I hung out in Carriacou, Tyrrell Bay, for a couple of weeks with good friends. Richard and Lavinia, on Partners, JK and Nelia on Wind Kat, from SA, Darryl, Norbert and co. We caught and smoked fish on the beach, caught squid and made great calamari, and generally had a ball. It's a great little island with wonderful locals. It's my third summer here and I consider it to be like home. I fall into a weekly routine here. Thursdays pizza night at the Iguana cafe, Friday night, off to the Rum Shoppe and Saturday night to Miss Luckys for Bbq chicken or ribs. Sunday, as you can imagine, is a recovery day. And week day evenings I'm usually found having drinks, with friends aboard Golightly or on other boats.
I met up with a friend, Kathie, who sailed with me down to Prickly Bay, Grenada, and then rejoined the boat she was on.

And then Veronika returned. She has been a great help as we serviced the engine and replaced the impeller. She has small hands an could get into all the tight spaces.
We also installed davits, to lift the dink. They were just about donated by great friends, Jim and Shona, on Second Spray.
We've replaced the slides on the cockpit hatch, thanks for all the tips Jim. Again! I've have had to have the staysail restitched but all good now.
Generally got a lot of stuff done on the boat. There's always something. While I was in Carriacou, I had to replace the bilge pump as the old one had seized up. Not a good thing. I suspect that it was the original one from 1999.

Veronika and I then sailed up to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, where we teamed up with Partners and did a sailing and snorkeling trip around the Grenadines for about a total of 6 weeks. Across to Union Island, then out to the Tobago Cays. Across to Saline Bay on Meyreau and to Chatham Bay, Union Island. I can say it was one of best summers I've had. It's a good time of the year to sail this beautiful area as there are very few charter boats around and we had some of the anchorages to ourselves.
One evening, while having drinks ashore with Partners and sailboat Emma,on the beach of a little island called Petite Bateau, Veronika mentioned that something was crawling over her feet. We shone a torch down and there were hundreds of baby turtles that had just hatched and were making their way to the water. A fantastic sight it was.
We had to keep an eye on the weather, it being hurricane season, and we were fortunate not to have any down our way. We caught fish and loads of lobsters too.
It was then time to sail back down to Prickly Bay, Grenada, as Veronika stood a better chance of finding a boat there.

Veronika found a boat heading west and then north to Belize. She was an absolute pleasure to have aboard and I do miss her company. She will be taking the mad lobster hunting skills she acquired here with her and, I'm sure, will be terrifying the bugs on the way.

The boat was very quiet for a while. Then a mate, David, came to stay aboard for a couple of nights. It turned into a couple of week, and he sailed back up to Carriacou with me. We caught a tuna on the way up plus a few other fish. He went back down to Grenada on the ferry and I prepared Golightly for the haul out.

The haul out went well. I decided rather than staying aboard in the yard, that I would rent a small studio apartment for the time. What a treat! Aircon and TV! I realized that I hadn't slept ashore for over 3 years! I did enjoy the time though.

The bottom of the boat was pressure washed and then wet sanded. The boot topping stripe was sanded off and, as I'd decided to raise the waterline, extra barrier coat was applied. Then on went the anti fouling paint. I used SeaHawk 44 Islands hard ablative adding the tin booster to it. The same as I'd used two years ago. It lasted fairly well. The only problem with it was that the paint wasn't mixed properly in the yard. There were large patches that were clear of any growth and then the rest was covered and had to be scraped regularly. This time I mixed the paint and booster myself with an electric mixer. Hopefully I'll get 3 years out of it this time.
I also had the topsides waxed and polished. I replaced the main anode as well as the ones in the fridge keel cooler.
In Grenada I'd decided to buy new anchor chain as mine was rusting and I was loosing confidence in it. It had always jumped a bit in the gypsy. This was due to the fact that the chain was of the incorrect pitch size, link length. It had caused twisting of the chain in the anchor locker that had been a pain in the butt. I took the gypsy off and took it into the chandlery so that I could see exactly what the correct chain size was. It was BBB and not G4. So the chain was ordered and delivered up to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. I marked it and aboard it came. It works like a charm! So much so that I anchored twice, when I splashed, just for the fun of it.
While on the hard, I removed and polished the prop, replaced various clamps on hoses, redid a grounding wire or two and lubricated and eased all of the through hull valves.
Seeing that I was raising the waterline, I'd bought an extra gallon of bottom paint. It was a bit of an overkill. I eventually applied 3 full coats of anti fouling and a forth on the leading edges.
She now pretty as a peach and ready for the sail up north.