Thursday 5th April

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

As always Gerry was up and disappeared to the boat almost as soon as the sun was up. I stayed in the chalet and packed up our belongings – it looked like we had moved in for ever! Then between the two of us, Gerry and I relocated our stuff back on to the boat. As soon as the lift operator arrived at work our boat was lifted up into the sling so that the last bits of painting (where the supports had been and the very bottom of the keel where it had been resting on the blocks) could be done. Dale and Lorie arrived as the men were going to go into Hillsborough to check us out this morning, whilst they were doing that Lorie and I were just going to sit and chat, enjoying the air conditioning up until the very last second. The men returned from Hillsborough just before lunchtime, they had checked us out and had collected our main sail from the sail loft on the way back – it was sitting on the end of the dock waiting for the boat to go back in the water. Gerry checked on the final bit of painting and reported that he was happy and that it was done to his satisfaction. Lorie and I then talked the men into taking us for lunch, the only place open was the pizza place so we walked along the beach to it and enjoyed our last pizza in Carriacou. Once lunch was finished it was a walk back to the yard where Dale and Lorie left us to return to their boat for a couple of hours prior to the launch of our boat back into the harbour. Gerry and I headed back to the chalet , Gerry paid our bill at the boat yard and then the yacht club so that we were debt free before taking off. We had arranged to put the boat back into the water at 15.00hrs, Dale and Lorie arrived just as we were about to begin. The travel lift moved the boat into position and Gerry pressure washed the residue of paint dust and grime off the deck, unfortunately the water that they use to pressure wash is recycled and it was a bit smelly, but rather the smell for a short while than the blue paint being traipsed through the boat every time we moved. Dale and Gerry helped with the lines until the boat was lowered into the water, they then jumped on board and re secured the back stays. I then jumped on to steer the boat whilst Lorie fetched our dinghy from the dinghy dock and secured it to the back end of our boat. The slings were removed and we were on our own, motoring out of the yard slip and out to an anchoring spot in the harbour. Dale had abandoned us at the dock and he and Lorie made their way back to their boat once we were setting our anchor. They had arranged with some friends of theirs from Trinidad to have cocktail hour on their boat and we were invited to go along. Once we were anchored Gerry set about running the water maker whilst I fiddled around preparing some cocktail nibbles to take along. A little after 17.00hrs Dale and Lorie collected us in their dink and we made our way across to John and Patti’s boat, Panacea, where we spent a pleasant evening telling tales and sharing stories with them. Gerry and I were still trying to catch up with sleep and we made it a fairly early night. We were going to have to put our sail back on in the morning before leaving for Grenada and Dale offered to come over and help us do it. We fell in to bed thankful that the ordeal of re painting the hull was over with at last.

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.

