Thursday Dec. 22nd , Birthday at Union Island

We left True Blue Bay for Carriacou in the afternoon after picking up the new windlass and chacking out with the authorities. It was supposed to be a 6 or so hr sail but it took us all night to sail upwind in a force 6-7 :-o.

When we got into Tyrell bay it was already light. It had been a bumpy ride but a good ride, so much better then the North sea in these conditions. We stay over for the night and got some sleep. Early next morning, on Rutger's birthday, we left Tyrell Bay for Union Island. We had quite a lot of wind, about 30 kts, and it too was upwind all the way. Still it was a great sail! The plan was to check in with customs and immigration and sail on to Tobago Cays.

By the time we arrived at Clifton, Union Island, it was about 1 pm so we decided to stay for the night and go on next morning. At Union Island we also could go out for dinner and go to a bar to celibrate Rutger's birthday :-)

We found a berth at the yacht club, that was nice because the wind and the swell had picked up more so we could get ashore without getting wet.

After having lunch and getting cleared with customs and stuff we did some shopping. Rutger bought me a nice T-shirt.... 'born for sailing.... forced to work' :-)

We had dinner at a restaurant with a live steel band. At first it sounded like they were playing for the first time, but that was the way they started any new song. Then they started to play for real and very goo too!

Of course they also played 'happy birthday' for Rutger. That was really great! Happy birthday in a steel band variation … that sounds much more happy :-)

Later on we went over to a bar and had a couple of drinks until they closed up at around 1 pm.

I guess Rutger will never forget his 21^st birthday :-)

Today we installed the new windlass and did some other jobs on the boat. Tomorrow we'll leave for the Cays and stay there for the night. That is, if the anchor will hold.... the wind has picked up a bit more and although we'll be sheltered by the reef, that will only go for the swell, not for the wind.

True Blue Marina Grenada

Sunday Dec. 18^th

Last night we had dinner at True Blue Bay. Marc made the reservation but had already had a beer or two and obviously had trouble pronouncing his name, looking at the card they made for us.. :-)

This morning at 09:30 we all went for a dive, two actually, at Shark reef and Glovers reef. At the end of both dives, Rutger and I had to do a few tests, like taking off your mask, put it back on again and clear it. That wasn't to o hard...

The dives were amazing, especially for Rutger and me. It was our first real dive.

We saw a lot of fish, including a couple of nurse sharks, a stingray, turtles, moraines and lots of others. Also the corals were very beautiful. We went down to about 16 meters, too deep for my camera unfortunately...

After we came back Rutger and I filled in our new diving logbook, so now we're officially open water qualified divers :-)

This afternoon we'll chill at the pool or dodgy dock, the bar at the waterfront. Tomorrow we'll go back to budget marine to get the windlass and change the decklight. I wanted to fix the light but a part was missing so now I have to chill out too :-)

Also we'll do some shopping tomorrow and get some provisioning supplies for the coming days. The plan is then to leave for Carriacou on Tuesday and go for Union Island the day after. That means going back to customs and immigration again since Union Island belongs to St Vincent. From there we'll go to the Grenadines and Tobago Keys, celebrating Xmas and Rutger's birthday at Mustique :-)

True Blue Marina

Grenada, Saturday Dec. 17^th

Monday we did the rainforest tour.... that was a real great tour. Our guide was a guy named Darlington, a local Rastafarian with rasta hair that went down to his calves... More then once his hair got stuck when he closed the door of the van :-) In the jungle he bundled it and put it in his pocket!

Anyway, he really knew his forest and all the plants and birds, he told us many amazing stories and showed us a lot of exciting spots. Whenever he saw a bird, he would look at the color of one of our T-shirts and the one with the closest match in color had to remember the name. Mine was the 'breast speckled spine tail', you would think he made that up on the spot. However every time he took out his bird book and showed us a picture and all the names were in the book too...

He kept on talking and telling stories about the animals and the Island of Tobago. So by the time we had lunch it was around 5 pm.

By that time Kitty had fixed a seat on the plane from Trinidad and was due to arrive in Tobago at around 6 pm. So we had to skip the 'afternoon' part of the trip to get in time to the airport and sort things out with the letter to get her through customs and immigration.

Since we were a bit pressed for time, Darlington drove us to the airport via a shorter route.... He drove like a madman, but kept us assuring he knew all the (6) roads very well, where to hit the break and where to step on it... That didn't kept him from stopping from time to time to have a chat with somebody he saw walking down the road...

Anyway, when we arrived at the airport, Kitty already had gotten though customs and immigration.... nobody had asked her about any letter... I guess she flew in from Trinidad, a doestic flight. They should had checked things when she boarded the plane but well, that's Trinidad....

Tuesday Kitty and I still had to go over to immigration in Scareborough to get her on the crewlist. Next stop was customs to get clearance to leave Tobago.

We wanted to sail to Englishman's Bay first and then leave for Grenada but for that we needed a separate clearance which I found was too much. So we didn't bother telling them.... :-o

Englishman's is listed as the 6^th most spectacular anchorages and... it is! We didn't visit the first 5 yet but I believe whoever made up the list. It's a bay at the edge of the rainforest with only one hut where you can eat roti and that's it. The beach is gorgeous and unspoiled, a river from the forest flows into the sea and you can sea how the fresh water mixes with the salt water...

