The last ARC night in Port Louis Marina, Manuela and Louis from Allegro gave all the slow boats a Turtle Club award. So it was us, them, Luna Quest and Wayward Wind. Funnily though it was the only time we won our multi hull division because Makena didn’t start as they were waiting for crew to arrive!! There are only the two catamarans in the fleet and there is no handicap system in the world that is going to allow us to compete with a 62’ boat - so we always come second!
Mon 21 March: We are now around in St Davids Bay at Grenada Marina with the boat out of the water. A timely stop as there were issues with the rudders and props that needed more urgent attention than we had expected. The blue nylon line incident out of Recife had left lots of metled bleu nylon still around the prop (see pic) ! The other prop had fishing line still in it from back in the Indian Ocean. Got away with no real damage, luckily. The rudder squark that we have been intermittently putting up with turned out to be appallingly badly installed bearings done in Brisbane!
We are staying at a lovely small hotel in a nearby bay with a private beach and beach bar and restaurant called La Sagesse. It is run by an expat USA couple who arrange for us to travel to and from the marina each day and will take us shopping before we leave. The marina has a little beach bar and restaurant too, all with good wifi. It’s very civilised, but no too much so. Louis, Manuela and Rui from Allegro are here too. We are planning our sailing to reach St Lucia via a few island stops.. As we could not accommodate Galen over the haul out period and we we’re sure of out sailing plans, he has joined Wayward Wind for the final ARC trip to St Lucia. He hopes to sail to Panama on Aretha after that before returning to South Africa.
24th March. Back in the water today, going well. Much quicker than we expected. Will sail tomorrow for Curriacao Island.