Tobago Cays,
The Grenadines
12.37.764N
61.21.422W

This morning at 8 am, Orpailleur slipped her mooring lines and we on the Palace hoisted our anchor and fell in behind her. Orpailleur turned into the wind to hoist her main sail, then returned to course just as we turned into the wind to unfurl our main sail and did likewise. It looked like a well choreographed dance. MTNest was attending Mass and would join us later.

We motorsailed to the end of Bequia, then turned south, unfurled our jibs, turned off the engines and streaked to the Tobago Cays. The 25 miles, from anchor to anchor, only took us 4.5 hours. MTNest, which is a catamaran, made the same trip in 3.5 hours when they joined us later.

One of the highlights was when Orpailleur spotted a pod of pilot whales off to our right. Dale figured that there were about 20 of them. I caught a couple of good glimpses of them but wasn’t quick enough with the camera.

Our only mishap occurred at the end of the trip when we turned into the wind to furl away the jib. The winds were gusting to 27kts which whipped our lines about the deck dangerously. Our starboard jib line whipped against one of the panels of isinglass and tore it to ribbons in a matter of seconds. Dale had a difficult time trying to bring the jib back in but was able to wrestle it under control with much grunting, groaning and nashing of teeth. There wasn’t much we could have done differently as we were keeping tension on the line to prevent it from knotting itself. Turning further into the wind would have just whipped the lines even more. So now we either live with it for the next couple of months or try to find some isinglass in Grenada. We’d kicked around the idea of making a direct transit to the Los Testigos islands from Carriacou, so one possibility is taking the ferry to Grenada while Orpailleur in on the hard.

We hosted dinner on our boat this evening and when we were discussing the situation, Gerry mentioned that he might try to locate a sail loft to have some additional chafing protection added to his sails. If that’s the case, we may try to replace the panel if they have the isinglass in stock. If not, I’m inclined to wait until we get back home to have it replaced.

The newly adopted park fees were in full force and effect on this visit and the new park rangers met us shortly after we anchored to collect them. We asked how the fees were going to be used and got a pretty pat answer about protecting the environment. We’re hoping that the dinghy moorings will be better cared for. In just the year we’ve been here, we seen about a third of them disappear. Either too large of a boat is being moored on them or the ropes are in disrepair. A little care and monitoring would do wonders I think.

We didn’t go snorkeling today as we had hoped due to the continued high winds but we’re hoping that they die down as forecast and we’ll have a good day tomorrow. I’m looking forward to swimming with the turtles and visiting the wall again.