The sail from PSV to Grenada was a romp down the windward side of Grenada. A windy day with a mixture of sun and clouds, though no rain.  That is not to say that I was dry!  With the true winds were from the SE at between 17 and 27 knots and Quietly was charging along at 7.2 to 7.9 knots and thus the occasional burst of water over the side... The kind where you feel like looking for your snorkel to be able to breath. {laughing} They were infrequent, but just about the time I would get dry, another would get me...

A little after four in the afternoon I began making the slow turn towards the south west around the bottom end of Grenada and then into St. David's Harbor a little after 4:30.  It was Sunday afternoon and the Harbor was quiet.  Just three other boats were anchored there and it looked like no one was on any of them.  I motored up to the far northern end trying to escape the majority of the swell that was coming into the bay, dropped my anchor, and seeing no one stirring on shore, settled in for the evening.

St. David's Harbor & Grenada Marine

St. David's Harbor is the home of Grenada Marine, a haul out and growing maintenance company.  I had been corresponding with Jason the manager there about several projects including new bottom paint, stripping the old varnish off the exterior teak, and most importantly to me was constructing a new fiberglass hard dodger for Quietly.  The following morning I was to meet with Jason and several department heads to discuss the work and receive estimates so I could decide which projects based upon my needs and budget could be done.  I was very anxious to get started as I was leaving for Colorado on the coming Friday morning for three weeks of work back at WestStar Bank in Vail.

The meeting wound up being postponed for one day and then another and then was between Jason and myself without the others who would actually be doing the work.  Finally on Wednesday morning I met with their fiberglass specialist who seamed to have an excellent grasp of both what I wanted to accomplish and how to do it.  We spent two hour looking, measuring and sketching drawings.  The fellow who headed up their wood working department was busy finishing up restoring a beautiful old boat he owned for a regatta coming up in three weeks so we were not able to meet.  There was a small teak cabinet to be made and one of the projects, but his crew was the one that would be doing the bottom painting and I knew there to be a problem with how the old paint had been applied and I wanted to discuss that with him before I would leave the boat to be painted.

By Wednesday afternoon I was frustrated by the lack of response from everyone except the fiberglass specialist.  To leave the boat with them at Grenada Marine while I was gone would require that it be hauled and stored on land while I was gone.  The carpentry shop was going to be busy finishing up the restoration of the managers boat thus the cabinet would not be completed and the group that would bottom paint Quietly was also his and very involved with starting to paint his boat, I was not confident that what I wanted to be done would be completed by the time I returned.

The fiberglass specialist wanted to do the hard dodger design on a CAD system to be able to show me how the finished dodger would fit and look and said that he would do that and e-mail me the drawings while I was in Colorado.  This seamed like a good plan to me and would allow him to provide me with a good cost estimate.

St. David's Harbor may be a great place to leave your boat "on the hard", but it is not some place where you want to spend a lot of time... It is isolated and way off the beaten path.  As I was confident that noting would be done during the three weeks I was back in Colorado and expensive to have Quietly hauled.  I decided my best option was to sail Quietly further west to Mt. Hartman bay and leave it on a secure mooring with someone watching after it which was hundreds of dollars less expensive. I could review the plans for the hard dodger and would return when the work could be scheduled to be completed in a minimum amount of time.

I never received the CAD drawings by e-mail and on my return attempted to make two appointments to go over the work to be done at Grenada Marine.  The appointments were canceled and thus I can only report my experiences.  The work will be done in Trinidad later in the fall.

Three weeks in Colorado while Quietly was at Mt. Hartman Bay

On Wednesday afternoon I sailed five miles west to Mt. Hartman Bay just about mid way across the southern coast of Grenada.  As I worked my way in around the large reef that guards Mt. Hartman Bay and saw the natural beauty of the bay, the Moorings Marina and Secrete Harbor facilities, I was certain I had made the right decision to move. 

Shortly after anchoring I saw my friends on "Hide-a-Way" who had said they would introduce me to someone whom they trusted to look after their boat.  Later that afternoon they introduced me to George and the following morning George helped me secure Quietly to a mooring with four, yes four, 5/8th inch lines.  The mooring being two sand screws connected by chain to the mooring line.  While attaching the lines George dived on the moorings to assure all was well. The cost of one month on the mooring and George's looking after the boat was to be $130 US which is very reasonable.  In addition George would have someone strip all of the varnish off the exterior teak and polish all of the stainless steel while I was gone.  The following morning George's friend Henry B picked me up at the dinghy dock at 4:30 for the flight back to Colorado.

