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We have had one of our busiest weeks since we arrived in Grenada but every minute of it had us smiling from ear to ear. Well, that isn’t entirely correct after this morning’s events. Sigh. But let’s start with the good stuff. We were elated at the beginning of last week with the early arrival of our shipment of packages from Miami. We got the call late on Monday (Oct 17) from our cargo broker that he would be bringing our boxes to Secret Harbour the next day. Thankfully, all eight boxes made their way quickly through Customs. We had heard of others who had to wait two or three weeks for their clearance but ours came in just five days. Yay! Mike was away from the harbour doing our weekly shopping so Ocean and I signed for all the boxes, loaded them into the dinghy and got them aboard Wild Horses. In this shipment were our oil filters (boring but important), our port navigation light (boring but important), our new radar (so-so exciting but important), a few items from home (fun and important) and our new Solstice Pup Plank (super crazy exciting and important).
Later that same afternoon, Barry (our amazing buddy and electrician from Caretta) came over to Wild Horses and helped to install the port navigation light. When ordering the port navigation light, we tried desperately to get one with a white encasement so that it would be a perfect match to our still intact starboard navigation light. Unfortunately, they were all back ordered at the manufacturer. Yeesh. We decided to go with function over form and get one with a black encasement. Is it a big deal? Nope! And we kind of like our “black eye” at the bow. It doesn’t stand out to anyone else and, to us, it is a badge of honour. It is the only equipment we lost when we were dragged into during Tropical Storm Bret and that is due to Mike’s keen captain skills. I love looking at that light!
The following day, Barry was back at Wild Horses to do the outside installation of our new radar. I wish I could say the installation went smoothly and easily but it didn’t. It took a lot of ingenuity and hard work from Barry to get the radar mounted on our mast. Not only did he have to go up our mast several times to feed wires that did not want to be fed but he also ground out a spot in our mast to properly hold the radar mount. The guy was tired, sweaty and full of metal shavings by late afternoon. And, on Saturday he returned to finish the inside wiring pieces. Thanks to Barry we finally have radar on Wild Horses! Barry is definitely one very skilled and hard-working guy and we will be spoiling him appropriately to say thanks! Ah, and then there is the Solstice Pup Plank. Yes, Ocean already has a great ramp for swimming off the stern of Wild Horses and that won’t change. The Pup Plank, however, is a mobile swim platform that we can attach to the dinghy so we can swim her when we go snorkelling. We never run out of ways to spoil our pup!
In between installations, we decided that we were due to play around in another waterfall. We had heard great things about the Mount Carmel Waterfall located in the parish of St. Andrew and all of our boat buddies (Caretta, Kemana, Bitty Rose) were happy to come along. It was a good hour drive there by taxi but well worth it. These waterfalls are less touristy than the others we had been to in Grenada. Our taxi took us down a narrow tree lined road and parked just off a little trail into the woods. At the end of the trail was a beautiful and tranquil waterfall with a gorgeous swimming area at its base. But wait, that isn’t all. Continuing along the woody trail and across a stream, we found ourselves at any even more stunning waterfall. The water cascaded down 70 feet and there was lots of room to swim and play in the falls and in its refreshing pool of water. We had thought that these falls would be very busy but we were the only ones there for most of the morning.
After we had our fill of the second waterfall, we walked back along the trail to the first waterfall where our driver (Devon) had prepared us a traditional Oil Down lunch. Full of salted fish, coconut milk, callaloo (like spinach), breadfruit (like potatoes), carrots, and dumplings – it was delicious! After lunch, we played in the waterfall until early afternoon. It was an incredible day and we felt like real Grenadians. It is days like this that make this adventure worth the hardship of travel and boat issues.
Speaking of which, this morning was one of the not so great times ☹. We had arranged to have our anchor chain and the hull of Wild Horses thoroughly cleaned (the barnacles and slime are nasty after 3 months of sitting still!) and to have our propeller zinc changed by a great company here in Grenada in anticipation of leaving Grenada in the coming week. For non-sailors, the zinc is a sacrificial metal that will take the brunt of any stray electrical current that may be running around our hull from our own boat or from other boats. Without it, our through hulls could get damaged and, well, that just makes for a very wet and potentially sinking boat. Anchor chain cleaning – CHECK. Hull cleaning – CHECK. Zinc change – Uh oh. The screw that holds the zinc onto the end of the propeller was completely stripped and the only solution put forward so far is to get the Wild Horses hauled out to fix the screw/zinc issue. Will this delay our departure from Grenada? We have no idea as I write this but we are now scrambling for options. It is never a dull moment around here! Thankfully we still have visions of our day in the Mount Carmel Waterfalls to keep us smiling!
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AuthorVictoria is a hiker, dog-lover, blog writer and planner extraordinaire. Oh, yeah and she is kind of fond of living on a boat. Categories
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