Grenada, Isle de Ronde and hygienic Eva

After the rough bridge from Trinidad the day before, Grenada seems to be very welcoming. Our Anchorage was located right hand from the entrance to the Port of St. George’s, in front of the beautiful Grand Anse Beach. To reach the Dinghy Dock at the Port it takes approximately a 5 min ride.

When you approach the city of St. George’s you clearly see the influence of the colonialism. Left hand up on a hill you see the remaining of an old fort. Some buildings look like time stand still and it is colorful everywhere.

On our first visit, Uwe showed us the local fruit marked, some grocery stores and explains the average prices and exchange rates. From Grenada, up north, you can pay everywhere in EC, East Caribbean Dollar. The exchange rate is about 3/1 and the cost of food is quite high. The prices for local vegetables are reasonable. We plan to use as much local fruit and vegetables as possible, to run a small budget.

 

I somehow directly fall in love with Grenada. I loved the look of the buildings, the sound in the streets, and the people. But I have to confess that I also had some not that easy days. First of all my experience from sailing on wild one was always to look for the most lonely Anchorage. To go on land as less as possible. Now we found ourself in the middle of many other sailors in front of a big city. As you can imagine water quality was not the best but at least miles better than in Trinidad.

Next was, I didn’t get a long easy with my shipmate Martha. As she and I was the total opposite of each other often I didn’t feel comfortable. On top, a group of three is always not easy. Quickly after the first few days, I found my self in the position of the outlaw and felt constantly attracted from Martha’s very big Ego.

So it happens that one day as Martha and I was for shopping, that I speak out pretty clear what anoyes me. The air between us becomes extremely thin so that I made thoughts about leaving the boat. It then happens that Martha’s phone gets stolen and also the captain complained about some of her behavior. I felt so sorry for her, that I apologized deeply the next morning with the hope that we have a chance to start over.

The differences Martha and I had can be described very well in two words – hygienic Eva! Me in person a very organized, more overplayed and tidy person (a hygienic Eva) VS. an unplanned, chaotic person with manors like in student flat sharing, were you absolutely only care for your stuff. Clearly, this could not work. On a boat, with tiny space, this can cause very bad experiences. So how to deal with it? I decided to wait the month and give myself a good time frame to avoid acting while over reacting.

As I already started to look out for new boats, I read a good advice. Speak out clearly. Also, I focused on the arrival of Uwe’s daughter at the beginning of November. I expected that a fourth person on board will develop a change. As after the visit of Uwe’s daughter and the arrival of his wife only two weeks was in between I started to keep this in mind and stay with my positive view. I don’t want to spend a bad time constantly feeling anger. Also, I thought I maybe should see this situation as challenging for my self to speak out quicker and not to accept everything. With this in mind, I felt better.

One evening we had the chance to go attend a full moon party. A live band played some reggae cover music, most Bob Marley but sadly there were not enough people to make this evening a historical bomb as a party, but anyway I was one of the first that hit the dance floor. As I have not been out for dancing a very long time I really enjoyed the music and the dancing. I could imagine perfectly what it must be a nice atmosphere if there would have been more people, especially locals.

Full moon party

As there were many other sailors on that Anchorage was we were, it does not take long until we get in touch with some. I guess the most specific one was a guy on the boat next to us. The name of the boat was „Sven“, so I guess he might a German citizen. As he was somehow so specific, we didn’t really talk with him, so I only can guess. His boat was approximately a 10m monohull boat and not in the best condition. The interior and equipment we imagine as very basic, as Sven did his daily shower each day outside on the deck – naked. He grabbed some saltwater with a bucket an empty the bucket while standing below it. In the morning and afternoon regularly he takes a seat in on the mast and just looked around. His overall visual impression you can imagine like Tom Hanks in the movie where he gets lost on an island for four years. Seven definitely needs a haircut. But he was a friendly guy, always waving and smiling, and bravely delivered something to speak about while we sit at ours sundowners.

