Week 43 October 6 to 12 2014

The only thing predictable about the weather is its unpredictability and that is how Week 43 was for us.

 

Late Sunday afternoon we were told that Monday was a public holiday in St Lucia so if we wanted to clear out we would have to pay rather large overtime charges which we were reluctant to do. Sunday night the wind died and we were facing due south which was not a good sign for a sail to Barbados.

First thing Monday morning we checked the weather and there was no wind and whatever wind there was, was coming from the wrong direction. We thought we would see what tomorrow’s weather was like but either way we would check out of St Lucia and either head to Barbados or further south to Grenada.

Tuesday – no wind!!!! Boy was it hot!! Thank goodness we have a HUGE swimming pool at our disposal!

 Tuesday afternoon, we checked out of St Lucia and had 48 hours to leave. Our plan was to get up early on Wednesday morning, check the weather and decide what to do.

 Wednesday morning, we set the alarm for 5.30am so that we could check the weather – NO wind!!! It would be hopeless for us to attempt to sail to Barbados let alone try to head south to Grenada which was over 100nmiles away – 10nm further than Barbados.

We needed a NE wind for Barbados which is pretty unusual for this time of year but it does happen and we needed the prevailing easterlies to blow at least 10 – 15 knots for us to head south. We were experiencing 2 – 3 knots of wind coming from the south!!!

 

Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday. We went for a walk along a trail on the south side of the Rodney Bay anchorage where we found a bunker which had a sign saying “USA Ruins”. (I have tried to find out more information but have not been successful).

 

 Mel and I were becoming desperate as we knew our solar panels were arriving in Grenada and ready for collection on Monday.

 

We decided that if the wind was not great we would have to leave Rodney Bay on Friday and even if we had to do over nighters we had to start heading south – Barbados was out of the picture for now.

 Early Friday morning we were heading out of Rodney Bay. Our plan was to sail to the northern part of St Vincent – to Chateaubelair, overnight there with our yellow quarantine flag up, then sail through to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, Grenada on Saturday, then on Sunday sail down to St George, Grenada to collect our panels on Monday.

  We were reluctant to stop in St Vincent. St Vincent and the Grenadines are lovely sailing areas, but unfortunately for St Vincent there has been far too much crime associated with boats, so we were planning on missing them. The Grenadines, however, are a different story – there is Bequia, Canouan, the Tobago Cays, Mayreau and a few other lovely islands which we intend sailing to before the end of the year.

 

Like everything in sailing and in life generally – things don’t always go according to plan particularly not when it concerns the weather. It took us 9 hours – most of Friday to sail the length of St Lucia, down to the Pitons which only took us 2 hours by bus to get to!!! At one point we were going backwards!!! We were in the shadow of the island despite being quite a few nmiles off the coast – obviously it wasn’t far enough!!!

Change of plans!!! We were just going to keep sailing until we reached Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, Grenada.

As the sun set and the moon rose, the wind picked up and were had a good sail across to St Vincent. It was quite magical as the previous night had been a full moon so the moon was still large and bright. We even watched two episodes of the Big Bang Theory.

(Mel and I enjoy “The Big Bang Theory” and have the complete series 1 – 7, so we watch a few episodes at a time – we are half way through Session 4 at the moment).

Just when you think things are looking good, well the wind died and we were back to bobbing along at 1 – 2 knots – the time now was 11.00pm. We decided to put the engine on and find some wind whereas Fata Morgana didn’t put their engine on and they spent the next 3 -4 hours bobbing along!

We found some wind….. we had had the engine on for about 15mins when we found wind … 18knots coming from ESE – great!!!

We sailed on through the night arriving at Tyrell Bay, Grenada by 11.00am but unfortunately we could not see Fata Morgana, nor could we reach them on the radio. We only heard from them round lunch time. By 3.00pm they had put their anchor down behind us. WOW what a sail!!

Mel and I decided to check in to Grenada – we knew that it was easier checking in at Tyrell Bay than in St George, so we paid the $20EC overtime charge.

We thought about sailing down to St George on Sunday but decided to rest and enjoy some of the snorkelling around Tyrell Bay. We were keen to catch a bus to Hillsborough and explore the town but there were no buses running on Sunday.

Sunday was spent relaxing, snorkelling and swimming.

One positive about sailing is I have had plenty of time to read…. This past week I managed to read three books, a rare novelty as I know once we are back in the “real world” and the treadmill of work starts, it will take me forever to complete a book. I find I can only read at certain times when we are actually sailing…. If we are not healing too much and crashing into the wave’s i.o.w. it is a gentle sail, then I can read without feeling a bit wheezy.

So as you can see we have had to go with the flow this week… whichever way the wind dictates.

Barbados is still on the cards, so Mel has just put his singing off for a while as our next and very important goal is to install our new solar panels!!! Yippee – I can’t wait!

Until next time – take care, keep well.

Love

Captain Mel and Admiral Caryn/xx

 

Mel cleaning the dinghy while we had a HUGE down pour.