Tuesday 3rd April

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

We woke to pouring rain today – well why wouldn’t we? After all we are trying to re paint the hull of our boat! It strikes me that every time we have hauled a boat to re do the bottom it has rained for most of the time we are out of the water. To make matters worse it is unusual for it to rain here at this time of the year – it must be the “Cooper Factor” in action. Gerry took off to the boat and I followed about an hour later. I found him under the hull sanding; at least it was dry under the hull. I began chipping away at the odd patches that still had paint on them. By the time 08.30hrs came around Gerry was getting tired and cranky, Tim the yard manager happened to walk past and Gerry lost it. He told Tim that he had just about had enough of doing the sanding and was there anyone who was going to help us today, Tim trotted out the usual excuses. For those of you who have never heard them they are as follows:-
Well this is the Caribbean mon.
We are only a small yard.
I only have 3 men working in the yard.
There are only 2 here this morning as one had to do security duty last night.
We have to haul a couple of boats today.
At this last one Gerry exploded, he said that surely they needed to get the work finished that was in the yard before hauling any more boats, Tim’s reply – well they have been booked for months. I thought Gerry would attack him at this point but he just fumed and added to his heart attack stress indicators. Shortly after this outburst one of the workers arrived to help us, Gerry handed over the sander and vanished onto the boat. I had to get the guy to move the support stands so that I could get the paint off from underneath them. Dale arrived not long after this and helped to remove the last of the paint; as Gerry had reappeared and the 2 sanders were in use there was little else that Dale and I could do to help so we sat under the boat until the rain let up slightly then Dale went back out to his boat and I returned to the chalet for a shower and change of clothing. The rain actually stopped for a while and between them, Gerry and Alfie managed to get the sanding finished, cleaned the hull with acetone and applied the undercoat of paint by the time I returned to the boat. I went onboard and spent the afternoon making new straps for the fuel cans as the UV had destroyed a couple of the old ones. By the time I had finished my project the guys had the first coat of anti foul on the hull – at last it was beginning to feel like we had gotten somewhere. Just as we were about to call it a day Dale and Lorie arrived with Mike in tow, they had just arrived specially to say goodbye to us all and they invited us to their boat for dinner that evening. Gerry was in desperate need of a shower and change of clothes, not to mention a beer so everyone trooped over to the chalet for a quick drink before we arranged to meet up on MT Nest at 18.00hrs. I made up a plate of hors d’overs and we relaxed until it was time to dink out to Mike and Terri’s boat. We spent a pleasant evening eating fish that Mike had caught and telling the tales of woe about our haul out. Mike played his Saxophone at sunset to the applause and shouts from the boats surrounding them. The moon rose over the top of one of the hills – it was almost full and was a great photo opportunity – if any of us had thought to take a camera along! We discussed the need for us to get a patch put on our main sail where the spreader hits when the main sail is reefed and Dale and Mike offered to come over early in the morning to help us get the sail off and take it across to the sail loft. As we were tired it was another early night so we dinked back to the yard dock and made our way to the chalet for the night.

Monday 2nd April

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

Happy birthday Kay, we wish you a relaxing day filled with too much wine, chocolate and gifts, if you get any of them ENJOY!

Well we had hoped that our day today would be easier, we had finished most of the base paint removal, all that was left was the keel, around the water line and a couple of stubborn patches. It was going to be easy, the yard workers could finish off the removal with the sander whilst Gerry got on with some of his project work and I took the day off away from the boat to catch up on the blog and emails. Gerry set off at about 07.30hrs and I crawled out of bed a little later and began typing. By lunchtime I had just about got the computer stuff up to date when Lorie appeared at the door of the chalet with lunch in hand. Gerry was 2 steps behind her and covered in the same blue tinge that seems to have become the norm around here, minutes later Dale turned up looking as if he was Gerry’s twin – blue from head to foot. I was then regaled with the story that Alfie, the worker who was helping to strip our boat had called in to say that he had just remembered that he had to attend a court case in Grenada today(?!) That left no one to do the work on our boat so Gerry had started sanding and when Dale came into the dock and saw him working alone he grabbed some old clothes and joined Gerry with the second sander, They didn’t think to let me know or I would have been down there helping out – blue is just so my colour! I asked about the power issue as the owner had the electrician coming today and it turned out that one of the other boats in the yard had a bad power cord which was allowing 220 volts to earth through our power leads. The electrician earthed this other boat’s power cord through the fence posts that runs along the side of the yard making the fence live, he then fixed the power cord on the other boat which solved the problem. Thank goodness it was nothing to do with our boat, it was bad enough that we could have had some serious damage from it. Any way I had spent the morning getting the blog up to date and as you will be able to tell, I still haven’t been able to post any photos, it just won’t let me. Lorie has also had the same problem so it’s probably just this connection – it makes it quite boring not having the pictures – sorry! You’ll have to back track and see them when I can get somewhere that I am able to post them – will let you know. After we had finished lunch Dale and Gerry returned to the boat to continue with the sanding, I offered to help but they refused, thank goodness. I cleared up the mess that they had left behind, that paint seems to be everywhere and then Lorie wanted to know if I would go with her to collect their dodger from the canvas place, the Strata glass had split in it and was being replaced. We took off in their dink and beached it across the road from the sail and canvas loft, a short walk and minutes later we were returning to the dink with the newly refurbished dodger. Lorie wasn’t very pleased with the job they had done and I have to say it wasn’t done how I would have done it either but it should last them until they return to the States. Again I offered my help to the men as I went past but they didn’t want any help so I spent the rest of the afternoon on the computer, watching it rain outside. Lorie returned to the chalet with dinner that she had prepared and was followed shortly after by the men. After showering and a couple of beers the men were feeling a bit more human, even if they still looked like something from outer space. We enjoyed a quiet dinner and drinks before Dale and Lorie returned to their boat for the night and Gerry and I went to bed.

