The Grenadines & The Finish

We left Grenada around 11:00 March 19^th and headed for Tyrrel Bay Carriacou.  We were able to sail there in 4 hours tacking into the harbor from about 5 miles out.  We grabbed a mooring and dingied in to shore.  Eilo was able to scoop some local vegetables.  They turned out to be better than the store bought veg we sourced in Grenada:

We carried the boat papers and passports as our main purpose for going to Carriacou (other than we like the name) is to formally Clear Out of Grenada enabling us to Clear Into St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  This border control stuff the ARC takes care of for all border entry/exits except when free sailing – as we are currently doing.  The process takes a little time – but not to do it will usually take a significantly longer period of time and $$$ to sort out.   After lunch in a beach bar with Sandvita we walked up the shore to Customs and Immigration who were all very nice and cleared us out.  TULLA MHOR just arrived and dinghied over to AURORA to say goodbye with the proviso we would all catch-up in Bequia.  There was about 8 knots of wind when we left, heading for Union Island, and we leveraged that into 5 knots of boat speed Genoa sailing.  The wind died to about 4 knots after 2 hours necessitating we motor sail that last 2 hours.   Arrived Union just behind SANDVITA at 16:00 and found a mooring just off the piers of the main town of Clifton .  We had noticed a very small island with a single building on it as we motored in.  Later we found 1out that 0 years ago it was a pile of conch shells – man do they eat a lot of conch down here.  It probably looked something like this:

Over time and with no small level of industry a couple of locals encased the shells in concrete and put a structure over it, started serving rum punch, and named it Happy Island:

We had to check it out to ensure it had the correct level of happiness so SANDVITA and AURORA took a water taxi out about ½ mile to Happy.  It was in shallow water protected by a big reef out another ¼ mile. The reef provided a large shallow, flat bay with lots of wind – attracting lots of Kiters.  This guy, looking for a takeoff, obviously did well in his kiting lessons:

You can’t be entertained these days with-out suffering through a little advertising:

And once you’ve got big air  you might as well get tricky – No?:

Eventually it’s time to start lookin’ for water:

And ultimately get ready to plant it:

This all happening just feet from Happy.   We are back in SANDVITA’S home territory so Lars was busy planning what we should do next.  No doubt more sessions on shore.  Town has a very well sheltered dinghy dock.  You need to pass under one of 2 foot bridges to get into it.  You are right.  It looks dangerous under this bridge:

… the other bridge is a little better.  We checked out the town – one of many of their local markets:

We caught up with ALTAIR and SANDVITA and a few beers later found ourselves in a taxi heading to a place recommended by Lars a short taxi ride away – Jack Sparrows Beach Bar & Club.  They had their own beach, cold drinks, and great food.  We spent most of the day toughing it out here:

Then back to our boats to get ready for diner aboard SANDVITA.  Lars cranked out one of his special Skippers Pie and Eilo baked choco chip cookies for desert – yum.  We drank just enough so we could be comfortably numb and slightly hung over as we motored a short distance to the  Cays the next morning.  The Cays were about 7 miles away so we couldn’t be bothered to hoist the sails.  These Cays are about 6 deserted islands except the one we moored next to which had about 3 beach grills/bbq establishments and an equal number of bars serving drinks out of coolers – very plush.  Reminded us of Foxy’s 30 years ago:

The water is very clear and the snorkeling was good.  One of the islands is famous for it’s sea turtles so we had to check that out:

Lars hired a water taxi and said vessel delivered us to a little deserted island called Le Petit Tabac.  We brought lunch and plenty of cold beer and other stuff to keep us alive.  It was weird watching the water taxi disappear after yelling out he would be back to pick us up next week:

So we sucked it up and made the best of it.  Eilo exploring the ocean side of Le Petit Tabac:

She then hooked up with another exploration party to check out the quiet side of the island, probably searching out suitable space to build shelters so we can await the return of the water taxi in comfort:

An action shot of Eilo training for some race or other:

There is a reef about 150 meters off the beach so we checked that out.  Clear water but not too much fishy action or live coral:

It was with great relief when a vessel was spotted in the direction of the setting sun.  Was it coming our way?   A 2 minutes group consensus determined the answer to be affirmative.  We were saved.  We cleaned the place up and were gone with-in a half hour.

