It's been long foretold that you should never begin a sea voyage on a Friday and we paid the price because we did. By Friday morning, we were just finishing up the few last things. They had to be last as we were already in the slings to be put in the water. Michael, the man that runs the lift even gave us an extra hour so we could finish what we were doing and even take one last shower. Michael and his crew showed up right on time at 0930 and off we went to the splash area. Michael ran the lift putting us right over the water and slowly lowered us into it, nice and easy. I went below and burped out packing gland for the propeller, turned the key and pushed the start button for the engine. She fired right up, no problem. I checked with Michael and let him know we were all ready to go. He gave us the thumbs up sign and I put Zephyr in gear. Suddenly, we were thrown sideways and then backwards,the forward and suddenly the engine just stopped. All the while, the men on the launch crew were yelling at us to do this and do that. All of a sudden, there was big crunch as our new pretty varnished teak bulwarks was slammed into the metal brackets the slings on the lift4 are held by. Once, twice, three times!! Then the bow was thrown to port and we hit one of the metal poles on the side of the slot for launching. Again, on our nice new teak!!! Michael yelled at us to just stop--no problem since the engine shut itself off. He and one of his helpers jumped into the water to see what the problem was. His explanation was that a piece of the protection sleeve that covers the slings had wrapped it self around the prop. What actually happened was that they didn't lower the slings enough under Zephyr and when he told us to go, we ran into the slings with the forward edge of the hull. That then threw us to the side. When the sling finally got past the lowest part of the hull, it flew up in the water so the prop could catch the plastic and rip it off. Luckily, the only damage was to the teak cap rail and bulwarks. It's going to take some work to fix the stern area as it gouged a deep slash in the wood. The port side will only require some sand paper and new varnish.

By this time, it was 1030 and we were off for Grenada. Yes, I probably could have pled my case to get it repaired by the yard but we had already checked out and since I fly out of Grenada next week there was no time for it. I'll just do it myself when I get back. Not that big a deal. As we headed north for Grenada, we were hit by at least 6 squalls along the way with winds from 3 to 19 knots or more, most from the wrong direction. There was some that we could have sailed in but I'm trying to get the diesel tanks low enough for cleaning when I get back. The seas were anything but pleasant with waves in the 6 foot area throwing us around quite well. The kids were ticked with Snowshoe panting and drooling down his chest making his hair a mess. Not having been on the water for over 10 weeks, I knew I'd lost my sea legs. It wasn't easy getting around the boat. We pulled into Prickly Bay in Grenada at just after 0500 this morning and slowly made our way through all the anchored boats and finally dropped the hook about 0515 in pretty much total darkness. By 0530, it was nice and bright making it easy to see around the bay. We'd just gotten in 15 minutes too early. Once the hook was set, we both headed for the bunk in the stern cabin for a couple of hours sleep before we took off for our new home, Secret Harbour Marina. We had the hook up and we were off by 0930 and in but 1030. Only problem was the space we had reserved and promised was about to be used by a 70 foot sailboat that's due in tomorrow. The weekend manager wanted us to grab one of the mooring buoys and back into the docks(called Med Moor). With Zephyr, well that's like backing up a drunk, half asleep not trained elephant. It's just not going to happen especially since we had 10 to 15 knots of wind through the marina. In the end, he put us at a different place where we could simply pull in and tie up on the starboard side. It took a good bit of talking to get the space and we will probably be moving by Monday once the big 70 footer is gone. We will see. Meanwhile I'm headed up to the office to get wifi passwords and keys for the shower rooms.

It's now Sunday afternoon, about 1600 and so far, no 70 foot boat at our reserved slip. Don't care as where we are is fine other than the fact that we have no electricity. Max, the weekend Harbor Master came by after several tries to get him to come out( on Saturday afternoon) and I brought out our 110 cord. You aren't allowed to plug in by yourself, you have to have the Harbor Master there. I plugged in the cord and we had lights on our panel inside Zephyr that there was power. I turned on the switches to activate our Heart Inverter/Charger and a few seconds later, we blew the circuits for the marina!! Max walked around to the electrical room and re set the breakers. I tried several more times, each with the same result. Not a good thing!! They promise to have an electrician out here on Monday so until then, I've turned on the DuoGen wind generator(makes a bit of power but not much) and I hauled out our Yamaha 2400 generator. After being in storage for several months, she started right up. I let her run for a couple of hours and our batteries are now back to full charge. The Marina wiring should be the same as the generator, I just don't think they have a big enough breaker in their box to handle our needs. It's not the first time this has happened.

Slept in this morning for the first time in months--0830!! God bless Tylenol PM. Great for a good night sleep. We had a nice breakfast and then started putting Zephyr "away" for the next few months. We gave her new decks a wash(had to get a key from the Harbor Master as all faucets are kept locked)with one of our hoses, pulled out assorted pieces of canvas to cover all the exposed areas on her deck. From the new cap rail and bulwarks to the dodger and bimini, everything got covered. I had to spend a bit of time crawling around on deck getting paint off the snaps that had been covered by Lobster and his men. Oh, as to Lobsters crew, both "Sleepy" and "Sneezy" have now been fired. "Sleepy" because he did nothing and "Sneezy" because he did little but he screwed up some fiberglass work on Lobsters next project and he had to redo all of it. To celebrate our arrival in Grenada, we had a nice barbecued steak with potatoes and a Waldorf Salad to go with it. We ate in the cockpit as it's cooler than inside at least till we get air conditioning. Being Sunday, it's very quiet here. Yesterday, the marina hosted a wedding reception for a good 100+ people. What a mad house. More cars than spots to park them and more people than seats to place them. As a good note, they closed down the party promptly at 2300 so it didn't go far into the night.

That's about it for now. I'd post some pictures but our camera is acting up. I'll post when I get it fixed or replaced.