Into Prickly Bay, and out of the water
There is something about the sea that undermines the ability of man to create anything enduring. Nowhere is it more true than for boats. As we start the great preparation for storage, things are going wrong left right and centre. The batteries are suddenly losing their change overnight, setting off alarms and waking you up not long after you eventually had dropped off at last. (Sleeping in this heat is not that easy, even if you sleep in the cockpit. For the periodic short showers will wake you there.)
But then yesterday as we prepare to ‘pickle’ the watermaker, (fill it with storage solution), we discover one end cap has split, which makes for yet another bit to go on the ‘bring out next time’ list. By the way, you might be under the strange illusion that luggage bags are for clothes. They are not. Clothes are merely the packaging round the boat parts that are the principle use for baggage!
And then there are the zips. One of man’s great inventions, normally only a problem when the constrained items exceed the design parameters thus causing embarrassing exposure. But on a boat, the sea spray conspires to weld the ends of zips solid, preventing undoing or removal of spray hoods and biminis (cockpit sun shades), making for minor panics. Annemarie has been so patient in soaking the offending items in boiling water and penetrating oil.
On a totally different note, on our recent UK trip we were asked frequently about the risk of our keel coming off, in the light of the truly awful tragedy of a few weeks back. Ours is not a racing boat, and the photos here show the real difference between a more traditional ocean yacht, and a current generation racing boat. The former is something like three times longer, ie, much greater attachment area. Nuff said……. 
Anyway, completely shattered after a dire night’s sleep and a frantic day of sorting stuff, it was two very weary creatures that staggered up the hill to the True Blue Bay Hotel and immediately fell in the pool. We had hoped the next few days would be a bit easier but the list took a long time to shorten. This evening we sought refuge in the local bar, thanks to a chance meeting with the chef and his motorbike! It turned out to be the Prom Night for the local senior school, and these youngsters really took it to heart. Their outfits were simply stunning, (second photo, not the first!)
Sadly we are leaving without having explored the Grenadines. But thankfully we have left the Grenadines unexplored, so we can look forward to remedying this at the end of the year. In the meantime, …….. well, I head back to Johannesburg in 10 days time for some work until the end of October, (funny how this happens when you think you have given up work, but they asked very nicely), and Annemarie will be back in the UK for a while before hopefully coming out to join me.
We are due back to the boat in November, when we might initially sail down to Trinidad for a few days. So the blog will be a bit quieter for the next few months unless our land travels get interesting…………
Freebooter 