Grenada
Sunday 18th June
Up with the sun, we have 36 miles crossing to reach the south of Granada, possibly an 8 hours trip. The good news is the wind is behind us and quite steady at 20-25 knots. We don’t even bother hoisting the mainsail, we do the whole trip under Genoa alone. Rhapsode left about half an hour behind us and we keep an eye on them, they are very distinctive with their 2 masts on the horizon. The wind becomes fickle and eventually dies in the lea of north Grenada, but not for long. Squalls are brewing; we have been watching them slowly coming our way. The first one hits just outside of Georges Town, it is bad, so bad in fact that Ian calls the marina to see if they can fit us in. No such luck. We have to carry on to Prickly bay, along the corner in this. The bad news is that the last 5 miles are dead on the wind and apart from the fact that it is slow progress; the rain and wind are driven right in our faces. Not nice. The good news is that we know the layout of the bay having spent a week there last January. Just as well, as is turns out we need to get in practically blind, the second squall hits us as we are approaching the entrance of the bay. The wind (up to 35 knots) is pushing the rain in our faces, can’t see nothing. The land and the entrance of the bay just disappear in watery white nothing. Fortunately both the rain and wind abates as soon as we are in the lea of the land. We make our way towards the bottom of the bay to get as much shelter as possible. Despite being busy, we do find a free buoy with plenty of room around it. Looking around we realised that we are probably within a few meters of where we were anchored back in January. This definitely cheers up Ian, we may not have to have anchor watches after all. The VHF is abuzz the coming storm, load of traffic on channel 68. The night is calm, won’t be the same story tomorrow