Back to Grenada

My phone alarm wakes me up just before six and by six thirty I am in reception waiting for the bus to take me to the airport.  I am still nervous about the weight of my bag.  Surely 30 kilos can’t be right?  But that’s what is printed on my ticket so I will fight it out if I have to.

In the event it isn’t a problem.  My bag weighs in at 28 kilos.  With 16 month’s worth of cosmetics, hair products and various lotions and potions, not to mention the odd boat part, I’m surprised it doesn’t weigh more!  At 7 kilos, my hand luggage is 2 kilos over but the nice lady just tells me to put my netbook under the seat rather than in the overhead locker and lets me off.  Result!

I install myself for an hour in one of the airport lounges and check my e-mails before reading the little poignant note that Johanne and I had exchanged a few days ago.  No details but a few tears were shed.  What would I do without friends?  Leaving them behind is one of the hardest things about doing the World ARC.  I manage to speak to Johanne and Victoria before I leave.

The plane takes off half an hour late but we are assured that we will make the time up.  It is a good flight.  I share the three middle seats with a retired teacher who is good company but doesn’t talk all the time – a relaxed combination.  We land just ten minutes late but the queue for immigration is something else and as I was at the back of the plane and therefore one of the last to get off, I wait for nearly an hour in the queue.  At least this means that my luggage is waiting for me when I eventually make it through.

Walking out of the terminal I see Mike with his lovely smiling face ready to greet me.  A big hug and kiss later he breaks the news to me about the boat that he has received that morning.  The boat had been hauled out to fix an oil leak from the propeller shaft.  It took just half an hour to fix.  However, once Jeannius was out they could see that the nose cone for the new propeller was split.  Not a major problem as being only two months old it is still under warranty and a new one is being sent.  The really bad news is that the brand new anti fouling is blistering and coming off due to an incompatibility with a previous layer even though a barrier had been applied.  The whole lot has to be stripped off right back to the boat’s gel coat and reapplied.  This will cost us another $12000 and will take at least two weeks.

Mike is devastated at the news and I am probably worse.  I hate hanging around waiting for the boat to be fixed.  I loath boat yards with a vengeance and the fact that Jeannius is out of the water means that we can’t stay on her and will now have the added expense of a hotel for a few weeks.

Mike drives me to the guest house he has booked.  We both have raging headaches and have an early night, dejected and miserable, both our moods feeding the other’s.  Not a good start to our adventure.