25th January

12 00 N
61 46 W

Weather; sunny with showers, wind n/a, waves n/a

BELATED BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT TO WILLIE - 60 IS LOOMING OLD GIRL. MAKE THE MOST OF THOSE LAST YEARS OF 50 SOMETHING!

Welcome back every one, guess it's about time I got you caught up with the past 3 weeks, not that very much has been happening for the first two but this last week has seen a bit of a flurry of activity as we are about to head off once more. So forgive me for summarizing but I'm sure you don't want to read about every last detail of our laundry days for example. Talking of laundry I will begin there, we did a few laundry runs as we had decided that our salon cushion covers were in desperate need of a good clean at the same time I soaked some of our cockpit canvas in bucket loads of cleaner to get rid of the mold that was beginning to take over, happily everything turned out just fine, I just need to get the rest of the cockpit canvas cleaned up now but that's going to have to wait until I can get up some enthusiasm as it's a long and tedious process! If you have ever wondered why I even mention the laundry it's because only anyone who has ever been on a boat would understand that it takes almost all of the whole day to do a couple of loads of laundry. Although more and more boats (mostly catamarans) have a washing machine on board, we don't have that luxury and each load has to be either done by hand or taken into a launderette. We try to keep the launderette runs to a minimum but there is no way we can justify the amount of water that we would use to wash towels and sheets as well as the gazillion amount of tee shirts that Gerry manages to get through each week. So the process involves bagging up the dirty washing in water proof bags, loading it into the dinghy, taking it to the dock where, if we are lucky, there is a handy launderette and if not getting a taxi to the closest launderette. Most launderettes have a service wash facility which we make use of, freeing up the rest of our day whilst someone else does the wash dry and fold for us, failing that we waste another couple of hours watching our washing go round in machines. We usually have to return to the launderette in the late afternoon to collect our clean washing and hand over whatever amount they are charging this week, either way it is an all-day exercise, so please be glad that you have the means to do a few loads at home whilst getting on with something else! Having said all that we are so very glad that there are launderettes and staff who do the job for us. We do a small amount by hand on the boat - swim suits, tea towels and the like which are small and easier to get dry in the cockpit without getting salt spray covered.
We've done several shopping trips including a day when we hired a car and did the town and another day when we hired a taxi for the day to take us around the various places, it was cheaper to hire the car but easier on everyone to let the taxi driver do the fighting through traffic. Our great find was Le Boucher, in Prickly Bay - he is more of a deli than anything else, selling imported meats and cheeses, he makes his own sausages and pate, butchers his own meats, sells wonderful baguettes, rotisserie chickens and wines - we spent a great deal of time in there sampling everything over the 3 weeks! Our fridge and freezer have both been defrosted and cleaned prior to the very last shopping trip so that we could stuff both as full as possible for the forward journey.
Whilst out and about doing shopping we have also filled our Jerry cans with fuel a couple of times so that we were able to top up our tanks, not that they were low but you can never have too much fuel on hand!
So on to the "fixing stuff" of the past 3 weeks, as I'm sure by now you will have realized Gerry isn't happy if there is nothing to fiddle with but I think that even he would have preferred that there was nothing to fix at this stage.
The first thing to need "fixing" was our water pump. It malfunctioned just after I suspended the blog. I had just gotten out of the shower that morning and noticed that the water pump was still cutting in and out, I checked that I hadn't left a tap partly open and then let Gerry know, he went behind me checking all the taps were turned off and then began a serious hunt for a leak, concluding that it had to be the pump itself that was malfunctioning. We carry a spare water pump but when we pulled it out it looked in worse condition than the one that was in situ, this would require a rebuild kit or a new pump - trip to Budget Marine! As the only way to know what bits were needed was to take out the old pump first Gerry decided to buy a completely new pump then get a rebuild kit to "fix" the existing pump to keep as our spare (the original spare went to the kerb side recycle). So the new pump went into place and problem solved, no more pump running without the taps being on. The original pump parts were replaced and that pump is now stashed away in a safe place as a spare, never to see the light of day again.
The next little fix came when we defrosted the freezer, Gerry noticed that there was a small hole between the freezer and the fridge near the lid, probably where the original wiring went through joining to two together. The hole had to be filled to give the freezer a completely air tight seal, at the same time he added more insulation board to the lid of the freezer which means that I can no longer latch the lid closed and have to get Gerry to do it each time- I have no control over my freezer now at all, I can't reach into it and I can't close the damn lid without Gerry's help!
Next on the agenda was the dinghy, we hadn't been lifting it out of the water each night as it takes a lot of effort to get the outboard off and stowed but had left it tied to the stern ready to use and as a consequence it needed the hull cleaning. We hauled it onto the davits, having removed the outboard to it's storage place and tackled the growth of green slimy stuff and a handful of barnacles that thought they had found a new home. Of course we had to turn the dinghy around so that we could reach the furthest side as well but it didn't take too long to get it all cleaned off. Whilst it was out of the water Gerry took the opportunity to grease the outboard bits and make sure that everything was screwed in tight and secure.
