Advertisement
Published: August 6th 2007
This is a re-send...apologies if some of you get it twice but the blogsite was down for 4 days and lost this entry...
The back hatch (window) in my berth has a recessed window 1400x120 with a well sheltered cover so its almost always open….at eye level from the big Q size bed it offers a roving eye as we slowly swing at anchor thru 90 degrees or so …over 5 minutes or so, and also the gentle pitch and roll….flapping furiously just outside this window is the flag of the British Virgin Islands where we are registered….look it up….it’s predominantly red so I’m constantly getting red flashes across my roving eye-glass view of the Prickly Bay Marina world……stuck in the cabin again?
And the sounds….a constant shlepping, slopping from the wave action under the flat back end of my hull just a couple of metres from the rear hatch, the flapping of the flag, whacks and clunks of water against the inner sides of the hulls, creaks and groans, the every-6-seconds fssssstpop of the watermaker, from time to time the water pump cuts in, a low murmuring growl that vibrates thru everywhere, the evocative clunk-pump of the head….pattering
Home
Grenadaof rain on the hatch above, a gaggle of rattles and little chinks from the galley, lines sliding across the deck somewhere, the boom wagging, dragging lines, wind in the rigging, the mosquito buzz of dinghies buzzing past, whining, rattling wind generators on nearby boats, every now an again an inexplicable clunk on deck…what th’?…and always the shlepping, slopping slapping…..like 3 year old children the sea is never still…. And then as soon as M arises he’ll start an engine…the one under my bed provides power but also runs the freezer compressor and the beer fridge so has to run an hour a day at least…the other engine runs power, the generator (on the other side!) runs power as well but specifically runs power for the washer/dryer, air-con and icemaker!
Ah Somerset Cat….what can I say?…..a few details for the technically inclined…and you know how rarely I get into this sort of stuff….maybe an indicator of just how much trepidation is pumping thru the system in anticipation of the first really real blog since, crikey, when was it?……LA in September perhaps…OK, it’s a Leopard 47…2001 model, so pretty newish and all….it had been on charter, with a crew,
Falls
Grenada so was well maintained…..its just the nature of boats that there’s always something going on (wrong)….and we have new sails and a bright red sailcover, the new bimini got fitted a few days ago…it’s the shade cloth over the back, the cockpit…great relief as it was burning hot in the sun…and it looks really shmicko….
I’ve been putting off even starting blogging again for a number of reasons, some of which I might tell you about later…suffice to say that finding my ‘place’ on board has been distracting…I’m in my berth, sitting up on my bed, the clunky 56 horsepower port diesel churning away just beneath me….we seem to have one or the other, or the generator, running most of the time…will be nice to get to sea and some peace and quiet…altho’ we need a lot of power I guess…anyway, the point being I get a sore gut sitting like this and its way hot on the lap…I might move out to the cockpit, more breeze there also….Michael is in the saloon(?) internetting and listening to the local radio-for-yachts show…truly bizarre but v homey…and it’s the freaking 4th of July go you good seppos!!
Now I’m out
fresh!
Grenada in the cockpit, at the table, its 8am, about 30 degrees, nice breeze, blue sky, I’d love to say crystal waters but with everyone pumping everything into the bay, and that’s 40 or 50 big boats…well, lets just say I swim a few times during the day but keep my mouth well closed….and I’ve been scrubbing the bottom of the dinghy and the yacht…this bloody weed and barnacles and sea lice and all manner of wildlife grows while you look at it…the main props are almost unrecognisable after 4 weeks in the primordial, sewer-succoured soup….I think we’re going to tank up and dive to clean the bottom later today…hey, its ‘island time’ you gotta get used to waiting and waiting, no reason to get excited as the joker said to the priest….
Where to start in describing this boat…well, it’s 46 foot long, 24 wide, 4 berths/cabins/rooms each with its own head/bathroom/dunny with a hand basin tap that pulls out like the kitchen ones to become the shower (hot water too!)…all v cute…actually we only have 3 and a half berths as the forward port berth has been sacrificed for the mother of all techo nightmaro washing/drying machines…with an
instruction manual a 747 pilot would have difficulty in following, also in there is the watermaker……75 gallons in 24 hours, and the ice maker!….a bucket of ice every 45 minutes…..also 2 fold-up bicycles and all the dive gear….so that only leaves room for a half bed in there…fair sacrifice!