When you find the right people, things just work!  Even on island time.  I along with many other cruisers here can highly recommend George as an honest, reliable, hard working, and genuinely nice man.  You can do no better!

When I returned from my trip George and several workers he managed had done a marvelous job of stripping all the old varnish off the exterior teak and sanding it smooth.  He had also repaired the water exhaust muffler for the generator and all of the stainless was polished.  Quietly looks marvelous!  As well as quite a bit brighter with the light colored natural teak rather than the very dark varnish that was there.

To read about my trip to Colorado click on this link.

Mt. Hartman Bay & Secrete Harbor

Mt. Hartman Bay is just beautiful.  There is no other word for it.  There is lush forest surrounding most of the bay and on one side Secrete Harbor Hotel and Marina with its red tile roofs which gives you the impression you are anchored in the Med.  I don't often repeat pictures, but this one is worth a second look.  The picture is made from the grounds of Secrete Harbor  and Quietly is the boat anchored just in the center of the picture seemingly held in the crook of the tree branch. 

Yes, It really is this beautiful here!

When I was starting to think about sailing three years ago, I though I would like to spend most of my time actually sailing, being out on the ocean, at sea most of the time.

What I have found is that I enjoy "gunk holing" just as much or maybe just a little more. Gunk holing is a cruising term for finding a place that you enjoy and staying there for a while, while being a few weeks or a month or more. As you know if you have been following my adventures, I spent six weeks in the Virgin Islands, another six weeks in St. Martin, a week in Guadeloupe, a week in Antigua, a week in Bequia and I will probably spend a month or two here in Granada.

While Mt. Hartman Bay is not as convenient to do things like going to the movies or shopping as it was in St. Martin, it is beautiful and there is a good community of boats here. That is one of the important things, a good community of fellow "yachties."

There was a wonderful pot-luck dinner last weekend at Secrete Harbor Marina. It was a lot of fun with well over 50 people attending. Not that I am a bad cook, but I was surprised to see that my shredded beef in Lee & Perrin sauce over rice was completely gone. I fixed a large portion of the beef along with string beans (the good French ones from the French supermarket in Guadeloupe) for lunch  with the rest for the potluck.

July 2nd was "girls night out". It is all ways interesting as a single guy to see how clueless the marries men are when the girls are out. For me, It’s just normal {laughing}  All of the girls walked over to Spice Island Marina for happy hour and then were going to the Chinese restaurant for a dinner party and "girl talk" or as one of the ladies said; “conversation about something other than changing the oil.” What was really interesting was listening to the radio chatter a little after 10 PM as the girls were calling their husbands and boy friends to please come pick them up from the dock. It was pretty humorous to listen to including bribes and offers of swimming lessons... Of course all of the guys had planned all of this as they were all over on "Pegasus" having their own party!

Saint Georges

Saint Georges is the largest town and the capital of Grenada.  I go into town at least once a week to go to the market and just explore the city.  Getting there is 15 minute buss or taxi ride from Mt. Hartman Bay and is surrounded by water on two sides as you can see from the pictures. The photo on the right is of the Carnage, or old central harbor which is quite picturesque.

In Saint Georges is the local market where you can buy locally grown produce and of course spices grown on the island.  The market is quite large, covering most of a city block, but very disorganized as the vendor ladies take what ever spot is available. You can see the varied selection of fresh local fruits and vegetables these two cruising couples are choosing from.

Answers to E-Mail Questions

I have received several E-Mails from the "Contact Me" button on the hope page. I will try to answer a few quickly here.

When I am sailing alone, I plan all of my trips so that I have a destination that I can reach during the day, anchor for the night in a protected harbor and then sail another leg of the trip the next day. When I am not sailing alone, I can sail longer distances in a single sail. Here in the Caribbean it is almost all ways possible to make short sails.

