Our final night was spent listening to music blaring from the beach bars until 4:30 a.m. Just two hours later we were lifting anchor and taking off for Deshaies, Guadeloupe.
Guadeloupe
For the first time in weeks, we finally had a fantastic sail! I was so excited to be able to give this gift to Melissa for her final crossing with us.
Antigua
We’re ba-ack … After a wet ride, we anchored in Falmouth Harbour. Checking in was just as time-consuming as in our first visit to Jolly Harbour. That was okay, though, because it gave Melissa and me time to take in all the boats—lots of boats! Great! Melissa wasted no time registering with a crew-finder placement company. I’m not sure whether she was excited to get on a new boat or just itching to get off ours, but either way the girl was motivated.
Mid-March was the perfect time to be looking for crew work. In a couple of months the yachts would be hightailing it out of the hurricane zone bound for exotic faraway destinations.
While Melissa pounded the pavement, performed day jobs on various yachts, and networked, Michael and I wandered around the historic ports. We found a great place for mojitos (Club Havana), discovered a place to do laundry, reprovisioned, and sat tight.
One of Melissa’s first jobs involved cleaning a very large, very dirty engine room. She polished that baby until her reflection shone, really impressing the crew. They told her they’d have her cleaning toilets next just to see if she’d come back. Of course she said she would. Lucky for her, they were just kidding about the toilets.
After a couple of weeks, Melissa felt confident that one of her day jobs would turn into something more long term and decided to rent a room on the island. That way she could keep doing what she was doing and we could get moving again. So we left her there. We felt as though we were deserting her, but she was 23 years old, had made friends by then, and could always fly to wherever we ended up if need be.
Since she came off our crew roster, we had to get her a one-way flight to anywhere (we chose Puerto Rico) just so immigration would give her a temporary visa to stay until another boat added her as crew.
Leaving her on the dock our final night was hard. I doubt she missed our 4 a.m. wake-up call though. As we raised anchor, we couldn’t help but think, Hmm, it seems like we’re forgetting something …
Within two months Melissa was on a boat heading to the BVIs, and by the year’s end she had gained experience on yachts with longer-ranging destinations. Just goes to show that you never know where life’s going to take you.
We had to sew the edge of the genny (again), fix some line that had gotten caught in the propeller way back when, and do various other minor chores.
30
And Back Down Again on the Jacumba Express
This trip would be another express trip south. We decided that we were sick of the weather and being beaten up by cold fronts that stretched abnormally deep into the Caribbean. We figured we’d just go to Grenada and come back up. Grenada would be well away from this bad weather, and by the time we got back to the Windwards, the weather there would be perfect.
Once we firmed up that plan, we decided to island-hop to Prickly Bay, Grenada (about 350 miles south as the crow flies), and had a care package from my mother and a boat part shipped down there so they would be ready for pickup upon our arrival (whenever that would be).
We chose a 4 a.m. departure so that we could skip Guadeloupe and be eating baguettes on Les Saintes by sunset. Predawn sails are eerie: nothing is defined; the sea and sky are one black mass; and invisible waves buffet the boat. Sunrises are pretty, though, especially when the sun comes out!
After a surprisingly leisurely 88-mile sail, we pulled into the larger island of Terre-de-Haut at around 4 p.m. Yay! Bon appétit!
The next morning we reluctantly made the decision to skip Dominica (boo) and sail 85 miles, stopping in the northwest corner of Martinique. We had hoped to squeeze in a visit to St. Pierre, Martinique’s version of Pompeii. We were also looking forward to checking in at a bar during the customs agent’s working hours—after 6 p.m.! Those French!
