Grenada
Prickly Bay Anchorage
11.59.985
N
61.45.818
W
January 1, 2021
Happy New Year Everyone!
If what
you’re doing on the 1st day of the year is any indication of what
you’ll be doing for the remainder of the year, we’ve got another long row to
hoe. We awoke to a beautiful blue sky
with black clouds on the horizon. Soon
enough it was overcast and not putting any amps in the can. Since it rained most of the day yesterday, Dale
went to start the genset to help our batteries along. Nope, not today! The dang thing sputtered and moaned and
wouldn’t catch. Next, he climbed into
the hole it lives in and tore it apart.
He changed the fuel filter and tried to fire it up again. It sputtered a few more times but again,
wouldn’t catch. Back into the hole to
ponder his next thought. Back out of the
hole and into our stateroom to suction out some fuel to backfill the
filter. This time it makes a more
concerted effort to start but still no joy.
About this time, I text a surreptitious note to Gerry that his tinkering
expertise may be needed. Dale then asks
that we don our headphones and attack the genset from 2 different
directions. He to bleed air out of the fuel line and me to
push the start button. This time it made
contact and we were cooking with gas. At
least the genset was running. Then
another quick text to Gerry to call off the Calvary.
My next task was to
upload the end of December onto the blog.
You would think this a matter of a few key strokes but alas, I believe
in reading, re-reading, editing, reading, editing a bit more, re-reading,
having Dale read it, incorporate his suggestions into the mix, start at the beginning
and read the whole thing all over again, upload the text to the draft blog,
down load photos from the phones to the computer, upload a couple of photos to
illustrate the text, upload the draft to the preview, read the whole thing over
again for those errant typos, and then post.
It takes hours! And that’s with a
decent internet connection! I know its
my own OCD but when I first started doing this, I’d throw it out there only to
have it thrown back at me for typos, questions as to what was I really saying,
cautions that I might possibly offend people with my sense (or lack) of humor
or requests for more photos. Now I go
through all of these perturbations and text one of my daughters to read it and
send comments. I’m happy when I get the
return of a thumbs up!
2021.01.02 Today, just to do something different, we (the
crews of both Opal and Gypsy Palace,) braved the wind and waves and dinghied in
to east side of Prickly Bay to Le Bouchuer (the local meat market) to see what
was available. As luck would have it, it
was closed but there were two men sitting drinking wine at a little bistro
table in front and asked what we were looking for. We told them that we were
looking for primarily baguettes but that the shop was closed. Oh no, one said, come on in; it was the owner
and his friend. We entered a little shop
that had a butcher’s counter opposite the door (although it was completely
empty), a bit of a bakery to one side and a wine selection with another bistro
table at the back. Gerry and Nicky knew
exactly what they wanted and we stood to one side watching.
When it was our turn,
Gerry and Nicky turned toward the wine selection. I had seen a sign indicating pork chops for
sale, so I asked for pork chops, ham, prosciutto, and my baguette. Nicky saw some type of meat hanging (aging)
and asked what it was. The butcher said
it was home made coppa and gave us a sample to taste from one already cured. I guess my taste buds aren’t as refined as
Europeans because I thought I was going to gag; I was certain that it had
spoiled the previous month and no one wanted to tell the proprietor. I kept from spitting it out until we got
outside but the taste remained in my mouth until I could get back and brush my
teeth. Sorry guys, I’m obviously not as
culinarily experienced as others. I know
my taste buds are different than most; I’ve never been able to drink coffee and
most wines taste like vinegar to me regardless of how expensive they are. In any event, I’m sure we made it worth it to
him to open up for us.
2021.01.03 Sunday.
When we walked over to the Container Park a couple of days ago, the
clerk in the grocery store said that he thought the Brewery would be open by
today. Dale made a call to them at 9am,
9:30am, and 10am before he got an answer that no, it still wasn’t open but that
the Ministry of Health was to make another review and recommendations sometime
today. So, no brunch, veggie shopping or
game watching.