Sunday 1st April

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

RIP. Ollie Vlasak (10/6/30 – 1/4/07) you have left a mark on our lives, we will miss you.

It rained pretty hard during the night and we awoke to wet soggy ground, the pathway from the chalet to the boat yard was like a mud bath. Once we arrived at the boat Gerry went up the ladder first and shouted at me not to follow as he had got a shock off the ladder. I was about half way up the ladder at this point and had just gotten a shock myself; I very quickly descended and unplugged the power cable from the box. Gerry then proceeded to try and find where the fault was, eventually concluding that it was not on the boat, it was something to do with the power box. We plugged into a different box and the problem seemed to disappear. I cleaned out the defrosted freezer and then as I was trying to check our email it suddenly began raining again and shortly afterwards the reverse polarity light in the navigation station began to blink – there was a problem with the power again. I yelled at Gerry to turn the power off at source and he began to investigate again. Dale had joined us and the pair of them had been chipping at paint, it was probably a welcome break for them to be checking the power supply. We could find no fault on the boat and again concluded that it was something to do with the rain and the power box so we didn’t plug back in, just ran our electrics on the inverter and batteries. The three of us scrapped away at the paint until just after lunchtime, we had broken the back of it and what was left would have to be sanded off as it was not coming off. We were very pleased with ourselves as it had been a hard and tiring job. Gerry suggested that he and Dale go to the chalet for a beer; I wanted to send a couple of emails so I stayed behind for a while. Gerry came to find me a bit later as unknown to me Lorie had arrived with salad for lunch and they were all waiting for me to arrive before eating. We congratulated ourselves on getting the paint off the hull and then agreed to spend the afternoon relaxing so Dale and Lorie returned to their boat, Gerry and I showered and then Gerry fell asleep. I did the dishes, made a meatloaf and read my book. As dinner time approached Gerry and I wandered down the dock to meet Dale and Lorie, taking photos of our paint free hull. As it was Gerry’s birthday we had decided to eat out, unfortunately the only place open was the pizza place, so that’s where we went. It wasn’t much of a birthday – no presents, no cake, no candles (not that we could have lit that many!) and a day of working hard, we’ll make up for it somewhere along the way.

Saturday 31st March

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

Gerry went to the yard about an hour before me, when I arrived I was surprised to see 2 of the yard workers scrapping the hull alongside Gerry. It didn’t last long, about half an hour after I arrived and joined in they were called away to haul a boat out of the water and that was the last we saw of them. All day Gerry and I continued to chip away at the paint, it’s like eating an elephant – you just have to do it small bits at regularly paced intervals (I’m beginning to think that eating an elephant would be easier!). I emptied our boat freezer and carted everything to the chalet where I made good use of the freezer part of the fridge, it was the ideal opportunity to defrost and clean out our boat’s freezer. We actually stopped for lunch today and went across to the yacht club and ordered sandwiches and chips; we sat out under the haus wind / tikki hut/ pagoda, as we didn’t want to leave our blue marks on everything in the yacht club. As we were just about finished with lunch Dale joined us and spent the next hour or so scrapping paint with us. He had been cleaning the bottom of his boat and had a headache which wouldn’t go away so eventually he gave in and returned to his boat for medication and a sleep. I had invited Dale and Lorie to join us for dinner that night so I put a crock pot meal of beef bourguignon on to fester in the morning, by the time we quit chipping paint at 16.00hrs the smell from the kitchen was making me feel hungry. After having a shower and trying to make ourselves look human again I threw together a dessert, cooked up some rice and dinner was ready. Dale and Lorie joined us, bringing salad and ice creams, we struggled to find that little bit of extra space in the freezer for the ice creams but we managed. We ended up eating the dessert I made so we have ice cream in the freezer for next time. Dinner and dishes done it was time to go to bed, we were all exhausted.

