31st January

12 03.520 N
68 51.216 W

Weather; sunny, wind blowing a gale, waves chop on the water

Yesterday we met a couple from the boat anchored just to our starboard side. Without having met them and only going on the boat name (white Arrow) and logo painted beside the name (a variation on the theme of a silver fern) we knew that they must be Cuzzi Bros (Kiwis) and sure enough it turned out that Gavin and Shona were from New Zealand. Like us they are heading towards home expecting to get there sometime around October. We had a brief chat and in doing so discovered that they didn't have a TDS instrument to measure the total dissolved solids in the water that they were making, we said nothing at this point but later hunted out the spare TDS instrument that we had on board, and decided that we could let them have it. Gerry dropped it across to them and in return received an invitation to have sun set cocktails with them - beer economy at work!
Anyway about today, we woke up to a very windy day in the harbor, the good thing was that we were still not rocking or rolling around like we had in Grenada - it was easy to deal with! As it was still the weekend the harbor was jumping with small water craft of every shape, size and type making the most of a day on the water. There were lots of wind surfers who were whipping along at speeds we can only dream of when we are sailing, a whole lot of small skiffs that looked to be racing, a bunch of kayakers and canoeists paddling along, a few smaller sail boats, a heap of jet skiers plus a whole load of motor boats of various sizes zipping through the place. Then there were a couple of day excursion type catamarans taking punters out of the harbor for day cruises and dives - it was extremely busy to say the least and we were thankful that the anchor holding seems to be very good here, it wouldn't have been any fun trying to dodge all the water craft to re anchor!
Gerry had found himself a job for the day, I haven't mentioned to now that when we put the spinnaker pole out for the trip across to here we had experienced a great deal of difficulty getting it into place and thought that there was some damage to the track runner, it was time to investigate and see what we could do to make it operate better in future. Gerry lowered the pole back down to deck level to have a look and sure enough one of the inserts that runs up the track (luckily there are two of them) was bent at an odd angle with the shaft being bent around the bracket (the photo shows just the bent shaft, its meant to be straight). As the shaft is made of stainless steel and the bracket was cast aluminum this had taken some pressure to get to this point, there was no way that we were going to be able to bend it back into a useable shape so the only solution open to us was to cut it off of the pole and rely on the second runner to do the job in future. Out came the power angle grinder to cut the shaft free then the Dremel to cut the bracket out. I stayed well out of the way whilst this was being done but I could still hear the expletives from the safety of the salon! It really didn't take him very long to get the pieces off of the pole and then to raise the pole back into its storage position at the mast. Meanwhile I had been hunting down our shot cord to replace some that we noticed had lost its elasticity while keeping our running back stays from flopping all over the place when not in use. In the end and after I had found the shot cord we decided to just shorten up the line to the running backstays and not to hold them back with the shot cord! What a waste of time finding it had been but at least I know for the moment where it is located ( until the next time we need it and we won't be able to recall which hidey hole I put it back in!). After tidying away the tools and having lunch we decided that we would do a dinghy ride around the harbor to see what was around us but we decided to leave it until about 4pm when quite a few of the small craft enjoying a day on the water were heading for shore, making the harbor less busy. The harbor itself is quite large with several distinct areas, there is a Yacht club near the entrance, a fishing dock at almost the opposite end of the harbour, a couple of what look to be marinas with slips full of local boats only, a couple of places that have jet skis, kayaks and wind surfers etc. apparently for hire, then there are 4 designated anchoring areas out in the middle of the harbor for the likes of us - transient boats. We decided to go across to the yacht club and see if it was open to visiting yachts, we pulled up at the fuel dock to speak to the guy there in charge of pumping fuel and asked about the access to the club and was told that it was a private club for members but we could try and see if we could go in. Looking around the slips there we saw only one sail boat, the rest were all large sports fishing type boats so it probably wasn't going to be the sort of yacht club we were hoping for and we voted with our feet, not bothering to darken their doorstep. Our tour then took us in an anti - clockwise circuit of the harbor going past a lot of water front houses with their own little docks (and boats tied up), beachfronts and tikki huts at the bottom of their land space - there is obviously a fair amount of money about this part of the island! In the center of the harbor there are a fair number of what look to be houseboats in various states of dishevelment, some look livable but not too many of them. As our circuit continued we came across what looked to be a beach club with various water activities being carried out, we stopped long enough to ask if the place was open to visitors and got an affirmative, it might be a place to investigate at some stage later. A little further on we found a resort place but it looked pretty empty at the moment with no one to ask about access. We short cut back through the anchorage to our boat, not bothering to go around to the fishing fleet which is where the dinghy dock for getting ashore is located, along with a second fuel depot for the harbor - we had seen this part on our way in to do the check in yesterday. Back on our boat I made a plate up of nibbles to take across to White Arrow for sundowner drinks and we made the short trip across to them between the windsurfing fanatics. We thought to stay for just an hour but the conversation flowed and flowed and flowed along with the beers and wine and we ended up staying for 3 hours! In the end we thanked our hosts for a very entertaining evening, apologized if we had overstayed our welcome, they assured us that we hadn't and we made our way back to our boat. There was much discussion about our onward trip plans as theirs is very similar and there is a good chance that we will meet up along the way again. Their time frame to get to Panama is a little different to ours as they are off tomorrow, headed for Colombia where they are planning to haul out and antifoul the bottom of their boat, but who knows - we might see them again in Colombia or Panama. At the last minute they told us that they are going to check out tomorrow and have a car for the morning and did we want to tag along to get the layout of the place a bit more - we gladly accepted and arranged to meet up at 9am for a whirl wind tour of the place. Back on our boat we had time to watch just one bit of a series using hotspot - not the best idea, before calling it a day and heading to bed - we needed to be up and ready to go early tomorrow morning, we didn't want to delay them.