Circumnavigation!
12 April 2014
Pip
Wow what a day. Approaching Grenada on Thursday, it looked like the wind might die and we wouldn't get in before dark, but as dawn rose on Friday the wind and current picked up and we galloped towards the completion of our circumnavigation. We managed to be near enough land at 0730 to get the local cruisers vhf radio 'net' and told them we were on the way in- and as we rounded the point into Prickly Bay, furled away the sail and hoisted our flags to 'dress overall' people came out onto their decks, tooted horns, clapped and cheered- fantastic! Having an audience was great- until we started to thread our way through the boats in the busy anchorage looking for a 'parking spot'. The wind was blowing really quite briskly, making steering fairly tricky, when Pip felt something 'give' and realised the steering cable had snapped again and we were careering out of control towards some very posh boats! However we quickly found the emergency tiller and hastily dropped the anchor without embarrassing ourselves any further (the rusty state of the hull is bad enough!)
We were dancing on the deck, the end of a long long passage from St Helena, all 37 days of it, Kevin's birthday- and crossing our wake to join the dots and complete the circumnavigation.
We managed to find the energy to blow up the dinghy, get ashore, hitch a lift to the bank, check in with the smiling(not) Customs and Immigration guys and then- cold beer, cold beer and more cold beer, washed down with a nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc provided gratis by the lovely Tiki Bar manager. The local steel pan band followed by a really good girl singer made it feel like a real celebration. We slept amazingly well on the double berth in the aft cabin, not being tipped out of bed by the waves.
It felt very weird to be walking on dry land- or trying to walk, our legs were very rubbery- and the colours of the flowers, smells of spicy food, sounds of human voices other than our own , felt quite overwhelming.
We will have a few days 'holiday', then start the rather extensive list of boat repairs that need to be done before we leave the Caribbean and make our way- HOME!
btw the flags read 'Wanda globe trip K 54' then random flags at the back, and we put the courtesy flags of all the countries we've been to at the front.