Friday 30th March

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

Congratulations Abigail on Graduation day, wish we were there. Look forward to the photos, we love you, mum and dad.

With no food in the chalet we migrated to the boat fairly early so that we could at least have a muesli bar, then it was time to get stuck back into the paint removal. Alfie, Gerry and I chipped away at it all day long; we were joined for about an hour all up by a couple of the other yard workers. It struck us that there seems to be little or no supervision of the workers, they just do what they want to do and a lot of time appears to be spent sitting chatting or sleeping underneath the boats in the yard. Dale and Lorie had projects to do on their boat so we didn’t see them during the day. Gerry and I tried to cajole the yard workers to help us and to come into work on the weekend but they were quite resilient. By the end of the afternoon we looked like smurfs (remember them – funny little blue characters) as the paint we are chipping off is blue and we were covered in it. Getting it off of our bodies isn’t so easy either – we think that our skins will have a permanent tinge for a long time to come despite scrubbing it with brushes. Lorie and Dale arrived in time to take a picture of us looking our best and then we quit for the day. Lorie had volunteered to cook dinner and suggested that they bring it over to the chalet at about 18.00hrs, we were too tired to be anything but grateful so we agreed to go and shower and have them join us at the appointed hour. I bought ice creams from the yacht club to contribute as dessert and we headed off to the luxury of a hot shower. Lories jerk chicken dinner went down a treat, I was so glad that I hadn’t had to cook. We all expressed our disappointment with the lack of work being done by the yard. Dale and Lorie had their boat done here a year ago and were pleased enough with the way the work was done for them to recommend the place to us. There has been a change of manager since last year and we don’t think it has been for the better. As I have said earlier we weren’t expecting to have to do the work ourselves and we had other projects that we planned to do whilst the work was being done. As we seem to be doing a lot of the work it means that our planned projects have been put on the back burner for the time being, we just hope that we can get them done sometime soon. I think that the only good thing about this situation is that there isn’t a lot to see or do around this area so we aren’t missing out on the “tourist” side of being here. At the end of the day we were tired, had aches in places we didn’t remember existed and fell into bed quite grateful that we had made some progress.

