Shopping buses for cruisers run every Tuesday and Friday, picking up at various marinas and visiting a number of useful places, including the bank, Budget Marine, Ace Hardware, Spiceland Mall (Creative House and IGA supermarket), CKs cash & carry and occasionally RAMS supermarket. At this time of year, the buses are extremely busy, as all the cruisers are provisioning to leave Grenada after the hurricane season. The bus drivers have to juggle people, pick ups, drop offs to ensure everyone gets what they need. Every Tuesday, we seem to have torrential rain, causing flooding and everyone gets soaking wet if they have come to the marinas by dinghy. We haven't been on the Friday bus, so far, due to other commitments. The bus is 15 XCD (approx. £4.50) per person and they make plenty of space for shopping bags, slabs of beer and 5 litre bottles of water. The local buses are a third of the price but there's never room for your shopping, if you have more than 1 bag each. Today was our first ever visit to RAMS and it was a lovely, clean and well laid out shop. However, we had shopped at IGD, so didn't need much. Back at The Cove Marina, we had to sit in the bar for 2 hours, watching the rain, so had lunch and a couple of beers, while phoning Island Water World to order the new dinghy and another fan. They agreed to deliver it, ready inflated, in the afternoon. Back on board, I finished unpacking while Pete put the sprayhood on and fixed the headlining in the aft heads, which had come down during the summer. The smart, new dinghy arrived at 1530 hours and we parted with US$2800 in cash. We spent happy hour in the bar with Susie and her friend Jason.
On Wednesday, we fitted the second fan, so we have one each when it's hot and humid at night and the hatches are shut due to the rain. Our autohelm controller wasn't working, so we had a conference call with Chris, at Kildale Marine, back in the UK. We concluded that the controller was broken as it couldn't see the network and the network couldn't see the controller. That looked like it might be another £1500. However, next morning, Chris had had some more thoughts. We went into 'Diagnostics' and 'Self test' and after a few minutes the heading came up on screen. We tested the rudder by plussing 10 degrees and minusing 10 degrees and all was well. At 9am, I did a wash load at the marina and managed to get everything dry on board before the thunder storm arrived in the afternoon. It was roti day at the Cove, so we headed there for tea and I tried the cocktail of the day, a Woo Woo, which was rather delicious and refreshing - rum, peach, cranberry and ice. The bar was quiet, as most of the Americans had stayed up until 3am this morning, drinking and eating KFC, while monitoring the US election.
Thursday, we put the reefing lines in the mainsail, early morning, before the wind came, so it was of having the sail up. Jim, on Mobius, brought us a drop of unleaded for the outboard engine and we motored round to Le Phare Bleu, a boutique hotel and little marina, where we could fill up our tank. We stayed for a light lunch of fish bites and chicken poppers and enjoyed the view over the turquoise sea. Being such a special place, it was a bit pricey but the food was delicious. From there, we went to Clarke's Court and retrieved our old dinghy floor, so we could use it to protect the floor in the new one. We made it back to the boat just before the torrential rain came. Terry, who should have arrived at 3pm, to run the in-water test on the watermaker, didn't turn up. The rain overnight was torrential again.
On Friday, Terry was coming to us as his first job and he arrived at 1015 hours. The watermaker failed the test and Terry said the pump wasn't putting out the right amps, so we would need a new one, from Sherri at Grenada Yacht Parts and Services. It would be 1600 EC (approx. £500); unexpected when we had bought the watermaker for £2600. Sheldon, Terry's main man, arrived at 1630 hours, to change the pump, just as we were planning to leave for the party at Hogg Island. The test still failed, although the pump was kicking more amps than the old one. Sheldon took the watermaker away to be worked on in the workshop, over the weekend. Our water was disconnected then, so we would be fetching and carrying water in a bucket, for washing up, the next few days. Having missed Hogg Island, we headed to the bar in the Cove to drown our sorrows. We met Ricardo's wife, Zoe. She said, 'I have been to Yorkshire. I spent a month in a lovely little town called Howden while attending a course at the PA.' Small World! Overnight, there was a big storm; lots of thunder and lightning that was visible with your eyes closed and more torrential rain.
Having missed the Friday shopping bus, we caught the number 2 local bus to town on Saturday morning. Unusually, we had to wait over 30 minutes for a bus to turn up. Opposite Huggins Foodland, we saw Chase and Natalie, our American friends, so had a quick chat and agreed to meet them tomorrow for Sunday lunch. The day was stupidly humid after the overnight rain. Back at the Cove, while having a cooling beer, we met Nic and Mar, from Amsterdam, who we would spend a few more evenings with before we managed to escape the marina. We ate homemade curry for lunch and for dinner and had an early night.
On Sunday morning, Chase, Natalie and their dog, Bea, arrived and took a mooring ball just outside the Cove. We took the dinghies up the bay to Taffy's, for Sue's proper Sunday lunch; roast pork, Yorkshire puddings, roast and mashed potatoes, vegetables and bisto gravy. A couple of octogenarians, Terry and Justine, joined our table. Terry had been an RAF pilot, so got on well with Pete, who had jumped out of the planes Terry flew, albeit a number of years later. Terry and Justine had sailed for years but had now given up in favour of a holiday home on Grenada. It was a great afternoon, with Chase calling Terry, 'Cherry Baby', which he seemed to enjoy. Afterwards, Pete, Chase and I went to the Sunday afternoon party at Hogg Island, meeting up with Susie and many others we know. Mike and Jennifer, also from the US, had lived in Harrogate for 4 years, while he was stationed at Menwith Hill. They invited us to the Christmas Day pot luck in Bequia, so we signed ourselves up. It started to rain, so we took cover until it stopped and then we had to rush off as it was getting dark and we didn't have a torch. Pete couldn't find the kill cord so had to push a rope into the engine so it would start. By the time we went under the footbridge, which connects the island to the mainland, it was pitch black and the rain had started again. By the time we made it across Woburn Bay to the Cove Marina, we were soaked through. Having stripped off in the cockpit and dried off, we had cheese and biscuits for supper and fell into bed. That was the end of my first week in Grenada and today had been the best day. Hopefully the hangover tomorrow wouldn't be too bad. As it turned out, I was ok but Pete felt rotten. We also found the kill cord. It was hanging on the engine in the dinghy!