St. Vincent and the Grenadines St. Vincent and the Grenadines make up one country. The Grenadines are, without question, one of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. St. Vincent is located 160 km. west of Barbados and the Grenadines extend 72 km. to the south-west of St. Vincent, like a kite's tail. They include Bequia, Mustique, Canouan, Young Island, Mayreau, Union Island, Palm Island and Petit St. Vincent.

Union Island - St. Vincent and the Grenadines 12.36.0'N, 61.27.1'W Union Island was our point of entry for the Grenadines. We stopped behind Frigate Island while Barry went into customs and immigration to clear us in. The gorgeous turquoise water there (sand bottom) revealed a multitude of large red and yellow cushion stars. We had a good snorkel amongst them before we moved on to Chatham Bay for the night. What a shock it was to see how much the area had developed since we were last there. We anchored between 2 (small) cruise ships for the night. We were never big but that night we felt really small. Chatham Bay's beach has a ridge of rock and coral along it's edge - truly beautiful.

Carriacou Anchor to Anchor - 30 miles - 8 hours - St. George's to Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou We spent 2 nights on anchor in Carriacou. The first in Tyrrel Bay (12.27.3'N, 61.29.5'W) and the second off the town of Hillsborough (12.29.l'N, 61.27.5'W). Carriacou is a Carib word meaning "island surrounded by reefs". We'd have to include "island surrounded by magnificent beaches". We enjoyed lunch of rotis with our new (local) friends at their restaurant "the Bellyfull" in Hillsborough then caught the bus to Paradise Beach. Our guidebook gave this as the location of the Fidel outlet (t-shirts, art work etc). We bought a souvenir of a locally made hand-painted calabash bowl. Many of the artists whose work we've seen throughout the islands call Carriacou home. We sadly left Carriacou behind with a promise to come back and enjoy the island again. She is a treasure we felt we hadn't totally explored.

Gone Sailing Anchor to Anchor - 5 miles - l l/2 hours - Clarke's Court Bay to St. George's, Grenada On Sunday January 3l, 2010 we decided we had repaired as much as we could and we could wait no longer for the winds to die down. We waved our good-byes and set sail west out of Clarke's Court Bay (ll.59.l'N, 61.43.5'W), past many of the anchorages on Grenada's south coast - Hog Island, Mt. Hartman Bay, Prickly Bay and True Blue Bay. We rounded the corner of the island and started on our long journey north. We spent our first night anchored off Grenada's capital - St. George's. (12.02.7'N, 61.45.5'W) As we left in the morning we viewed the start of a race as Grenada's sailing festival was in full swing (running out of Port Louie Marina in the Lagoon).

Bird Watching

An on-going pleasure for us is to take note of the different birds we see along the way.

While in the boatyard in Grenada we had the good fortune of sighting the national bird - the Grenada dove, an Ibis, many hummingbirds and a tropical kingfish bird.

Three of Sea Star's durade vents were housing nests upon our return. No wonder, with the fans running underneath them making nice air-conditioned housing for the birds.

We regularly see numberous Amazing Frigate birds, Brown Boobies (no snickering please), and Brown Noddies. The boobies are great company during passages as they fly along with us, just over our bimini.

As we sailed along Grenada's lee coast we had the rare and stunning sighting of a white tropic bird. It was resting on the water and lifted into the air, with its long white tail trailing out, as we passed.

Just north of Grenada in Carriacou we spotterd our first pelican and just north of there in Union Island, our first yellow breasted Chit.

Out and About in Grenada

While working our way through repairs we've had the opportunity to visit with friends and attend some outings together.

We jumped on the bus with Neal (England-Dream Chaser), Becky & Dalton (Miami-Altair), Don & Olga (Miami-Richard Cory) and enjoyed an amazing evening of blues and jazz music at the Pebbles Club in St. George's.

On another night we kicked back with friends as we enjoyed the "Doc Adams Blues Band" at the Le Phare Bleu Marina.

