I awoke in the night when I hear the wind start up. There was a bright flash of lightning and I started counting seconds. About 3 seconds per kilometre. I reached 10 and heard a rumble and thought I could go to sleep again. Then a bright flash and immediate crack told me the CuNim cloud was directly overhead. The storm passed, and this morning it is overcast in Grenada. I don’t know if we’ll be seeing the sun until the afternoon.
Morning
It is now 11AM and still overcast. It has been raining intermittently all morning. Although a thunderstorm passed overhead and my StarLink connection was gone for about 10-15 minutes in the heavy downpour. That’s the first time I had a dropout that wasn’t just temporary.
Noon
It is still overcast with occasional rain here at Sandy Island. But the weather radar promises a bit of relief in the later afternoon.
I went up top to cool down and saw a boat depart from one of the mooring balls. This one looked like it was a bit further from the beach and should support my draft. So I got the engine going, turned on the depth sounder and lifted up the anchor. The winds were very light, so I approached slowly from the shallow side and never saw less than 10 feet under the keel, so I knew I’d be safe from touching bottom. But when I pulled the painter on the mooring aboard I was worried about the condition of the loop, it is quite frayed. After attaching Zanshin to the mooring, I got out my mask and dove on the mooring block.
Everything underwater looked like it was in acceptable condition, but that loop was about halfway through the 3-strand line. I’d attached my second mooring line to the boat and dangled it from the bow before going snorkelling. I attached that a bit closer to the mooring ball as a backup, in case a gust of wind snapped the main loop. But I’ll set up an anchor alarm tonight, just to be on the safe side.
I used a break in the clouds and rain at 15:00 to run ashore at Hillsborough. I wanted to explore, but the skies threatened another shower, so I just did a bit of grocery shopping. Then returned to Zanshin before I got wet.
Happy Hour
There’s a blue tender from the Paradise Beach Club that shuttles back and forth to the distant beach. I wanted to try happy hour there, but just missed them as they came by; so I might need to postpone that trip until tomorrow. But since it is still overcast at Sandy Island in Grenada it might be best to postpone going ashore until the weather is better.