We can get by in 1.4m of water, the top of the mast is 21.46m above the water and I think we weigh about 22 tons!!…so there!
So first up I must apologise for my description of the boat as a 6 berth deal…dunno where I got that idea!..so fitting extras in will be possible but need planning….and there’s always room to crash in the salon or the back deck!..….but the berths are BIG, like 5m x 2.5m. queen beds, cupboards and shelves, hatches/windows all around, a big one right over my bed with the little green evacuation sign…I’m still not sure I’ll fit thru’ but must try it one day…so all the hatches let great airflow so I haven’t needed the aircon, yes, that too!…..
Out back where I am now is a lovely padded-seated area about 3 or 4 metres square, on one side the wheel
and controls, bifold doors into the saloon, a gap at the back where you can step down onto the stern walkway, where the barby sits, steps down to the water at the end of each pontoon….the little ding champing at the bit….the little dinghy patiently waits on her tether, quite a little personality, M talks to it sometimes, it’s the nature of dinghies to ride up on their painters but this little one comes up and nudges the stern of the boat like a suckling calf…or sometimes rides up on the swim platform, dry humping the big boat…whatever turns you on!
And there are hatches and stash holes everywhere…under every seat, all the floors come up in bits, so its important to know where everything is and put things back in their right place…..easy for some!….inside…to your left the galley, huge freezer and besides it the drinks fridge, in the galley itself the food fridge, sinks, stove, cooktop shelves benches etc all the stuff…….on the right is the saloon, semicircular padded seats around the table, probably seat 6 or 8 people…altogether I reckon you could comfortably have 20 people or more to a party!!..whoo hoo.
Hey, but at
the moment its crowded with 3!…so who’s here?….Michael of course, me of course and David the deckhand. David’s thinking of baling when we get to Venezuela but no definite plans until we see how and where we go……we are still in Grenada, a lovely little country, hard to believe it is a country, only 344 sq kms and 110,000 people, but all friendly and typically Caribbean!….David and I went on a minibus tour of the island last week…what an amazing place!…an extraordinary amount of fruits, nuts, spices and herbal stuff just growing by the road…you could just about live off it…the driver/guide constantly stopped to grab a branch of this, a leaf of that and get us to guess it…along the way he collected for me local coriander, lemongrass and mint!!..and we saw cashews, cinnamon, cocoa, nutmeg (the biggest, most famous local product) and of course the tour of one of the rum factories……anyway…you can all google on Grenada and check it out.
In a few days we head off, maybe north to the Grenadines for a few days and/or then down to Isla Margarita in Venezuela…where I hung out for 3 weeks so long ago waiting for La
Cuenta to get shipped from Panama…
Ahh, another day……I’m surprised by the amount of rain we’re getting…but then again, I’m easily surprised.
So there’s always something to do…the motor stopped yesterday, the hot water system pipe was leaking, this morning no power to the outlets, the shower pump in M’s head has clagged, the generator needed bits replaced, its just freaking endless..then theres the constant cleaning..scrubbing the decks ..every morning we have to clean up after the cockpit piggies …they sneak in every night and leave crap everywhere…curiously, the majority of mess comprises cigarette ash and short, dark and curly hairs…is this a product of freeballing perhaps?….and below the water line as I’ve said, the growth is scary!
Theres a whole range of yachties and yachts here…..many cats and monohulls, mostly plus 35 footers as you’d expect….also some trawlers..I do like that style….and usually crewed by crusties…like us?…..
Oh, the crusty old salts, what characters…some old before , or after, their time…some making a fair fist of giving the impression of actually being someone…does this mean that beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder?
….and I can feel the limited access to other people…unless
we go ashore to get the bus to town or the consistent ‘happy hour’ at the Prickly Bay Marina just across the water every night at 5 where theres always a good representation of crews….apart from that theres not a lot of people to get to know..unlike the old backpacker or even the motorcycle scene…theres lots of couples and single men but no single women! Hmmm..it seems to be a case of byo!…however….a few nights ago some good friends invited a bunch of people back to their boat….he’s been out with a local fisherman (gotta try this one myself) and scored some blackfin tuna which he served up…about 10 or 12 people, beer and rum, we took a couple of pizzas….the tuna was fabulous…and really good company…so the little interactions are v cool….but it’s basically a life of isolation…and not totally splendid!
