Sailing Baby Blue

Prickly Bay was our first anchoring stop in Grenada, largely because it sounded familiar and was the closest harbor after we rounded the southern tip of the island. We spent a week there familiarizing ourselves with our new digs: figuring out where to get on the bus to find groceries, where to find the fastest wifi, meeting our neighbors, etc. We also did the bare minimum amount of work on the boat just to say we got something done. I polished our stainless steel and Jon replaced our gear shift cable that broke way back in the BVIs. But most of the time we concentrated on slowing down. We met up with friends we had met along the way and made some new ones, spending probably too many evenings drinking good beer at the West Indies brewing company. In search of the most convenient spot to initiate our soon arriving new crew members, David and Rachel, into the cruising life, we moved over to Mt. Hartman Bay and landed with a thud – there was a sudden gust – on the dock. I had ...

Yep, that's Bobbie with her tiny new motor. I wouldn't say we finally broke down and bought an engine, as it has been pretty easy to row to shore from our prime spot in Mt. Hartman Bay in Grenada. But when we heard someone on the morning net offering up a 2 horsepower 2-stroke for a decent price we decided to jump on it. Now we'll have an easier time making it to shore if we end up at the back of the fleet on our way up island, and we'll be able to check out all those far flung snorkeling sites. Hopefully when the novelty wears off we'll continue to row occasionally - you know, to prevent any loss of muscle tone - but right now we're highly enjoying zipping around (still slower than everyone else).

Now that we're here in Grenada, we'll be spending some time putting together all of the videos from our travels so far. Despite our best intentions and with everything we had to learn when we started out, we didn't do as much documenting as we would have liked from the beginning. But as we ventured further we got a little better at remembering to pull out the camera. We will be publishing episodes throughout the summer and will hopefully be up-to-date by the time we're ready to head back north in November!   Without further ado, here is episode one:

From Bequia we had only 76 miles to travel to get to the southern tip of Grenada. The forecast everyday was for 25 knot winds and six foot seas. Normally we wouldn't go out in those conditions, but we were ready to get it over with and reach Grenada in time to prepare for our friends upcoming visit on July 10th. We left Bequia with the wind blasting behind us. I felt as nervous as I had when we first started sailing back in Maine and insisted that Jon and I both wear our life jackets and harnesses. This helped to eliminate my need to think through each step I would take if Jon were suddenly knocked off the boat, so I was able to relax a bit. Once we left the protection of the islands, the waves picked up and we entertained ourselves by trying to guess just how big they were, comparing them to the biggest we’ve seen. Later that afternoon we anchored in Charlestown Bay, Canouan, just outside the moorings which held the only two other boats in the harbor, both charters. ...