Just before reaching Martinique, Michael noticed a spout and yelled “whale!” Hey—I wondered if it was the same whale that sang to us the last time we were there! It seemed to be coming right at us, so I took us off autopilot as I decided which direction I wanted to go. I was also busy grabbing for my camera. We ended up in irons (no wind in the sails) and were dead in the water with the whale coming right at us. AAACK! I didn’t want to turn on the engines and hit him with our propellers, so we just held our breath as it dove under (I got my picture). We watched our depth sounder track the progress of Jacumba’s wanna-be lover from 300 feet to 43 feet below us and hoped he came out the other side and not directly under us.
We never did see him again, so guess he decided he didn’t want Jacumba as a girlfriend after all and moved on. Whew!
St. Pierre was apparently the place to be. It was too deep to anchor, and all the moorings were taken. Of more concern was that we were running out of daylight. We motored 14 miles to Fort de France but couldn’t see a thing by the time we got there. The skies were dark, the lights from shore were blinding, and the cliffs were invisible. Change of plans. I turned us out to sea, grabbed the charts, added new waypoints, and decided to do an all-nighter to Bequia, in the Grenadines, another 112 miles southwest.
Why not? It was a rare weather window without rain, and the wind and seas would finally be off our beam (the side), which should give us a good sail. With reports of a storm system coming, we had planned on getting up at 3 a.m. anyway, so this wasn’t a big deal.
LESSON 87: BE FLEXIBLE Sh** happens (or was that another lesson?)
Our $200 two-month-old rope clutch started cracking apart mid-sail. We “fixed” it by using a really strong clamp to hold it together until we could put our old clutch back on (we had replaced the clutch only because it was ancient and was getting harder to open and close).
The navigation light at the top of the mast also quit working. We did the overnighter with our anchor light on (along with the other required side and stern lights), although the anchor light wasn’t necessary since we were sailing for a change and not motoring.
A quick aside. Here are the rules: If you’re a sailboat under 65 feet and sailing from dusk to dawn, you must have a white stern light and colored sidelights (or a tricolor light at the top of the mast with your stern light). For added safety, we had an optional red over green mast top light that was located above the anchor light. Not knowing it was optional, we always used it, which is why we were so concerned when it died. Once you turn on your engine, you do need to add a white masthead light to the mix (or, if that fails, flip on your white steaming light).
31
Coo-Coo for Carriacou
I can see you backtracking to see if you missed a chapter. Carriacou, you ask? Didn’t I just tell you we were going to Bequia? Well, yes, but we were having such a good sail and were full of energy despite the all-day and all-nighter that we decided to just keep going until we got tired. In one fell swoop, we ended up skipping St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and all the islands within the Grenadines. In 34 hours, we had just sailed 216 miles southwest from where we had started the day before. We were now only 50 miles from Grenada (our final stop in the Caribbean). Oops!
Let’s backtrack a little. We had only one weird event occur during the night. We had heard a lot of bad things about St. Vincent: crime and drug runners. I was hoping to be passing that island during the day, but it was not meant to be. It was my watch (about 2 a.m.) when I noticed a light in the distance and confirmed on my radar screen a small blip about 3 miles away. I had read that to be safe in dangerous areas it was a good idea to turn off your lights, so I was debating doing that when I saw the other boater douse his. Hmm. Did he see us and think we were drug runners, or were they bad guys trying to sneak past us … or up on us …? Even more strangely, the blip disappeared once the boat got about a mile away. I was nervous an
d wondering if I should load our flare gun (our only form of weapon) when I saw the blip come back on once it was a mile past us. The light came back on too. Whatever, at least it was going away from us.
LESSON 88: TURN OUT THE LIGHTS If you’re not sure whether you want to be seen, just become invisible. Someone could be picking you up on radar, but not everyone has radar, and you could take off your radar reflector (just don’t let it hit you in the head). IMPORTANT NOTE: This lesson is counter to international maritime laws and could be dangerous since now even the good guys can’t see you, but dousing lights when fearing for your safety (or trying to be sneaky) is a common practice nonetheless.
