True Blue Bay,
Grenada
11.59.955N
61.46.170W

What a day! It took 4 dinghies and another line to finally raise our stern anchor. If we ever set that anchor in a storm we’ll chafe through our lines before it drags.

It started off with Dale in the dinghy trying to lift the stern line until he was straight above it; that didn’t work. So we tried pulling in the line as much as we could by having me push the Palace with our dinghy on the opposite side of our stern anchor so that Dale could try to hoist the anchor straight up over the side; then I‘d scamper back on board and let out our primary anchor to bring us closer. We were making progress but slowly. While Dale was holding the boat with brute strength, I was running back and forth between the anchor windless on the bow and the dinghy at the stern when others saw us struggling and came to help. We ended up having one dinghy pushing on the starboard bow, another pushing on the starboard stern, another looped a line on our stern anchor line and pulled in the opposite direction to finally break the anchor loose from the bottom, while Dale heaved in the anchor line at the same time and me on the bow lengthening the primary anchor chain. They eventually brought up the anchor suspended between the dinghy with the looped line and the Palace because each time it dropped back into the water, it set itself again.

Mind you , all of this was between two boats anchored close to us. Once we began to swing free, I switched directions and brought the primary anchor chain in as fast as its little motor would go and then held my breath until it was evident we weren’t going to hit anyone.

And what a mess! After 3 weeks of setting in warm salt water, the line had developed its own eco system which came off in a muddy, smelly mess all over the back of our boat. What wasn’t on the boat was on Dale. We dumped the line in a bucket of Clorox and rinsed off the back end.

Then Dale crawled back into our dinghy, eased himself along the side to the bow and went to work on the primary anchor chain with a scrub brush. He’d scrub a few inches of sea growth off the chain while I rinsed and then raised it a few more inches. Miraculously, after about 15 feet, it was clean.

With that chore done, we lifted the dinghy back into the davits, raised the primary anchor the rest of the way and headed to the next bay to refuel.

As we approached the fuel dock, Dale told me to bring her in port side to while he ran around putting out the various lines to secure us to the dock. It wasn’t until we saw the concrete wall that either one of us remembered and both screamed FENDERS in unison!

Folks, you would have been proud of me. I stopped that big girl in her tracks and hovered parallel about 2 1/2 feet off that concrete dock until Dale had several semi-inflated fenders in place. Wind, current and an angel sitting on my shoulder certainly helped. Can you tell we haven’t pulled into a dock in a while?

Tom & Jordan off St. Christopher (we last saw them in Puerto Rico) dropped by the fuel dock to say hi, while Dale (in all of his muddied glory) hurried to the customs office to check us out of the country. Unfortunately, while there he received a stern lecture about not getting an extension on our passports. Carriacou, one island back, is part of Grenada. We checked into Carriacou back in mid-May. With all of the hubbub waiting for the inverter and then waiting for a good weather window, we had passed our one month mark a couple of weeks back. Dale being your normal boater covered in smelly mud, pleaded insanity, begged forgiveness and was begrudgingly given pardon.

After a few more pleasantries with Tom & Jordan, we eased on back to True Blue Bay, circled a few times among the boats and mooring balls, then elected to snag a mooring instead of tempting fate with an anchor.

We were settling in when we saw Buddy (Indigo Moon) heading over to customs in his dinghy. His faded pink Foxy’s hat was on backwards, his red & black napsack slung low on his back, he was standing in his dinghy with the throttle wide open in one hand,while the other held the painter for balance (Georgetown style). A smile was plastered from ear to ear. This was a man in his element or a kid out for a joy ride.

It wasn’t too long after that that I heard Dale talking to someone. It was Buddy.

We all got together for Mexican Night at the resort restaurant for our last dinner together. Buddy kept asking everyone if they had seen him. He told us how he had seen the mooring ball and remembered that it had a long line attached to it, so he had given it a wide berth when he came back from his customs run. Apparently, not wide enough. He said that one minute all was right with the world and the next he was flying through the air, arms outstretched like Superman!

We were all amazed. First, that he hadn’t broken his neck. Next, that he hadn’t lost his flip flops. He credited his survival to the fact that as an attorney he had litigated enough boating cases to know that you always wear the kill switch attached to your wrist ("they always come back to getcha" he told us). Dale had gone out in time to see him retrieving his hat and climbing back into his dinghy. Buddy, on the other hand, seemed truly disappointed that no one saw him fly like Superman.

We’re going to miss these guys.