Thursday 29th March

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

Like a nervous father of the bride Gerry was up ages before he needed to be, he was very quiet though so I managed to sleep in until 07.00hrs. Gerry had been out on deck and pulled the dock lines and fenders out of the lockers and placed them in the strategic places ready for the haul out. Just after 07.30hrs Dale and Lorie dinked over to our boat, Dale came on board to help us maneuver the boat whilst Lorie tied our dink to the back of theirs, towed it into the boat yard and tied it up there for us. This way we had the dink to be able to get around in whilst our boat was in the yard. The arrangement was for our boat to be lifted out of the water at 08.00hrs so at 07.50hrs we hoisted the anchor and motored over to the yard. Lorie was standing on the end of the lift slip with her camera in hand, no doubt taking un - glamorous photos of us as we maneuvered the boat into position. As we motored in forwards we threw 2 lines to the yard workers who held the boat steady as we pivoted it round so that we would be going into the lift backwards. It was like a perfect piece of ballet – it couldn’t have gone any better. Once we were facing the right way we stopped the engine and Gerry and Dale undid the back stays as these would have been in the way of the lift. Then it was time for all three of us to jump off the boat – we didn’t need to be hoisted aloft with the boat. The yard workers, assisted by Gerry and Dale walked the boat backwards into the hoist, the slings were passed under the hull and tightened up and then it was time to lift our home for the last five years out of the water. Watching your boat being hauled is a nerve wracking time, you just hope that everything is lined up as it is supposed to be. Minutes later the boat was suspended in the cradle of the 50 ton lift and moving backwards into the yard. The first stop was to pressure hose the hull, mostly to remove any loose debris and barnacles that dared to cling to the hull, happily the hull was reasonably clean and barnacle free (considering that we only had the anti foul done 6 months ago it should have been!). Once the pressure clean had been done it was time to move the boat to the stands where it would be for the duration of the job. As soon as it was secure on the stands Gerry found a ladder and propped it up against the transom so that we could climb up into the boat and then he plugged the power cable into the shore socket, this meant that we could run the electrics whilst in the yard. We were quite astounded that no one began working on the boat at this point – it was obviously going to take a while to get the paint off the hull and we thought that they would begin straight away. The yard manager, Tim, came over to us and offered to lend us any tools we might require – had we got this wrong? Were we going to be doing it ourselves? – this wasn’t what we had arranged. Tim was heading into Hillsborough and both Gerry and Dale needed to go there to collect parts / mail so they took off for the next hour, Lorie took her dink back out to their boat where she had some chores to do. By the time they returned from Hillsborough nothing had been started on our boat, Gerry and I were a bit annoyed at the lack of action so we got out a couple of scrappers and began chipping away at the paint ourselves, for the next 2 hours we were the only ones doing anything and then suddenly one of the yard workers, Alfie, joined us. For the next hour the three of us chipped away at the paint and then the yard manager told Alfie to go for lunch. We were making very slow progress and Gerry and I were beginning to worry that we would still be in the yard at Easter – that was definitely not our plan! We kept scraping and after a long lunch break Alfie rejoined us, the three of us continued to chip away until about 16.00hrs when two more yard workers came to help. Gerry and I had had enough by 16.30hrs and packed away our tools for the day, heading to the chalet for a hot shower and a change of clothes. We were pretty sure that the yard workers finished at 17.00hrs so they didn’t do much after we left them. We took photos of the day’s progress – it didn’t seem like very much and we were worried that we wouldn’t get it done before Easter. As we were quite exhausted and didn’t feel like cooking we arranged to meet up with Dale and Lorie and go for a pizza, which was quite delicious and just what we needed. There seems to be a lack of places to eat out around here, the yacht club isn’t open in the evening which we thought was a great waste of an opportunity – it would have an almost captive audience.
The chalet we are staying in is a bit sparse but it has 2 double beds, 1 single bed, 4 garden furniture chairs, a plastic dining table and chairs, gas stove and a fridge. The best thing is that it has all the power and hot water that we could possibly want! We went to bed very early as we were tired and knew that we still had the majority of the work ahead of us.

Wednesday 28th March

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

This was to be our last day “on the water” for a while. We had organized for our boat to go up on the hard first thing on Thursday morning. Gerry took off to the boat yard as soon as it was open to triple check the arrangements for the next day. Whilst he was gone I fiddled about doing a bit of laundry – we had run out of underwear so I had to do something! When he returned Gerry went straight on the computer to find an internet connection. The boat yard has a free WIFI connection so we signed up and then between the 2 of us I think we spent most of the day on the computer. Gerry answering his emails and me trying to load the blog and photos. I was successful at loading the text but when it came to the photos I just couldn’t get them to load, they would have to wait for another day. I had invited Dale and Lorie to dinner on our boat for the last time in a week so I spent the afternoon preparing food whilst Gerry got his beauty sleep (you’d think he’d be beautiful by now with all the afternoon naps he has wouldn’t you?)
Anyway around 18.00hrs we got ready to repel boarders, Dale and Lorie arrived for dinner and we had a pleasant evening. Lorie was a bit miffed that they hadn’t received the photos from Mike of the re- naming of his boat, Loose Cannon. They were great by the way Mike, wish we could have been there, she’s looking really good. We discussed the internet connection and I was relieved to hear that Lorie had also had difficulty loading photos (hers wouldn’t load either) so we are both going to be trying again tomorrow. After we had eaten our fill, drunk not nearly enough and put the world to rights it was time for Dale and Lorie to return to the Palace and for us to do the dishes and then go to bed, we had an early start ahead of us.

