June 26
A 7:30 am departure got us sailing down the windward (east) side of Grenada towards Prickly Bay. We had taken this more direct route last year, and with the exception of some rough water off Rhonde Island, we had a fast sail down the coast. I’m always amazed at the verdant green colors of mountainous islands in the Caribbean, compared to the browns of the Bahamas and BVIs. We sailed into Prickly Bay at 1:30 p.m., giving us enough time to get anchored and head over to clear Customs and Immigration.
As much as we’d like to get back into our old Grenada lifestyle, with Tai Chi in the morning and volleyball in the afternoon, we had to get started on some boat projects in anticipation of our haul out in Trinidad on July 8th.
We were able to connect with old sailing friends Andrew and Clare on Eye Candy. Andrew is from Australia (G’day, mate!) and is a net controller for the Magellan Net, so we get to hear him frequently but the last time we saw him was over a year ago in Portsmouth, VI. We had a nice brunch with Andrew and Clare and got caught up on all their adventures over the last year. Andrew also helped me with some radio problems with my SSB. His SSB always booms out like Radio Free Europe so the expert help was greatly appreciated.
Since I had waited too long to recoat the varnish on my cap rails (should have done it in the BVIs) I paid the price with having to take some areas back down to bare wood. What should have been a quick 2-3 day project was now going to take much longer. You just can’t let your teak go in the tropics unless you’re willing to go totally grey (kind of like aging Baby Boomer’s hair). I spent several days prepping the cap rails, a combination of scraping and sanding, always fun with the dingy bouncing up and down in the waves and me trying to keep my balance standing on the seat. Meryl polished the stainless railings on the boat, which were starting to show some rust here and there. In our spare (?) time we were going through boat lockers looking for extraneous stuff to go back to storage in Seattle. It’s amazing how much junk we got packed up for the trip back home.
We were fortunate to run into Josie and Albert, Belgium friends we’d met last year in Grenada and who told us about Trinidad. They were planning on making the run from Prickly Bay to Chaguaramas Bay in the next week and asked us if we’d like to buddy boat with them. Since the route has had some incidents, it’s always a good idea to have another boat during the night passage. Josie and Albert invited us over to their beautiful 50 ft. custom sloop, Exbury, for drinks the next day and we began looking at weather windows for the passage.
July 2
We barely had time to do all the things we needed to do in Prickly Bay before a weather window opened up, several days before the date we had tentatively scheduled. With the last coat of varnish dry from that morning, we upped anchor around 4:00 pm and headed south to Trinidad. Albert has sailed this route over thirty times and knows it well, but he didn’t have the newer AIS technology that lets us see other boats, and for other boats to see us on their computer navigation screens. While the weather was pleasant, we still had to keep a close watch for tankers and oil rig service boats during the passage. About one half way through the overnight trip you have to sail in between two massive oil rigs that are several miles apart. It looks closer on the chart then in real life, but it’s still intimidating to see them all lit up at night like huge Christmas trees. The rest of the passage went well and soon the sun was breaking over the mountains of Trinidad.
We sailed through the passage and around to Chaguaramas Bay where we anchored just outside the channel. We dingied in to clear Customs / Immigration and did some quick shopping at the nearby HiHo grocery store. Then back to the boat to try and catch up with one night’s sleep.
A 7:30 am departure got us sailing down the windward (east) side of Grenada towards Prickly Bay. We had taken this more direct route last year, and with the exception of some rough water off Rhonde Island, we had a fast sail down the coast. I’m always amazed at the verdant green colors of mountainous islands in the Caribbean, compared to the browns of the Bahamas and BVIs. We sailed into Prickly Bay at 1:30 p.m., giving us enough time to get anchored and head over to clear Customs and Immigration.
As much as we’d like to get back into our old Grenada lifestyle, with Tai Chi in the morning and volleyball in the afternoon, we had to get started on some boat projects in anticipation of our haul out in Trinidad on July 8th.
We were able to connect with old sailing friends Andrew and Clare on Eye Candy. Andrew is from Australia (G’day, mate!) and is a net controller for the Magellan Net, so we get to hear him frequently but the last time we saw him was over a year ago in Portsmouth, VI. We had a nice brunch with Andrew and Clare and got caught up on all their adventures over the last year. Andrew also helped me with some radio problems with my SSB. His SSB always booms out like Radio Free Europe so the expert help was greatly appreciated.
Since I had waited too long to recoat the varnish on my cap rails (should have done it in the BVIs) I paid the price with having to take some areas back down to bare wood. What should have been a quick 2-3 day project was now going to take much longer. You just can’t let your teak go in the tropics unless you’re willing to go totally grey (kind of like aging Baby Boomer’s hair). I spent several days prepping the cap rails, a combination of scraping and sanding, always fun with the dingy bouncing up and down in the waves and me trying to keep my balance standing on the seat. Meryl polished the stainless railings on the boat, which were starting to show some rust here and there. In our spare (?) time we were going through boat lockers looking for extraneous stuff to go back to storage in Seattle. It’s amazing how much junk we got packed up for the trip back home.
We were fortunate to run into Josie and Albert, Belgium friends we’d met last year in Grenada and who told us about Trinidad. They were planning on making the run from Prickly Bay to Chaguaramas Bay in the next week and asked us if we’d like to buddy boat with them. Since the route has had some incidents, it’s always a good idea to have another boat during the night passage. Josie and Albert invited us over to their beautiful 50 ft. custom sloop, Exbury, for drinks the next day and we began looking at weather windows for the passage.
July 2
We barely had time to do all the things we needed to do in Prickly Bay before a weather window opened up, several days before the date we had tentatively scheduled. With the last coat of varnish dry from that morning, we upped anchor around 4:00 pm and headed south to Trinidad. Albert has sailed this route over thirty times and knows it well, but he didn’t have the newer AIS technology that lets us see other boats, and for other boats to see us on their computer navigation screens. While the weather was pleasant, we still had to keep a close watch for tankers and oil rig service boats during the passage. About one half way through the overnight trip you have to sail in between two massive oil rigs that are several miles apart. It looks closer on the chart then in real life, but it’s still intimidating to see them all lit up at night like huge Christmas trees. The rest of the passage went well and soon the sun was breaking over the mountains of Trinidad.
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| Approaching Trinidad from the north. The land just to the right is Venezuela, a fairly dangerous place for sailboats right now. |
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