Three Resort Days and a Crash

I had the privilege to spend 3 nights/4 days at LaSource, a 5 star resort on Grenada. 

View from one of the restaurants northward -- Cruise ships at St. Georges to the left and Hobie Cats to the right. The next two are views from my window.




I’d told Roger before we left on our Caribbean adventure that I would like to spend one or two nights each month at a beautiful resort.  I thought this arrangement would make living aboard more palatable for me and Roger, of course, agreed.   I think he would have agreed to any reasonable (or even slightly unreasonable) request just to make me more amenable to this six month live aboard dream of his.  Well, I never did feel the urge to request Roger to fulfill that agreement we had.  There were even times when Roger offered the opportunity up…when he pointed out a resort on a particular island and asked if I wanted to check in for a night.  My reply was always a thoughtful “No thank you, I don’t want to”.  And, I meant it.  For the most part, living aboard has been great fun…except when it rains and we have to be inside with very little circulating air (as it is doing right now as I type away). 

However, the thought of spending a few nights at this fabulous resort and having a spa treatment every day (comes with the price of the room which also includes ALL of your food and drink, alcohol and non-alcohol) was too great to miss.  I did harbor a secret desire…an ulterior motive… my hope that a lot of the cleaning of the boat would get done while I was away.  But, truly, I mostly was ready for a getaway.

So, to the spa.  The grounds are beautiful, my room spacious and luxurious, the service friendly and professional, the spa treatments were all wonderful and the food was really, really good.  Unlike another spa I have been to multiple times, where the diet is vegetarian and rather spartan and weight loss is probable, at LaSource, the meal plan is more like on a cruise ship.  There were 5 restaurants and an afternoon tea every day at 4 PM.  The bottom line, however, without someone there to enjoy it with the time there was too long.

Roger came on my second day and spent the day with me.  We had two meals together and afternoon tea and he took me for my first ride on a 14 foot Hobie Cat.  What a thrilling ride!  Very wet, with the waves coming up through the bottom of the trampoline that we sat on when we were beating to windward. I had a very good time with my husband and was really sad to see him go.  I took a few classes…stretch and water aerobics… and I read a lot.  I had my hair cut.  I ate. I slept in a big bed, that did not move,  in a comfortable air conditioned room overlooking the sea.  I am home on my boat now and even though, due to rain, the hatches must be kept closed, so it is hot and humid, I am happy to be here.

Meanwhile, Roger cleaned out the aft cabin and the compartments under that cabin which contain the batteries and engine. He says it is not clean enough to eat on, but almost. The objective is to get rid of everything that could rot or mildew in the damp heat this summer. He also dined with Alan and Lisbeth of Life of Reilley, and Helen and Aidan, who have since flown back to England, at Da Big Fish, the local cruiser’s restaurant, and made the last of our mango pancakes for the season for Allen and Lisbeth. Allen said that Lisbeth has more sea miles than he does, including a Pacific crossing in a boat a lot smaller than ours when she was a teenager.

Roger got a very short haircut and bought a number of things for the boat at the local Budget Marine store. Nine feet of thick gauge electrical wire to connect one of the solar panels when it will be lying in the cockpit after it is taken down from its high mount where hurricanes could do it damage; a proper stainless snubber hook; a new ratchet strap to hold the dinghy firmly on its davit bar, this time of stainless to replace one from Home Depot which had rusted itself to death, and best of all, an efficient low cost solution to the problem of what to do when the propane tank runs out (there is no gauge on it): a small disposable tank of propane good for about three barbecues and a brass fitting to hook it into our regular propane delivery system to the galley stove, to tide us over until we can get the regular tank refilled.

He cleaned most of the boat before I got back to the boat around noon. But then we had a real shock in the early afternoon. A huge crashing sound and jolt!  What the heck?!  And then another, which almost shook the laptop off the salon table. Roger caught it and placed it on the cabin sole so it could not fall on his way out of the cabin to see what happened. Had we dragged? But the shock and sound came from the bow. A Hanse yacht, from Regensberg Germany (actually kept in the Adriatic) named Black Elise II had crashed into us on his way to be hauled at Spice Island Marina. He was probably moving at three or four knots. His port midships cleat had become wrapped by our deployed anchor chain around it. He had broken off one of his lifeline stanchions and its mount and bent the two adjacent ones and chewed up his aluminum toe rail and the teak below it.

Roger yelled for me to turn on the windlass, which once done, permitted him to lower the anchor a few feet, so the slack could be used to get the boats apart.

Fortunately, the only apparent damage to ILENE is that the stainless steel rod that holds the heavy tubular bowsprit down to the bow of the boat near the waterline is bent, the bowsprit is scratched and the mount on it for the lower starboard anchor roller may be bent. Photos below, in order: scratches, bent rod (upside down view) and bent lower anchor roller mounts.

No personal injuries except to everyone’s equilibrium. The owner of the Hanse was at the wheel and quite apologetic, ascribing the cause as his inattentiveness. He was very pleased that Roger had not yelled and cursed him. Roger says he learned from racing with Craig and Kathy Briggs (now living aboard and cruising Sangaris, an Amel in the Adriatic) that when things go wrong, as they will, don't yell but calmly fix them. Black Elise has the same insurance company that we do, Pantaenius, but the German parent rather than the U.S. subsidiary.

There is a really efficient interactive net at 7:30 am on Channel 68 VHF, which includes weather reports, new arrivals and departures, cultural events, wanted to buy or available for sale plus local merchants announcing daily specials. A man later identified as Nils, from Norway, on Mary Jean, announced that he was in the market for five-gallon diesel jerry cans for a planned Atlantic crossing. The etiquette is to call back after the net ends and switch to another channel to conduct your business off line. Roger did so. We had four such cans (20 gallons worth) in addition to the 75 gallons in our two built-in fuel fuel tanks, for the eight day passage from Virginia to Tortola but didn't need any of the extra 20 gallons for that trip, and the way home will not involve any long multi-day passages, though one such can was retained, just in case you run out of fuel.
                                                                                                                                                                              Roger priced out the jerry cans at the local Budget Marine which, due to exise taxes charges higher prices than back in the states and he sold the three spare cans for a bit more than 2/3 their new Grenada price.  We had laundry done, shopped for groceries, cleaned up our fenders which had become grimy and dinked over to the Prickly Bay Yacht Yacht Club for pizza, salad, and live music: a six person steel band followed by a DJ and then a rock band.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

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