Grenada to Mayreau – Boxing Day

Mike wants to get going relatively early so I have to heave myself out of bed in order to have a go on Skype which was playing up last night when I was trying to talk to Johanne.  It is just as bad this morning and again, eventually, we give up.  It’s even more frustrating as we actually paid for this connection!

Leaving Grenada we pass a motor yacht, an old one called ‘Talitha’.  She is huge but nothing like the sleek modern ones.  Even Mike passes a compliment about her appearance.  Apparently she was built in 1927 and has been owned by the owner of the Packhard company as well as the head of Woolworth and is now owned by the Getty family.  Little people in white uniforms scurry around the decks while we watch.

Photo:  The 1927 built ‘Talitha’

The sail to Mayreau is lovely although I have definitely lost confidence on Jeannius which I do every time I leave the boat for a while, and this time it has been three months since I sailed.  I wobble around the place grabbing hold of anything and everything but gradually I get my legs under control.

Whilst under way it is calm enough for me to cook Indian scrambled eggs.  My friend Laura had a maid when she lived in Mumbai, and the maid used to cook this every morning for me.  It was delicious.  Mine lacked half the fresh ingredients that hers did and had the addition of bacon but was lovely just the same and a welcome surprise for Mike who thought he was just going to get a bag of crisps for lunch.

Later on I have a little nap.  With the fan on it is quite comfortable despite the heat outside but am rudely awoken by a terrible crashing noise which has me leaping, naked, from the bed to see what is happening as it sounds like the sails are going crazy.  Everything turns out to be fine – I have just forgotten how noisy it is in the cabin when we tack and the genoa is taken from one side of the boat to the other.  I have forgotten so much!  I go back to bed and manage to sleep for a little while longer.  Mike wakes me when we are ten minutes away from our anchorage in Saline Bay but fails to remember that this is the first time I have taken the sails down for ages and that we have a new rigging arrangement!

It takes much longer than the ten minutes he has given me to get everything ready, and in that time we are bearing down on a French yacht with its crew/guests in the water at an alarming rate.  They look horrified but Mike just waves to them cheerily and we fail to run into or over them.  We have a ‘discussion’ about this later and I remind him that I need more time for everything until I get back into the swing of things and learn the new system.  Little bugger!

I have no intention of leaving the boat to go ashore here.  The last time we were here together with Victoria was nearly 11 years ago when we chartered a Sunsail boat out of Blue Lagoon, St Vincent.  We went ashore for dinner, having made reservations over the VHF (and giving the boat name) and when we got back to the boat it had been broken into lots of our stuff was missing.  I know this was probably an isolated incident (the restaurant owner was horrified when we told him what had happened) and the break-in could have been done by someone from another boat just as easily as by an islander, but something like that leaves a nasty taste, and I have a long memory!  Mind you the incident did give us a few laughs afterwards, as reporting it to the police on nearby Union Island was something else.  There was test match cricket on the TV in the next room and the policeman kept running out of the interview room to watch it.  Only in the Caribbean!

Talk about being the only gay in the village (Brits will recognise the Little Britain reference), here we are the only Brits in the bay.  We are surrounded by French, Dutch, German, Finnish, Swiss and Norwegian registered boats. 

Photo:  Mike hoists the yellow flag to show we have not cleared in

Photos:  … and we have a cup to tea in the developing sunset

I have been so deprived of sunsets in Grenada.  The way the hotel and marina were positioned I never saw one so this evening I go into sunset overdrive!

Photos:  Beautiful sunset

Mike runs the watermaker again but there is still a problem.  It is only producing half the amount of water it should.  He will have to get his new dive gear out in the morning to sort it out but hopefully it will be something simple as it worked fine before the boat was hauled.

I start to prepare some of my provisions for the freezer.  I am terrified of running out of things for flavouring food so have bought rather a lot of onions, garlic, ginger and chillies.  I peel, slice, chop and deseed my way through a lot of it, but by no means all, and put them in Ziploc bags for another day.

I cook another okra curry and we settle down to watch a film.  Just before the curry is ready, I decide to add some of the dried, flavoured soya chunks that Jo and Kev gave us.  I hope we like it as I have already bought 6lbs of it for when we are at sea and are getting tired of fish (or haven’t managed to catch any!!).  I like it.  Mike isn’t so keen.  Never mind, Mike.  When it’s reconstituted, there will only be 18lbs (or 24lbs – I can’t remember if 1lb makes 3lbs or 4lbs) of it to eat!!!