We made it! – Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, Grenada, June 2, 2023

After 2,700 miles, 13 countries, and more than 9 months we have made it from St. Augustine, Florida to Tyrell Bay, Grenada. We have seen some amazing things, met some great people, and to say it was an easy would not be correct. At least our final leg from Union Island to Tyrell Bay was fairly easy and it was a nice close short 10-mile motor for us to wrap it up. Our plan was to pull into the marina, hook up to air conditioning, and start putting the boat to bed for the off season in comfort. That is when the shitshow started and it did not end…

We got to the marina in Tyrell Bay and little did we know, there is an island wide power outage on Carriacou, which started with a massive fire at the main generator on April 28^th.  Since then they have been running on their back up generator and now that has gone caput as well.  It would be at least 2 more days before they get power back and our solar alone cannot support our AC (Note to self we hope to upgrade this by adding soft start switches for next year).  Well, guess we aren’t sleeping in AC.  This was when we found out that there were two holidays this week which was part of the wait.

So, off to customs we went and when we got there after a very hot walk across the bay, they were closed for their 2-hour lunch break. After a beer or two and a nice 2 hour wait, we did get checked in, but they were not pleasant. We did stay on the boat for two nights but neither of us slept since it was so very hot! After working in the heat for several days and not sleeping (~90+ degrees) we finally found and got an Airbnb with AC after the island installed their new generator from Trinidad and flipped the main switch back on. Yeah AC! It’s within walking distance of the marina but boy there sure are a lot of goats here.

By this time Ron had the engine work wrapped up and I had gotten half of the boat cleaned and vinegared.  The boat was a wreck!  Nothing makes you want to own less stuff than having to clean, move, and cover everything you own with vinegar to inhibit mildew.

While I was working on this, Ron worked on fixing the small leak that had been going on with our water maker. He could of fixed this a while back but the gamble of breaking it was too high. So instead wait until the end of the season so if it does break we known what parts to get. Another project off the list.

This was about the time I was working on the other side of the boat where we sleep, and we found a nice leak under our bed.  There was about two inches of standing water under our bed, where our spare inverter was sitting.  Oooppps!  Sailing hubby immediately got to work on this and detected a leak in the pex tubing connecting to our hot water heater.  He was able to quickly fix this with new tubing, but this explains the faint smell of mold we had been smelling while we were asleep. 

After 4 solid days of working to get it cleaned, repaired and closed up, it was haul out day. The marina did a very thorough job and our bottom job actually held up better than we expected. It is always a bit nerve racking, but Hubby was able to back her into the dock like a champ and the whole process was drama free. This was the only thing that was drama free. As ready as we were to see family and take a break, it is always a bit sad to see her come out of the water.

The drama continued when our Airbnb host told us she was not able to accept credit card payment and we would need to pay cash for our stay. Normally this would not be a problem except that the only ATM in Tyrell Bay was out of order. This required us to take the bus up to the next town Hamilton Bay to get cash out there. Hamilton Bay was not a very nice part of Carriacou and we were hassled by beggars and at first try the ATM there was out of service there too. Upon our second try we did finally manage to get out enough cash to pay our host – thank goodness!

Another two days of cleaning and fixing the boat and by this time we were both exhausted, but the boat was done! Whew! The heat and humidity here is intense and the boats can reach 140+ degrees inside. We did everything we could to try and keep the sun out, the moisture down, and keep her pest free. Let’s hope this works.

We managed to catch to 5:00am ferry to Grenada the next morning and now sit at the airport with our 3:00pm flight confirmed.  It’s back to the US for a few months for a much-needed break and to see the sweet faces of family!