5 Miles West of St Vincent to Dragon Bay, Grenada

While I am on my watch, Mike sleeps in the salon.  When I say sleeps, he actually just rests, ready to jump into action if there’s any need.  I entertain myself my having my mp3 player plugged into one ear, the other one ready to hear any unusual noises.

At 12.30am Mike tells me that there is only half an hour to go on my watch.  That half an hour seems like an eternity, and it’s certainly longer than half an hour as I discover when I unclip myself from the seat and go and peer at the time – nearly half past one.  I wake him up and he goes on watch while I climb into bed again and once more try to sleep.

I probably get about an hour this time and when he comes to wake me I am lying there waiting.  This time my watch starts around Canouan.  We have gone past Bequia and Mustique in the distance.  Again my watch is boring and uneventful.  I don’t even have my mp3 player this time as it is on charge.

Every now and then I hear a noise like birdsong or someone whistling.  It’s quite eerie.  I know it’s not a bird (and hope to God it’s not someone whistling) but is probably just wind whistling through some part of the boat.

The sky starts to lighten around 4.30 am and at long last I can distinguish the difference between the sea and the sky.  At 7am I go to wake Mike, stroking his head gently.  He is dead to the world, and having had as much trouble getting asleep as me, I decide to leave him to wake by himself, hoping it won’t take too long as my own eyelids are drooping and I now have a headache from lack of sleep.  He wakes around a quarter of an hour later and goes straight on watch.  Normally we would both stay up now but I feel so tired I decide to try and get some sleep.

As I crawl into bed for the third time, I hear a squall approaching.  No rain yet, just wind, and then an ominous wild flapping which I know doesn’t sound right.  I lie there for a few minutes, then as I am convinced that all is not well, I climb down from my bed and go up to see if Mike needs help.

“It’s just the sail bag flapping” he says, but as the squall is by now developing into something unpleasant, he asks me to stay and help roll up the genoa.  It is now throwing it down, and having just clambered out of bed, I am naked, cold and very wet.  As the genoa is furled away, Mike looks again towards the bow of the boat, and utters a row of expletives, unusual for him.  Although completely furled, the wind has managed to get into our recently mended and erected gennaker and judging by the piece of blue material which I see fly past, is in the process of ripping it to shreds.  We need to get it down, and quickly!

I turn the boat around completely and Mike goes to the mast.  He lowers it down onto the trampoline then disconnects it from the bow sprit.  As it comes down we can see that there is a six foot tear all the way down the side.  I hate the bloody thing with a vengeance and yell at Mike to stuff it in the bow compartment as I never want to see it again.

He does this, swearing at it all the time, then comes back to the safety of the cockpit and says we are not getting it fixed and will never use it again.  Thank God!!

I try to go to sleep after this as I am still shattered but unfortunately now wide awake.  After spending half an hour lying on my bed, I give up and join Mike.

The day continues with regular heavy downpours.  The sea is quite high and continually crashes over the bow of the boat, then the rain washes the salt off.  At one point we see three dolphins playing off the bows of the boat but nothing as spectacular as on the way to Nevis with Johanne and Steve.

We were going to check in at Carriacou but in the end continue past to Grenada.  We pull into Dragon Bay mid afternoon, anchor, have some lunch then go to bed for a few hours sleep.  Although Mike manages a bit of sleep, I don’t and eventually get up to make some tea.  We put the generator on and luxuriate in the pleasure of being able to have the water maker and air conditioning on at the same time.

By early evening, I feel really quite ill.  My tummy is bloated and very painful but Mike is fine and we have eaten exactly the same over the last 24 hours (except he had a Guinness and I’m not touching that gloop).  It’s so bad, I skip dinner, which if you know me, means it’s very bad.  Mike fries some fish out of the freezer for himself while I watch the sun set as I can’t stand the smell of cooking.  A sunset booze cruise ship goes past.  It makes a pretty picture.

Photo:  Framed by rainclouds, a sunset booze cruise sails past

The rain continues to pour on and off all evening and into the night.  We go to bed early to make up for last night’s lack of sleep.