We were delighted to find our friends Manon & Gervais (Montreal-LaBete) anchored nearby. Their kindness at lending us (and letting us tinker with) their Yamaha outboard was greatly appreciated. It was wonderful to see them again.

Over rotis at "Nimrod's" in Woburn we enjoyed meeting Kevan & Chris (England-Sweet Sensation). We were enamored by their tales of sailing in New Zealand and the South Pacific.

The south coast anchorages in Grenada have much to offer the cruising community. We were grateful of the new friends we met and the outings we enjoyed together with them.

Update on repairs - Throwing Money Into the Hole in the Water

The repairs to Sea Star are on-going but to date our status is:

- a new vhf radio was purchased and installed

- a new am/fm radio was purchased and installed (paid for by Grenada Marine to replace the one stolen in the break-in)

- ten feet of copper tubing was purchased and used to repair our refrigerator

- we paid a $43.00 U.S. brokerage fee to receive the warranty part needed to repair the Lewmar (don't buy one) windlass only to find they'd shipped the wrong part from California. Since our windlass issues are so on-going we decided to go on without it. Barry is now working on the system of lifting the anchor chain manually and expects to be quite buff by Florida.

- a new Tohatzu 5 hp out-board for the dinghy was purchased

Mrs. Johnson couldn't be trusted

(by Barry)

After 2 years and numerous humiliations, Mrs. Johnson our 6.5 hp outboard has succumbed to a serious case of sunstroke and leprosy.

Mrs. Johnson replaced a younger Mr. Johnson who suffered rigor-mortis in the British Virgin Islands. Mrs. Johnson worked begrudgingly for the last two years and after vacationing the last 10 months on her aft-rail perch she developed severe atrophy in her left (only) arm and a penchant for parts to fall off.

She was initially replaced by Yama (Yamaha Enduro 8 hp) who only worked until his deposit was paid at which point he quit producing. After returning Yama to his former family the Japanese Tohat the 5th was adopted (Tohatsu 5 hp) for the princely sum of $l629.00 Cdn.

Mrs. Johnson has been relieved of her position but still oversees from her place on the rail.

Dead Ant.....Dead Ant.....Dead Ant..... One of the problems we encountered when Sea Star was "on the hard" for 10 months is an infestation of tiny ants. Annoying yes, but we are ever grateful that's all we seem to have. It certainly could have been worse. Our friend Neal offered to lend us his gecko "Gordon" who stowed away aboard "Dream Chaser" while "on the hard" in Trinidad - excellent for keeping insects (and ants) at bay on board. Every boat should come with one. Because of the constant wind conditions we've hesitated to use powder form chemicals and have been unable to find any liquid ant killer, so we're working on the "thumb" method of extermination - dead ant.....dead ant.....dead ant.

Sea Star has splashed Our launch was certainly not without incident but we're very happy to be afloat again. On January 18, 2010 a tractor pulled trailer was used to transport Sea Star through Grenada Marine's boatyard. She was then picked up by the travel-lift and lowered into the sea at l300 hours. As we fired up the diesel to move out of the launch slip an injector gasket cracked. Barry ascertained the problem, scrambled ashore and miraculously was able to purchase a gasket from the Yanmar dealer, on site. By 1500 hours he had replaced the gasket, tightened it down, bled the fuel lines and we happily motored out of the slip. Not wanting to turn the engine off after the trial we had to get it going, we motor-sailed the 3 miles down the coast to our planned anchorage - Clarke's Court Bay. While underway we could smell a belt slipping on the engine, as well our depth sounder decided to quit just as we needed it to navigate through the entrance channel, between the reefs. Happily our good friend Neal on Dream Chaser was anchored just inside the bay and assisted us by radio with depth information. Our trials would continue this day as after anchoring we stepped below deck into ankle deep water. The packing in the stuffing box needed to be seated more than it was as the propeller had not been turning until we got into gear. We also found the pressure water pump leaking from the diaphragm. To add a fitting end to the day the wind caught the line on our man-overboard pole, tossed it into the path of the wind generator, bringing it to an abrupt stop. We've come to Clarke's Court Bay to continue repairs - today we added a few more items to the list.

