MERRY CHRISTMAS!
21 December 2011 | Woburn, Grenada
Jules
Just wanted to wish a very Merry Christmas to all our wonderful blog readers ... and to give you a quick update since the last one.
We finally got the Onan generator working at 9 pm that night and luckily the old wind-up Lister/Isanthall did its job the next morning. And the main engine was ok once we'd bled the fuel rack. So then we were all set to go.
Thursday morning James (our six months AWOL crew from Union) re-joined the Buzzard and we left Carriacou about 1 pm with the aim of getting back to Woburn before dark. We got about 2 miles out and had a phone call from Fred (on Dream, a 37ft sail-boat). Earlier in the week we'd taken his broken mast out for him and he was now on his way motoring back to Grenada, now he was about a mile ahead of us, and his engine had broken down, could we tow him the 30 miles to Woburn?
Even though it was flat calm, by the time we got a rope over to him and then slowed down to accommodate the tow, it was 5.30 by the time we got to St. Georges and we decided to anchor there for the night; much better than trying to navigate the reefs in the dark, especially when you're towing another boat.
Unfortunately St. Georges was particularly rolly and we were up at 5.15 am after listening to doors bang, stuff clang, and chairs slide around the top deck. As we were in the metropolis we took advantage and I caught the bus up to the travel agents who had messed up Tony's flight once again which meant that he now had to change from Gatwick to Heathrow when he was in London. Oh and then my credit card wouldn't work so I had to get a friend to go in with a cheque to secure the flight.
Mike and Jeff spent most of the morning with customs trying to retrieve our awning material that had been shipped in from Miami whilst we were in Carriacou. And also taking in our exciter coil to be re-wound, along with Tanya's starter and windlass motors, none of which are light items.
Eventually the Buzzard, with Dream in tow, left St. Georges around 2.30 pm and made it safely back to the mooring buoy well before dark. I wasn't on board at the time as I was out having a girly Christmas shopping/drinking afternoon with Angie and Lucy.
The weekend was relatively quiet although we did take Tony over to Hog Island on Sunday afternoon. He spent Saturday shopping (more successfully than I did), and then Sunday morning cleaning his cabin; wherein he found seven glasses and various items of cutlery that had been 'lost', but not my black knife which went missing yet again about three weeks ago.
On Sunday we also picked up 17 gls of 2-pack epoxy paint that a friend of a friend had brought up from Trinidad. First thing Monday morning James, Devon, Mike and I started the outside of the gunwales, and we now have a bright, red shiny, much better looking boat than we've had in a long time. We've had four 200-300ft mega-yachts anchored in Woburn over the last three days and one of them came real close to wave and take pictures, so we must be looking good.
Monday morning Tony went in to send himself some money to Indonesia so that he didn't have to carry it all with him and Monday afternoon we were off to the airport, courtesy of Lucy. We were almost late as Tony was starting to panic a bit and couldn't find the new socks he'd bought himself in readiness for his English encounter. He didn't miss the plane though, and sent us a text at 5.56 am the next morning to say he was in England and it was cool; not sure if he was referring to the weather or the country. By now he should be safely home although we haven't heard anything as yet.
Tuesday we went to pick up the coil, only they made it wider and it doesn't fit so we had to take it back for a further tune-up. Oh and the starter motor on the Onan's gone so we're struggling with generator issues once again.
Our friend Peter is now back from Canada for the winter and we had supper on his boat last night. Freshly caught and cooked whelks, snapper and slipper-lobsters in a spicy coconut soup. One of the beauties of living here and snorkelling for your food, just wish we had more time to do the fun things ourselves.
The Christmas winds are picking up and there's a strong north-easterly swell. Tanya's boat in Carriacou was rolling that bad they had to go book into a hotel to get some sleep, and Mike and Audrey have just arrived back to St. Georges and have gone to the marina as they haven't been able to sleep properly for nearly a week. And when our friend Don sailed up to Carriacou on Tuesday the normally 3 hour (for him) trip took ten and he ended up travelling 64 miles to go 30.
Given the state of the weather (although it's still sunny and 28C so we're not complaining too much) it looks like we'll be staying put here for Christmas. Just need to go shopping at some point as we have no turkey, no vegetables, not much of anything. We (I) had hoped that with Tony gone we'd manage some time alone on the boat over Christmas but James doesn't want to go back to Union, he doesn't want to get caught up in the Nine Mornings of Christmas where everyone drinks from sunset to sunrise from the 16th to the 25th. Can't say I blame him.
We're both feeling tired at the moment (not helped by some particularly sad news I got from home at the weekend) and we're more than ready for a break. Hopefully all will be working normally by Friday and we can actually take some time off.
So ... we're wishing you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS from the sun(and RUM)-soaked lands of the Caribbean and we hope you have a good one wherever you may be!!
Love to everyone .... Jules and Mike and the Flying Buzzard Crew
BREAKING NEWS: The Yanmar is now up and running and normal service has been resumed, well except it's not running the crane for some reason.