There had been another barbecue in Pirates Bay and there had been lots of wind for the last few days and lots of swell. The waves that were breaking on the beach in Pirates Bay were now fairly high. I had arrived with my dinghy feeling sure of myself, counting the waves and thinking that I had found a good moment to beach the dinghy. But there was another steep wave that seemed to come out of nowhere. I capsized. Everything fell out, the oarlock broke and I hit my head on the bottom of the sea so hard that my spine hurt and I couldn’t move my jaw for a few days. The skin of my forehead was scraped away and of course I had not put my camera in the waterproof bag.
I now had no mobile and no camera, a forehead that was constantly oozing some liquid and a broken oarlock. Needless to say I had felt pretty sorry for myself for the next few days.
An older couple who had also come to the barbecue had also capsized with their dinghy and their heavy outboard engine which died in the process. They stayed underwater for quite a while and we were very worried. When they reappeared they just pulled everything onto the beach sat down by the fire and said “that was a little bit more entertaining than we would have thought”. I wish I could be relaxed like this.
When it was time to leave for Grenada I tried to pull myself together and tried to enjoy the sailing trip of about 85 miles. The plan was to leave in the afternoon so I would arrive in Prickly Bay some time before noon the next day.
I sailed off the mooring and sailed by my friends from Argentina and Brazil to wave goodbye. When I left the bay the wind picked up and it was a gorgeous evening with perfect wind from a perfect direction. This was how I had imagined my Atlantic crossing. It lasted for about three hours. With the darkness came the squalls and they brought massive amounts of rain and very strong gusts of 30 plus knots. After a squall there would sometimes be no wind and the sail would flap in the waves… until the next squall and so on. This went on all night. Sleeping was impossible. The next morning the wind died and I tried a few hours of sailing but decided to motor for the last ten miles. Andi and Kudi had passed me during the night and had already arrived.
When I finally anchored in the bay I was so tired that I decided not to do the customs and immigration clearance that day but rather go to sleep and leave everything for the next day (which was a Saturday and I would have to pay overtime fees but at this point I didn’t care anymore).
I slept for 15 hours nonstop. The next morning I was asked to leave my anchorage because I had apparently anchored in some private hotel marina buoy field. Oh well…
The ride into town with the minibus with incredibly loud music was fun and clearance was easy and quickly accomplished. My new anchorage was not as well protected and very rolly. The next day I went to the well equipped chandler to get a new radar reflector, some cables for an electrical project and spent the rest of day browsing through timber and hardware stores to get some replacement boards for my dinghy (preferably plastic). I repaired the oarlock on my dinghy. It was getting windier every day and the boat’s movement in the anchorage was a bit hard to bear. Cooking was near impossible and I fell back into the feeling-sorry-for-myself state. I hardly left the boat to go ashore, stopped eating and didn’t sleep well because I was afraid that the anchor wouldn’t hold. We now had gusts of up to 40 knots in the bay and apart fro the usual rain squalls we had days where it would rain all day. I now found another leak in the foredeck and the mast was leaking. I became apathetic. The weather forecast said it would be like this for the next two weeks at least. This was not exactly what I had thought a Caribbean vacation would be like. Zissi would be coming to visit soon and it was clear that with this wind and the waves outside we would not be able to sail anywhere for quite some time.
By midweek I decided to change bays even if it meant motoring against very uncomfortable seas for a while. Or rather… I had talked about my decision, then had become listless and lied down and fallen asleep. Luckily Kudi came by and told me to pull myself together and go. They wanted to go, too. So very quickly I secured everything and weighed the anchor.
The sea was rough but we had some current with us so it only took less than two hours. This bay (Woburn Bay) was much more protected and had much more to offer on the shore. The next few days I explored the surroundings. I had unbelievable BBQ chicken wings from a street grill. I went to a jam session in Nimrod’s Rum Shack. The first time ever on this trip that I had taken my electric guitar and effects to shore. It was great fun. The young German crew that we had met in French Guiana had also arrived in the meantime and everybody was there.
Zissi will be coming tomorrow. We will probably have to wait out the weather for a week before we can go on but since I haven’t really seen much of the island yet, we will go explore. And I have found an affordable berth in a very cozy little marina not far from here. We can move the boat there from the anchorage on Tuesday. They have a shower. If everything works out this will be my first shower after two and a half months of bathings with buckets of saltwater or river water (in Saint Laurent).
Zissi will also bring a mobile and her camera. So from tomorrow on I will be able to take pictures again. Stay tuned 🙂