Sea Cycle Log #14
December 3, 2007

We left Trinidad bound for Grenada at 4:30 in the afternoon sailing out of the Bocas through the usual rage found there at the mouth, caused by the flood of water pouring out of the gulf of Paria from the Orinoco River basin and confronting the Caribbean Sea at the narrow Boca entry. Not much further out you sail across what appear to be rivers in the sea, wide bands of currents that disturb and break the wind wave pattern.
Flying out or in of Trinidad the view from the air is incredible with the island looking like a rock in a stream engulfed in eddies. Also doing the crossing was Watermark, fellow cruisers from Toronto. After half an hour we lost radio contact and didn’t see them until the next morning in Prickly Bay. Checking the radio out we were getting a low battery signal on the hand mike when transmitting but, with a full battery bank and engine running we suspected a short in the radio system. We shut all the systems down in the dark and altered course to sail only while I went down with a flashlight and tried to clean up any of the suspicious looking connections but to no avail. As usual the wind was just off the nose not allowing us to roll out the jib so we double reefed the main and motor sailed arriving just off Prickly Bay at first light and entering the harbour, had the hook down by 6:00am. Not quite fourteen hours, which was good time for us. Again we had managed to keep east of the Hibiscus oil rig located halfway on the rhumb line which gave us a leg up with the western setting current and a great angle to Prickly. When Watermark arrived we both checked in and then motored over to Clarkes Court where we found Encantada, Watermark’s long time buddy boat moored off the docks. All of us were part of the original rookies Coral Cove group during our first hurricane season.
Clarkes Court is a great little marina, built on a floating dock system , by a Canadian, Bob, from Whitby and run by Chris and Barb a couple of cruisers from Texas who make everybody welcome. Wi Fi and very cold beer are a big attraction. We intended to spend three days and then start moving on. We ended up staying a month.
Since the destruction of hurricane Ivan the island is experiencing regrowth like a forest after a fire. Construction is booming but seems to be unregulated with a lot of what looks like outright carpet bagging by North American standards.
Hotel and condo development is taking place on the shorelines with seemingly little local input except from the ruling party’s office which is shrouded in secrecy and lacking transparency according to residents. Clarkes Court where we anchored is largely unaffected except for its close proximity to Calvingy and Hog Island where developments for the well heeled are being constructed. Lots of construction work is being generated. Most likely both of these projects will sustain large scale damage from wind and surf in the event of a major hurricane especially a direct hit or south tracking low, which everybody seems to downplay. Same with the boat storage during hurricane season, where the last couple of trouble free years have seemed to have relaxed everybody’s guard and the haul out yards are filling up again with only a few boats being strapped down but almost none of the boats having their masts pulled which could be a recipe for disaster. Tightly packed with less than a foot of separation between hulls, this could result in one boat falling and bringing all of them down like a deck of cards.
In St. Georges, the capital, the Lagoon the main anchorage, after years of neglect and use as a depository for old boats is being developed into a major marina and upscale condo development.
The problem here seems to be that the Government gave the entire anchorage over to the developer on a 99 year lease, of which, no one knows the details. If pulled off this will be one of the nicest marina complexes in the Caribbean, but it will push out all of the existing cruisers who use the anchorage. Even at half of the Lagoon the complex would have been big and still left room for the cruisers who anchor. This coupled with the seemingly lack of Government partnership has created a running war of words in the press between the developer and the cruisers who believe that their existing financial contributions have contributed long term to the economy and the owner a
Mr. De Savay who while stroking his ever present lap dog calls the cruisers free loading polluters. Hopefully coexistence will prevail. Mr. De Savay has also bought up several other tracts of land on the island for development of upscale condos. The first cracks in the development have appeared with De Savay selling the marina portion to the old British firm of Camper & Nicholson who after years of trying to negotiate a deal themselves for the lagoon have entered through the back door creating more distrust amongst those opposing the deal. The whole deal is remininicent of Marigot Bay in St. Lucia where one company has gained control of the anchorage creating a mega yacht and charter centre with little or no room for the average cruiser.
