conditioning so you sweat just sitting there having a beer.
• Our Airbnb is right behind a bar (owned by the same bar owner who is very nice) and they play music till 5 in the morning 2 nights a week.  Ugh.
• The groceries are at least on par with the Bahamas if not more expensive and there is a very limited selection.  I expected the limited selection but the price was something I didn’t quite remember being so bad.  So, we are eating ramen noodles, peanut butter sandwiches, and bologna.  Not as glamourous as you thought right?
• Ron has spent the last week sanding and prepping the bottom of the boat which is a horrible and very toxic job. The bottom paint has copper in it and he comes home with not only heat stroke every day but he also looks like a Smurf (blue from bottom paint even though he is wearing a bunny suit and respirator), not to mention he got some on his face on day 1 which has burned nonstop ever since. It will be a miracle if he lives through this portion.
• We found out after sanding down to the gel cost that we now have to prime the bottom in addition to painting in order for the MicronCSC to stick.  They no longer make Micron66 so I guess we are switching.
• There was a French-Canadian lady 3 boats over who got all worked up because she got sanding dust on her boat.  It’s a boat yard!?!  After she finished bitching out the boat yard staff (yeah, they love her), she wanted us to pay to have her boat cleaned.  Seriously?  Fine – just go away!  Then we agreed to pay for her water so she could clean here boat herself (even though we offered to power wash it for her).  Then…we find out she has used ~1,000 gallons of water!  She had to have left it on or something but they are very frugal here with their water since the only source they have or rain catchment.  Can’t wait to get the bill for this deal.  To top it off, they are sanding the bottom of their boat too.  I kid you not!  The yard was overjoyed to launch her boat and frankly we were too!
• Our launch date has been moved back to November 3^rd since the yard has had difficulty with their folks not showing up to work and it is their busiest season.
• There is one hurricane north of us now and another “disturbance” brewing so even if we do launch, we can’t go north to get out of the heat.
• We had hoped to get launched and go south to the main island of Grenada to get some of our rigging replaced.  Our rigger is now 3 weeks out and can’t get to us until mid-November at the earliest.  Ron has already started on plan B with one of the other local companies to see if they can fit us in. 
•  

The upside:

• Our Airbnb is clean, has air conditioning, and hot water.  Surprisingly, hot water is not standard down here and the sea temperature is 86…bath water.  Sadly, though it has no insulation and doesn’t stay cool during the day but we freeze at night.  No idea how to fix that.
• They have cold beer.  There are small godsends.
• At least we were able to track down enough bottom paint to finish our bottom job since the first quote we got was “it’s going to take 3 weeks to get here.”
• The locals here are incredibly nice and have been very friendly and accommodating.  Not to mention this little town is very safe and we have not felt at risk at all.
• I have gotten the kitchen, our bedroom, and one other room completely cleaned and vinegared in and around Ron being able to sand so if we can launch early, we can function on the boat if needed.

To say our comfort is getting in our would be a lie.  This is the only time I have heard Ron mutter something about selling the boat and never coming back to Grenada on account of the heat being unbearable.  We have one more week, a paint job to finish although the sanding is now done, and we can’t wait to get out of here.

We are nearly back! The first few days will be spent in Grenada proper since we padded our transition to ensure we (and all our boat parts) not only made it here but also made it through customs. The good news it went off without a hitch and I must say putting an air tag in that check bag was very comforting to track the fact that is made it on the plane. The ferry isn’t available to Tyrell Bay (where the boat is) until Monday so we are just enjoying Grenada we best we can til then. We have a nice, air-conditioned hotel, are checking out the provisioning prices at the local grocery and enjoying happy hour on the beach. It’s a rough life.

What I have noticed about coming back to the islands and transitioning back into this culture is yes, we need to be more patient and island time is real. The sidewalks have holes, and, in the tropics, drainage is a priority.

Also, just how nice everyone is here. I feel like after walking around here that Grenada is safe, clean, and everyone says hello. The last obvious thing, which we were expecting but underestimated, was just how truly hot it is. Boy, have we become unacclimatized! It is 84 degrees at 7:00am and feels like 96 degrees with 100% humidity. You can’t help but sweat anytime you are outside. Right now, we have planned to do all our boat work ourselves which includes a new bottom job, simply putting the boat back together, and Ron has some engine work. Once we get to the boat, we will see how a test sand goes and if we are truly able to stand the heat. Due to the nature of the bottom paint (and the fact that it is copper based), Sailing Hubby will need to wear a respirator and technically should wear a “bunny suit,” although with the heat and I am unsure this will be doable. There is no plan B yet and with luck we won’t need one.

Grand Anse Beach is two miles of uninterrupted which sand beach and crystal-clear blue water.  It is supposedly one of the top 5 beaches in the world.  We will enjoy our Carib’s tonight (beer is always on the lose weight diet) and the work will start tomorrow once we get off the ferry in Carricou.

We took a much-needed break this year from the last three years of constant travel and significant time away from family. We had originally planned on spending a month in Columbus to see our daughters but quickly learned, we needed to stay a bit longer, so we signed onto a 4 month a short-term apartment in Columbus living with daughter #2. She was on a travel nursing contract in Columbus working nights through the beginning of October. This gave us quite a bit of time not only with her but also my sister, daughters #3 & #4. We even had the treat of having daughter #1 come back from Spain (teaching English there) for a couple of weeks. We took the opportunity to get them all together for a very nice home cooked Thanksgiving Dinner over the Labor Day holiday. We also had a blast spending the summer hanging out with my sister but quickly learned, when it comes to not travelling, drinking beer becomes our pastime and that is not necessarily a good thing.

Other things we learned while being on land for a bit and back in the states is riding the motorcycle again was awesome, but we nearly got killed everyday since most people in the states drive with their iPhone in their face and cannot do two things at once. Secondly, beer is entirely too cheap and accessible and now we both have about 20 lbs. to lose. At least in the islands we must schlep our beer a mile and a half through 150 degree heat, so we automatically drink less and burn more calories doing so. Thirdly, we planned on having a third checked suitcase to take back filled with boat parts, however, with the accessibility of Amazon delivery, we ended up carrying back 10 times the weight in boat parts than clothing. And lastly, being in one place for 4 months was too long. Our upstairs neighbors in our apartment were very loud jerks and we had several altercations with them. Missing the boat was inevitable.

Our last day in Columbus was October 2^nd and we moved out of our apartment, rented a car, and took off to West Virginia to see Ron’s sister. After that we spend a few days in Jekyll Island with my parents helping them with random household chores like painting/ electrical what not and auto repair. It feels good traveling again and we are just that much closer to our final starting destination…Grenada which is where we land today once we get through the Miami connection. Here’s to the beautiful waters of the islands and smooth flights!