Grenada

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.

We are leaving for an overnight to Trinidad this evening.  I'll continue efforts there.  There's a big boater community there, especially over the holiday weekend.  But, I don't know what I'll do.  Probably start sailing home.  At least then if I can't sell it, I'm among friends and family and can save myself the cost of a plane ticket.

 

Becca is gone already.  Mark has bought his ticket home for the 8th.  Nate says he'll stay on till things are settled but he wants to get home as much as I do and is pretty much broke already."

Energy Ebbs

After Becca caught her flight home, we no longer had any pressing schedule to keep.  For a time, life aboard Strolla returned to the laid back rhythm of the wind and the waves.  We settled into a new crew dynamic of three instead of four.  We quickly grew accustomed to the extra elbow room from one less body aboard.  Mark and I magnanimously allowed Nate to remain in the two person forward cabin alone.  He and Becca had slept there every night since first arriving in Ft. Lauderdale in November.  It was their den, their nest, and their musk permeated every inch of it.  We were content sleeping most nights on deck instead of our hot and cramped quarter berths anyway.  But, Becca's departure from the crew marked a turning point in the trip.  The transition that had steadily been taking shape in our minds had now become literal.  It was the beginning of the end.   

 

(Pirate necklace)

 

We continued our voyage south somewhat less energetically than before.  Our zest for exploration had been ebbing in pace with our bank account balances and all were almost spent.  We no longer felt the urgent rush to see beyond the next horizon or the eager anticipation of reaching the next port.  Ports were expensive.  Working in and out of mooring fields, setting and hauling up anchor by hand, was hard work.  

After so many months beating our way east, the wind was finally doing the work for us.  Best to keep it that way.  We started making longer hops between islands.  We had time to think.  We thought mostly about what would come next, after our time riding the ocean swells was over.  Future plans stopped being about what course to chart, which islands to call at, or where to reprovision.  We each planned our own escapes from the trip.  

Like Becca, Nate and Mark were returning to summer seasonal jobs at Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.  The season there didn't start until mid-May, leaving a little more than two months to mooch off parents, catch up with friends, and generally reconnect with the land-locked lives they'd left behind. 

I had other ideas.  The girlfriend I'd made in Jackson Hole and visited from Puerto Rico was in still living in Breckenridge, Colorado.  I would briefly return home to my parents in New Hampshire, collect my car from my brother who had been "taking care of it", and drive out to join her.  First though, I had to figure out what to do with Strolla.  As captain and sole owner, this responsibility fell to me alone and I now began to feel it keenly.  Leaving Strolla at Laila's house in Ft. Lauderdale was not an option this time around as it had been the previous winter.  I figured I could either sell her or store her but either way, it would have to happen soon. Mark and Nate had both voiced their determination to leave in the coming weeks and I was not interested in continuing on alone.  Stress began to build.

During this time of waning enthusiasm and concern for the future, there was one event looming on the horizon that kept our bow pointed south and the barnacles from our hull.  Carnival.  It was at the end of February and the countdown to Marti Gras had already begun.  We had talked about it in hushed and reverent tones for some weeks now, the idea of being somewhere big for Fat Tuesday but, the choices were few, far between, and difficult to plan for.  As we pressed on, one city presented itself as more and more within our reach, Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad.