Four True Blue Days

Despite its rollyness, we spent four days in True Blue Harbor, and we felt a bit guilty not spending any money at the resort/restaurant whose dinghy dock we used every day. We were on anchor, hence no rent. The hotel gave us a slip of paper with the wifi password gratis and it provided the best internet access on the boat that we have enjoyed. The restaurant, self mockingly named the Dodgy Dock, apparently by some slangy Brits, though the waves under it did make exiting and reentering ones dinghy at their dinghy dock, well …. a bit dodgy. The restaurant looked like it served good food at reasonable prices, but we never ate there simply because we were either other places or ate aboard. We did fill one five gallon jerry can with diesel and at over $6 US per gallon, perhaps we can say that we did support the local economy. The rollyness is the result of (a) the wind, which is constantly from the east and holds our bow facing east, and (b) the waves that enter the harbor from the south and keep on rolling north, hitting us from the side. The waves are not large but they are frequent and make for less than ideal comfort conditions.

We enjoyed lambi (conch) roti for $6 US per person at a roadside food court kiosk one night and dined at the elegant Beach House with Aidan and Helen Harney, which cost more than $50 US per person, another. We had met the Harneys in Carriacou; they have hauled their boat there and have a flight back to Albion on Thursday. Some of the mangos we had bought more than a week before, in St. Georges, had finally ripened so we were able to provide mango pancakes to Helen and Aidan, after all. We, that is Lene, invited them to visit Marti and Dan’s house with us, to see Cookie (now twelve days old instead of five though honesty compells me to note that this photo, which Lene likes, was taken when he was five days old)

and two other goats that are being cared for there. The baby goats are fenced for their own protection against dogs but are not threatened by the four big dogs that live there with Dan and Marti. Their home is high on a hill and the back yard rises steeply and is accessible by a recently completed trail of terraced steps made of bamboo. Dan and Marti are putting a facing on their home of white Carriacou limestone (made of coral?) rather than the local Grenadian volcanic dark brown stone. After the goats, the six of us went for lunch to a beachside burger joint, Umbrellas. Our home cooking, courtesy of Ilene, included chicken breasts in tandoori sauce and the local pigeon peas cooked with rice, topped with an Indian spinach shag.

Did we do anything these four days besides eat and socialize?  Well, having friends with cars, we went to see The King’s Speech. It was opening night for that Oscar winning film here on this British island and while we went to the early show at 7, there were only seven people in the theater, including our party of four. It was our first movie in five months and a very fine one.

Our major boat work was the cleaning of the space that contains the anchor locker. In anticipation of leaving the boat all locked up in hot humid weather for six months, we washed down as many surfaces as we could reach, not only with cleaners, but with mildew fighting Clorox. This space also contained a big very solidly built plywood box that contained the forward Lectrasan. That expensive device that came with the boat is supposed to use salt and electricity to turn sewage into almost drinkable water; a self contained floating sewage disposal system. But it never really worked and electricity is not something to waste, so I had ripped out the unit two winters ago, more of its hosing in St. Martin, and now this heavy plywood box with many screws to loosen and fiberglass to saw through.  It is done and its removal provides better access to the anchor chain from below deck.

The trip from True Blue to Prickly Bay was a total of about one mile and most of that distance was in exiting True Blue and entering Prickly; we motored all the way and anchored on the west side to have access to the Spice Island Marina with its Budget Marine store because it is closer to the Spa that Lene has gone to for three days.

In reality, our sailing days for this winter are over, though we will not remove the sails from their ready to deploy positions until we enter St. David’s Harbor, home of Grenada Marine where we will haul and store. We will not be sailing because our experience sailing east to True Blue of head winds and hostile ocean currents has persuaded the boating community to motor east on the south side of Grenada. And we won’t take the sails down because they are considered the Boat’s main propulsion system. The diesel engine is our auxiliary power source. If the engine fails, we want to be able to deploy sails to maintain steerage and get to a harbor even if it is west of us.