Night
I’m glad I chose to switch from the mooring ball to anchor last night. Winds and squalls passed over the anchorage and I would not have slept well had I remained on that mooring ball. Had the mooring broken I would only have had about 2 boat lengths room before running aground. It is going to be a slow Saturday today as the winds are keeping me aboard.
Morning
I did some computer work, searching for flights from Grenada back to Europe that wouldn’t route me over 48 hours and wouldn’t cost a fortune. The options aren’t all that great at the moment. Most are routed via the USA and do take 2 days. But I’ve found British Airway and Virgin Atlantic flight via London which should work. I just need to get to the airport in Grenada from here. The two options are to fly a puddle-jumper or take the ferry. Both should work, but I’d do that the day before so that I’ve got a bit of buffer built-in.
Noon
The weather has cleared up a bit and the rains have stopped, although the wind is still pretty strong. I won’t be taking the dinghy into Hillsborough to go shopping. Perhaps some of the stores will be open tomorrow as the winds are going to die down then.
I think there’ll be more rain soon, so I’ve gone ahead and taped around the deck hatches. The blue painter’s tape should be reasonably waterproof and reasonably easy to remove. I want to see if any water leaks into the cabin during the next rainstorms now that this is taped shut. I can’t think of any other source, but need to do some step-by-step problem searching. There are other tasks that I should work on this slow Saturday, but I am using my day off to procrastinate.
Naturally, taping the hatches in preparation for rain and the sun making an appearance happened at almost the same time. There’s no sign of nimbus clouds around, and the weather forecast looks good as well.
I’m not going to cook tonight, I’m going to go ashore and try the pizza at the Paradise Beach Club.
Afternoon
I scraped another couple of kilograms of green stuff from Zanshin‘s hull this afternoon and needed a lengthy shower to prevent me looking like a swamp monster from a 70’s horror flick. I reserved a lift across with the launch from the restaurant at 17:30 but I’ll get ready now at 16:00 and perhaps they’ll come by earlier – I’m thirsty for a cold beer and feeling peckish. It is still a slow Saturday but promises to pick up one I’m ashore.
Evening
The launch did a pass through the anchorage at about 16:30 and I managed to snag a ride ashore early. I met the crew of the boat that had taken the mooring and warned them about the frayed line and potential winds this night. After that, I sat at the bar for a while and had some Hurricane Reef IPA and talked with fellow cruisers until sunset and then went to my table (yes, they’d actually reserved a table, one of the best in the house, for just one person).
I chatted with the people at the table next to me while we were waiting for our meals and I had that tasty pepperoni pizza I’d been craving for days.
Upon return I saw that Mark had a freezer full of frozen meats that were slowly thawing out. I have a currently unused Dometic portable freezer and with 5 minutes of my offering it to him both he and Marjorie arrived in the dinghy to pick it up. I can understand their concern – they’d just stocked up in Martinique and it all threatened to thaw!