Gerry managed to find a small hole in the cap rail that he thought needed epoxying to prevent water rotting the cap rail away - another minor fixing job out of the way!
Of course no "fixing schedule" would be complete without doing something to a toilet! Gerry decided to pour muriatic acid down both the toilets to get rid of more built up scale, all went well with the forward toilet. The aft toilet was a slightly different matter, it gurgled and belched, filled the bowl with yucky scale which got flushed away a couple of times and eventually Gerry was happy to leave it alone. We were reading and waiting to go ashore for dinner when about 30 minutes before we were due to leave there was a terrible faecal smell and a sloshing noise, Gerry beat me to the toilet and announced that it had overflowed and the shower room floor was awash in effluent water - this is not a girl job! I handed him the kitchen towels, gloves and a plastic bag and he set to mopping up the floor (mind you a good deal of it was already making its way down the drain into the bilge at this point). Next came the cleaning solution and more kitchen towels to dry the floor. All was back to normal operation by the time we were due to leave but we were still not sure why it had back flowed and filled the bowl and the non-return valve hadn't cut in - this needed more attention on our return! Luckily it didn't repeat whilst we were away and Gerry surmised that the Joker valve (yes it really is called that) between he macerator and the toilet bowl must need replacing - trip to Budget Marine! They didn't have a replacement valve for our particular brand so it came down to putting a new valve in the pipeline which Gerry did the next day. Touch wood there have been no further issues to date.
The final fix that needed doing was the changing of the water maker filter, we had run our water maker for around 86 hours and it was time to check the filter and change it out - not a minute too soon either, I have a photo of the old and the new filter side by side which I'll load to the gallery when I have a connection - the white one is the new one!
We have watched the comings and goings in the harbor, it never gets boring seeing other people stuff up their anchoring and doing stupid things but we were on alert one morning when a boat in front of us began to drag anchor and was bearing down on us rather rapidly. Luckily several other people had noticed and were in their dinghies trying to push / pull the drifting boat back to where it was apparently attached to a mooring ball. It got close to us but luckily missed, we still have no idea why it was drifting but suspect that the mooring gave way from the sea bed. We also watched a fishing boat which had been holed and partially sunk being pumped out, refloated and dragged out of the harbor - presumably being taken somewhere for repairs. There were plenty of boats coming and going, it's obviously time for people to get on the move again now that hurricane season is over.
On the good news front, the bars and restaurants are being allowed to resume operations, with some restrictions in place of course. We have paid visits to the brewery, the sand bar, the container park and just at the end of the week the newly finished Prickly Bay Marina - all good for food, drink and light entertainment. We've shared meals on our boat a couple of times with Dale and Lorie and had dinner on their boat a couple of times - good food and company as always.
I've spent my days trolling the internet for new recipes to try, made soufflŽs (woo hoo!) bread too often, cakes not often enough and produced an assortment of meals using what we had on board at the time - not a baked bean in sight!
We've watch a few Netflix series, some good some not so good, read a few books and done the eyelid leak watch more times than I care to admit.
Which brings us to today, our last day in Grenada. We've done chart checking, plotting and planning to death. Gerry and my visas run out today so it was the day to check out. Dale and Gerry took off to do the checking out, I stayed on our boat preparing some "defrost and Ping" meals ready for our transit so we don't have to cook from scratch whilst underway, I've tidied away anything that might become a missile and cause injury and generally tidied up where I can. We get 24 hours after clearing out to actually take off, so we plan to make the most of it and pay one last visit to Le Boucher in the morning for last minute cheese and meats, and pulling up anchor around 11am. Dale and Lorie are planning on a slightly earlier start of 9am.
We had a final meal together on Gypsy Palace, ordering in a delivered curry from Indian Summer with enough left over for tomorrow night's dinner - it was delicious as always. Lorie then produced a special dessert - a Magnum chocolate coated caramel ice cream which she had been saving for that special occasion - this was it! YUM.
I said my goodbyes to our sailing buddies, not wanting to be doing it in the morning when Gerry said he would go over to see them off. It's a sad end to our trip with them going back to the States and us heading to Australia when we had such good plans to enjoy the 2 years of island sailing together - damn you Covid for ruining what would have been a fun 2 years!
A last word on Grenada, although we hadn't intended to spend a great deal of time here circumstances dictated that we would be here for the best part of 7 months - almost permanent residents!. The people have been fabulous to us, always with a smile, helping hand, kind word and friendly as possible in what could have been such a difficult time for us all round. We have always felt safe and welcome here. We have managed to get most things that we needed, including our medications, boat parts, food stocks and fuel, anything else we could probably manage without anyway!
The disappointment was that so much was closed down due to Covid, we would have loved to be able to explore more of the tourist things that are usually on offer. We hope that we have contributed to the economy of the island in our own small way by using local businesses, eating out, buying local fruits, veggies, eggs bread etc. we hope that we haven't drunk the island dry - you make awesome rum
So with that we will say goodbye to Grenada for now, thank you for having us, we are leaving a small part of our hearts here. We wish you all, as a country, the very best of everything for the future.