November 28 The Mooring Ball Incident

On Saturday, November 28 we decided to leave Clarke’s Court. We went north to the main fuel dock in St Georges to top off our diesel for the travel to come. The two hour trip north was a great sail with a few light storms and great wind. Hakuna Matata slipped through the water with her new bottom paint, pushing 8 knots. We note during the brief trip that we are traveling north for the long journey home. Our southernmost and current latitude is 11 degrees, 59 minutes. A bearing to Houston, Texas, merely 2132 miles away as the crow flies on the chart plotter, is only 15 degrees off our current course. Averaging 5 knots, the average speed upon which we chart our courses, we could hit the Texas coast in only 400 hours. Maybe we will take the slow trip.

There is a remote anchorage north of the harbor, Dragon Bay, and we envision a night of seclusion and romance. A storm hits upon our arrival with 30 knot winds, so we wait for it to pass and enter the reefy anchorage. There happen to be two commercial mooring balls which are available to cruisers if not occupied by dive boats. They are unoccupied so we take one, after multiple attempts because I cannot get the captain on a ball. Once secured, we are rolling to beat the band. This will not do, and we cannot set a swell bridle since we are on a mooring ball. What to do? A plan emerges. If we swim out a long line to the second ball, we can secure our stern to it so that it acts as a swell bridle. Perfect. I will swim the line out and Craig will man-handle the boat around and secure the line to a cleat.
The water is murky after the winds and rain. As I approach the ball, suddenly there is tentacle-looking stuff right in my face. A quick backstroke keeps it out of my face but scoops it right into my chest and abdomen. Buggers! I’m hit. A quick retreat back to the boat and inspection reveals welts all over from chest to pelvis. Thankfully, my swimsuit saved tender little parts from the assault. Benadryl, ice, topical steroids and rum do little to alleviate the burn. I thought it must have been a jellyfish but further investigation revealed some weird plant/coral growing on the mooring ball pennant. I’m not sick but I’m not well. I cook dinner and hit the sack at 9pm, aforementioned romance being precluded by my skin being on fire….

Half asleep myself, 10pm and POW! What was that? I follow Craig up to the deck where we discover that the mooring ball on our stern has broken free. No evidence of wear or chafe, just a hard break in the mooring (not our line, the ball). We contemplate this sailor’s nightmare come to life. Now we do not trust the remaining mooring and we no longer feel safe as we sit, but it is pitch-black and despite reasonably accurate chart plotters, it is just plain scary to move the boat through reefs at night. But we sure can't stay here. It doesn’t take long to make the decision to make the 20 minute trip around the corner to Grand Mal Bay. We have been there before and can pull up the previous course to find a known/safe passage into the bay. We move slowly, inching our way into the bay with a spotlight and setting the hook.
On Sunday, we enjoy brunch in the cockpit along with a church service we can hear from the boat. This woman is belting out “This is the Day Which the Lord Hath Made”. That girl can sing! Nice. Then we sail back down to Prickly Bay so that we can get our propane tanks topped off and hit Budget Marine for a few items. We are leaving for the Grenadines next week. Beautiful cruising grounds but limited resources.

Sunday morning, Grand Mal Bay:

Day 2, mortal wound is healing:

Back in Prickly:

November 27 Thanksgiving in Clarke's Court

We remain in Clarke’s Court this week. It is still rainy season here and while usually sunshiney, some days live up to the season. We spent Tuesday beset by rain squalls.
Now you see it...now you don't.

















Kitty and Donn of SV Falcon decided to host a southern Thanksgiving feast at Clarke’s Court Bay Marina, doing all the cooking and prepping themselves. By the sign-up cut-off time, 42 cruisers responded. Several of us pitched in to help in the kitchen. Have you ever cooked for 42 people? Me neither! The day before Thanksgiving, we arrived at the marina kitchen around 0900. It is pretty small for a commercial kitchen. Chopping commenced. I stayed until 6pm and did the following: peeled, cut and boiled pounds and pounds of potatoes, fried 2 pounds of sausage and 4 pounds of bacon. Should have given away Craig’s Lipitor as party favors. Steamed and glazed 12 cups of carrots. Boiled 4 dozen eggs. Steamed and glazed a 15 pound squash. Cut up 6 packages of celery. Sauteed celery with an almost equal quantity of onion. Plus some other things that I forgot. Everyone worked very hard. Donn cooked the turkeys. I was a tired girl. Craig picked me up and made cocktails and dinner.