2021.01.04 Well, its been a week since we last heard
from Port Louis Marina about ordering our parts, so we fired off another e-mail
to see if any progress had been made. What
was the ETA of the parts that could be ordered; what was the status of the back
ordered part; etc? Never did hear back
for the rest of the day.
We finished up the day by finally cooking
those pork chops and inviting Gerry and Nicky over for dinner. Our visas expire at the end of the month, so
the guys are starting to look at weather and discussing our chart coverage to
Australia.
2021.01.05 About the only thing of interest today is
that we took a walk over to the Container Park to pick up a late lunch. We swung by Opal, seeing Gerry adding another
layer of teak oil on his toe rail (as it keeps getting washed off with rain before
it has a real chance of sinking in) and checked with them to see if they wanted
to either join us or have us pick up something for them. He declined, so off we went.
On our arrival at the
dinghy dock, we became aware of a confrontation on the dock between a female
cruiser and a local teen. Apparently,
she had seen him taking an unlocked dinghy for a joy ride and was giving him a
proper dressing down that only a 6’2” tall, lean and very intimidating
Amazonian could do. I’d say picture
Wonder Woman but as the cruiser was blonde, it would have been closer to Wonder
Woman’s warrior aunt! From our various
encounters with her before, we’re guessing she’s been here for some time as she
is very connected with the locals about town and is greeted by name at various
establishments. In any event, she had
either seen him taking the dinghy or bringing it back and known that the owner
was distressed by its disappearance.
When she was done, she leaned into me and gave me the warning to lock
our dinghy as the kid liked to take joy rides in them. We always do, but I thanked her for alerting
us. Strangely, Dale and I had found our
dinghy untied a week or so prior but as we do lock it each time, nothing
further was noted. Now we’re wondering
if we had been a target but since it was locked up, nothing had happened.
I double checked the
lock before we left the dock, gave the kid my most fearsome motherly stink eye,
and off we went. This time as we walked
the dirt road to the Container Park, we came upon a dog and 3 puppies in the
bushes; we stepped a bit closer to count them but continued on. Apparently, the owner of the dog and her
puppies works on the construction site next to the restaurants, saw us looking toward
the puppies, swung by in his giant dump truck and made sure we knew that those
animals were his. We told him they were
good looking pups and continued on. I
know that some cruisers take it upon themselves to gather strays and take them
into the vet to have them neutered; maybe he thought we were one of those.
We finally arrived and
were surprised that the restaurant we thought would be open wasn’t and the one
we thought would be closed was opened.
The owner told us that she became bored with her vacation and came back
early. So we had roti’s instead of
gyro’s. By the time we had finished
eating, the gyro take out was opened, so we ordered 2 for the road and have
something for lunch tomorrow.
Thankfully, our dinghy
was where we had left it and that was the end of our exciting day. Back at the boat, we killed time until it was
sundowner hour and finished the evening fighting the WiFi for a decent enough
internet to watch a Netflix movie.
2021.01.06 Today, Dale and I combined efforts to
accomplish our individual tasks. I
needed to defrost the freezer before shopping on Friday and Dale wanted to
vacuum out the condenser on the refrigerator/freezer as he had started thinking
about all of the dust we’ve been finding since being in the yard and wanted to
make sure that the condenser’s air flow was unblocked. Since he had to turn everything off to do so,
perfect timing for me to defrost. Also,
since he had to run the genset for both of our tools (hair drier and shop vac)
it was also a good time to make ice and run a load of laundry through. Thankfully the sun came back out by the time
we were done so that the clothes could be hung out to dry. After that, it was cooking for the remainder
of the day.
Nicky was hosting
tonight’s steak dinner but I was bringing a potato side as well as dessert: a
pineapple upside down cake. My potatoes
and onions were nearing the end of their life expectancy and as I had found a
hunk of cheddar cheese at the bottom of the freezer, it demanded that I create
an au gratin casserole, so I spent the rest of the day slicing, dicing and
grating. I was happy with the casserole result
and everyone was happy with the cake. However,
Friday’s shopping list is getting longer by the minute as both Nicky and I are
at the end of our fresh produce and baking needs. We had managed to stretch our main shopping
trip to 3 weeks instead of our normal 2 but our pantries are starting to show
the result.
