Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
It was an all hands wakeup at 5:30 this morning!
We were aloft loosing the topsails and courses and then onto the windlass by 6:00am.
We heaved up the anchor, sailed off the hook and are sailing towards Grenada under all squar sails but the
main sail. Our watch had the deck for the first watch. I had helm for an hour and it was really tricky
steering as we are going directly downwind.
They expect us to be arriving in Grenada around 2:00pm. Then, IF all goes according to plan, we will load
the lumber and head out to Bequia on an overnight sail arriving sometime tomorrow morning.
This is going to be a very long day.
More later…
It’s later and it has indeed been a very long day.
The bad side of the day was losing my glasses overboard when I was up on the yard working to furl and
gasket up the sails as we came into St Georges. The footrope from the upper topsail yard swept them off
my head as I was trying to duck under another line. I even had a safety strap on them. Oddly enough I
didn’t notice they were gone until I got back on deck. It’s a good thing I have a spare set even if they
aren’t trifocals :-)
Once we were anchored at St Georges I went ashore with a gang to get the the lumber ready to be towed
out to the ship. This was two very large slabs of wood each one 20′ long 18″ wide and 1′ thick weighing
nearly two tons each!
It was probably a lot like loading an 18 pounder onto frigate, except we only had to move two not 24 :-)
Once we had them at the ship it took nearly two hours and a lot of work with tackles, blocks and the
capstan. Once safely laying on the deck we had to drag one back into the breezeway where it will be lashed down. The other one is currently lying just forward of it and I think we will get to move it in the
morning.
We are staying here at St Georges over night and will sail for Bequia tomorrow after we get everything
shipshape again.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Here are some pictures of Tyrrel Bay and the massive chunks of wood alongside.
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