Since leaving France, our lives have been hectic. We flew back to the UK for Christmas (after a brief stop in Lyon to celebrate Cate’s birthday), enjoyed Christmas with my Dad where we cooked a huge Turkey Wellington, followed by Boxing Day with the extended family to devour the leftovers. Cate visited her Mum a couple of times and David, her brother also joined us after Christmas. We just had time to catch up with some of Cate’s friends before flying to Barbados for the New Year.
New Year’s Eve was spent in Barbados, staying in the south of the island at St. Lawrence Gap, and going for a lovely Italian meal. But there was no time to rest as the next day we caught a flight on to Grenada. Phew!
The real work was yet to come! The day after arriving in Grenada we drove down to the boatyard to see how Merryn had fared over the Caribbean summer. It was a distressing sight… our boat was filthy with dust from some sandblasting work, and mould both inside and out. As we inspected more closely, more problems emerged: the motor for the electric toilet had failed, a seacock had become completely blocked (with sand from the sandblasting), the solar panels had suffered considerable UV damage, the cooker had gone rusty, some of the mousing lines had degraded so we couldn’t set the halyards, the engine start battery had failed, and the list of jobs went on and on.
So… we got to work. Cleaning, scrubbing, repairing, and working from morning until dusk. It was obvious that our planned launch, which was scheduled for the morning the yard opened after their Christmas/New Year break, was not feasible. Thankfully we were able to extend our stay in a nearby apartment, and we had a hire car which was needed every day to ferry stuff from the chandlery to the boat and enable us to get provisions from the supermarket. Once the yard opened, the staff there proved very helpful getting jobs done that were beyond our expertise: fitting a new toilet, unblocking the seacock, finishing the antifouling, fitting anodes, and climbing the mast to fix the halyards enabled us to get the sails up.
By some miracle we managed to get Merryn ship-shape by the morning of the 7th, and at 11am we relaunched. From the launch dock it was just a short motor to Prickly Bay where we have picked up a mooring and intend to relax and do as little as possible for a few days! The weather is gorgeous: much calmer than when we were here last year, so we have been swimming in the bay around the boat and enjoying the beauty of the place. After a few days, and when we have recovered our strength we will start the voyage north…