But my goal is to be able to sail long distances with a sailing partner across the South Pacific. There you sail in shifts or watches where someone is all ways awake looking out for other boats and monitoring Quietly while sailing on autopilot. On a warm night, sleeping in the cockpit, one person would be on watch and the other a sleep snuggled with the awake person. {grin}

The most number of nights I have been away from land so far has been eleven. That was on the trip from Virginia. I have done several trips where we were away from land five or six days. Once out in the Pacific, there are two trips, or passages as they are called, of up to 25 days at sea and many that are five or six days.  People spend years crossing the Pacific stopping at the islands for weeks or sometime months at a time.

Thus there is no particular end to "my cruise." People who have sailed all the way around the world, have then just kept going doing it a second time stopping at different places. Not that I would want to sail around the world twice. {laughing}

July 4th, 2003

The 4th was celebrated by all of the cruisers at Clark’s Court Bay. We even let a few "Brits" join us even though they did show up wearing British T-Shirts. They said they just wanted to remind us of our roots! {laughing}  Quietly was decked out with the 14 flags of all the countries I have sailed in flying from the port spreader and a huge American flag with the Grenada courtesy flag below it flying from the starboard spreader. She looked very festive!

Someone had been to the market and purchased hamburger, hot dogs, buns and all the fixings and everyone brought  their out of date emergency flares to use for fireworks. That was a good safe way to dispose of them and for many of the people – myself included – it was the first time we have actually gotten to use one of them which was good experience.

The party got started about 4:00 in the afternoon with a huge crowd of over 70 people enjoying hamburgers, potato salad, and of course being in the Caribbean, Jerk Chicken. There was chicken left over, but not a single hamburger or hot dog was left of course. There was lots of beer and even Pepsi for those like me who prefer the softer stuff. {grin} It wasn't diet, but I decided it would not kill me to drink the real thing. I had forgotten how good the real thing can taste… {wink}

Just before it got dark, I took the dinghy back across Clarks Court Bay and through Hogs Bay back to Quietly in Mt. Hartman Bay. That is a trip of about three or four miles through and arund the reefs and one must do that in daylight to be able to find the small buoys (actually plastic milk bottles} that mark the way through the reefs. Arriving back on quietly in time to clean up a little and then walk over to Spice Island Marina in Prickly Bay for the Steel Band and dancing at 7:30.

By 10:30 I was pooped and started walking back across to Quietly.  Just as I was leaving, a large group of girls from the medical school were arriving to dance the evening away. I was tempted to turn around, but alas, all of them could have been my daughter. {sigh}

It was very windy in the morning of July 4th. One boat in Hogs Bay drug it's anchor early in the day when the crew was away in town shopping. Of course all of the cruisers in the bay jumped in to take care of the boat. By the time the Husband and Wife returned the boat was well secured, just in a different place, and no harm had come. It did make for a little excitement for the morning though and lots of conversation during the party that afternoon.

While the boat rescue was going on over in Hogs Bay, I was working to reload a computer for the Swiss couple anchored near me here. Oliver (the fellow) brought his computer over a little after 10 in the morning. He had accidentally erased most of the system files on his computer. He had tried to recover the system from the manufacturers "Recovery CD" which I have generally found to be useless. For me, this was an interesting challenge trying to do all of this with everything on the screen in German!

After a few tries at using the recovery disk, I too gave up and we loaded a fresh copy of Windows 2000 from a full software release CD. Of course that loaded perfectly where the "Recovery CD" did not. After I had everything loaded and tested, I was even able to find the place in the setup to change it back into German with all the special characters on the German keyboard.

Today is Sunday, July 6th.  It is a cloudy and rainy morning here. Great sleeping weather and I finally drug myself out of bed at 9:00 AM. The sound of the rain on the boat, gentle motion of the wind rocking the boat, and cool breeze just made for a perfect morning for a little extra snoozing. Breakfast was my usual scrambled egg and sausage, but I am out of milk so a trip to the store is on the agenda for today. Oh! No milk today as the grocery stores here are closed from Noon Saturday until Monday morning.

I was listening to Radio Canada last week when they announced that the Winter Olympics in 2010 will be in Vancouver. I was lucky enough to be a volunteer at the Salt Lake Olympics. It was such a great experience, I will have to be sure to be back from sailing, or at least able to travel so I can volunteer again. It is certainly something I would like to do again. Perhaps the opportunity will be there!

