Up normal time, no big surprises in the night, wind died, had to turn on the ceiling fan. Keep yer head down or you might loose a noggin, not really its a nice little fan that keeps the wind moving, and provides a nice white noise when the waves aren’t lapping against the hull. All boats stayed where they were all night, no bumps in the night.

Project to figure out why the Anchor windless doesn’t want to run continously, seems to suck up about 10 meters of chain than runs off to the the local quickie mart and picks up a cold Carib. When he comes back he is good for a few more meters then says “I need another drink” so I thought I’d give it the college try and see if cleaning the connnections would help, It seemed to when there was no load on the windless, but in use this would prove to be a different story.

Tyrell Bay, nice bay, lots of boats, reminds me a lot of Admiralty Bay in Bequia couple islands up the chain in the grenadines. Super pleasant customs and immigrations officers. Customs opens at 8am, so we left the boat at 8:15, was it open when we got there? Sorta, Customs was outside at the bar, and immigration hadn’t arrived yet, still very nice, I got the forms, filled them out in triplicate cause the computer systems weren’t working (sailclear.com) as is frequently the case. Then had to wait for immigrations to arrive. Paid for a cruising permit, not sure I needed too, but didn’t have enough understanding to argue. Got passports stamped and back to the boat.

Short day, just around the corner to another country. We stopped at Sandy Island for lunch, the wind was howling, we didn’t bother raising sail on that first 2.5 mile run, that was directly into the wind. We did get to watch a Moorings charter boat try 3 or 4 times to pick up a mooring ball, doing several 360’s, and then ended up with one crew memeber in the water tying the line to the mooring. Truth be told there was not an easy way to attach a line to the mooring ball, but we picked up ours mooring on the second attempt with neither of us leaving the boat.

Had some good ole Texas breakfast tacos, and talked about going to see what Sandy Island had in store, but also had good internet so text’d pictures from there and wasted too much time. I wanted to clear customs without having to deal with finding someone on a major holiday so we pressed on to Clifton at Union Island. Motored into the wind, a monohull was crossing but we were a head of them, then we paused and raised sail. Double reefed main, and double reefed jib, dropped dagger boards and pointed as high as we could, we made the run on one tack, we could see the mono had its crew hiking out, and pointing well too, we out paced em, and eventually they didn’t make the point on union island and had to tack back out. All sounds like it was a race, and it was in my mind, but…. it wasn’t a fair race, we did have the engines running about 1400 rpms, so I guess we cheated… 🙂

Rolled into Clifton harbor around 2pm, sure every time we come here we are hounded with boat boys offering up mooring balls, ice, trash, etc.. you name it, but today when we wanted one to offer a mooring ball, we couldn’t find one. See, Clifton harbor is deep, like 15 meters deep, so when you let out scope you need LOTS of chain out to make the boat stick. And with our windless acting lazy, like me, a ball sure would have been nice. We circled twice, in 25 knots of wind, and the ferry was leaving picking up his anchors, really didn’t like me driving about, got a air horn “hey buddy, I’m moving too” signals from him, at least it wasn’t a dreaded 5 blast, that says “I’m going to run you over” kind of signal, more just short and “yo, I’m bigger than you”.

We spotted a ball, or something that looked like one, we got close it was submerged ball, a boat boy came by and said no, not for you and said follow me and then promptly disappeared. Tried another option on the outside reef area, it was full, nothing with extra room, so back to plan A, the 13 meters of water, we got it down to 10 meters and dropped the hook, it hooked good and I was off to clear us into the Grenadines. As I’m tying up the dingy and the ‘Anchor Yacht club’ or kite surfing captial, A plane arrives, There goes a quick trip to customs, customs is a walk from the dock to the airport, and plane passengers always get the first crack at the customs agents.

Lots of waiting around, but cleared in, and back to the boat, dingy still acting up but I’ve figured out how we can get along, it tolerates me, I twist the throttle, at low speeds it likes the choke, and high don’t choke it.

Now 3pm, dark is 5, we need to make a plan and get somewhere, as we are at Clifton, parked between 2 steel cargo looking island boats, not a pleasant spot, with only minimal chain/scope for this quick stop. Tobago keys it is, its relatively close, shallow and normally quite nice.

Getting out of Clifton is going to be a challenge with the windless. I’m not sure I have enough Carib on board for it and 60 M of chain. We try, we pull some up, wind is gusting, we rest we pull some more, we manually raise some while he rests. if you don’t know chain is heavy, manually it takes some effort. We set the hook in 11 meters of water, we almost had the 20 meter mark of chain on board, and Christine and I swap possitions, she takes the helm I man the chain, and its anchor away mid position change. She gets the boat back into the wind, I crank the windless up to the 10m mark and finally he comes back from his beer break for a bit, and we get the hook on board, are off to the keys. Yes, we all had beverages after that, none for the windless, he had his while on the job.