Once past St. Vincent and officially in the Grenadines, Michael and I were speechless. The sun was up by the time we passed Bequia, and as we sailed on we realized that we had finally found the backdrop for those postcards of the Caribbean. We were in the midst of the perfect combination of Bahamian-like crystal clear, bright green-blue shallow waters, and Virgin Islands-like groupings of islands just short hops from one another. Oh yeah—we would definitely be coming back here.
To top it all off, we got to enjoy a pod of dolphins playing off in the distance. They jumped and spun out of the water like what you see on National Geographic specials. We actually clapped and would have held up “10” signs if we’d had them.
We finally called it quits and anchored in Terrell Bay, Carriacou (Grenada’s sister island), when we realized that we had almost run out of Caribbean. Hot dog! We hadn’t had a trip like that since our Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico run, but the experience was like night and day.
Only one more day and about 50 miles to go before we reached a final milestone, Grenada. We’d celebrate our accomplishment, pick up our packages, and come right back to the Grenadines as soon as possible.
Nothing broke exactly. I had noticed that the boat was sluggish overnight when I had to motor during a period of light winds. Michael later dove on the propellers and rudders to see if anything other than our puny horsepower was at fault. Yep, we found some rope wrapped around one propeller and both props covered in moss. Wonder how long that had been there. (You’ll have to think waaay back to LESSON 50 to remember that if something doesn’t feel right, you should check it.)
LESSON 89: PROP CHECK When diving on your anchor, you might want to dive on your propellers as well to make sure you haven’t picked up any unwanted guests, such as fishing line or plastic bags. These things can get wrapped around your prop (and sucked into your saildrives) while you’re at anchor, too, so if you have time before your next sail to take another look, I highly recommend it.
32
From Miami to Grenada: Who’d Have Believed It?
Can you sense the excitement? All we had to do was take a little detour around our first (and only) undersea volcano (Kick’em Jenny), aim our bow southwest, and before we knew it we’d be anchored off Grenada.
OMG! We had actually made it to the southern end of the Caribbean (as defined by some insurance companies and by us). We had left Miami in November 2006 and pulled into Grenada in March 2008. That’s a total of over 1,500 miles (as the crow flies anyway).
The boat was still floating (mostly undamaged), Michael and I were still talking (although I have to admit we were a bit sick of each other), and we had done what some people in our lives (and maybe even we) thought was impossible. We were really proud of our achievement. We had come a long way, both figuratively and literally, and were loudly celebrating all the way into the Prickly Bay harbor on Grenada’s southern coast. Whoop! Whoop!
Island Fun
So now what? Well, we figured we’d stay anchored off Grenada for a couple of weeks, waiting for the packages that we surprisingly beat to the island, and then scurry back up the Grenadines for a full inspection.
Because Prickly Bay was inundated by boats during the hurricane season, it had decent grocery stores, hardware stores, a Laundromat, two marine shops, some marine service places, a haulout facility, and places to enjoy happy hour. We were impressed by the bus system and excited to discover that there was an HHH (remember, Hash House Harriers hiking?) chapter on island as well. What more could one ask for?
How about a chocolate bunny? Happy Easter everybody!
A German landlubber, Inga, who loved boaters, ran the requisite VHF-net inherent to all the largely populated harbors. She recommended and sometimes organized local tours, so we took advantage of all of them. There were book/DVD swaps and hashes/hikes every two weeks. There was a lot to do, so we were looking forward to spending hurricane season there in the future.
We did have one nasty little incident where our bank account was debited by someone other than us. I’m meticulous about checking our accounts (and our credit), so I caught it the next day and had the transaction reversed 48 hours later. We both still had our debit cards, so apparently someone had inserted a card reader into one of the bank machines that recorded our PIN after we had keyed it in. The criminals could then remove the device and insert one of their bogus plastic cards and burn it with our PIN, allowing them to use a different card but access our account. Clever. This was a big problem on Antigua, but it seems that our luck didn’t run out until Grenada.
