This morning, we headed out to Grenada Marine in St. David. We traveled with Sue and Leon from Masade and John on Sojourn. We traveled by taxi to the remote south east corner of Grenada! Mind you, it was only about 10 miles from Prickly Bay.
We arrived at Grenada Marine just as they were about to block up a catamaran, so we hopped out of the taxi and checked out the straps on the travel lift. We felt comfortable enough with the it to talk to the office. First, we talked with them about the haul out we wanted done, mostly a haul out, and bottom paint, and then about getting pricing on putting hydraulic furling on the boat. The office person escorted us to the rigger on staff. We chatted with her about what we want, and about our concerns. She will contact us with pricing for the gear.
On our way to the rigger, we found Joss, a production line Cheoy Lee sailboat that Bob and Mona on Mutual Fun have been telling us about. We headed back there and met Cliff and Mary Ellen. They will be on the hard for another 2 weeks or so before returning to Prickly Bay for a few weeks.
When everyone was done talking to the yard, we piled back into the taxi to head back to Prickly Bay. It dawned on us half way there that it was almost lunch time, so we diverted to the Spice Island Mall for a pizza lunch. John opted to go back to Prickly Bay since he was lugging a 20 pound radio. Sue, Leon, Mike and I had pizza for lunch, and then wandered down to the super market.
After we got back to the marina, we met Jim Cottle from Cottle Boat Works who is doing hatch and port light screens for us. He needed to ensure the appropriate fit for the work he is doing for us. So far, the screen frames look good.
Mike stayed on the boat while I dropped Jim off at the Marina. I also went into the marina office to pay the deposit on the stuff we have ordered from Budget Marine. After I completed that, I stopped by Tahoe to chat with Steve and Nancy.
I headed back to the boat and Mike caught my lines. We spent the rest of the day vegging (we are really getting that down pat).
On June 29, we had a full day. Everything started with the cruisers net where we offered our drop over hatch screens for sale. Next, as I was about to leave to drop off the glasses Lady Simcoe loaned us at the last cocktail party, when Jolly Moon called and asked us to drop off a test screen to them. So, once I had everything, I headed off, and Mike stayed on the boat since we were still charging the batteries and we didn't want to shut off the generator.
I dropped off the glasses, and the hatch screen, then headed back to the boat. Right after we finished tying the dinghy up, Jolly Moon called and asked for two more screens since they fit! We told Molly that we would drop off the additional screens around 10:45 AM AST since we were headed in to catch the bus to the Fisherman's Birthday celebration in Guavica.
At 10:10 AM AST we heard a loud thump. We thought something had fallen over since the boat was rocking pretty bad, which it does when tropical waves go through. Then within a minute or so, the CO detectors started going nuts; they do that when the voltage drops below the level they need to run. We went up to the electrical panel, and sure enough the generator was only producing 70 volts! We quickly cut the power from the generator and shut it off. I crawled into the engine room and opened the capacitor bank and found the top blown off one of the capacitors!
Once the mystery of the thump and power loss was resolved, we jumped in the shower so we could head into to the marina.
We picked up Sue and Leon from Masade and Peter and Diane on Pearl, and headed in to the marina. We dropped off the hatch screens to Jolly Moon and then piled into the buses to head to Guavica. We rode with Marcia from Serendipity, Peter and Diane from Pearl, Ashley, Carol, Scott and Lacy from Blind Date, Sue and Leon from Masade, and Billy Kay and John from Imagine.
Unfortunately, we arrived in Guavica early, so everything wasn't quite set up! We watched some of the sailboat races, then headed back to the street to find something to eat. We wandered through the seafood display but didn't find anything. We found out later that at the far end of the tent, there were samples of West Indies food being set up. If we had been 15 minutes later, our culinary experience might have been very different!
After lunch, we wandered the street checking out the shops and stuff before heading back to watch the end of the first sailboat race. Along the way we decided that it was going to be time to head back to the marina fairly soon. Sue and I went looking for a phone, and ultimately found one at the Texaco station (almost a half mile away!). We called the coordinator of the taxis we hired for the day and he said he would try to contact our driver. Long story short, he couldn't find our driver so we swapped busses and the new bus would pick us up at 4:00 PM AST.
We wandered back to where everyone had moved to, under the shade of a palm tree next to the house of a man named 'hot shot', that was his nickname anyway. He was very friendly and spent some time cutting coconuts open for us. He was very friendly and very talented with a machete.
When it was time, we bid a fond farewell to the folks we met and walked to the fire station where we were supposed to meet the taxi. Sue and Leon opted to go back on the later bus since this one was smaller than the one we came on.
All in all, it was an interesting experience, but not one we will repeat. It's kind of like the Junkanoo parade in the Bahamas. I'm glad I went, I enjoyed myself, but I probably wouldn't want to do it again.
We returned to the boat, after dropping Marcia and Pearl off. The first thing we did was to replace the dead capacitor. It was fairly easy. Once that was done, the generator was operational again. We spent a quiet evening on the boat.
Voyages Section