17th June

12 02 N
61 45 W

Weather; wet and windy, wind 10-30 knots ESE, waves 5- 8 feet

Yay, we are sitting at anchor in Grenada!
Overnight followed the same pattern as the previous 2 nights, it was pitch black with increasing winds and waves. We had tried to slow right down to give Gypsy Palace a chance to catch us up but they never did, no great surprise when you realize how difficult it is to continuously steer by hand, we feel for them and wish there was something we could do to relieve the agony! The 6pm Escape Pod check in showed us that Gypsy Palace was further behind us than we had previously thought, there was no chance they would catch us up all we could do was keep in touch and keep moving forward at a reasonable pace.
The moon was even less of a sliver when it made an appearance, it didn't add to our visual ability one little bit. We flew the main by itself for the first part of the night until the wind dropped our speed down to less than 3 knots, it was then that Gerry decided that we would fly the staysail as well to give us a bit of a boost. Of course as always as soon as the staysail went out the wind picked back up and we were then flying along at 6 knots, we kept going at this rate until once more the speed dropped right off and it was time to try flying the jib as well, it didn't last too long as there was just no happy medium, either we were ripping along at break neck speed or we were wallowing in the mire. Away went the jib and we continued on with the reefed main and the staysail. The night watches followed the normal pattern - everything was quiet until one or the other of us was fast asleep then we needed to wake them up to adjust the sails - typical but we have gotten into a pattern of short sleeps and long dozing periods in between. As we got closer to Grenada we were hit by a series of heavy squalls which saw us having to reef our staysail, the wind hit 30 plus knots and we were barreling along with speeds hitting 7.8 knots and it was a very lumpy ride as the waves were knocking us all over the place. We had to close up all the curtains which made it quite hot in the cockpit. For the last 20 miles of the transit we were hit by one squall after another but we were making good speeds and finally were in sight of the St George harbor. We called in and got the instructions to proceed to the quarantine dock with our quarantine flag and Grenada flag flying and our fenders out on the starboard side. We arrived at the dock and were helped to tie up by the dock masters then we were told that the health inspector had just gone for lunch and we would have to wait for an hour to see him. We spent the hour setting up our Grenada sim card so that I can at least get the blog uploaded and on line. The health inspector appeared after his lunch and was very efficient, had our paperwork to hand, took our temperature and gave us instructions for the quarantine period and then sent us on our way to the quarantine harbor where we will spend the next 14 days. We had a little difficulty getting away from the quarantine dock as they had instructed us to pull in starboard side to which we had done, unfortunately the wind (howling gale) was blowing us further on to the dock so getting back off of it was no mean feat but we eventually made it and motored around to the anchorage. The anchorage is quite large and is filled with boats in quarantine, it was just a case of pick a spot and try to get the anchor to set. We tried 2 spots before Gerry was finally happy that we weren't drifting but we still sat on anchor watch for the first hour or so to make sure that we didn't drag into any other boat. Gypsy Palace have made it and are just outside the anchoring area, they won't be able to do their health check in until the morning as the official has gone home for the night. We are going to have a lot to discuss over a few adult beverages once we clear quarantine.
It's the first "long" passage that we have done in 10 years and we have realized how much slower and more careful we have to be when we carryout what seemed easy tasks on our previous trip, but we obviously learnt from that trip too as some things were so much easier for us this time around. Right now we are looking forward to a hot meal in a boat that isn't rolling and pitching and a long hot shower and a decent night's sleep.
I'll be back to bore you with more tomorrow.