We had a great Christmas potluck dinner for runaway parents with about thirty other cruisers at Clarks Court Marina and then left on our own to St. Georges where we anchored outside celebrating New Years with a great meal with our friends from M’ Lady Kathleen. St. Georges is one of the first places we visited when we used to charter eight years ago with our Humber Sailing Club buddies. It was here we had our first big adventure by getting robbed in the Lagoon. At the time Patrick’s, a home based restaurant on the edge of the lagoon was open and well known for his seven course meals. There were seven of us in our group, Liz and Chris, Dan and Wendy, Eileen, Deb and myself. As well Karen and Cheryl aka “The Girls” were there at the Grenada Yacht Club on their boat Interlude. Well after seven courses, well wetted with the local spiced up rum, nobody was feeling any pain. Going easy on the drink at the time because of my diabetes I floated our group back to our boat (a 51’ Bendy charter) after saying goodnight to the girls. My antenna was up because it was midnight and there was a row boat gliding around the anchorage with two fellas in it. According to the sailing guides St. Georges was a nasty place for boat breakins so I informed everybody that I was putting the companion way boards in even though there was no system to lock them. Everybody in their sated state, chorused that I was a nervous Nellie, but in the boards went and everyone off to sleep. The beauty of the charter boats of that particular size, 51 feet, is that everyone gets their own cabin and head which goes a long way towards keeping a happy boat. It was on this night that I realized one of my cherished illusions being that I was a light sleeper was nothing but a fiction. Sometime around 5:00am the usual Caribbean cacophony of dogs and roosters was augmented by a troop of soldiers doing their morning jog as a company around the lagoon chanting in unison “I am a real good fella” “I have a girl whose name is Stella” with a couple of hphms between verses. Cocking one eye open I noticed our cabin door slightly ajar thinking I was sure I had shut it properly. Deb was up first and once she up on the deck she yelled down to me to come up we had been rifled. Jumping out of bed half awake but readying myself for battle stations I went to pick up my pants and wola, no pants! Dressing and going to the cockpit I found Deb with our clothes neatly laid out on the cockpit benches by an uninvited visitor. By this time Eileen had joined the commotion as the others all staggered up awake. My first concern was for my passport which had been in my pants along with my wallet. Thankfully passport was there and my wallet but empty of money, but to my surprise credit cards intact. Deb asked Eileen if her money and cards were gone as Eileen sorted through her wallet. Now for those who do not know Eileen a dry wit wouldn’t begin the description, in fact there are times I think she would have given Dorothy Parker a run for her money. Anyways the response was a yes, they got it, as her fingers sorted through her purse which was ended with an indignant “well you’d think at least they would put things back where they found them” as she showed us her credit cards. Our two cabins were the only ones robbed. Wendy and Dan’s cabin had a sticking door which required a little lift as you turned the handle which seemed to be enough to throw off the intruder. Chris and Liz on the other hand, feeling no pain or oblivious had just heaved their luggage on the floor in their haste to bed effectively blocking their door which opened in. A quick inventory showed about 400 dollars, sun glasses, sailing knives and most cruelly, 50 CDs gone. The CDs especially rankled as this was in the days before burning, so they were originals and it had been the first night I had thoughtlessly left them laying in the main salon. Brazen definitely fitted our boy as in order to get some of the goods, the prowler had reached right over us, in our case to snag Deb’s cigarettes and had grabbed Eileen’s’ bag which was right by her pillow as she slept. If he had let his fingers do the walking a little further passed the cigarettes he would have scored another five hundred US for his efforts. After a quick suspicious look around the harbour we realized there was nothing to do but report it and move on. Getting into the dinghy I motored the two hundred feet to the Foodland grocery dock nearby which had a phone and called the Police. A sympathic officer took our particulars over the phone and then said he would dispatch someone. Now this being the Caribbean where soon means tomorrow I told him there was no need as our desire to move on outweighed any real slim chance of the culprit being caught. The officer then told us that without a report we couldn’t make an insurance claim. I informed him that we weren’t interested in the insurance but rather in giving him a new statistic but having said that, if there were any new musical trends on the island in the near future then I would want to be acknowledged as the Godfather because frankly I couldn’t see any Soca Reggae loving islander falling for my mix of Dylan, Waits and Gershwin sprinkled with Albert King. Feeling satisfied that mission was accomplished I proceeded back to my dinghy to motor back to the boat. I had no success getting the dinghy motor started and as I was bemoaning my lack of luck I looked down and noticed the crafty bugger had unhooked my fuel line, so that even if awaking during his heist and giving chase at some point I would have received a waving grin on his part as he swam off. Well back at the boat everything was taken in stride and after breakfast we lifted the hook and sailed around to Prickly Bay where our charter base was to get our windlass looked after, since hauling a hundred feet or more of chain attached to a seventy pound anchor wasn’t exactly part of the vacation package. Especially for Dan and Chris who had