LESSON 90: CHECKS AND BALANCES It’s easy to have your bank alert you to any activity in your accounts. I can always tell when Michael has used the ATM because the bank tattles on him. He really hates that.
Hauling Out and DIY
While on Grenada, we discovered that our boat insurance was coming due and the company would require an out-of-water survey this time around. We would need to haul the boat.
Well, if we were going to do that, we’d also make sure the surveyor we hired looked at the boat from a sales standpoint. We knew we were near the end of our journey. We had seen most of the islands and had no desire to go to the western Caribbean. We heard that the wind and seas were often rough coming up the South/Central American coast and we had had it with those conditions. More important, though, we had only enough money for maybe another year. We needed to start thinking about which island could provide a place we wanted to live and a job to let us stay there.
Assuming we’d sell the boat within the next year, and knowing we had to haul it out anyway, we figured we might as well see what our surveyor had to say about the boat so we wouldn’t have any surprises during a survey with a buyer’s surveyor later. (Ha! Boy did that not work, but you have to admit it seemed logical.)
Just as in the Bahamas, we had a narrow canal to squeeze through to reach the Travelift. Then we were strapped into it and hoisted out of the water. We then made one of the most expensive mistakes ever. We were asked if we wanted the bottom pressure-washed or just have a quick rinse. Because Americans often think that more is better, we went for the most powerful option. Our bottom paint had held up well from the Bahamas application, but with pressure washing we watched $3,500 of liquid gold (or blue antifouling paint, in this case) wash into the boatyard. The boat bottom was now nice and clean, all right, but it would need repainting. You do not want to make this mistake.
LESSON 91: JUST SAY NO! if your boat bottom looks good and there’s a lot of antifouling paint left on it. When someone asks if you want it pressure-washed—say it with me now—“NO!!!!!” A light washing with a garden hose will do just nicely, thank you.
Our survey went well, just as we thought it would—we had worked hard maintaining that boat! Of course, the surveyor did find a few things he suggested we fix while the boat was out of the water, so we just moved ourselves on the hard (into the boatyard), bought our supplies (mainly paint—grumble, grumble), and got set for some serious work. We’d do it ourselves this time. The plan was to get in and out in two days. The drill was much the same as in the Bahamas. Jacumba was wheeled into the boatyard and put up on jack stands. We lived aboard and used our swim ladder to get on and off the boat. Once again we enjoyed being hooked up to electricity and water. What was also the same was that the weather turned ugly during the process.
What was different was all the hard work that we put in this time.
While Michael was supposed to be doing a light sanding, I was repainting the now very faded boat lettering. By the time I got around to where Michael was, I noticed that he had gotten overzealous (remember that more-is-better issue?) and had sanded some areas down to the fiberglass. Not only had that taken a lot of time, it made the bottom uneven, and now the paint wouldn’t stick to the fiberglass. Back to the store for primer (we hadn’t planned on that). That was not a pleasant conversation.
The upper portion of the boat, including the topsides, had gotten splattered with antifouling paint during the pressure wash, and the crane sling had left some serious marks of its own on the hulls. When it rained during our second day on the job, we took advantage of the deluge to scrub, scrub, scrub.
LESSON 92: AIM DOWN! When pressure washing your boat, make sure the nozzle is aimed down so it doesn’t spray debris and paint all over the boat’s top-sides. Seems logical, but it doesn’t happen most of the time.
In between squalls (which included 30-knot winds whacking into the boat and making it wobble on the jack stands), we got the boat cleaned, taped, and painted and the propellers scrubbed and antifouled. If the rain wasn’t frustrating enough, the yard added an element of vexation as well. Their contribution involved dumping tons of rock nearby. Dumped rock equals dust, which we were desperately trying to keep from embedding in our drying paint and wax (yes, we waxed the gelcoat too). We worked at night to avoid the rain and the dumping.
A Sail of Two Idiots Page 26