We stayed the night and most of the next day, snorkeling and eating roti. At the end of the day Jur, Elisabeth and Stephaan joined us for a goodbye drink. The had rented a car and drove over the bay/

After they left we set sail for Grenada.

It was about 80nm and we figured it would take us about 14 hours. We had to get in early next morning.... Marc and Clare had thought it might be nice idea to give Rutger his paddy open water diving for his birthday :-) Actually Clare already had called them and made the booking. Rutger was very excited when they told him!! However, that also meant he had to study. The course includes a theory exam that he had to take the next day... :-) Clare had brought the book with her so Rutger spent all his time reading...

The sail to Grenada was great. With 15 kts we actually had to slow the boat down, otherwise we would have gotten in at 4 am :-o

We arrived at around 6:30.and found a berth in True Blue Marina, next to the diving center. I thought I’d join Rutger and luckily for me, we could take the exam on Saturday so after clearing immigration and customs, I also had some time to study.

The first part of the course was in the pool and went really great. Today, before the real thing, we took our exams. Rutger of course beat me in the score, but we both passed. The dives today went great too so tomorrow we'll have a fun dive in a marine park and Marc, Clare and Kitty will join us.

That will be fun!!

Monday we have some work to do at the boat. The decklight didn't make the crossing so we'll have to replace that. Also I got a new windlass which has to be installed and a new outboard. The ride to customs and immigration was indeed the last ride of the old one and I was lucky to get a tow from s real nice guy from another yacht in the bay.

Monday Dec. 12^th

The first day in Tobago was mostly taken by the administrative things. I went over to customs to find out I first had to go to immigration... :-o At immigration I had to fill in all the forms but nonetheless the rest of the crew had to come over too to present themselves. Then I learned that I hed to write a letter to the chief immigration officer to ask permission to add Clare and Kitty to the crew list, also Jur has to present his hotel booking in order to get him off the crew list....

but first I had to go back to customs to get clearance to go ashore... There they told me I can't sail to the North of the Island without getting clearance first and of course I have to report at Charlotville to get clearance to leave Tobago...

Anyway, after I did all this we went up to King George fort. That was at the top of the mountain ans since it was very hot we had to take a break every 15 minutes and have a drink. At the last stop we had a beer at a Errol's place. We had a nice chat with Errol and when we came down from the foert we had another drink there and asked him for a good place to have dinner. He recommended a restaurant in Plymouth, about 15 minutes by car. He also happened to know this Scotty who would take us there. He would come over soon anyway to have his beer so if we wanted he could call him. So Scotty had his beer and took us to this restaurant. That really was a good place and we had a great dinner. Prices were European but that was okay. Afterwards Scotty picked us up again and joined us for a drink at the bar just 100 meters down the road. The music was good and loud !!

Scareborough is not a very nice place to stay, it's kind of shabby so next day, after we had a traditional Xmas breakfast with all kinds of local dishes at Errol's place, we sailed to Store Bay, some 12 nm further, just round the Southern corner of the Island. That was more like in the brochure... :-) A beautiful bay and beach. Also from there it's a 10 minute walk to the airport where we picked up Clare. The letter I wrote was stamped by immigration and I had to take that to immigration. Clare was already prepared so when they asked her for the letter she could tell them it had actually been delivered. It was a good thing I had gone through all this because she would not have gotten past immigration otherwise. Afterwards we had a drink with the crew from Maja, the yacht we met mid ocean and had just arrived in Store bay too. That had skipped Barbados because of the same letter crap they needed for the wife of the skipper who was flying in on Monday.

Anyway, Sunday we chilled out on the beach. There Franky came along and offered us to take us for a rainforest trip. That was something we already had planned to do when Kitty had arrived, so we booked a tour for Tuesday together with Jur, Elisabeth and her brother who would arrrive an Sunday. Actually, Franky would take us all to immigration first so we could sort out the changes in the crew list so that was very handy.

He also sold us tickets for the step up Sunday School, a kind of tradition where everybody is partying on the street, with life steel bands, food and drinks of course.

Although it was not as crowded as we expected, it was nice and the steel band was very good.

Today we took the dinghy to go to the lagoon, just North of Pigeon Bay. Luckily the outboard still runs. Rutger got capsized the day before when landing on the beach. A wave took him by surprise… Everything was floating is the see and the outboard was upside down. Luckily it wasn't still running so it did start later but obviously it hadn't liked the dipping and ran with a hiccup...

Anyway the lagoon was gorgeous and we had a great time. When we came back at the boat to get ready to pick Kitty up from the airport, she called me to tell me that her flight from Curacao to Trinidad was canceled. Technical problems.... they would try and get another plane but that wouldn't be until tomorrow. Later she send me and sms to tell me there wasn't a flight available form Trinidad to Tobago so it might be she won't be able to get in before Wednesday... :-(

Well anyway, I guess this is Caribbean style too. Too bad she'll miss the rainforest tour tomorrow but she has a good place to stay over with her father.

