Robert displays the "eighth" of rum I have given him and the mangrove oysters he has for sale	Teresa's chicken roti	Entrance to the Cow Foot restaurant

Back to Union Island

Back in July, 2011, we had gone to Union Island in order to purchase diesel fuel from Tanya.  (700 gals. at $2.62/gal.) Now we had room for fuel again.  When we called Tanya, ph 784-529-5044, it turned out that she had moved to Hillsborough and had upgraded to a much larger vessel from which to pump the fuel.  She buys her fuel from Venezuela sources; they may be breaking their laws but she has a Grenada license to resell the fuel.  Since moving to Carriacou she has begun limiting her business to high-volume customers; she told us the lower limit is about 500 gallons.  The only "rub" for those who can accommodate that much is that the fuel is sold duty-free, which means it must be sold to vessels that are in transit.  For cruisers such as us, that requires that one be checked out of Grenada/Carriacou.  So we had to check out at Hillsborough and list the destination as Clifton, St. Vincent, the nearest "foreign" port of entry.  On June 18, after taking on 472 gallons at $3.02 per gallon, we motored back to our least-favorite port:  Clifton, St. Vincent.  After taking care of the check-in formalities we moved over to Chatham Bay, where protected waters were much more favorable for me to work on our anchor winch, which had begun to intermittently fail.  I replaced the solenoids, and was dismayed to discover that the winch was still not working reliably.  Went to bed hoping for the best, and awoke in the morning to discover the worst.  No function of the winch.  Time to get to a location where we had better communication; we had neither wi-fi nor phone in Chatham Bay.  But first we had to retrieve 150 feet of anchor chain.  We have a tool for retrieving by hand; it advances the chain by about 3 links per throw.  By the time we got the anchor up, we not only had water blisters on our hands, we also were too late to make it to any of the marinas on the southeastern side of Grenada.  So we stopped at Port Louis Marina in St. George's, Grenada, where we remain as this is written.

While waiting for Barb to check in at Clifton ...	... I stayed aboard and photographed these surfers	Barb takes a turn at retrieving the anchor in Chatham Bay

Grenada -- Port Louis Marina

The slips with American-style power were all occupied when we arrived, so we had to tie up to a slip that only features European-style power:  220 single-phase volts at 50 cycles per second.  So we are paying for a slip at which we must still run our generator daily; we are getting water but no power from shore.  After an informative phone call to a Maxwell winch representative, I set about getting to the winch motor.  The winch housing was stuck fast to the deck.  As I laboriously loosened the housing, I was met by more bad news:  oil dripping down from under the casing.  Obviously, there was a leaking seal someplace.  When I finally got the casing loose and turned on its side, I got additional bad news:  in setting the casing on its side I had apparently over-stressed one of the bolts that serve as electrical terminal posts on the motor.  It broke off in its hole.

As this is written the motor has been repaired by Mike of Palm Tree Marine at Le Phare Bleu.  We took it down to him on June 20 when we caught a special bus to Le Phare Bleu in order to attend a dinghy concert.  (See below.) Meanwhile, we await arrival of a seal kit and a bearing kit from Defender.  The Expedited International FedEx charges exceed the cost of the parts, but we are anxious to get away from the slip and back to anchoring.

Loosening the caulk that sealed the casing to the deck	Oops! Oil on the other side of that caulk!	Mounting bolts and electrical connections are hard to reach -- even with the casing turned on its side	The site of the broken terminal post	View from Port Louis tower.

Dinghy Concert, Clarkes Court Bay

The friendly staff here at the marina came around on the morning of June 20 to ask if we were interested in attending the Dinghy Concert down in Clarkes Court Bay.  We talked Marilyn and Martin (Rocking Horse) into joining us, and they recruited a Swedish couple, Hjalmar and Britt-Marie (Flying Penguin).  We and many others piled into a bus and were taken to Le Phare Bleu, where a large crowd had gathered to be ferried out to the concert site.  The concert was the eighth in a series and was the largest so far.  It was covered by videographers that have subsequently placed their coverage on www.youtube.com with the title of "8th Dinghy Concert".  Performing on the rear deck of a tugboat, the entertainers were Richard Strachan, Jenny Jeremiah, Peter Evans, and KungFu.  Some of the audience were on a huge barge attached to the tugboat; others were on a large sailboat on the other side of the tug; others were on vessels anchored nearby, and a huge number were on dinghies that were tied together behind the tug and along and behind the barge.  Beer was available for sale on the barge; and Island Water World was also passing out "one per person" coupons for Carib beer.

When we arrived there were very few seats remaining on the barge, but nearby dinghies contained friends from the recent pig roast so we crawled out to join them.  Great fun.

Afterward many of those that came via Le Phare Bleu partook of their family-style dinner before repairing to Port Louis by bus.

Chuck, Hjalmar, Britt-Marie, Martin and Marilyn on the Le Phare Bleu dock awaiting the ferry to the concert	Scene as we arrived at the concert site	Jenny	KungFu and Jenny in a duet
Panorama of the audience barge	Some of the dinghies attending	Videographer shooting from mast of adjacent sailboat	Marilyn and Martin on the barge	Lilly (Tiger Lilly)
Terry (Nino) cuts a rug on her dinghy	Cheryl (Just Imagine) is moved by the music	Mark, David, Willie in foreground with Rob and Ellen in the back	Mark, David, Barb and Willie; Rob and Ellen 2nd tier; Morgan in the rear
Ken and Lynn (Silverheels) on the near dinghy

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