We picked our way through St. Vincent and the Grenadines with speed and distraction, making only two stops there and taking almost no photographs. Our focus was farther south. We had to sail hard if we wanted to be in Trinidad in time for Carnival.
The first port I barely remember. It was a recommendation in one of our cruising guide. The book said it was an unusually deep anchorage extending right up to the edge of the beach. We arrived after dark, felt our way through the scattered boats in the mooring field, and headed towards shore. Closer and closer we motored, sure we'd run aground any second, until our bow actually over dry land. We dropped an anchor into the sand, back out on it to set it, and then did the same with a stern anchor in the water so that we were suspended safely between the two. Amazed that our maneuver had worked without mishap, we all went directly to sleep. The next morning we weighed anchor and headed out again, never even going ashore.
The second island in the Grenadines we visited was the island of Bequia. Our guide books mentioned a whaling history, natives in canoes on the open ocean. The autobiography of Jimmy Buffet that Mark was reading mentioned a beach bar built out of whale bones. We found the bar. It was long since closed. A hurricane had cleaned the bay out a few years back and many businesses were not yet rebuilt. We spent an afternoon exploring the bones of other beach side resorts and the footprints of former ocean view mansions scoured clean down to the foundations. The next morning we were back at sea.
The only place we spent more than one night on land during this time was on the island nation of Grenada. An American medical school named St. George's University is has its campus on the south end of the island and, as luck would have it, Mark had a high school friend from New Jersey who was studying there. Mark coordinated a visit via email courtesy of a beach bar's wifi on Bequia (No cell phones on this boat) and we made our way to Grenada.
Somewhere along the way, one of the welds on the bow pulpit broke and I had to lash it back together with a length of cord. A temporary fix at best.
Mark had asked his friend where a good place to anchor would be. Not being a sailor, or even owning a boat, the friend had been no help. Left to our own devices, we looked the address up online on Bequia. Then using our chart plotter, selected a small, protected bay between the friend's apartment and the school campus and sailed straight there. The shore of the little bay was ringed with fancy private homes and no public access or docks that we could see. No problem. We loaded our toothbrushes and "shore clothes" into the dinghy, ferried them to one of the less assuming private docks, and unloaded Mark, Nate, and the gear. I brought the dinghy back to Strolla, tied it off and then swam back to join them. We had to scoot through a couple backyards but soon were on a public street and on our way to find Mark's friend.
Mark's friend was hospitable but our visit was poorly timed. His girlfriend was coming to visit the next week and he was trying to get ahead on studying so that he could spend time with her. His roommate, however, had no such time demands and was eager to show us a good time. We toured the campus and visited the local watering holes but, what impressed us most was not the night life. It was their air conditioned apartment, the full sized couch, the television. After months of cruising, we longed for the luxuries of shore life.
Every day we got ice cream at the little shop down the street. We spent hours online, answering emails and planning our returns home. We watched TV in the apartment, lounged on the couch, and generally wore out our welcome.
Mark purchased a ticket home from Trinidad. It was no longer just talk. He had to be at the airport at 7 am on March 8th, the morning of Fat Tuesday itself. Apparently, the price doubled if he stayed just the one extra day. He wouldn't even be able to spend Carnival with us. I felt like the trip was unraveling. Nate, sensing my rising stress at the thought of being abandoned off the coast of South America, said he'd stick with me until I'd squared Stolla.
I had decided a while back that the best course of action was to sell
Strolla and had been reaching out to what contacts I had to facilitate
the transaction. I now redoubled my efforts. Our friend Jenny had helped me list Strolla for sale on several online boat clearing houses. I anxiously got online at every opportunity to respond to inquiries from potential buyer. There hadn't been many and none that were serious. I started considering other options. Could I store it somewhere? Sail back to the states in one straight shot? I started reading about Cartagena, Columbia. Maybe that would be a better market to sell Strolla in?
In an email home on March 1st I wrote:
"I'm not finding any serious interest in Strolla. I've spent the last hour online looking into marinas to store the boat for the Summer with the idea that I could come back down in September and try and sell her again then or at least do a little more sailing. The cost of hauling and storing the boat until September will probably run around $2,000...all but prohibitive for someone not sure they can afford to even return in September. I'm running out of options and time. I can't just leave Strolla anchored somewhere because of the bilge leak which has started up again. She'd just sink at her anchor. I don't know what I'm going to do. I might take everything valuable I can carry with me and just abandon her somewhere.
