Tuesday, 20 Feb: Time to say farewell to beautiful Grenada, today. We up-anchor from Secret Harbour in Hartman Bay and we picked up what looked like a concrete block on the anchor, which took a while to wash off. After we say goodbye to our neighbours on Second Chance, we are on our way to Carriacou.
It’s a downwind leg along the south coast which becomes an upwind sail once we go around the SW point of Grenada. Feels so nice to be sailing hard on the wind with both main and genoa. We set the auto-helm to steer by “wind” direction rather than compass.
As we pass St.George, a school of dolphins appear, most jumping about 50m away, but a few come and play in our bow wave. We haven’t seen dolphins for a few weeks and we were starting to miss their company.
Then as we approach the top of Grenada, on the NE coast the wind and wave come hard on the nose as they both curve around the top of the island from the Atlantic trade winds.
It also becomes very gusty as we pass Victoria so we reef both mainsail and genoa. As we start the crossing between Grenada and Carriacou, the first Grenadine island, we realize we will not make it in one tack. It will be an upwind sail. Before long the boat is covered with salt spray as we plough into and over the huge waves like a bucking-bronco! Added to this there are big rain squalls constantly coming across. In between them we are under-powered at 15knots of wind and the waves all but stop our progress. Then a 30knot squall hits and Cloudy Bay is blown hard over and very over powered.
We seemed to be constantly reefing then un-reefing the sails. Each squall also brings heavy rain. With one of them, we saw what looked like a wall of white haze coming at us. Glen screamed “get the mainsail away!” because he feared it was an extra violent wind coming, but as it hit us we realized it was just a very heavy rain. In-between the squalls there is bright sunshine and rainbows.
As we get behind the islands we expect the sea to die down, but it just seems to get even more confused with the Atlantic swell meeting from either side of the island, both in different directions. Add to this there is a strong tidal flow against the wind. All in all, not the pleasant fast reach we had hoped for.
Finally we tacked onto port and headed the 6 miles towards to Tyrrel Bay. A few hours before this, Glen had removed the ensign and flag pole to save it from destroying itself in the strong wind. It laid, rolled and protected, on the aft cabin top. But as we tacked it gracefully rolled across the deck, found a gap in the life lines, where it hung up for a second or 2, before both flag and pole disappeared over the side and on down to Davy Jones’s Locker! Damn it. That’s the last time we try to do a good deed for the flag, only to have it escape on us 🙁
A little nauseous, Oana is glad to finally get into smoother water as we enter the Tyrrel Bay. It’s very crowded with yachts. We fumble through them looking for a space. We take the only small space we can see and drop the anchor in 5m of water, to the glaring faces of other yachts next to us, who clearly think we are too close to them. One Dutch guy even tries to tell us to put out 40m of chain! …. in only 5m of water? What is he talking about??
As Cloudy Bay settles, we realize we are actually rather close. Glen is sure we will swing OK and clear them no problem. In the Mediterranean, the Italians anchor much cheekier than this!
Within an hour of arriving the sun has set. The trip took 2 hours longer than Glen predicted and we are both pretty exhausted after the strenuous upwind sail. So we stay on the boat during the evening and relax and clean up all the ropes on the deck while yet more rain squalls pass over.
Hopefully, in the sunshine tomorrow, this bay will look a little more inviting. Let’s see.