Scarborough :-)

Thursday Dec. 8th, 22:45 UTC

Arrived and dropped the anchor!!

We didn't make it in daylight, just..  It was one hour after sunset but with the help of the almost full moon and the coastguard vessel TTS Humming Bird stationed in the harbor, we had no problem to find a good spot to drop the anchor, actually only about 2 boat lengths away from the Humming Bird :-)

The last 2 days we had very light winds so we motorsailed to get some decent speed. Except from Wednesday when the wind picked up and we set the gennaker, the one I got from Marc. All our calls for wind were granted at the same time and build up to 30 kts.... I was down in the saloon, plotting my sights when the boat heeled, Rutger could barely hold her. Then Marc took over the helm but he couldn't hold her either. When I came on deck to help dropping the gennaker, it was too late.. so we ripped the storm gennaker too :-( We could get it in though and it can easily be fixed again.

Jur was the first one to spot the contours of Tobago against the clouds. So... finally, after 19 days at sea, there was land again... of course I put on Vangelis and we all felt a bit like Columbus and his crew... :-)

After we dropped the anchor, we launched the dinghy to get ashore and have dinner and another drink to celebrate! Stepping on the pontoon was very weird though... it didn't move!! We all walked like we had  drunk too much. It was very hard to walk straight.

The place was what you expected, lots of people, lots of cars and little 'restaurants' with very loud music. Marc asked a couple that looked like locals what might be a good place to eat, but they were from the US, just arrived with the ferry …. :-o

Anyway, we ended up in the Tobago version of KFC and had fried chicken and fries. That was a good starter but later we had a pizza as well :-) By that time, most of the hectic was over and only a few bars were still open. So we had a rum and coke in a local Karaoke bar and went back to the boat for a good night sleep :-)

Hot, hotter, hottest...

Position: 12°05.974N/55°55.230W, Tuesday Dec. 6th, 15:15 UTC

The rain didn't last too long, the weird clouds were still there for some time but disappeared too eventually. With the rain also the wind left us... it went down to 4 kts, too little for sailing. Two days ago we started the engine to charge the batteries and put it in forward instead of neutral and it still is..

So we're motoring for two days now and that's boring.... We all read, sleep and read some more ….
We're okay on fuel but I don't think we can motor the remaining 300nm.

The grib file I downloaded looks promising for Wednesday though, so hopefully later today or tonight we can sail again. That would be good for our speed too. Right now we're doing no more then 5 kts while sailing our average was over 7 kts!

With no wind it's getting hotter too... a lot. It's now 37°C and since yesterday we have the bimini up.
Otherwise you couldn't be in the cockpit, in the sun it's way too hot!

When the sun sets though it's a spectacular sight. Normally the sky turns red in the West but last two nights, the sky turned red not only in the West but also in the South and even in the East! I've never seen that before. Later when the moon came up, there was this halo, not close around the moon but amazing far from the moon itself. A white circle like a huge wheel with the moon in the middle. Then when the moon set, the sky turned red like a sunset. I've never seen that before either :-)

Anyway, I reckon in two days or so we can drop the anchor.. However, I want to get in with daylight so it might be Friday when we get to Scarborough after all. Then it will be 19 days since we left La Palma, 19 great days :-)

Rain …. ?!

Position: 12°41.525N/51°56.638W, Sunday Dec. 4th, 16:40 UTC

Last night the wind changed... it was due East the whole trip but now it backed to South East – East, all the way to West... So we had to get the pole away for the genoa end ended up on a close reach course by this morning. Also there were a lot of dark clouds, not only in the South but also in the West and East. If you like clouds, the view was spectacular... otherwise it felt weird. On the grib files I downloaded there wasn't anything unusual, except from a not that deep a low just South of us. I guess this is just local and later in the morning the sky did partly clear.

Still, this morning we had our first serious rain since we left Scheveningen. It was actually more than  in the brochure … :-) For the boat it was okay though, rinsing the salt from the lines and the sails and everything... and since I was steering, I had my first fresh water shower since 2 weeks... the others stayed inside and under the spray-hood... They prefer the foredeck salt water shower.. I suppose..

The wind is still West now, but too little to bring us any significant speed, so when we started the motor this morning to charge the batteries, I put it in forward instead of neutral and it still is...

Last night I also discovered that I'm running very low on minutes for my sat phone. I had a 500 minute card which should have been more than enough for the whole trip and back, but the mailasail program I use is crap. It takes at least 2 to 3 tries to get through to check mail and again to send mail, and that takes a lot of minutes. The options were to buy more – 50 – minutes or get a new simcard ….. yeah right, mid Atlantic...  So I got some more minutes but we'll have to cut down on checking and sending emails. We need to get the grib files too :-)

Sending text messages is okay, they cost me no minutes and are free for the sender as well, if you send them via the iridium website. Elisabeth knows ! :-) Calling us is okay too, it's free for me but not for the caller :-o. Keep in mind though that our clock is back another hour today...

So to keep you all up to date, you'll have to do with my weblog-postings for now. In a couple of days, we'll have some decent internet access again, hopefully... to send mails, photos and stuff.

Distance left to go is less the 500nm !