Yesterday afternoon I learned how to play a new game called “Rummy Q”. I was invited to play with a group and I won my first three games. With that, the group decided to change to Dominos. {laughing} We played until a little after 6:00 PM and then split up to go back to our boats for dinner. I made chicken salad with chicken (of course), celery, carrots, onion, apple, cashew nuts, Cajun spices, pepper, and mayonnaise. I made enough to have two sandwiches last night and leftovers for lunch today.

The wind died off by 9:00 PM and it was hot aboard Quietly, so I took the dinghy across to the marina and took one of the cold showers (There is not hot water in the showers at the marina.) to cool me off. Then I cranked up the generator and turned on the AC when I got back to the boat and read a novel for a few hours in the cool before shutting down the generator and the AC before turning off the lights.

Hurricane Clariece

Sunday, a tropical wave about 650 miles east of here started to develop a low pressure area with increasing clouds and thunderstorms. Sunday evening the word went out that the tropical wave should be watched closely as there was the possibility that it might turn into a tropical depression.

Monday morning the weather system was still classed as a tropical wave but it had a large area of thunderstorms, wind and rain associated with it as it was approaching. All of us here got busy putting out our second anchors, taking down our canvas awnings and generally getting ready for strong winds.

By 10:00 Monday I had Quietly prepared, the sails are tied so that they can not unfurl, both anchors are set well and checked, and I had all of the sun awnings stowed below. There was a brief rain shower at 11:30. But following that the sky began to lighten up and there was just a light rain falling.

The noon weather report said that the tropical wave was breaking up and the area of thunderstorms was taking a more northerly track towards St. Lucia. By 1:00 the light rain had quit and many of us took the opportunity to go into the marina, just a few minutes from our boats. At 2:00 it was looking much better and the weather reports was that the area of rain was passing well north of Grenada and the regular afternoon Dominos games begin.

During happy hour at 5:00 the weather reports said that St. Lucia and Martinique had received heavy thunderstorms and strong winds associated with the thunderstorms as the weather system passed the islands, but there was no damage reported.

Monday evening we were all saying that it had been a good practice drill. Everyone got to get things in shape to be ready and we all got to test our readiness. Truthfully, most are a little disappointed that we did not get to test our preparedness. I was also disappointed we did not get more rain to fill my water tanks... {laughing}

On Tuesday morning, just as if to show us how lucky we were, the storm began to re intensify after passing St. Lucia and by Tuesday afternoon it is a full fledged Tropical Storm "Caleriece" with winds in the high 50's with the prediction that it will become a full hurricane by tomorrow morning as it heads westward for the Gulf of Mexico.

Sunday July 13th.

Charles and Caroline from "Itsapurla" and I walked over to Spice Island for happy hour Thursday evening to visit with Mike from "Cheshirecat" who returned from his trip home to Toronto today. Mike is feeling a little lonely as Deidre remained in Canada for an additional two weeks to visit her children in Quebec and to give mike some time to do a few boat projects. The first project will be to get his dinghy engine to start! With all of the rain we have had in the past several days, water had gotten in the outboard's gas tank.

As for me, I am not complaining about the rain as I have filled two 65 gallon water tanks. Tonight was my first good hot water shower in several weeks. The marina showers here have only cold water, and with two tanks full and rain forecast for the next few days, the hot shower was great!

Friday evening I went to a Bar-B-Q here at Secrete Harbor. There was a great turn out including an impromptu jam session of several of the people who play instruments. I'll attach a picture made before dinner of the jam session. I had pork ribs and a baked potato, both of which were very good. The ribs had lots of meat on them with a very spicy sauce... It took a few glasses of water to keep the fire in the mouth under control, but it was good!

