CaribbeanCruisingGrenadaOffshoreTrinidad & Tobago

Time to wrap up my stay in Trinidad by sailing to Grenada

By February 17, 2019 No Comments
Sail to Grenada 1

I had an absolutely fantastic time in Trinidad & Tobago and I did not get to see everything I want to see in Trinidad, but I will have to come back to see the rest. I hope you have enjoyed read everything I did and saw in this wonderful country, but it is time to set sail.

My original plan was to sail straight to Puerto Rico from Trinidad in order to haul the boat out for the latest hurricane season. I had my buddy Steve from England, who has been aboard for two months exploring the Windward Islands with me. When we got to Trinidad Greg and Susan, with their 14-year-old daughter, joined us to explore the island and get some cruising experience. Of course, you know what they say about plans and Hurricane Beryl changed ours. This particular hurricane was only a Cat 1 and dissipated right before it hit the Caribbean, but went right through the middle of the Caribbean right when we were going to be there. This would have made the passage uncomfortable, so we opted to just sail the 85 miles north to Grenada and reassess.

This was Greg, Susan, and Bridget’s first experience offshore and we had 20 knots with gust to 25, 6-10 foot waves, and a moonless night. We trucked along pretty well and all three of them were surprised how rough conditions can get offshore and they said it was “eye-opening”. I did a really good podcast with them the next day and you can hear their description here.

Sail to Grenada 3During the passage the autopilot keep going off when Greg and I were on watch. It was quite annoying since it was tracking fine and then all of a sudden it would bleep off. I had a good idea what the issue was, so I told Greg to hand steer as I went down and made a simple adjustment to the wire, so it was connected properly again. Bing bang boom, problem solved.

After that Greg and I were tracking a white light in the distance that we thought was a freighter eight miles away. All of a sudden, our eyes adjusted and we realized it was actually a 40 foot sailboat a couple hundred yards off. Even with my experience it is amazing how your eyes can play tricks with you at night when you have no reference points to go off of.

Sail to Grenada 2The last issue we had was not discovered until we were in calmer water off Grenada and dawn was upon us. Turns out the cotter pin holding the forestay together had sheared off (by that I mean both ends were cut off and the middle part was still in the pin it went through). This allowed the bracket to start wiggling free and the force of the jib caused the once u shaped bracket to go to a 90 degree angle. Can you imagine the force it take to bend quarter inch stainless steel? Luck for us I was able to find a rigger at the dock and it was fixed by that afternoon. Thank goodness we did not go to Puerto Rico and chose the short jump to Grenada instead. God was definitely watching out for us then!!!!!

Cooking on the Guiding Light 1This brings us up to the off season where I spent my time writing my cookbook (full of stories and recipes and found at Amazon & Barnes & Noble) and took a 2-3 week road trip to New York City, southern California, and Arizona, which I hope you come back to read all about.

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