Return to Prickly Bay and on to Hog Island

Written at: Hog Island, Grenada

June 15, 2006

Hi Folks,

This log gets me up to date! We are still at Hog island enjoying snorkeling the shoals and reefs, driving around the island, and getting a few more maintenance tasks done. Our two next tasks are to mount the new wind indicator and wind speed instrument we brought from Canada, and to build a new cockpit table. We are not in WiFi range of anything, and have to take our computer into the local marinas in the next bay to do E-mail. We have ordered a WiFi booster antenna to bring in WiFi signals from far greater ranges. I will let you know how it works out when I get it the first week of July. Other than a couple of rainy days the weather has been lovely, with a continuous trade wind keeping things comfortable and not too hot.

Rough life!

All the best,

Aubrey

 

Return to Prickly Bay and on to Hog Island

Problems at check-in

At the Toronto airport, we had a bit of a problem with the check in at Air Canada. They asked us for our return ticket. Return Ticket!? We are returning to our boat. We had a similar problem when returning to Veleda in Turkey four years ago. At that time we had to buy a return ticket, then cash it in when we arrived in Turkey. We were informed that the airlines have the obligation under international treaties to ensure passengers have return tickets from their destination countries back home. Otherwise the airlines face a $2000 fine per passenger, and are responsible for returning them to their country of origin. Apparently such return tickets are required by over 95% of countries, and failure to have such can result in such fines for the airlines. We were taken over to another supervisor who patiently explained this requirement, and showed us the manual for international travel requirements (Timatic) requiring such. We tried to explain our boat was in Grenada and it would be our source of leaving the country. Did we have any proof of such? No, we left our documentation on board. However our passports were stamped as entry to Grenada "BY SEA" . The supervisor consulted another supervisor to confirm that would be sufficient justification for not having a return ticket on our possession, and allowed us to complete our check in.

Our solution to this problem is to always take the boat's Customs and Immigration papers with us when we leave a country, as proof that our boat is there and it is our method of leaving that country. We will also make up a form explicitly stating that our vessel is at anchor or in such and such a marina, and that we will be returning to it and will use it as our method of leaving the country en route to other destinations. I have not made this up yet, but hope to do so and that Customs and Immigration will sign and stamp it for us, and that such will suffice for airport authorities.

Our return from Canada was a long 20 hour trip, with a nine hour overnight wait in Port of Spain (Trinidad) airport to arrive in Grenada at 0645, to be deposited by taxi at Prickly Bay marina by 0715. Nothing at the marina was open, and we had no way of signaling Stephanie Lynn at anchor 200 metres away. I didn't feel like waiting around until 0800 when the marina would open and I could use their VHF radio to call Stephanie Lynn, so I stripped down to my underwear, dove in and swam out, to be announced by their barking small dog as I climbed (exhausted) aboard on their swim ladder. Dwight then dinghied over to pick up Judy and our luggage, to deliver us to Veleda, anchored off the port bow of Stephanie Lynn. We had left Veleda alongside Stephanie Lynn, but Dwight anchored her separately, as there was a large swell one night causing Veleda to surge against his boat, blowing one of his bulbous fenders. Dwight took good care of Veleda, checking her every three days to open the boat up, turn on the engine to charge the batteries and do some maintenance on the rigging chain plates for us. Thanks Dwight.

We stayed in Prickly Bay for another week, spending four days with Budget Marine to get our wind generator replaced with a new one, and to have it bench tested before picking it up. Island time! With help from Dwight and Robin on Ngoma, we got the wind generator mounted and it is operational. We reacquainted ourselves with Danny and Leslie on Magnum, whom we met last fall in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. I got myself a Grenada driver's licence as there was a trip along the south coast to St. David's Bay and a hike along a couple of beaches to see that part of Grenada. We will be anchoring over in St David's and Westerhall bays before leaving Grenada some time next month. Incidentally, Westerhall rum is one of the best Grenadian rums. We hope to take a tour of their distillery before leaving Grenada.