2021.01.07 Another rainy day. I’m glad we were able to run a load of
laundry through yesterday to wash the bedding and a few bathing suits. Dale’s shorts will have to wait for another
day with some sun in it.
2021.01.08 Friday, shopping day and quite possibly one
of the most infuriating days of my life in more ways than one. We make a trip to Port Louis to shake the
tree again about where our parts are.
We’re closing in on 3 months and we’re both becoming less tolerant of
the constant delays and excuses. Charlotte
is unavailable but emails us later in the day saying that she is working on
getting authorization and that the one backordered part won’t be available
until well after our visas expire again.
Dale is exasperated. We were
under the impression she already had authorization from their underwriters to
partially reimburse us for the A/C repairs and replacement and was simply
waiting for the parts to arrive. Now we
find out that she still hasn’t been given authorization to make agreements with
us.
2021.01.09 Quiet day on the boat. I take the time to send out a broadcast to
the cruising community asking if any of the other boats that had been damaged
at the same time as we, are still waiting for repairs.
2021.01.10 Sunday!
Finally, the Brewery is opened again, although with a limited menu. I was able to get my breakfast sandwich but
Dale, Gerry and Nicky wanted lunch, which wasn’t going to be served until
2pm. Everyone ended up eating breakfast
sandwiches as well. I love them. Nicky thought them to be mediocre. We bumped into Chris and Helen whom we had
met originally in St. Thomas back in April/June of last year and had a nice
visit.
2021.01.11 Charlotte e-mails us that 2 of the 4 parts
ordered should be on the island by the end of the week with the remaining 2 due
in by the 1st of the following week.
However, now, the electrician who is most familiar with our boat is no
longer available. She will contact
another.
2021.01.12 The new electrician that is being tasked
with installing the surge protectors and meters is currently on another island
but should be able to be here by next week to do the installation. We dink in to the Sandbar restaurant on the
beach and bemoan our situation to Gerry and Nicky. We start off with drinks and wings but stay
long enough for an early dinner.
2021.01.13 We e-mail Charlotte again that we still
have not been reimbursed for the A/C repairs/replacement per our
agreement.
2021.01.14 We start our morning watching a boat that
is dragging in our direction being assisted by 4-5 dinghies. We have been having really high winds off and
on throughout the day and night in Prickly Bay ever since we got here and last
evening was no different. However, last
night one boat dragged from the mooring field, a considerable distance in front
of us, to just in front of us, bringing its mooring ball with it. So it was a slow drag. A slow drag towards Opal. Dale texts Gerry to make sure he’s up and
watching the goings on as they clearly have enough hands (and ideas, I’m sure)
to handle the situation. Gerry on the
other hand, stores his steering wheel off the stand to allow more room in the
cockpit and might need a heads up as to what is heading in his direction. Thankfully, he is up and watching. Eventually, the boat disentangles itself from
the mooring ball and its own anchor (thrown out to slow their roll) and is
dinghied back to another mooring ball close to where it had begun its
journey. We never did find out why they
didn’t or couldn’t start their engine. We
return to our regularly scheduled computer games and Kindle books.
Charlotte e-mails us saying that she is
still waiting to hear back with regard to the proposed settlement.
Dale takes the dink in to the beach so
that he can do some repairs on the bimini attachment. When he returns, he sees in his maintenance
log that we’re due for engine oil/impeller changes on everything. While he’s changing the oil on the port
engine, he discovers that the starter battery is hot to the touch. Not good.
He borrows Gerry’s battery resistance tester and learns that yep, its
shot. We’ll need a new one. It’s the last of the original batteries, so
now the boat has a new set of batteries all around less than a year old.