Friday night after the Bar-B-Q I started reading a new book "The Prometheus Deception" by Robert Ludlum. It is a thriller with lots twist and turns. Just when you think the hero can trust someone, he is betrayed and escapes by the thinnest of margins. A beautiful Mossad agent who has been helping him has just tried to kill him.... I am about 3/2rds through the book in only two days. I am turning into such a book worm! {laughing}

Yesterday (Saturday) with all the rain it was a day to stay in. Thus I took the day to rewire my navigation system connecting everything through the computer in a new way that added two new functions to my autopilot. Now the autopilot can automatically follow the routes I create on my electronic charting. I also added the ability of the autopilot to steer a relative wind angle based on the wind instruments.  At this point all of the data is delivered to the autopilot and it recognizes it and will attempt to follow it while anchored and sitting still. Now I need to plan a day sail to test the new integration. It should work, but you can bet I am going to test it extremely well until I am certain I can trust it.

Then after working on the systems all day, I joined  a group of us to go over to True Blue Bay for "Mexican Night" at True Blue Resort.  The food was excellent and everyone enjoyed the island version of Mexican Fajitas and Burritos.  But being a Louisiana boy, I could not pass up the Curried Shrimp which was to die for.  I can still close my eyes and taste the delicious shrimp this morning as am writing this!

Lots of new boats and people have arrived over the last few days. It is all ways fun meeting new people.  And some of the strangest things can happen... One of the ladies hearing my southern accent and first name while I was talking to another fellow with a computer problem ask what my last name was. I told her Williams and she looked at me and ask if I knew the author Harold King from Shreveport, Louisiana and if I was Dalton in the book "The Hahnemann Sequela." I told her I had not seen the book, but I remembered that Harold had asked permission to use my name in a book he was writing. She told me I am a minor hero in the book! She came by Quietly later in the evening and gave me the book.

It is really amazing! I knew Harold from helping him with his Vector Graphic computer word processing program and having spent several evenings at his house talking computers. It must have been was back in the early to mid 1980's. I remember Harold said he would give me a copy of the book but I sold Micro Business Systems and moved to Vail shortly there after. As soon as I finished reading "The Prometheus Deception" I must read "The Hahnemann Sequela!"

Grenada's Carnival - August 8th through August 12th

Gee... Where do I start... This is my first Carnival and It has been a blast! I have lots and lots of pictures take at the two events that I attended. My problem will be to get then all in here in some kind of order where you can enjoy them.

The first event I attended was "PanOrama" at the Grenada National Stadium.  The photo is two of us just leaving the concession station with drinks and French fries for dinner.  Pan is the name of the music that is played by the Steel Bands and the national competition which is held as part of Carnival is called PanOrama.

The first part of the competition was the "Rhythm" competition was the rhythm section competition.  Each of the eight competitors rhythm sections could be no more than 10 pieces which must be "traditional drums, clinkers or shakers" and must play a three minute rhythm piece. I'll tell you, those folks got rhythm!

Following the Rhythm competition was the full Steel Band or "Pan Orchestra" Competition. The competitors ranged from 184 piece Steel Orchestra's to small by comparison 74 piece Steel Bands. The music was phenomenal as you must imagine. The winner of the competition (photo below) was the 184 piece Steel Orchestra "New Dimensions."  This is the group that for us every Friday night at Spice Island Marina but we had no idea that their group was so large They split their group up and play at five different location every Friday night around the island!  Knowing 1/5 of their group very well from playing for us every Friday night, we were of course rooting for them and very happy when they won the competition.

On Tuesday afternoon I attended the Mas Parade in Saint Georges.  The parade was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM but everyone told us not to get there until 1:00 in the afternoon.  A group took a bus in at eleven and I walked in starting at a little after 12:30 and arriving around 1:15 after a 45 minute walk into town.  I got there just as the parade started.

I have lots of pictures of the various groups and costumes in the parade.  It is visually fantastic, but for some reason all of the groups play exactly the same music over huge loud speaker systems... My ears are still ringing!

There was a large crowd of people watching the parade along with many street vendors selling "street food" including roast corn on the cob, jerk chicken, beer, rum, etc which got every one in a dancing mood and jiving to the music!

The costumes were varied from men in hunting costumes to the gorgeous costumes of many of the young ladies, as were the young ladies them selves... The age range was from tiny children, perhaps three or four years old to one lady I saw who must have been is her 70's.  Everyone was having such fun as you can see.

Of course Steel Bands were in the parade as well. The photo is of the Cabaro's which finished second in the PanOrama competition on Friday night. Their band has a membership of 157 payers some of which you can see in the photo as they come by.  Notice that the steel drums are mounted on dolly's that are pulled along the street as the musicians pay.