Tuesday 27th March

Tyrrel Bay
Carriacou

12 27.328 N
61 29.291 W

The morning dawned overcast and windy, there was no way we were going snorkeling so we hauled the outboard into its cradle for transit and hoisted the dinghy up onto the davits and secured it. There was no sign of snorkeling activity coming from either Gypsy Palace or MT Nest – it was a unanimous decision! Mike and Terri radioed to say that they had decided to stay put for a few days and explore the rest of the Tobago Cays – a great idea and one I would have liked to join them in but we were on a time schedule and we had to get to Tyrrel Bay. They dinked over to say goodbye, we hope to meet up with them again but just incase we don’t we wish them fair winds, following seas and safe travel where ever it takes them. Not long after they had left us we were hauling up the anchor and following Gypsy Palace out of the anchorage’s southern passage heading towards Carriacou. Our trip for the day was to be quite short, only about 15 miles but we had to make 2 stops on the way – first at Union in order to check out of St. Vincent and The Grenadines, then at Hillsborough to check in with the Grenada authorities. Gerry and I decided that the distances didn’t warrant us getting the main sail out; it’s much harder for us than it is for Gypsy Palace as we do not have in mast furling and they do. We pulled out our jib and motor sailed all the way to Union, the winds were actually perfect for sailing and Gypsy Palace sailed all the way. We were doing up to 8 knots most of the way so it was a very quick trip. We pulled into the reef surrounded harbour at Union Island and dropped our anchor, as it didn’t set properly the first time we did it again with a better result. The plan was for the men to go ashore and check us out whilst Lorie and I sat on anchor watch, the holding in this harbour is notoriously bad and we didn’t need either boat to drift down onto the reef whilst we were ashore. The guys took off and Lorie and I sat in the cockpits chatting on the headsets – we could hear each other most of the time, it just cut out when the boats swung apart. It wasn’t long before the guys were back on the boats and we were hauling up the anchor to head a little further south. Again we just flew the jib and motor sailed whilst Gypsy Palace sailed. We arrived in Hillsborough Bay and set the anchor again. Then we followed the same course of action as we did at Union Island – they guys went to check in whilst Lorie and I stayed aboard to anchor watch. It seemed like they were gone for ages, and when they returned Gerry said that they had arrived 5 minutes after the office closed for lunch so they had gone to the bank and watched the cricket until the office reopened. Australia was playing the Windies so we had a vested interest in the game. When Gerry checked us in the official joked with him about charging us a fee as the Aussies were batting very well and looking like winners – there was still a lot of cricket to be played though. We changed the courtesy flag over to the Grenada flag and then hauled our anchor back up and motored around the point of the bay and into the next bay – Tyrrel Bay which was our destination. We dropped our anchor and Gerry quickly got the dinghy down and set it up for a trip into the Haul out yard. I stayed aboard, reading and making sure we didn’t drag anchor as we were pretty close to the boats on either side of us. Gerry took ages to return – had a couple of beers and watched the cricket until rain stopped play. The haul out was to be on Thursday so we had a couple of nights to relax and work out what we wanted to do whilst the boat was being anti fouled. Gerry had also arranged for us to stay at a chalet near the yard, Dale and Lorie had very kindly offered for us to stay on their boat for the duration of the haul out but we didn’t want to put them to any trouble, we know that Lorie would have spent hours making the boat clean and tidy for us to stay with them (!?) and we didn’t want her to go to all that hassle. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading books and studying eyelids. Early in the evening we all dinked into the local pizza place and had a few drinks with our pizzas. As we sat eating, a herd of cattle wandered along the waterfront, unattended. They were obviously making their way back to where ever home was for them, it was just surprising to see them wandering along the beach unattended but they had obviously made this trip many times and ignored anyone that they went past.
When we had eaten our fill of pizza we boxed up the leftovers and took the dinghies back out to our boats where we hunkered down to a windy night.