The next night AURORA hosted a sundowner cocktail party on our nearby deserted beach.  It was good fun.  We burned another sunset with spirited aid from the crews of TULAMHOR, SANDVITA, ALTAIR and the OWL:

The following night we had a tremendous lobster dinner arranged by SANDVITA.  The lobsters were probably the best we had ever had and the crew from several boats were in fabulous form.  Just another Caribbean night!!!

We had forgot how wonderful sailing the Caribbean was.  We always love the visual rewards:

AURORA spent an extra night in the Cays and set sail the next day for Chatham Bay on Union Island.  There we anchored off the beach close to Vanessa and Seckie’s bar/restaurant.  They are friends of Lars and

Anne’s and were ready to cook us yet another feast.  Another great night was had with SANDVITA, TULLA MHOR, ALTAIR AND OWL.

The good ship AURORA elected to sail to Mayreau the next morning as Mustique was closed – it being close to Easter and some of the Royal Family (UK) was on vacation at their estate there.  We sailed to Mayreau in 4 hours and grabbed a mooring in front of some sort of resort and proceeded to tough it out – yet again:

After a respectable set of sundowners then diner on shore we crashed out heavy.  On awaking we found ourselves restless so we decided to set off for Bequia and relax there for 5 nights.  How can you not like the flag of Bequia?:

We were able to sail about half way there before the wind died so we motor sailed the last 12 miles.  On the way in to Port Elizabeth Harbor we passed some really weird architecture.  As it turns out a 1960 Mad Man (as in NYC) retired, moved to Bequia, bought a 30 acre rock peninsula with a natural arch going into the sea and built his house “Moon Hole” under it.  Years and many additional stone structures late his bizarre Moon Hole resort was opened – but this is more like Fred Flintstone land as none of the houses or other resort structures have any windows or doors.  Apparently 4 of the resort structures are still in use as rentals, the rest being privately owned on the 30 acre property:

Eilo had organized one of  Phat Shag’s moorings earlier in the day and he delivered a fine mooring  with a nice view:

… just in front of town.  We chilled for 5 nights as planned in that wonderful place.  We mostly hung around town frequenting Papas.  Lars and Anne’s favorite Bar and Restaurant overlooking the Port Elizabeth Harbor (they had their wedding feast prepared by Papa’s).  Had quite a few drinks and meals there.  Lars even organized a pig roast there at Papas for the fleet boats who had gathered before our final run up to Saint Lucia and the finish line.  The roast was excellent – 39 soles from the fleet attended that informal affair.   I am proud to report no one was asked to leave.  The next day we took another break and dinghied up to the Princess Margaret Beach for a relaxing afternoon.  In the background – the Bequia Easter Regata was on-going for the 5 days we were there and  start and stops of most races could be seen from AURORA:

On Apri; 4^th most of the fleet boats left for Marigot Bay Saint Lucia about 60 miles away.  We were able to sail most of the way and arrived in at 4:00 on the afternoon of April 4ht and cleared in.  It’s a beautiful marina/resort so we got back to the serious business of chillin’.  We are only 9 miles from the finish line.  On Saturday the 7^th all the boats dressed will motor up to the finish line at Rodney Bay.  It’s now April 7^th – the last day of this WARC.  I just walked the dock and the fleet is looking good.  We get briefed at 9:15 re protocol for this “follow the leader” parade of sails (smallest boat to largest) – motoring the last 9.1 miles to Rodney Bay.  We cast off around 10:00 and rapidly rapped the bow line from the boat beside us around AURORA’s prop… so Captain Ken got back into his snorkeling gear and in about 10 minutes was able to unwrap the prop with the help of Captain Thomas from Hannah.  Lucky there was no wind in the harbor so the marina dinghy was able to hold our position…  And we got out of there with-out crashing anything except our dignity…  leaving Marigot Bay and Dr. Doolittles to stern.  It transpired that the original Dr. Doolittle was filmed here and that has been leveraged into a resort.  On the other side of this beach the scene with the pink snail floating  was filmed “a few” years ago.  