On Thanksgiving morning, I went back over to the kitchen around 11am. Kitty was furiously baking pies and one last turkey breast. Charles (SV Margaret Sharon) and I got busy trying to warm everything up on 6 gas burners and a large gas grill. Others set up the dining room at the club. As it turned out, and with only a minimal amount of buffet-police interference, it was quite a wonderful feast with plenty for all.
We served on time at 2:30 and had turkey, cornbread/sausage dressing, turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, deviled egg salad, apple/pecan salad, cranberry salad, glazed carrots, glazed squash and dinner rolls. Then there was pie madness: apple pie, pecan pie, key lime pie, toasted coconut pie and mystery squash wanna-be pumpkin pie. I should have tried mystery squash pie but having spent a good part of the prior day up to my elbows in squash, I was over squash. A note about the eggs. I have told you about egg weirdness down here, mainly that they are impossible to peel. Ice baths, vinegar, other kinky tricks…none of that works. I would do anything to not get on egg duty so I took the bacon job. More egg weirdness. Of all the eggs, not one boiled with the yolk in the center…they were so off that you could not make a proper deviled egg out of any of them. Jean of SV Olive, a former caterer from South Africa, had an inspired thought and ultimately made a giant deviled egg thing on an oval platter, putting the yolk mixture in the center (she used horseradish in hers…tasty) with the chopped up egg whites all around it and some capers and cherry tomatoes to make it look pretty.



























This afternoon, we are relaxing after a very busy morning of going to the big grocery store for a major provisioning run. We are moving the boat around to the north in the morning to go to the main fuel dock and check out one more anchorage before it is time to go to Prickly Bay to pick up Skip and head to St Vincent and the Grenadines. A French-flagged cat anchored in front of us this afternoon while we were gone. Three couples on board, prancing about in various stages of undress and attending to personal grooming right on the back pontoon. As usual, the ones who should not be nekkid, are. They are not close enough to chase away but are stupid enough to be right on top of our anchor. If they are not gone in the morning, then they will have to move their boat so that we can get our anchor up....

Follow-up note to life in the islands. Kitty scoured, and I mean scoured, this entire island trying to find canned sweet potatoes and pumpkin for weeks in advance but especially on her final shopping day on Tuesday. Got some song and dance at the big store that there were sweet potatoes in the warehouse but that those could not be had for several weeks due to some duty issue. That is why we did all that squash. Today, TODAY I tell you, there were 3 cases on display at the end of the canned veggie aisle. I'm so glad she did not make this run. Donn bought a can to give her later.....

November 23 Clarke's Court

On Thursday, November 19 we leave True Blue and head back over to Clarke’s Court Bay. We are pleased to find that there is only one other boat at the entrance to our little private bay where we like to anchor. We tuck in behind him and are able to position ourselves so that we are right in the middle of the bay.












I fished some in the afternoon and having only caught a few small jacks and a miniature yellowtail, started making alternative dinner arrangements. Craig then decided to take a turn. Whether it was luck, skill or the perfect moonlight beam on the water I cannot be certain. What I do know is that as soon as his hook hit the water, Craig was on the snappers. In very short order, we had a bucket of large fish from which to choose.












On Saturday November 21 I participated in a volunteer tutoring program for local school children. About 10 other cruisers went. It was a very pleasant bus ride to the top of a mountain on the other side of Grenada. There were 30 or so children, ranging in age from 6 to 13, who come to the Saturday program at their own will. The program is held in an emergency shelter, so we set up the tables and chairs with the older children while the younger ones ran around all hopped up whatever sugar-loaded breakfast they had ingested. Fortunately, there were a couple of real teachers there who had skill in classroom management. Order quickly ensued and we got down to business.













I worked with two 9yo girls in the fourth grade. Most people were doing reading but these girls really wanted to work on math, so we worked on the 9X multiplication table. I was really shocked at the different level of two girls in the same grade. Ruth could not make out 9 X___= 36 without looking at the cheater table, while Shanelle was working on 48 X 9 = ____ independently. In spending time with them, this was easily attributable to a complete lack of discipline in the one and pure ambition in the other. After our work, the girls inform me that I am to grade the work and bring me a pen. Ruth missed 2 problems even with the answers right on the page, while Shanelle gets all of hers correct. Both get a score and I throw in a smiley face on both for good measure. Ruth gets terribly upset when I don’t give her a 100 on her problems. I try to explain the concept of working hard and earning that score, in the most simple and kindest of terms so that I do not burn in hell for permanently scarring a child with a (much-needed) dose of Angela, but I am pretty sure that fell on deaf ears. After the exercise, I found myself with mixed feelings. Ruth could easily come around with proper discipline. Being unable to dispense that, though, I found myself wanting to concentrate on the kid who clearly wanted to learn. I do not know how real teachers deal with this day in and day out.