Another couple that we met was Conny and Marcel on their boat Marielle. Their hat a 2.5 year old sun Gino, which I really liked. They was super nice and friendly, and also the boat was very nice. A 38ft lagoon catamaran and brand new. So the interior looked so new and luxury, very impressive. We spend one or two evenings together and I hoped we will met them again during our trip. The handed the card of a German couple to me, who obviously live already my dream. Office on a boat. I definitely had to get in touch with them.

What I can say is that these sailing people are a specific group of people. Obviously, there are rules, behaviors, events, and locations that everybody knows and where it is common to meet. As from my point of view, it was quite a lot of people who are joining this lifestyle I get the impression that the catamaran sailor is more like the camper drivers. And in the middle of so many catamarans, I somehow felt a little like on a German camping space. I don’t know how to describe this image properly but the German readers will understand.

After two weeks we lift the anchor and started to sail. First destination the Isle de Ronde, what was 15 see miles from Grenada. We hadn’t any wind why we made most of the way on motor. But it was good to had off to new spaces. The Isle de Ronde is a small island without people. There is an Anchorage, for stay overnight and a guide promised that it is a nice snorkeling. On our way we had to pass an area in Grenada that is a protected marine life area. We stopped by for a quick snorkeling to see the Falken figures that lay here on the ground. I really enjoyed the snorkeling and for the first time I saw an Oktopus swimming by. The figures was impressive and I decided that I have to practice more diving.

The Isle de Ronde sadly was not the promised super snorkeling spot, but anyway it was a beautiful evening here. Next stop is Carriacou where we plan to declare out from Grenada and then head north to St Vincent and the Grenadines. Let’s go!

Trinidad & Tobago, Jabulo and I

After a short visit at home my new adventure started in Oktober. Plan so far: Sailing a Katamaran for 6 month in the Caribbean sea.

Ready to take off

Uwe, the captain of Jabulo and I met like on a blind date at the airport in Frankfurt. Uwe around 65 years old with approximately 100 years of sailing experience is the perfect image of a friendly captain with a good heard.

After a flight from 10 hours from Frankfurt to Tobago, a second flight from Tobago to Trinidad and a car drive from 1 hour, we finally arrived at Peaks Yacht Service, where Jabulo was on land for repairs.

Jabulo, a Dean Katamaran with 44 ft. Is an impressive vessel. My cabin was more like a princess chamber. Big bed from 140m, separate private toilet, and far enough space in a bunch of chaps.

Our third crew member was Martha, a 26 year old social worker from Germany, with polish roots. Even as each one of us was very different we made a good team.

The first week we stayed on land, clean and repair the boat and did the preparing shopping tours. In week two we got Jabulo into water and stayed at the Peaks pier for ongoing repairs. We desperately waited the water maker to become complete. Trinidad times works way different then german working persons time.

Even if we was in a good company we hardly could wait until we finally will leave Trinidad. One good company was Mike with his ship Lady Gray. Mike had Sam and Tailor on board and planed to go in the same direction as ours. They left from Trinidad on a Sunday and our plan was to follow on Monday. But as already mentioned, Trinidad workers time is way different then in Germany. The technical who should finish our water maker didn’t finish his job and also didn’t appear the next day. Also the guy who should finish the cushions was late and in the end it was Wednesday the 17th as we finally declared out from the Trinidad immigration and customs.

Happy we visited the duty free shop to buy some rum and wine. The next situation I want to remark as wonderful example how I experienced the local people in Trinidad. After we had chosen our products, the women in the shop wanted to pack everything into a plastic bag. I told her that we don’t want the plastic bag. The explained to me that she have to ensure that oubstuff is in a plastic bag, as this was a rule from the authorities and four cameras watching her. I turned around to the cameras and speak to the invisible authorities behind, that we don’t want to use the astic bag because they harm the environment and that we brought our own bags with purpose. Maybe the women was touched by my words and it turned out that she had the stuff without a astic bag to us. Wow I was so touched, get gose skin and felt a little tear in my eye. Fantastic! So friendly and nice.