So we had our first sail…..we all have a lot to learn about equipment, procedures and how to give instructions!…a bit of yelling and screaming going on…..then I held on a little bit too long to the jib line and went para gliding..let go and dropped to the deck…the new, shiny, slippery line tore thru my other
hand giving me some nice burnt fingers…and it fcuking stung….but life goes on…l got some sympathy from some of the sailors at the bar later who said they’d done the instinctive hold on reflex themselves….and with the help of some magic cream from Dr Mark, it all healed up within a week or so….
The new mainsail is pretty shmick and the red trimmed jib looks fantastic….nothing better than shutting down all the engines and just slicing thru the water…the awesome power of the sea and the wind…22 tons of boat being pushed along at nearly 10 knots, slamming into waves that throw tons of water over the deck…make sure the hatches are really really dogged down.
The saga of the add-on aerial for the WiFi, a USB based device that Apple in Seattle claimed would never work (probably because they hadn’t designed one yet!) whereas I could have picked one up at Radio Shack for $2.50 had I not been intimidated by the superior knowledge of the Apple folk.,..or maybe the WiFi extender, like it’s namesake crab extender, would turn out to be mainly tripe!
The whole WiFi (and yes, that IS what they call
it!!)..is dodgey..(ed: this note added today) signal always weak and as the boat swings around on anchor the transmission goes from slow to drop-out-altogether…maybe designed by the prick that designed the auto-answer phone system..obviously never used it!..you Know, when you talk over the auto-voice at optus and the chica gets increasingly frustrated…”I can’t understand….did you mean..blah, blah, blah..” and you just talk over her again and again until she says, in such a poutful, snooty voice “ well, I’ll just have to transfer you to someone (real person, hooray!) and they will probably have to ask you more questions and THEN transfer you to SOMEONE ELSE “…then you get directly thru to the person who invariably sorts the problem!!…my theory is that it is just a delaying device…there’s actually only ONE person in the whole office (in downtown Mumbai!)…and they just want you to think they sre sooo sophisticated they have banks of individual specialists..Ha..theres only one poor puppy in the whole place!
I did a cooking course with a local chef to find out about local tucker..v cool…then went off for a tour with Oz friends….got to mount Moritz amongst other places.
Around the island are mobs of
tiny little one room shacks ..they are “Janet Houses” brought in from Venezuela after hurricane Janet in the late ‘50s…Grenada got splammo-ed by hurricane Ivan in 04 or 05 and it almost wiped them out..rebuilding has been extraordinary and at first glance you think it’s all OK…but on closer inspection yoou can see signs of sh*t and derision everywhere..many buildings just deserted..the owners given up or dead or whatever, many churches just skeletons or one-wallers…lots of buildings with semi-temporary roofing, half-sunk ships, boats and other wreckage along the shorelines….went to the fishfry at Guyave, just happened to be the 100 year birthday…big street party and all pretty clunky, local, no big sponsor or management or government interference..just the local fisher people and town people having a big party…They have a great little fish market here..massive tuna the size of cows!!
Did I tell you about the women here?…2 types, some magical moment when they inexorably turn from svelte to mammoth….and the boys, confused as to making a move on a young cutie as they know, inevitably, one day they will wake up beside a whale…..or does each one hope, like most of the women in my life have hoped
that beneath this frightful frightened surface character there lurks a really nice character just waiting to be drawn out?….that his luscious little doe-eyed, mouthful-of-perfect-teeth behind the most succulent lips and all the rest of the pertness-tested-perfection will maintain herself….somehow magically resist the otherwise mandatory metamorphosis…his girl will stay forever young….ahh, don’t we all? Hey, but they are all really friendly, Aisha, the boss of the bar is the most wonderful woman, she’d be 120 - 130 kgs I guess, carries multiple crates of beer, huge loads of ice or whatever…whenever you see her and say Hi, her face lights up, when she smiles it’s a total facefull smile, you know she’s so pleased to see you, it makes your day!
Sunday, and we sailed around to the next bay and Hogg Island…we took some friends aboard and went around for the Sunday beach party the locals hold…all very simple and coool, cold beer, dodgey bbq food and wafting smoke from the rastas..
