Wednesday 4th April

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

Gerry was down at the boat by 07.00hrs this morning, by the time I joined him at 07.30hrs he had already done a second coat of paint on one side of the boat. Dale, Lorie, Mike and Terri all arrived shortly after me and climbed aboard to help get the main sail off. We decided that the best plan of attack was for Mike, Dale and I to stay topside whilst Lorie and Terri waited down on the ground, we would feed the sail over the side to them where they could flake it on the flat surface. S we set to and very soon had the mail sail down and flaked and into the sail bag all ready to take to the loft. Lorie and I were going to be doing the delivering but as the sail is so heavy Mike offered to carry it for us which we really appreciated. We dinked across the harbour to the sail loft and beached the dink then Mike staggered across the road with the sail and we came across a problem – the sail loft door was closed and no one answered when we knocked. A local man told us that the sail maker was out on his boat and would be here shortly so we waited and sure enough a few minutes later he arrived and I explained what we needed doing, it wasn’t going to be cheap. Our plan for the rest of the morning was to go and dink around the mangroves, so once we re launched the dink into the water we took off towards the mangroves and spent a while put-putting around them. They extend back from the harbour into a huge elongated lagoon. The water was fairly clear and we could see the sea life, it was very peaceful as there was no one back there except us. Apparently the lagoon is a hurricane safe hole and if you can get your boat in past the shallows at the entrance it will be safe inside the lagoon. When we had explored the entire area it was time to head back ashore. We said goodbye to Mike and Terri who were sailing off today then I dropped Lorie off at her boat and dinked back into the dock. I had some tidying up to do inside the boat and eventually it got around to lunch time. Gerry and I walked back to the chalet to find Dale and Lorie waiting there for us. The three of them had made plans to go to the yacht club for lunch but hadn’t told me, not that it mattered as I was going with them anyway. We ate a very mediocre meal at the same time lamenting the state of the yacht club – it has so much potential which just isn’t being realized. After lunch Dale and Lorie returned to their boat, Gerry went back to the boat to complete a couple of projects while and I returned to the chalet to attend emails, do a load of washing and begin to prepare food for dinner. Once Gerry had changed the joker valve on the forward head, tightened the keel bolts and whatever other projects he needed to finish he returned to the chalet for a long shower and an afternoon sleep. Dale and Lorie arrived early for dinner so that Lorie could take a Hollywood shower without having to worry about how much water she was using. I managed a short chat with Abigail on Skype; I think I must have woken her up as she didn’t sound too happy, it was still good to chat with her though. Dinner and putting the world to rights ended our day. Gerry was much happier now that the work was almost at an end, it has certainly been a hard slog, and as long as nothing goes wrong we should be back in the water by tomorrow evening.