07/21/2009, St George's, Grenada
St George's is a great stop for cruisers. We are on a mooring owned by the new Camper Nicholson Marina. The holding in the little lagoon here is terrible so we decided to grab the mooring and pay the $17 which also includes all of the amenities at the marina. It's nice to have showers and a place to take the trash and fill the water. It's funny that kids who live on a boat and spend a GREAT deal of time swimming in the ocean LOVE having access to a pool. The pool here at the marina is small but very nice and the kids spent almost all day in it yesterday. It must be the fresh water they like for a change... They also spend a lot of time under water and in the fresh water pool it is a lot easier for them to dive deeper.
We were happy to see our friends on SV Altair here as well. We met Becky and Duddley back in Puerto Rico and it was great to catch up with them again. Rebecca went with Becky yesterday morning and walked to the IGA supermarket. It was a little more walking than Rebecca was used to but they had a great time.
If you are watching the weather you will see that there is, what our buddy Christian would call, a BLOB OF DOOM... the National Hurricane Center is only giving it 30% chance of developing but Jeff Masters on Wunderground is saying it might be 50/50. Either way it is no longer a threat to Grenada. It is the reason we are sitting tight for a couple of extra days though.
As we sailed down from Carriacou on Sunday we looked behind us and there was a HUGE BLACK cloud following us and swallowing the islands as 8 year old Kaleb said, "like and evil death fog!" We are used to squalls offshore. They are generally not a big deal, if we can't dodge them (which we usually can) we reef the sails and hold on. This cloud was something more than just a squall though. It was so big we couldn't see the end of it. Because I had watched the weather closely I knew it was not an actual system though so we prepared the boat for a squall. We were already running downwind so we actually dropped the main all the way and just reefed in the Jib. Beck battened down the hatches, including the companion way and left Jimmy and I out in the cockpit to get drenched by the rain and spray. It lasted about an hour and after it passed it took all of the energy with it and left us with no wind motoring the final 10 miles to St Georges.
Since I have pretty good internet here I will try to upload a new little offshore video I made on our passage from Martinique to Carriacou.
Dodging Blobs of Doom and BIG Dark Death Fogs,
Captain Tofer and the Crew of Wandering Dolphin
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07/18/2009, Carriacou
Well the crew of Wandering Dolphin has been in The Grenadines for about a week. What a great area to hop around in. We spent some time at a few little islands with palm beaches and perfect aqua water.
We are in Tyrell Bay tonight on Carriacou. Tomorrow we will sail on down to St George's on Grenada and then Monday we will hop across to Trinidad where we have some boat projects to get done before Rebecca's Sister arrives.
The boat has been sailing along great and the kids are now back in the swing of things. They run around down below playing and goofing off while the boat bounces along.
We will update again either in St George's or in Trinidad.
God Bless,
Captain Tofer
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07/08/2009, Martinique
Martinique
Jimmy said it best today as we were walking around with our tongues hanging out as we stared at all of the modern buildings, cars and smartly dressed French girls and as our olfactory senses were bombarded with the wonderful smells of fresh croissants, baguettes and pastries,
"What a difference 63 miles can make, huh Dad?"
We had left beautiful, green, Dominica, with its friendly but poor people at 6:00pm and slowly sailed south under the lee of the island. When we hit the Martinique channel (a 20 mile cut between the islands of Dominica and Martinique) we were suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, hit with 18 to 20 knot winds and huge Atlantic rollers rushing through that little cut. The boat suddenly went from a slow and calm sail that the little boys said was just like being anchored to a wild offshore ride under double reefed main and a little tiny jib, where Mom, Dad and Jimmy took turns hand steering. For those of you following our adventure so far... yeah our little string we now use for an auto pilot just couldn't cut the mustard in those conditions, but to be fair I am not sure the actual auto pilot would have handled it either.
Our intrepid and stalwart sailor, Mom, who has not been seasick since the passage out of Luperon, succumbed to the malady again as her body rebelled to the sudden crazy change in motion. She was truly miserable but just think of it this way... you are driving in your car down a beautiful country lane and suddenly without warning you are on Space mountain at Disneyland. It was a little disconcerting.
We arrived in Fort De France at 8:00am and rested for the rest of the day. Our take so far on the French Islands is,
"Wow! Don't miss them! They make check in a breeze with a simple computer program and NO FEES! And who doesn't like fresh French breads and CHEESE for breakfast?"
Today we all wandered around the island looking in the shops and trying not to spend money... they use the EURO here so suddenly we went from pretty cheap food to fairly expensive. Beck and I went on a little expedition to find new batteries for her camera. It was fun to try to find any specific place without the ability to speak French. We found it though and made a lot of people smile as they tried to help us. YES, French people do smile, at least on the island.
Well the plan is to sail to a little Bay south of here to spend the night tomorrow and then we will continue offshore to Carriacou where we will check in to the Grenadines and Grenada. From there we are only a short sail across to Trinidad where we will be meeting up with Beck's sister Amy and niece Ellie who we are SOOOO excited to see again in just a few weeks.
God Bless,
Captain Tofer and the Crew
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