St. George’s, Grenada
12.02.504N
61.45.354W
Although we really weren’t in any great hurry to leave Tyrrel Bay and head further south, we decided that we’d better make a move. So, this morning at 7am, we hoisted our anchor, unfurled our sails and pointed our bow south.
Once again we were blessed with strong steady winds and relatively calm seas and breezed along at 7+kts most of the way. We settled into corners of the cockpit with our respective books and let the autopilot guide us to our next destination.
When we got close to the 3 mile wide underwater volcano, Kick ‘em Jenny, I started calling out our position to the center of the crater. As close as I can figure, we passed just a few seconds to the west of the center and directly over the top or a little over 250‘ below us. I only briefly considered the fact that the volcano on Montserrat recently spewed ash. Every once in a while you have to live a little dangerously.
As we approached Grenada’s taller mountains on the leeward side, our wind suddenly died. Since we were well ahead of our predicted schedule we just ghosted along until it filled in and once again we were off like a shot.
The winds died a second time and again, we waited for them to fill in. This time, they not only filled in, they continued to climb past the normal 15-18kts. They rose to the 20kt range and gusted higher. We were about 5 miles out of our destination of St. George’s when we saw the highest gusts of 35kts. By this time we had relieved the autopilot of its responsibilities and were hand steering trying to bleed off some of the extra wind by point higher. We waited until the wind died to below 20kts then hurriedly rolled in the jib. Then we waited for the next set of gusts to subside so that we could turn into the wind to roll in the main.
We motored the last couple of miles and elected to anchor outside of the enclosed harbor with about 8 other boats until the winds died down enough to venture through the narrow channel safely.
Later in the afternoon, we hoisted anchor again and ventured into the protected anchorage. Although it had a narrow entrance, it opened into a nice size anchorage of mostly 20’ depth with a marina off to one side. Unfortunately, with that kind of depth, it was already filled to capacity so we circled around and went back to where we had originally anchored outside in 14’.
Dale dove the anchor to make sure that we were well set since it didn’t give us the smart jerk we like to feel when the anchor sets in deep sand. He came back saying that the bottom was a mixture of sand and broken coral pieces. We appeared to be well dug in but when we backed down hard on the anchor, it would drag. Dale figures that unless we get those 35 knot winds again, we should be good until morning.
We spoke with both Wayfinder and Indigo Moon via the radio today. Both are located further to the south of Grenada. We hope to get together tomorrow for dinner and perhaps arrange for a tour of the island on Saturday. If we’re not comfortable with our position tomorrow, we’ll probably move on down to where they are regardless of the roll associated with the anchorages they are in.