Oh My….another few weeks just slipped by but we have now left Grenada and we’re in Venezuela!!…well, a small scattering of islands out in the Carib, Los Islas Testigos, few mooring spots, a costaguarda outpost (what
Market
Grenada naughty coast guard guys get sent here?) a few houses, friendly fishing types….it is a fisherperson scene, tres isolated but cool feel to it. The coastaguarda guy is real friendly, he can give us 2 days, then we’re off to Isla de Margarita (about 6 hours Sail) for formal entry visas etc…
Los Testigos were named by Chris Colombus…I guess back around the late 1400’s ..it is hard to believe that those guys were getting around soo long ago, mutinous crews worried about falling off the edge of the world!..unbelievable…now we turn on the video game, (read chart plotter), hit the ‘auto’ button, and sit back….well, once the sails are set or the engines cranked..you can bet it won’t be long and the sails will be totally automated as well!
We set sail from Prickly at 10.30pm and sailed with squalls and wind and rain….I slept thru the departure as my first watch would start at midnight…when I went up on deck I was totally taken aback…it was surreal….I’d stepped into some bizarre dream world, a movie set, rocking and rolling….huge jags of lightning lighting up the whole seascape…..I can see lots of small squallas all around us…bundles of raw energy, lightning flashing inside roiling clouds but quite small, then the darkening rolling black cloud waves rushing from behind, overtaking us with drenching rain and howling winds, mighty cracks of thunder……the yacht is pounding thru the waves, rolling violently, pitching and smashing into the waves, all sorts of groans and creaks, mighty thwacks under the centre, it feels like we’re twisting and distorting, two things impress…the strength of the elements we’re in and the strength of the elements that make the boat…onwards ….smashing into waves, driving the bows in and under, water frothing over the boat….(hope all the hatches are well dogged!)…now it’s almost chilly, how bizarre, the ambient temp must be still 30 something but we have the rain slickers on…all brand new…pretty shmicko shlickos you could say…and the fabulous lightshow of the plankton sparkling in the wake…..we’re running before the wind with a fair sea following…its sort of freaky to look back and see these huge swells coming up behind us, looks like we’ll be totally swamped…aaaagghhhh…but then, of course, they slide under us…we fall back…then get swept up and slammed into one in front…what the…?
So, the joys of 4 hour, overlapping, shifts, sorry, watches….trying to make even a cuppa is tricky….then I notice a light I’d seen on the horizon behind us was getting bigger…in fact now it was 2 lights, and then I see a third, green, light to the side…it’s big and it’s catching us….hope they can see us…stories of huge ships with no-one on watch abound in the yachtie world, they all come back to me with clarity for interest…it doesn’t appear on our radar…do we appear on theirs?….and its impossible to gauge the distance at night…and every few minutes another enormous flash of lightning…I can see it clearly, I think I can hear the rumbling of its giant, throbbing, relentless pounding engines…..shades of all those dark and dangerous maritime disaster movies…Lloyd Bridges where are you?…or was it Carey Grant?…who was that naval hero type?…even good old Sean would be handy…..,inexorably closing on us….where to go?..what to do?….we’re running with just the main and half a jib….sometime in the night the main had slipped its reef(?), somethings busted…but the only affect seems to be the sail flaps a little more?….….I’m well awake by now, shitting myself actually, David and I, with a combined sailing experience of just over zip!….we’re rocking and rolling along but it’s catching us fast…what happens to the sails when you turn? I’m wondering, its wet and windy and we are soo small…should I get the big searchlight out? Illuminate the sails, fire a flare? …wake the skipper?….nah, we can handle this…just tough it out..hahaha…ahh..she’s pulling level, about a mile away, finally gets past us…..phew!…..several more ships passed us during the night…!!
On a lighter note I chucked the trolling line in this morning as we were threading the needle thru the Los Testigos islands and landed a nice little blackfin tuna….I chopped it up sashimi style with soy, ginger and wasabe..hey life’s not too bad!
As one could almost expect, after weeks of lying at anchor in Prickly Bay with relentless winds up to 25 knots, it stopped!…leaving The Tostigos for Isla de Margarita it was pretty calm so we had to drive all the way…boring boring, but I did get another little tuna…sashimi last night…..and we got here about 1.30 in the arvo. Porlamar harbour is nothing to write home about…a newish marina, out back a line of highrise tourist blocks, in front a seedy row of dilapidated stores, bars around the point down by the beach, quite a bunch of yachts but no focus for meeting like at Prickly however much more local contact…Fernando, the local tout who seems to live in a small shack halfway out the dinghy dock leads us around to the harbour master, immigration, customs office…they are closed until 2 so we retire to the nearest store, change some $ and sample the local beer…always cold, I remember that…can’t remember if I preferred Polar or Solera…better try both again…back to the office 2 guys and a chica..desperately trying to get the gist..looks like they’re saying come back Monday!…and we can go ashore but not leave the harbour precinct…oh well, it’s Sat arvo, theres lots of bars and eateries….went down to the beach and had a few more beers…bought 2 dozen oysters and a dozen shellfish to take back onboard…about $4 the lot…beers between 50c and $1.