After a parade of sails (actually flags!):

…. that took us around Castries harbor and north to Rodney Bay AURORA finally crossed the finish line on April 7th at 14:00 completing a 25,000 mile circumnavigation of our planet:

So what does all this mean?   Yes - one feels a great sense of accomplishment crossing that finish line.  The world has become a much smaller place to us over the last 15 months.   It is a wonderful planet we live on and is well worth the effort to explore and better understand it.  We will miss the WARC Gang but it is also a relief that it is over.  We are confident that we have made friends for life and so we expect to see the “gang” again and that makes us happy.  We have partied our way around the world.  And we partied hard like we were back in college except then we had no sense and no money – now we still have no sense but unfortunately can now afford…  The relief comes from NOT having to face continuous bouts of eating and drinking (not necessarily in that order) whenever and where ever we were on shore.  It took us 411 gallon of diesel to get around – sailing the whole thing would have been better but we had to motor days at a time a few times to make schedules or beat weather.  That works out to about 61 miles per gallon – we’ll call that semi-green.  There were no prizes for overall ratings at the final awards diner but AURORA in 15 legs took 4 firsts, 3 seconds and 3 thirds.  Not bad for an old girl.   As Eilo says – “The sailing is the easy part.  Keeping the boat together (e.g. keeping ALL systems functioning) is the hard part”.  Believe it!  It has been a great adventure.  The next adventure is Eilo’s – but she is not revealing what that might be… yet.  But that is a future event. Right now we are looking forward to taking AURORA back to Newport and clear in to our shore lives! 

Be Great & Have Fun.

K&E

Cabedelo Brazil to Grenada

We cast off from the Jacare Marina pontoon at 16:30, slack high tide with the rest of the boats and motored sailed out of that muddy river.  Crossing in front of the lighthouse, guarding the river entrance, we officially started this last and final leg of World ARC 2017-2018.  The weather forecast called for a rainy first few days combined with light winds. Let’s call it a poor forecast for the start of leg 16.  We turned off AURORA’s engine as soon as we could get out of the channel and threaded between squalls keeping our decks dry.  Around midnight the wind ran out so we motored for 4 hours.  Around 4 in the morning we found 8 knots of wind so we quieted the old girl down and started slow sailing.  By now were in last place as all the other fleet boats chose to motor on.  At the morning roll call we were surprised to find our position at only about 15 miles lagging the fleet.  A knot of tail current pushed our sailing speed up to a blistering 4.4 knots average for the first24 hours. We trudged on for another day of light wind and rounded the North East corner of Brazil successfully dodging all the squalls in our path.  On the not so successful front Captain Ken cut close to what he thought was a fish pot buoy - a little too close.  After passing it we heard a noise behind the boat – like we were towing something.  We had hooked a nylon line attached to a free drifting buoy and AURORA was now towing it toward Grenada.  We tried to cast it off with the boat hook.  But no – she was hard on.  We had to turn AURORA into the wind – heave to -  and stop her so Captain Ken, in his snorkin’ gear, could go over the side and cut her free.  That accomplished we got on our way again.  The third day the wind picked up 12 to 18 knots and we averaged 8.2 knots for that 24 hours – and started catching up.  Day 4 our luck ran out regarding successfully dodging squalls and we got hit by a white out – 20 to 35 knots of wind  and lashing rain lasting  35 minutes.  AURORA had her sails washed big time.  Another hit us at sunrise – same ferocity with rains equaling the thickness of a good south east Asian monsoon.  The day was getting old.  Squalls everywhere.   We stopped counting the number of squalls which washed us that equatorial day but there were many.  These were not the normal localized squalls we have experienced everywhere else in the world.  These were huge take no prisoners squall lines which you could not run around – there was no avoiding them.  By the 4^th change into dry cloths we were getting used to this  version of nautical hammering. The seas between the squall lines were very confused with waves running all directions.  The wind licking off the wave tops made it appear that the sea was boiling.  Luckily we had a break between the storm lines and at 10:38AM on March 5^th we cracked open a little bottle of AURORA Champagne and celebrated our crossing of the equator:

In case you are interested in knowing how you determine where the equator is you just look at your handy dandy GPS driven chart plotter and check the latitude – 0 degrees North or 0 degrees South = the equator (OK - we were 34 seconds north of the equator by the time Eilo took the pic):