Dwight and I went for a heavy dinghy ride in his rib around from Prickly Bay across Mount Harmon Bay, north of Hog Island and into Clarkes Court Bay, places we will be taking Veleda as we explore the other bays of Grenada. The passage around Prickly Point was quite dramatic, pounding over heavy two metre (6 foot) waves before wending our way through the off-lying shoals. We will have to be very careful navigating Veleda around all these shoals protecting the entrance to the bays. However, the shoals reduce considerably the swells that bash themselves to submission before crossing them in small wavelets. In Clarkes Court Bay we talked to one of Dwight's friends who was trolling across the bay in a small fibreglass runabout, with a fairly heavy line. I couldn't figure out what he was after with such a heavy line. He was trolling with a grappling hook for lost anchors! Several boats lost or slipped their anchors in the hurricane last year. This gentleman found three of them that day. Unfortunately, most of the bays have a few yachts wrecked on shore; testimony to the two hurricanes which tore through this part of Grenada the past two years. There was a mega yacht that crashed up on the reefs outside Hog Island just last month. It took over a week and several rescue, pollution and dive vessels to salvage it.

On Sunday we decided to shift anchorages and go around to Hog Island. We motored out of Prickly Bay, but our engine wouldn't increase revolutions above 2100 rpm and was making black smoke. I did not want to navigate with reduced power in large swells through the shoal-infested waters going to Hog Island, and so we returned to our anchorage. Judy dove our prop, as one of the causes of black smoke could be if fishing line was wrapped around the propellor. No fishing line was found, but the prop and shaft were heavily coated in sea growth and coral with small barnacles imbedded. After cleaning it off the engine wound up OK, and so we set off again for Hog Island.

We had our computer hooked up to the GPS, and used our computerized map system to help navigate around the coral shoals. It was confusing at one point as we saw channel markers, but our way points appeared to have us going the wrong side of them. Time for the Mark One eyeball and paper charts. Our way points were OK. The apparent conflict of passing the buoys on the wrong side was due to the fact one set of buoys was marking the main channel into Mount Hartman Bay, whereas we were crossing that channel, zigzagging past it and the shoals into a secondary channel going into the smaller sheltered cove behind Hog Island. In the 3 miles from Prickly Bay into Hog Island we had to go through 7 waypoints to avoid the shoals, finally anchoring (12 00.6N, 061 44.48W) off the sandy beach 200 metres from the rustic rum shop and barbecue shack, with ten dinghies hauled up and many cruisers enjoying the Sunday afternoon beach barbecue.

Later that afternoon, Dwight and Stephanie came alongside and invited us over to the beach for the barbecue. A few enterprising locals have this shack and a few cable spool tables and benches and have cheap drinks and barbecue food available, The drinks are $5.00 EC ($2.00Canadian) and the barbecue meal with either fish, spareribs or chicken for $15.00EC ($6.00 Canadian) The meal also included hot trays prepared over in Woburn of rice, macaroni, beans, and callaloo ( a spinach-like green vegetable, cooked to a mush). We had a good time and met many of the cruisers anchored in the bay, including a few Canadians. It was a typical Caribbean beach party on this otherwise uninhabited Hog Island.

This bay on the northwest cove of Hog Island is very secure, with good holding, and no roll, regardless of the sea conditions outside. It is far quieter than either the Lagoon at St. George's or Prickly Bay. We have had some strong winds and heavy rains as this is the rainy season. However, as we are quite secure, the winds just mean more free electricity from our wind generator, and since Judy has made an inverted witch's hat as a rain catcher (lashed to the shrouds and fed directly into our deck fitting to the starboard water tank), we have plenty of fresh water. For the first time we have found ourselves just enjoying staying put here in Grenada without the wanderlust to explore other islands. We will probably spend another few weeks in the bays of Grenada before heading down to Trinidad and Tobago.

The first hurricane of the season, Alberto, passed well north of this area a day or two ago. Our strategy is still, if we hear of a tropical depression or hurricane that has not headed north within a 5 day warning period, we will head south for Trinidad or Venezuela which we could reach within two or three days, well south of the hurricane zone. That is why we will be in the southern Caribbean for the summer and fall period.


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