The young lady who was selected as Carnival Queen is Frederica who works at Secrete Harbor.  Of course we were all thrilled when we hear that she had won the "Queen's Pageant".  Frederica is such a delightful young lady. She works behind the bar at happy hour every afternoon we we know her very well of course.  Frederica is 31 years old, 5" 10 inches tall, slender  and as you can see, just absolutely beautiful. What a costume she is wearing. It is a large golden bird.  Frederica is almost six feet tall and her costume must be 12 feet... Actually the is pretty accurate as when she spread her wings, it took the entire width of the street.

The start of the parade ended at 4:45 and we all left to return by bus to the marina.  But the parade continued on into the the night with many locals joining in for a "jump up" or street dance winding up at midnight when Carnival is over for this year. 

No, I did not walk all the way back, the 45 minute walk to the parade was quite enough walking for one day in the hot sun.  I did manage to get a picture of my self standing along the parade route though before we left.

Amateur Radio Study and Examinations

A group of 28 people signed up to study for our Amateur Radio or "Ham Radio" as it is called Licenses during during July and August.  It was really taken seriously by the group and attendance at the afternoon Dominoes dwindled to just one table from the usual three tables of players!  Everyone was studying the Morse Code and reading books on antenna design, frequency tables, radiation hazards, radio components, modulation types, discriminators vs. decoders....  

I had heard that since I had had a Novice license once and therefore completed the Morse Code requirement once that I did not have to take the Morse Code test again.  I set out to find a record of the license I had back in High School.  After sending several letters off, I received a replay from the ARRL offices with a copy to the Call Book page listing my Novice License call sign, name and address.  That was what I needed, so I only had to take the written examinations.

The testing day came and everyone but two people passed their examination which is sort of unheard of.  Of course, we were all motivated to learn and helped one another with study sessions and group discussions until everyone knew all of the material.  That evening we had a huge party celebrating the successful completion of the requirements.  It was the first real party in over a month as everyone had been studying hard.  Our licenses would be posted to the FCC web site sometime in the next two weeks, that would be when we could sigh on the Ham Frequencies and start sending and receiving e-mail on board our boats over Ham Radio.

Grenada to Trinidad

While waiting for my license, the time came to leave for Trinidad to be there at the appointed time to begin work on the new hard dodger and bimini for Quietly.  The distance to Trinidad from Grenada is a little over 80 miles so it requires an overnight sail.  So I asked my friend Margaret from Naples, Florida to come sail down to Trinidad with me. Margaret is a Cardiac Specialist Nurse and was able to schedule a week off to come sail with me.  She has done a fair amount of sailing and crewing in local races in Naples, but this was going to be her first real off shore passage from one country to another.  When she arrived, we spent two days in Grenada for her to get familiar with Quietly and then we were ready.  But we were not ready for the work in getting up the anchor chain and rope!

I had set two anchors in Grenada and both had been in the water for three months.  Lots of sea creatures had made both their home over that time.  The anchor chain resembled a long skinny reef with all of the crustaceans and other creatures living there.  Margaret donned her swim suite and jumped in to clean the chain which proved to be futile, so we wound up sitting on deck with hammers breaking the crustaceans off the chain little by little as we pulled it up.  What a chore that was, and it took hours!  I must say that Margaret was really a good sport about it all and a great help!!

Finally it was all done and we went up to clear out of Grenada, but the office in our bay had closed so we walked across to Prickly Bay and cleared out in that office.  By 5:00 we were on our way to Trinidad.  The trip was uneventful except for a brief rain shower just around dawn the following morning as we approached Trinidad.  We took the first watch together and then around 10:00 Margaret went down to get some sleep until three in the morning.  Then she took the watch and I wend down to get some sleep until a little after 6:30 in the morning. By that time we were approaching Trinidad and corrected course to go through "The Boca".  The Boca is a small passage between the mainland of Trinidad and the three islands off the north west coast.  By 11:00 we were checked in and had taken slip A9 in Crews Inn Marina.  We toured the marina and found the restaurant and decided to have a good lunch after the night sail.  We ate lunch looking down from the restaurant at Quietly resting in her slip

The story continues in the next section - Trinidad.