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.

Okay, it was just yesterday, but we didn’t find a decent wifi connection to post an update. All is good, we made it out of the boat yard.

Up with the sun, few boat projects like, running the reefing lines, little internet in the morning, then started thinking about provisions.. aka stocking the bar. Looked at the yard bar/restaruant from the water, it looked closed, course it was before 8am. We had a name, Boney, of a taxi driver from the last time we were here but could’t find his number in our books. Christine called our normal hotel, La Sagess, a nature preserve on a pretty secluded beach, and asked for Boney’s number and luck would have it, he was right there. Its high season and lots of flights and guests at La Sagess, but he was able to work us into the schedule. Yippie. He will be at the marina in 10 mins. What? This is island time, no time to put up the Jib, stop that mid progress, and drop the dingy in the water to try to get it to run.

Break a sweat but she, the dingy, runs us to the dock and we find a taxi waiting, tho it was for the ‘other’ cruisers who had arranged a trip to mostly the same spots, for a group of 6. Bummer, we could have caught a ride with them, but we had already called Boney. That and we were provisioning for 3 weeks, we might have never made it back.

Boney shows up a few minutes later, we are off, he is on the phone but remembers us. Our stops, Bank get some local currency, even tho most places, if not, all take US cash. And the Grocery store, and Gas station for some Benzine, its what we call Gasoline in the states, so we don’t get confused with Diesel. For the dingy and maybe the Honda generator if we sit someplace too long.

2+ hours later we are back, not sure what the rest of the folks on the island are going to eat or drink, we filled the cart good. Pork Chops to Chicken wings and everything in between. Of course a couple of cases of beer too. Its kinda like Meclazine.

Now it looks like rain, afternoon shower that normally doesn’t last long, but we still have to raise the Jib. I get it started while Christine checks in on some email, thats when I look up and see the wind, I have Christine sit on the sail in the rain, while I go get cold beer. Oh.. I bring her a jacket. Kidding but she does end up sitting in the rain for a bit while I practice my grasshopper bowline’s on the jib. Let the rain pass, 10mins, and in the calm after the rain, we raise the jib, swapping positions of cranking and feeding a few times, All good, cold beverage well deserved, play with GPS and create route to the underwater sculpture gardens.

Jib motor sail, we had the foresail out as it was down wind, and the engines running, catching up ons some electricity and we know we want a hot shower when we get to the gardens. Get there, no issues, have the place to ourselves. I took my place in the shade, I think I sweated off all my sunblock, and was needing to cool off. Had a cold one, should have gone snorkeling to see the gardens, but chose to relax with the promise to go in the am when the sun was high.

Some dingy and 2 jet skis off a yacht called “Unforgettable” came by and asked if we knew where the gardens were. Of course we told ’em, but shouldn’t someone on a mega yacht with a captained dingy in full matching uniforms know these things?

Made some pasta and garlic bread for dinner, Since it was Saturday night our stereo competed with the Boots and Pants, Boots and Pants coming from the nearby town. Didn’t matter much we slept like a baby on a superior waterbed. Minus the few times the breeze stopped and we bounced into the mooring balls, probably a good thing there was no other boats on those moorings.

All systems are working good, so far. Tomorrow, some place new, possibly and island you can own for $100M, Isle de Ronde. Perhaps a lunch stop, supposed to be rolly, then maybe onto Tyrell bay to check out of Grenada.

Pictures on my I touch.. will add when we get decent internet.