In an instant we were back into the North Atlantic now really feeling like we are going home.  The wind never died.  Have you ever been on a horse and half way out you turn around and head back for the stable – did the horse not pick up the pace knowing he’s heading home?  AURORA felt the same way – she being mostly from the Caribbean and she was now in the final stretch – heading home – and man did she pick up the pace.  We flew.  A good day, when passage making, is 200 nautical miles or more.  We had 6 days in the row where we made over 200 miles with our best being 249 miles.  We arrived 2 days before the early arrival date (for the fastest boats).  AURORA will most likely take the final 1^st place for this World ARC.  We were on the dock at Saint Georges Harbor:

…in Grenada at 4 in the morning on May 10^th and after drinking beer for 3 hours we watched the sun rise and then crashed out heavy.  We will depart on the 21^st for a Grenadine Islands exploration and apart from getting a few things repaired on AURORA (Mast Spin Pole Track, forward starboard macerator pump, handrail varnish, deck gel coat, steering cable adjustment, foot switches for windlass, etc.) we had some time to kill thus started at the top of our tourist priority list – a tour of the old River Antoine Rum distillery.  On the way we passed this decorated cactus;

I bet you will never guess why the cactus has eggs on all it’s pointy bits?  It is to keep the Zombies away.  In this specific case it was decorated too late and the Zombies got this particular guy (you can see his car and his house have not been used in a while).  The lesson learned - Never ever mess with Zombies.  The distillery was started in the mid 1700’s and it looks it.  They still make rum the exact same way except now they use a few electric pumps to pum the juices around (to cut down on labor).  This waterwheel is the oldest still operating water wheel in the western hemisphere:

It started operating in 1753 and is used to drive a sugar cane conveyor and crusher (but due to a blown bearing was not in operation today):

These are the vats they have been using for over 280 years where they concentrate the sugar syrup.  There are wood fired ovens below boiling the pots:

The concentrated syrup is fermented for about 5 days and when the alcohol content hits 16% the juice is pumped in batched distillation (with wood fired oven below to heat the still):

The rum they make is 75% and is highly flammable.  If you buy some and you run out of gas on the way home – no problem - you can burn it in your car.  It is too flammable to be able to carry on any airline so it is all consumed locally on the island.  We had a taste and it burned like nothing we have ever tasted.  Working our way down the priority list to something less toxic we headed off for another waterfall to cool off.  Here is one of the locals catching some air time from the top of the Concord Waterfall:

Here is Captain Ken catching a little less air from a safer/lower point of departure:

After drying off we headed for a 200+ year old farming estate where they were currently harvesting Cacao for making some of the best chocolate in the world (as judged by the worldwide chocolate growers association). You may be wondering how chocolate is made – so here is the short version.  The Cacao pods are harvested from trees when they turn yellow (these guys are not ripe yet):

Then the pods are cut open and the white beans are removed and put into wooden bins and are covered with banana leaves to let them ferment for  6 days – and the bean changes color turning brown.  Each pod has about 40 beans – good for 2 good size bars of good chocolate. The beans are then left in the sun for about a week to dry and are turned over with a rake or by foot…  Eilo is demonstrating how to

walk the beans:

A little further down the road is the Grenada Chocolate Company:

There the beans are roasted and their shells removed leaving the nibs of pure Cacao which are ground turning them into a liquid cocoa butter type substance:

This raw chocolate is then cooled and the cocoa butter is separated from the solids or cacao cake in a high pressure press (note the coco butter in the pan at the bottom –the cake stays in the press):

The cake, 70% for 70% dark chocolate is mixed with about 27% sugar and 3 % cacao butter to make your basic 70% dark chocolate which is then put into molds, refrigerated and voila – a really good choco bar.  They make 6,000 bars per week.  But enough with the touristy stuff – back to sailing.   We attended the final awards dinner tonight March 20^th, for this final leg 16 of World ARC 2017 -2018 and as we had reckoned AURORA took first place.  But that’s not so relevant – what we found out is that AURORA CRUSHED IT beating last years record by 4 days!   We finished in slightly under 11 days from Cabadelo Brazil to Grenada.  Last years record was just over 14 days.  Good now we can relax.  NOT!  WE are off tomorrow for a quick stop and some snorkeling at an under water sculpture garden about 10 miles up the coast then on to Carriacou starting 2 weeks of free sailing then to the Grenadine Islands working our way up 153 nautical miles to Saint Lucia where we started this adventure and ultimately  can declare our circumnavigation complete!  Again we’ll let you know how that goes.