Back to Grenada

  The heat here seems to be getting worse as we near the end of the wet season.   We did a few last minute chores on boat, filled water tank and some last minutes painting.  Then we got put back in the water on Oct 8.   It felt great to be floating again but as we went out in the anchorage we found it to be very full and all the moorings were being used.  Tryed anchored a couple of time near outer edges but could not get anchor to hold,  This area is known for bad holding, as it has been dredged.  Finally we decided to motor over to Scotland bay 2 miles away. We spent a nice night there though there is lots of 30 second wind gusts that come down on anchorage every few minutes.

      Early next morning we motored back to Chagaramus to clear customs and do a last load of laundry and get a couple of grocery items, and say some goodbyes to friends.  Again we had trouble anchoring but then the Mojombos found a buoy that had just emtyed and Gary held it for us with his dinghy will we got our anchor up and motored over to it.   That is better as we could now both go ashore.

      We decided we would leave about 4pm in afternoon to do the 80 miles to Grenada as an overnight sail.  Yesterday we heard another story of a robbery  by some  Venezualan pirates in a small pirogue that stopped a yacht on there way to Bonaire.  This was apparently just last week, the yacht went 40 miles North and then started to turn west and I  believe this is went they were stopped by armed men in a small boat.   So we plotted a course that took us a bit further East of normal route to Granada and several miles to the East of the Hibiscus oil rig.

     We left right on schedule and had the current with us as we motored out of the pass and leaving Trinidad behind.  There was no wind and we motored for a bit more than a hour and then the wind started, a few minutes later we shut off the engine and were sailing along nicely.  the wind picked up a bit more and we but 2 reefs in main and then had then rolled the genoa half way in.   Then we never touched the sails again all the way to Granada, perfect.

  After dark we saw unusually bright phosphorescence in the sea.  The white caps were brilliant in the darkness  and helped make for a beautiful night.  The sky was clear  and a quarter moon out and we were sailing along  briskly in a somewhat rough sea with the wind just a tad forward of beam.  The course was a bit better as we turned a couple of degrees after passing the Hibiscus oil field rig.   There was a number of fish boats and ships visible on the radar.   We kept our lights off until we were about 15 miles from Granada, which means you have to keep a better watch.  We scanned with the radar every 20 minutes or so and we lucked out that we never had to adjust course  to avoid a boat, they just seemed to all be a mile or 2 either side of our course.  The passage turned into the best passage we have had in the Caribbean.

     The wind died when we were about 3 or 4 miles from Granada and came around to on the nose.  The sun was also just coming up and we motored the last few miles into St Georges harbor on the SE cornor of Granada.  We dropped anchor just before 8am in about 22 ft of water and the it was so clear we could see the anchor on the bottom.

    We put our new dinghy in the water to goto customs and immigration.  Just before we left Trinidad our new dinghy had  arrived.  I was fed up with deflatables so bought a porta- bote which is made of some kind of thick hi teck plastic and folds up so that it is about the size of a surfboard.  The new dinghy works great, it is a bit faster that our old inflatable with the 5hp engine.  Its 10ft long  and very roomy.

     

 

 

Info

-Scotland bay 2 miles from Chagaramas,  Trinidad anchored in 51 ft at 10 42.03N   61 39.88W.   This is not the best spot but the inner bay was full of boats.

-See old blog posts for previous visit to Grenada earlier this year.  Now anchored in 21 ft at  12 02.55N   61 45.46W  water nice and clear