Went down well with this mornings tuna….in actual fact the oysters were pathetically small so no great joy there! the caricoles weren’t too bad…tuna was sh*t hot!
It’ll be good to get immigration and customs sorted and get out of here…there are soo many beautiful beaches around Margarita…we’re thinking of renting a car and driving around…check out where the boats are, where you can anchor, where is secure, sheltered etc etc …and I want to check out some of my favourite places from last time…crikey, nearly 2 years ago I was hanging out here for 3 weeks or so waiting for La Cuenta to get here from Panama….in fact the board shorts I’m still wearing I bought here!..I don’t expect they’ll remember me at the store!
Margarita is mountainous with a couple of hundred small bays and beaches all around…its duty-free so mobs of Venezuelans come for holidays and shopping…several huge shopping complexes..little Chaddies….the population is only 3,000 permanent but up to 300,000 in the season…its holiday time now!…well, school hols…we’ll see when we go uptown how crowded it might be!
And most evenings after I cook and we eat I chuck in the handline and pull little fishes…catfish, cod, some weirdo fish around here….I’ve been using lambie for bate. Lambie is the meat from conch shells…v big in Grenada and I’d brought some, frozen, with us…I cooked up most of it the other night..really thinly sliced and then tsh, tsh in a pan v hot with oil and garlic, quick cook…a side of roast potatoes and sweet potatoes and a load of coolaloo, a Grenadian vege…grows wild everywhere, long stem and leaf like a lily, you chop it up, steam it for a few minutes, then throw it in a pan or pot with Carib margarine, palm oil and fresh nutmeg and cinnamon ..mmmm..better than spinach!..I’m going berko with the spices I got in Grenada…unbelievable..the market was fabulous…great time to think about it …now we have left!!…..my memories getting as obsolete as an MP2 player….
On Patience…I was reminded, once again, the need for patience…I was defrosting the freezer, a deep flip top box with two milk crates ice in, totally moribund (?)…so, never learning from experience I went into my usual defrost mode…you know…turn off freezer, grab biggest kitchen knife…..the potentially fatal second step!… and start encouraging the meltdown, hacking perilously close to all sorts of sensitive switching and sensing stuff…probably containing toxic gasses and toxins…whoops, there goes the rest of the fcuking ozone layer!!…OK..learn something Bill…wait 10 minutes, just walk away…have a cleansing ale…pass by and once more pick up knife…no!..search for tool that will crack ice without pircing the skin…aaarrgghh…anyway, got it done…something nicely bizarre watching great chunks of ice floating away from the boat in water about 30 degrees hot!
This morning we try and get some WiFi…theres a pommie guy somewhere in the marina…you just call on the radio for ‘wifi guy’ and he comes over and gets you sorted!
I’m not all that confident so I might just take this on the jumpstick and updump it in town….that’s providing we get thru’ customs and immigraci this morning!…all a lot different by sea than by road or air….tomorrow, Tuesday, is the anniversary of Bolivar’s birthday and a big publiic holiday so we’re not sure if the officers of Govt will be doing much today…sort of like the Monday before Cup day!
And I’d better get this onto blog before it takes over…..oh, but to go a bit retro….Tahiti was v French all the best and worst bits of the Gallic culture…no beach within cooee but great tucker and locals were fantastic…New York..much better than last time, everybody friendly and chatty(?) ..subway always cool, Central Park…walking the wrong way…finally saw a sign suggesting everyone go counterclockwise!…as if!…great to see friends in Connecticut again…Gershwin hotel fabulous…all good….in hindsight the breaking up of the trip was not a good move…sounded great but in effect I had disrupted sleep/eat patterns for the first time in all my travels…the one-way-straight-thru might be the better option!….altho’ I did have spare seats on all 3 flights!…how can this be??
Well. There you do go!
Oh Man…then we met the 4 chicas…better save that for the sealed section…and now I have to get to the airport and collect El Ben…flying in from Oz for 3 weeks…
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0898s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