Overall I experienced the Lokal people very nice. I saw a real gentleman like you imagine one on the streets of New Orleans, super nice stuff in a store who enlightened our day with a self made fruit smoothie, the coolest taxi drivers ever and handsome people on the local fruit market.

As we had to sail up to 15 hours we decided that it might be a good idea to fill the tank of our vessel to the maximum. On our approach to the pier the captain announced that their is a problem with the engine. The line from the dingi was hanging down and as we drove our engine backwards, it end up in the propeller of our vessel.

This is definitely one of the worst case scenarios that you could experience as owner of a ship. In worst case the complete propeller had to be taken of the ship. To do this you need to take the vessel out of water. Most of the time this is done by a big crane and it is expensive. After the captain and Ean, a friendly sailor that lived two boats next to mine, spend approximately 1.5 hours in water with googles and tried to get the rope out of the engine, we decided to go to plan b, a diver.

20 min later a diver comes to our ship and after another 1.5 hours of work the rope was out of the propeller. So the next morning should now be the final day of leaving Trinidad.

The forecast does not sound very nice. About 22 knots of wind. I already woke up in the night as the wind blows strong and closed the window in my room. But at six in the morning the weather doesn’t look too bad. Quickly we lift up the dingi and it was a very good feeling finally to pull the rope that bounded us to the mooring in the harbour.

Not far after we left the harbour the sky turned more into gray. For me it was clear that the look of the sky and the look of the water shows all signs of a more rough see. Even if we three never have performed as sail crew together the lift of the mainsail runs quite smoothly.

I have to confess that if it would have been my boat, I had returned to the harbour after 40 minutes of sailing. Reason was that I detected the emergency window broken. The emergency window is a window near the door in the salon. The purpose of the window is that you can swim out of the ship if it turns upside down. Broken in that case means there is a whole in the bottom of your boat and each time the waves rushes that high, water jumps into your boat.

In my imagination, I saw the window already fully opened and us three wiping water in buckets out of the boat. The captains plan try to place some screws into the window sounds crazy for me and I was afraid that we won’t be able to close the window again if it opens. The current situation was that the window opens to the outside and currently remain closed cause the grip of rubber gum that normally avoid the water to come through. But the captains plan worked out and we somehow managed to place two screws in the window and then could fix it with some cable.

But anyway our first sail should stay far away from boring. The yesterday’s forecast turned out to be pretty precise and quickly we found ourself in something like 22 – 25 knots of wind, 2 – 3 Meter high waves and a sky that switches between light gray, darker gray ish and gray-gray ish. Luckylie I was the only person on board that saw this condition as not 100% perfect and also sometimes a little scary.

The good thing in all of this is the fact that running on 9 knots of speed we would reach Grenada in approximately 6 – 7 hours.

I didn’t expected our first trip to be one of remarkable as somewhere after the magic half way mark a school of dolphins passed or way. They swam nearly 15 min with us. This was the perfect situation to give the new video equipment a try. I run to get the gopro and screamed friendly into the direction on the dolphins. It is just amazing to see how easy the swim next to the boat and top its speed. In the water their color was something like lite with gray sprinkles, and they also had young ones in their group. In formation they jumped out of the waves and back into and it’s seem like a game or competition to be faster as the boat.

Sadly my try to get them on video failed, but Martha got one short shot.

After the dolphins disappeared the weather become more rough and I saw it as a challenge to prepare our portion of bread for us. Challenge because the skipper warned me that most people become sea sik while they are somewhere down in the ship. I had a few flaw moments but nothing serious. For the bread this time I added some olive oil and asked my self how the taste might be.

As the same become even more rough, I got the chance to test my waterproof jacked that I bought just for this trip. Somehow I thought that at least in this moment the jacket has a value. Finally after six hours of sailing we reached St. Gorge in Grenada.