Sad News About Eric We arrived back in the southern Caribbean to find that our mainstay weather guy, on the single side band radio, Eric Mackie of Trinidad, is off the air. Without doubt Eric was to the south Caribbean what Chris Parker is to the north. Formerly broadcasting daily at 0630 (l030 zulu) time on ham frequency 3855 mhz, he gave a daily concise forecast, gathering information from N.O.A.A.(National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration), Trinidad's meteorological office, Internet sources and Barbados. Eric had a team of ham operators up the island chain as well as ham licensed cruisers call in to him each morning and report their local weather conditions. Being a meteorologist; making his living as Trinidad's channel 3 weather guy, he gave excellent forecasts to the cruising community. We can't say for sure what happened but we did over-hear him speaking on the radio regarding his unfortunate situation. It would appear that his wife has, on October l6, shall we say, shown him the door and he therefore has unresolved issues with his equipment and antenna. Unfortunately for us we must now source out our own weather information. P.S. At the time of this blog segment we note that Eric is back on the air again, operating from a different location, good news for sure.

Tropical Complications Upon his return to Grenada, Barry started right in on the repairs Sea Star requires before we set sail. He took our Genoa (sail) in to have the torn section repaired and contacted Palm Tree Marine regarding yet another (this is our 3rd) warranty claim on our Lewmar (don't buy one) windlass. As well, he mounted and braced our new 130 watt solar panel atop the bimini and climbed the mast to inspect and repair all running lights and rigging. As a matter of general maintenance the bilge was cleaned as well as the deck which was pink from baked in dust from 10 months sitting in a boat yard that's gravelled with red volcanic stone. The stuffing box was packed, fuel filters changed, dinghy inflated, fresh water and fuel tanks filled and sails attached. Our on-going attempt to get the refrigerator running will need to wait until we launch. One of the complications of a hot, moist tropical environment is excessive corrosion. Upon our return the taps in the head required replacing plus our cooking pots as their copper bottoms had corroded off. Rust is an on-going problem; regretfully it didn't take a hiatus as we had. As well, a veritable garden of mildew has grown happily in our lines. We found ourselves wondering how long the fans ran, before the batteries ran out of water, as the mould situation in the cabin was not terribly bad. We did, however, have a problem with tiny ants but luckily that's the only crawling insect we've encountered. (knock on wood) Mysteriously, for no obvious reason our vhf radio quit. A replacement will need to be purchased before we set sail. While we undertake our cleaning and repairs we are constantly entertained by the dozen or so goats that seem to call the boatyard home.

Here we go again - Changing Worlds Our return to Grenada It's hard to imagine that 10 months have passed since we left Sea Star "on the hard" in St. David's Harbour, Grenada, to return home to Canada. However, if one has to take a hiatus from sailing and the cruising life, surely there could be no better way to spend it than by welcoming our first grandchild - Ryan Mathew Wieckowski - born May 29, 2009 to our daughter Robin and her husband Mathew. Not surprisingly, Ryan immediately enamored us and we were extremely grateful to have the opportunity to share in his first 7 months. While home we also had the good fortune to have our daughter Susan visit on 2 occasions from her home in British Columbia. She arrived in June to meet her nephew Ryan and returned again at Christmas with her partner Chris. We delighted in hearing news of the home they recently purchased in Victoria and look forward to visiting them there in May. Barry returned to Sea Star in Grenada on January 5th, 2010 with the hopes of starting in on a multitude of jobs we need to complete before we set sail. I followed a week later on January 12th, leaving my nephew Ernie Taylor and his son Samuel in charge of our home. Barry found 2 surprises upon his return. One was that a different lock was on the boat as it had been broken into. The boat yard staff advised us there had been several boats broken into; they suspected local youths. We'd have to agree with them as only our radio/cd player was stolen. The second surprise Barry found was that the fans we left running on board had stopped (see the previous blog segment "Grow Op? Sea Star is going green). Our plans were foiled as the batteries ran out of water. Irreparable damage was luckily not done to the batteries and they are, thankfully, charging well again.