Tobago keys, windy and rocky today, only catamarans out here, there are 2 or 3 mono’s that are braving the rolls, but we drop anchor in 3m of water and the shallow depth alarms are going off at 2.4 meters frequently, I can take the boat hook off the stern and touch the sand, so hopefully the wind doesn’t switch too far from the North and put us in really shallow water.

Used my new Grill stand and grilled up some Jerk chicken wings for dinner after a great day in paradise. Stayed well sun blocked up today, as I missed a few spots yesterday. Looked like rain earlier, but just cooled off.

Wanted to go out the ‘end of the world’ reef, but I think the wave/wind direction needs to be more south than north to make that a good place to be.

Tomorrow over to Mayreau, positioning for Christmas day church on top of the hill that overlooks the Tobago Keys where we are today.

Deserted Island, no other boats – easy to unwind.

Anchor alarm set, at 150 feet, goes off a few times as we get what looks close to shore, reset it to 160 feet after checking the chart and the shore is actually 400+ feet away, and pretty much sleep through the rest of the night. Well minus the rolling, the guide book said it was rolly, lots of surge wrapping around the Isle de Ronde, but mostly just rocked you to sleep.

Up with the sun for the ordered entertainment to show up. A large 100+ foot yacht was coming to pollute our happy anchorage. But since they are so large they couldn’t come nearly as close to the shore as we were, and were forced to anchor out amongst the local’s fishing dingys. The wind and surge were changing directions and could see the big boat from all sides as it rolled and spun around out there. A few mins later they were real close to one of the dinghies out there. So close it looked like they were touching, grabbed the binoculars, and yup they had some how managed to hook its anchor line to the fishing boat, so for the next 30-45 mins we watched the crew peer over the bow and the captain drive in circles trying to free itself from the poor unsuspecting fishing boat. They would back up and the yellow boat would follow like a lost child, the would go around then pair up again, finally free they really wanted to anchor here so they moved 1/2 mile south, well past all the other fishing boats and anchored.

Ahh so much for the excitement, lets go snorkeling, okay really, lets go find our long lost stern anchor. Get all suited up the water is nice, drag along the Go Pro, a long floatable line, and an empty water bottle just incase we spot it. Christine asked how in the world are we gonna find it when we set it 200+ feet from the boat, in the pitch black, and the boat was swinging all over the place? I said there should be some track in the sand where I had drug all that anchor chain in by hand. Course there were plenty of things that looked like lines in the sand. We started swimming in the general direction and we spotted what looked to be a fresh line. Kept following that line and Christine spotted a shinny object at the end of the line. Yup there she is, in all here glory firmly planted in the sand below, looking up saying now what? The bay is mostly 8 meters / 24 feet deep, so I know I can get there, but long enough to tie a knot? Luckily, the line I brought was long enough to go twice to the survace so I just had to thread the needle down there, unrolled the line and down I go. Unfortrunately, the Go Pro wouldn’t turn on or we’d have video of this. Success. Line right through where the anchor chain goes. Tied to the bottle give it a quick tug and nope its not letting go of the sand that easy. Feeling strong, after all I broke the chain last night, I dove down again to grab the anchor by the fluke and show it who is boss (actually by the shoulder, but thats not a fun anchor word). Yanked it out of the sand and started to swim back to the surface with the anchor, but quickly realized I wasn’t going up. Its an anchor after all. Left it on top of the sand with the bottle and line just like the locals do for fish traps, and headed to the reef for some fishing spotting.

The reef is 1/4 mile from the boat, so lots of swimming in the swell with not alot to look at. Getting discouraged as we’d have swum all that way for not much but kept going. Lots of fish were the reward, so much so that I got out on the rocks to reset the GoPro camera and we’ll see if we got some good footage. We encountered tons of tangs, blue, yellow, brown, several box face puffers, and a new orange spotted fish that we will have to send to Tim our fish guy to identify. This on top of the multitude of other fish poking around the reefs. Good spot. Probably spent and hour in the water, took the long way along the shore back to see if there was any more good reefs, and noticed another sailboat coming for their day stop along the way. Hopefully they won’t think our floating water bottle is a mooring, course that 1/8th inch line wouldn’t hold very well. We make it back to the boat, I check our undersides, and Damn if we didn’t pick up some fishing line, all wrapped around our port prop and saildrive. Ugh, it totally destroyed the zinc, and when I got the last bit of line free’d it felt oily, that means it probably busted the sail drive seal, that took about 30 mins to dive and pull, dive and cut, dive and pull the line off the propellor.

Off to go get the anchor, dropped the dingy, got it running and over to our floating bottle pulled the anchor up without an issue, so we have our second anchor back.

Had made some breakfast BLT’s before going snorkeling, well substitute Eggs for L and Cheese for T, so probably nothing like BLTs.