Saturday evening starts off all quiet in the anchorage. We have the generator running and are cooking dinner and watching a movie. We hear some chatter on the radio…not really attending to it (one can sense urgency in radio transmissions…none here) but we do hear the words “fire on Hog Island” which is the island whose point surrounds this little bay. Huh? Let’s go look. A dash up into the cockpit and here is what we see off our starboard beam. Fully relaxed to bar-tight wired in 0.2 seconds. The fire is out of control and moving across the island quickly with the 20 knot winds whipping it like a high dollar Kitchen-Aid. Seemingly very close (200 yards) we are not in imminent danger as the steady trades are blowing it in a direction away from us. We can hear it but more importantly, cannot smell it. No sparks come anywhere close. At this point, moving the boat in the dark with the shallow fiberglass-eating reefs is more dangerous. We sit in the cockpit, waiting, watching and considering action plans should the wind shift. It seems to take forever for the fire department to respond but their resources are limited so they call in the Coast Guard for assistance. It takes a few hours to contain the fire. We sleep.























Sunday November 22 is a pleasant day that starts off with a few chores. For the captain, it’s preventative maintenance and changing fuel filters on the generator and engine and for the admiral, a bit of laundry. Afternoon naps. In the afternoon, we dinghy over to Hog Island proper where Roger’s Bar is located. He is a squatter on the island and hosts a Sunday barbeque for both locals and cruisers. It is a well attended event.













After barbequed chicken, potato salad and rice/lentils, we get in a bit of cardiac rehab and hike to the other side of the island to view fire devastation that we cannot see from the boat. We also take in some spectacular views from high up on the ridge.













We return to the barbeque and listen to a reggae band and chat it up with some cruisers who were anchored in the Hog Island anchorage. Most of them had spent the day cleaning soot from their decks…..












On another note, let’s talk meteor showers. I forgot to check and missed the Leonids. However, there is a big one coming up. The Geminids, the “best, with 60 multicolor meteors/hour”. I can hardly wait. Visible December 6-19 but the peak is December 13 and 14, originating from the east after midnight. Mark your calendars. PS Skip: full moon upon your arrival. Could get crazy before we passage…..

Nov 18: True Blue Bay...Pepe and the Sea Urchins

We spent yesterday exploring True Blue Bay anchorage by dinghy and snorkels. The reefs are kind of beat up but there are plenty of little reef fish to keep us entertained. We split up to expand the search area for lobsters. Craig, otherwise known as “Mr. Don’t Clutter Up the Boat with Shells”, brings me this fabulous find, quickly named “Pepe” upon our return to the boat. Pepe entertains us for hours, coming in and out of his shell and sliming the cockpit. All the while I am contemplating his murder so that I can immortalize him forever as a treasure of Grenada.
Today, I spent the entire morning very carefully scraping tiny barnacles and coral growth from Pepe’s shell. And then I boiled the dust speck. It was a quick death, and then I pulled him out with a pair of hemostats. Fortunately, all guts came out, followed by a rinse with Clorox and a polish with lemon oil. You know, I have found that Clorox and lemon oil cures a world of troubles...clean-smelling Pepe will get a place of honor in the Kemah condo.
Mom: yes, indeed, I saved the operculum. Pepe is a true specimen.














Beautiful Pepe.....he speaks to me.....















