Outnumbered....

We've had a fun few weeks with visitors, Dave has been rather outnumbered by females!
My sister stayed for a couple of days on the boat before the girls and I went with her up to stay with Annie. Darius the donkey was very patient being ridden up and down the steep drive but was always rewarded with   a large bundle of grass.

Dave, Joyce, and their three girls came out to Grenada. Being the experienced sailors they are we took the boat up to Isle de Ronde and then on up to Carriacou. We anchored off an idlyllic small spit of land called Sandy island which the girls claimed as their very own desert island.

five girls is more than enough!!!!!

Grace, Isabel and Heather got into the snorkeling after a few adjustments to finns and masks. The snorkeling up at Sandy island was superb, Joyce and I saw a four foot long puffer fish, you certainly wouldn't want that  blowing up into a ball of spikes anywhere near you.

On the sail back from Carriacou to Grenada we skirted a rain cloud then couldn't avoid another which was travelling faster than usual. As Murphy's law would predict, the furler on the genoa (foresail) decided not work as expected. This did some damage to the sail as it flogged when we couldn't get it furled away very quickly. Within 48 hours of being back in Grenada, the sailmaker and riggers of a company called 'Turbulence' have everything ship shape again. They definitely had more of a 'can do, will do' attitude towards their customers than we have experienced in the past. 

Birdseye view of Orion

I don't know who had the harder job, Dave up the mast in a big swell or me having to winch him up there - twice! Repairs completed, hoping to leave for Tobago after the weekend.

Chance of a lifetime!

Written by Darcy ...

Big headed, big flippered, big everything, this is the gentle giant, the leather back turtle! Once again we went up to Annie's in the north of Grenada with Auntie Brushy and from 8:30pm to 11:30pm  mummy and I saw the humongous leather back turtle. When we got there it was completely dark and our leader had a red torch, because a normal light would scare them. I was really scared and Annie and Mummy lead the way for me because my eyes were shut because it was so freaky! Suddenly Annie whispered, I can see one and I slowly opened my eyes and a few inches away from was the black creature, first I thought it was a rock because it was massive. 1 and a  half metres long, bigger than me, the flippers were much bigger than my arms, it had loads of lumpy black lines going down its back and was indeed BLACK!!! Its head, all the way across was half a metre. They eat jellyfish, squid and other soft marine creatures. 
We also saw it flicking the sand back to cover the eggs, it was unbelievable, I will remember this forever because I even touched its shell, head and wrinkly flippers it felt like leather, obviously I was a bit scared at first. It was so exiting and scary all at the same time.

The next excitement of the night was another one! As we were going back home we saw it, it was just about to lay its eggs. To dig the hole they use their back flippers to scoop out the sand, I thought they were very clever! When their flipper can't reach the bottom, that is when they start laying their eggs.When  it came a man was holding one of its flippers to count them, I was holding the other. The eggs were not hard but soft, of all different sizes they came out so fast and the man managed to count them. There were 136 eggs!  The mother uses her front and back flippers to cover the eggs, she moves around in circles flicking the sand to disguise where her she's laid, it takes about 45 minutes. We saw her returning to the sea 
.It takes 65 days for the babies to hatch and they are 4 inches long,  the mother comes back to the same spot on the same beach every 3-5 years to lay her eggs! The world record of eggs laid was 158!!!

Leatherbacks are the longest surviving reptiles on the whole of the earth. They live between 30 and 200 years. They are also the largest marine turtle, by far! It makes the Hawksbill turtle look tiny. The one we saw was only about 15 years old and it was nearly 2 metres. They weigh  up to 900 kilos.

I'll never forget this experience!

 
  

Routine...

You probably wonder what on earth we do all day, sunbathe, swim, sunbathe, not exactly, chores still have to be done. After breakfast we sit down for school, Dave usually takes Darcy and I take Isla. We do a couple of hours of work interspersed with a break.Depending on the mood of the girls this can be straight forward or go pear shaped!

School time

Our new steel pan

After school it's cleaning and washing which in 30 degrees of heat makes you loose a few pounds!

washing day

On an almost every day basis there are things for Dave to fix on the boat, he often has his head in the engine compartment!
Once the jobs are done we can cool off in the water. We've purchased a new toy here in Grenada, a donut!!!

Then we have to think about catching our tea, Grenada seems to have plenty of fish, particularly Jackfish. We have caught four different speices of Jack so far, a 'blue runner', 'crevalle jack'  an 'almaco jack' and a 'bar jack' (for those of you that are interested!) We eat fish for most meals, the girls have become very interested in food and eat pretty much anything, including oysters and perrywinkles!

Darcy landed a 5 lb Almaco Jack

Jubilee Caribbean style !!!

Raising the Union jack 

We have had a brilliant week with our friends Olly, Sally, Tilly and Josephine. I met Sally in Stroud maternity hospital when we had Darcy and Tilly and have been on many holidays together since. Having never been on a boat before we were all a bit nervous about our guests getting their sea legs but we needn't have worried as they turned out to be natural sailors. We started off on the south coast of Grenada and sailed around to the west coast before embarking on any major trips. Having talked to other cruisers we decided to sail up to Isle de Ronde which is a tiny island about two miles long with only 20 inhabitants. It sits between the north of Grenada and Carriacou. We can't believe we have always passed this island by. We anchored in four metres of crystal clear turquoise water and were the only boat there. An american boat that we had met in Grenada joined us and we had the whole beach to ourselves for the jubilee celebrations. Olly and Dave, our hunter gatherers caught a beautiful jack fish and then built a fire on the beach. Sally bought out some fantastic royal masks which kept us amused! The six kids swam in the sea until the sun went down, it was a memorable jubilee.

Our jubilee fish!

The queen having a cup of English tea !

Camilla making bread!

The royal beach party

Princesses Tilly, Isla and Darcy!

Fish on the fire

Petite Anse....

On arriving in Grenada we left the boat on a mooring in the south of the island and hired a car to drive up to our friends hotel in the north. Philip and Annie owned and chartered their yacht 'China Town' at the same time as we were living on our boat ten years ago, though I have known Annie since school . Our paths crossed many times in the Caribbean islands. They sold their boat and bought a plot of land in Grenada and have built the most spectcular hotel called 'Petite Anse'. Philip and Annie live a mile down the road from the hotel in an old plantation house which they have restored. We spent three days between the hotel and their house, the girls were in their element with 'Auntie Annie' spoiling them rotten. She has built up a menagerie on animals, the newest recruits being Darius the donkey and Darcy the goat. All of which wonder in and out of the house!!!

Isla riding Darius

At the plantation house with Annie

Isla with Darcy the goat in the lounge!

One way of picking coconuts

Tobago Cays.....

Good to be back online after our friends Sally and Olly bought out the new laptop. Thanks to Antony for sorting it out a replacement so swiftly.
From Bequia we sailed down to Tobago Cays which was unusually quiet in terms of the number of boats. Everyone seems to be heading south as the hurricane season is getting nearer (June - November).
Since last visiting the Cays six years ago a marine area has been created for the green turtles which is a buoyed off area where anchoring is prohibited. We thought we might be lucky to see a turtle up close but were spoilt to be surrounded  by around twenty turtles all within arms reach.

Darcy free diving with turtles

We have collected some amazing shells on our travels, we restrict the girls to only keeping the best ones or the boat would be on the seabed!