Lazy day only 10 miles to go, chilled out, and plan was to make a pizza under way for lunch, pulled anchor – quite a process with a windless that doesn’t want to pull up the chain and keeps taking a break. But we managed to get going and put the main sail up 2 reefs, blowing 25knots and just a bit of jib as we had no real distance to cover and the waves were steep and short, meaning tall waves but short distances between them so any much faster and we’d be getting beat up, it was a comfortable over and around the waves vs bashing through them. Tossed out a new lure, still no luck in the fishing department on day 2 of trying. Almost caught a few seagulls that put on a good show of trying to pick up the lures for 45 mins.

Made it to Tyrell bay, crowded and there were supposed to be mooring balls, but nothing looked appropriate so we anchored near shore between a couple of monohulls, and made that pizza.

Went ashore later to find we ‘just missed’ customs, so we couldn’t clear out as planned. Decided to have a cold drink at the marina with Chef Kevin, checked the internet on their slow, but functioning wifi and watched a bit of the news. Another trip in the AM to clear out of Grenada and head to the Grenadines.

After a short walk about the island, a few stops at the local grocery stores, and back to the boat for some dinner–sweet and sour pork chops and apple sauce. Somehow we both managed to make it past sailor’s midnight–845p.

How not to attach an anchor

Tyrell bay. Ignoring all the other boats behind us. Busy bay.

Always a cold beverage can be had

Down Island view from the to of Carriacou, Grenada.

Customs and a bar at Carriacou marina. How convenient.

Day of Rest for whom? Up with the sun, watch the local spear fisherman for fill his bag up with treasures. Another fishing from shore. Didn’t find any breakfast takers, so I had an orange. Christine wasn’t ready hungry yet.

Last nights pasta dinner was cooked on our 2 small burners the large one didn’t want to stay light, had to hold the button in.. Seems like the thermo-couple wasn’t getting its heat. So tore the stove apart, cleaned up some gunk underneath, couldn’t really get to the thermo thingy but was able to identify it from the top side, gave it a once over with a light emory cloth, thinking I had done nothing substantal put the shiz back together, and whatever it worked, now all 3 burners work like the should.

Replaced a faulty light switch, Christine wen’t through the pantry and organized our keep and discard, and removed the cardboard that breeds bugs in the tropics. She added some shelves to her swimsuit storage. I wear the same stinky shorts, till they can stand on their own, course I did split one a the seam, and they had to be retired. Hopefully no one at the bar noticed..

Off the ball, just as the day boats came with loads of tourists to see the gardens. Left ourselves plenty of room to raise the main, it wasn’t blowing all that hard, 20knots ish, but this was the first time since we put it on, and there is always the question of the reefing lines. So, 2 reefs, yellow was the plan. All looked good, till it didn’t. I had not tied the yellow line far out enough on the boom, so it made for terrible sail shape and possible chafing. Okay, lets go 1 reef, we still had room. Green it is.. Green looks better, I can see where the forward yellow reefing line was on the wrong side of a line. But green looked good. The Ketch sailboat we were racing was catching us, but we were still ahead. Looking closer, green wasn’t good had a twist. Fixed the yellow while we were on green, so ran the yellow 2 reefs as I wasn’t in a hurry. Still managed to leave the Ketch behind.

Hugged the Grenada coast line, all the way to Sugar Loaf then headed for the ‘lunch’ stop. Actually dropped the fishing lines in the water, nothing was hungry today. Still using old lures .. fixed up new ones while moving along today, maybe better lunch tomorrow.

There was a 60 foot mono here at Ronde Island when we got here, 5 or so local boats, anchored out, we found our spot dropped anchor and relaxed.

Made some lunch along the way and Italian sausage pasta for dinner,

We are parked pretty closed to shore on the anchor, the locals boats are a bit further out, so seemed like a perfect time to try out a Bahamian anchor, where you have one anchor off the bow and one off the stern. Pull us around a bit to change the direction of the rollers, that causes this to be a rolly anchorage. Christine carried the anchor chain, I carried the light anchor to the dingy and set off to drop it away from the boat, Heavy and tiring but seemed like it was going to work. Time to start dinner.

Snugged up on the stern anchor by hand.. then some more bit later, and a bit more later and still.. it seemed to not be holding. I kept pulling and pulling got tot he chain, damn I must be strong. The swivel that connected the chain to the anchor had had enough, and left the anchor behind. Well there you have it, perfect excuse to go snorkeling. Of course the 200 foot of line, makes a large circle to look and its 25 feet deep too, guess I should have a scuba tank on board.

Anchor alarm set.

Tomorrow, Tyrell bay and who knows what adventures..

Sun is warm, sky is blue, so is the water, drinks are cold – Sky is full of stars, buy this island and we’ll come to visit you.