After lunch, I am on to my afternoon assignment. I have noticed a large and diverse population of sea urchins in the area. I have never tried urchin in a sushi restaurant…too many trusted advisors, especially Craig, state that it is “challenging”. Even so, I am intrigued. An internet search last night revealed many cooked urchin recipes. My favorite involved olive oil, garlic and cayenne pepper. I am ready for the hunt after this recipe begins with “go get 20 urchins”. I suit up and hit the water. Craig has got our catch bag on another mission so I am glad to have a back up net bag which is actually a lingerie bag. Every cruiser should have one because you just never know. First, I go after the little ones. I wear a 0.5ml suit and leather-palmed gloves. This turns into an excellent exercise in free-diving skill as one must stabilize body position while digging the buggers out of crevices with a knife and bagging them on one breath of air, which must be quickly exhaled to maintain stability under water. I had read that one could also get the big ones if you first hack off the tips of the 6 inch spines with your knife. I was a little nervous on this one and proceed with all due caution. I am happily swiping at my intended victim when I get nailed right through the leather. Buggers! Glove off to inspect new wound. Bleeding now, my mind filled with images of sharks and barracuda, I return with some haste (read: lung-bursting power swim) to the boat and spend the next 30 minutes digging out the spine in my thumb with a beveled needle and magnifying glass so I don’t have to go to the hospital to pay someone to do it for me. No alcohol involved so it hurt.
In the meantime, Craig is over by a spot where we saw not one or two but a nest of lobster antennae yesterday. Just about the time I am to join him, he comes back to the boat to get a dive tank, snuba hose and the dinghy. Game on. As it turns out, these were tiny babies, about 5 inches long. Unfortunately, there were no mamas around. I grab one more species of urchin, very large but no long spikes. We head back to the boat for urchin madness. I first cracked a small one and there was not enough meat to scoop out, per instructions. Hoping it to be some anomaly, I try another one with the same results. The rest are still alive and so go overboard. Then I cracked the big one and I do not see the orange urchin meat I was expecting. Everything I see looks like urchin poo. Craig concurs. Thankfully, I thawed some chicken breasts as a back- up plan. Sometimes, you envision sauteed urchin over linguini and broiled lobster for dinner, but what you get is chicken.
In retrospect, this was utter stupidity on my part. If the urchins around here were of any food value, then the locals would have fished them all out just like they have everything else. What was I thinking???

This Just In...Fish Question Resolved

Kudos to Craig's friend Dave Auman in Nebraska who was on the spot with the fish information. It is a "flying gurnard".
Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dactylopterus_volitans.jpg

Many thanks, Dave!!

November 16 From True Blue Bay, Grenada

The work done at Spice Island Marine is completed on Thursday and we have an appointment to splash the boat on Friday, November 13th. Although the date in and of itself is scary, we are well-pleased. Dig the shine on that hull! And, we hope that you agree that the black bottom paint actually looks very cool. Our appointment is at 0800 and the yard men are already cackling and carrying-on about the upcoming Friday night. I am pleased to report that the travel-lift driver, featured in the photo below, advises me that he is a recovering alcoholic, answers to a higher power and that I should not worry about the safety of my boat which he has just scooped up. "We don't splash until we see cash"....

We set about our merry way and anchor in Prickly Bay for a couple of days. We have not set up the hammock in a while. It is great fun and we take turns....

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were filled with errands, provisioning the boat and reorganizing/cleaning after having her in a semi-storage state while on the hard. Right about the time we are contemplating what to cook for dinner, along comes a lobster fisherman selling his wares. Craig and I figure that they sell them cheaper (about US$3/pound) than what it would cost us in dinghy gasoline and scuba diving effort. We decide to boil these victims whole. After the feast, we are disappointed in ourselves in that we have been previously discarding the legs and heads in a most cavalier fashion.

That afternoon, before the lobster feast, we fished for a bit. We first landed a small snapper which was a nice accompaniment with the lobster. Then, Holy Smokes!! What in the world is this?? We have seen these before when snorkeling and diving, but never before this up close and personal. WHAT IS THIS?? Features of a lion/scorpion fish with the face of a puffer. For now, my little precious will be called "bottom feeding gutter snipe", usually a term I reserve for women of ill-repute but oh-so-appropriate for this wierd creature. Quick. If you have a connection better than mine (likely), and nothing better to do during work time (as if....), please research this hideous monster and let us know, asap, what it is:

On to the big news of the day. November 15th. I am in the cockpit, minding my own business, watching the remnants of a sunset. And I SEE IT!! The green flash. I have pursued this phenomena of nature most of my adult life. Tonight it happened. I can come home now.

On Monday, we cruised over to True Blue Bay. This is the bay outside of the resort in which we recently stayed but in which we have never anchored. Very pretty. Here are some shacks along the coast:

We have decided to hang out in Grenada until Skip's arrival 12/02 rather than make a quick run to Tobago. Many reasons. With the trades, it is a hard 80 miles of motoring. Fuel is limited down there and what with the new engine, I am not embarassed to say that we are not willing to go to that remote a location when everyone else is now moving north. As if to seal the deal and make us feel better about this difficult decision, we met a British couple in a taxi who have traveled extensively down there over the years and are sad to report that even they are no longer going there by air this year due to an increase in violent crime against European and American tourists. So, we are content to explore a bit more of Grenada and relax before we turn north ourselves.