Thursday, 15 Feb: New bay, St.Davids Bay, requires exploration. That said, we did pop down to this bay in the car a few days ago and there appeared to be nothing other than Grenada Marine boat yard. But it was getting dark at that time. From the anchorage it is quite a remote bay, surrounded by little wild beaches in-between mangrove trees. It has quite a charm. Once ashore we set out to explore the boat yard. There is a small chandlery, a sail & canvas workshop, a laundry, the boat yard shop and office.
But as usual, we “start with a break”: drinks at Laura’s, the very cute yard bar, to check out the spirit of the place. We meet Dale, the manager of the yard, New Zealander arrived on the island 8 months ago. Everybody seems to know each other – it’s clearly the gathering place of both yard employees as well as people staying on their boats while they have work done.
As we walk through the yard, we see a Hallberg-Rassy in one of the open sheds. As we learn from it’s Chilean skipper, it is undergoing a major refit. He gives us a tour of the yacht and a summary of the refit they are working on. It is an HR62, registered in Chile, and it had some serious adventures under her keel, like 25 days in Antarctica. Her name is actually Endurance of Antarctica.
The chandlery is rather uninspiring, not much on stock. But it seems to be linked to a bigger shop in town. The Turbulence sail loft is another matter! After a short chat with Martin, the manager, we decide to bring the bimini in for full restitch, and to add some straps over the zippers which are at the moment taking all the pressure to keep the bimini tight.
Then in the Grenada Marine yard office we meet another New Zealander, who also has arrived recently on the island by yacht from New Zealand via Indonesia, Mauricious, South Africa, St.Helena then to Caribbean. He has quite some tales to tell. He shows us around the yard and gives us boat storage prices.
Back at the Laura’s restaurant for lunch, we meet an Irish couple, here on vacation. He has been in the area for many years, and gives us lots of tips on where to go when we head north. For what seems a quiet place, there are lots of interesting people here.
Back at the boat, Glen polished the stainless steel frame of the bimini, then tackled the task of removing current boom lights to replace them with an LED strip. We have been looking forward to have some nice lights on the boom, but really needed the bimini removed to tackle the task.
Then, the highlight of the day… while we wait for a laundry load to finish, we give the drone it’s first flight since buying it at Christmas. Our last drone flight, with our cheapy Chinese drone, ended in watery tears when it threw a wobbly and landed in the sea, in Greece. So with great caution Glen flies this new DJI Mavic drone in the boat yard. OMG, it’s amazing. So stable compared to our last one. We test the auto takeoff and landing, and return-home functions. Flawless. The remote control also connects to Oana’s iPhone where you see real time footage from the on-board camera. Glen manages to fly it just looking at the screen, not at the drone. After 20 mins the battery runs out and we conclude a very satisfactory first flight. Soon we’ll venture out to sea to take aerial pics of Cloudy Bay.
In the evening, it’s back to the bar for drinks and snack, where we meet 2 other interesting guys. One arrived here 9 years ago on a wooden boat with no systems on-board (no toilets, no depth etc) and still living on this boat with wife and 2 young daughters. He is working as a carpenter in the boat yard by day time, and on his 2nd boat in the weekends. Then John, from Michigan, also has a boat in the yard, awaiting the engine change and his plan is to get to Panama, with no firm agenda afterwards.
Quite a busy day again, but very sociable and we enjoyed listening to all the stories. So many interesting people here, with such different backgrounds and plans, but with common passion: sailing boats.