to do it since I was suffering from a torn rotator cuff at the time. We arrived at the Prickly Bay Marina which had to be the prettiest yard in the southern Caribbean till destroyed by hurricane Ivan and later by developers. Manager Alan Hooper asked how the trip was going and was told of the previous evening’s robbery. Showing surprise he told us he hadn’t heard of one for quite a while but I figured that was just company denial. Med moored to the dock on the other side of the pier was an older gentleman who was messing about on the stern of a very expensive Oyster type yacht upper 6 to 7 figures. The conversation went something like this, “oye lad how has your trip been?” “Well we were robbed last night, other than that great.” “Robbed was ya, where?” “St. Georges, in the lagoon” “O, aye that be slippery Sid yeah, comes swimming on board as nude as the day he was born and greased from head to toe. What happens is the lady folk wakes up, sees his magnificent eight and screams. You go to grab him and he slips off like greased lightning. No time to let your guard drop just because you’re in the tropical sun under the swaying palms. Imagine, I had a mate was robbed in the morning and shot in the afternoon in Jamaica, no, sleeps in my cockpit does I.” Now as I gazed on this beautiful yacht I kept thinking to myself, sure sleeps in the cockpit. Eileen without missing a beat looked straight at the old timer and said “You mean to tell me I had a nude black man in my room and let him get away” which brought the usual howls. A couple of days later after doing the checkout the evening before we slipped the lines and pulled out of the marina. As we left I looked back and sure enough there was the old timer sleeping in his cockpit.
Now you’re asking what does something that happened seven years earlier have to do with this cruise, well we managed to bring a measure of closure to this event. First when waiting out hurricane season in Trinidad I was sitting around one day chatting with a fellow cruiser Russell discussing music and he commented on how he had started to collect a large amount of local music from each island and when I was asking where he was buying it he told me about a great shop tucked up behind the market square
in St.Georges in Grenada where the guy sold everything. When I asked him what he meant by everything he told me reggae to classical. Well immediately all the lights went on. From the Bahamas down everything is burned, nobody has the originals and copyright means nothing to anybody south of Key West. If my CDs had no value to any thief who had stolen them maybe, just maybe they had ended up at one of the burners sold for a pittance as they would be worth nothing to anyone else. After a couple of weeks finding ourselves with some spare time we figured we would have a look when by the market square. We found the shop on a back street second story walk-up, well stocked and run by Chris, a Rasta with one eye. Well sorry to say after some quizzical questions and raised eyebrows I figured out that none of Sids haul ended up or certainly wasn’t here so I came clean with Chris on what had happened and what I was looking for and while he sympathised he couldn’t give any help. But this turned into a great two hour stop with a short history in reggae and soca music given and of course with me walking out a hundred EC dollars lighter but richer in island tunes. A few days later when walking along the lagoon shore I happened to meet a vendor named David who used to work at Tasty, a roadside chicken shack on the lagoon that does great business at lunch time. When he asked me where I was anchored I told him outside and not in the lagoon where I had been robbed once. Showing concern he asked me when. I told him several years back and he asked when specifically. Well the first thing out of his mouth was ”Chic-let” he then called the girl across from Tastys and told her I had been robbed and when, she then said the same thing and they proceed to tell me the story. Chic-let and his brother were a bad bunch of harbour rats that for years would take their clothes off and then swim out the boats and stealthily rob them. They were so good even the police could not or would not catch them. The father was a preacher who purportly was up on charges of a sexual nature with a minor but had the case right up to the Privy council which is the old British islands form of the supreme court but run from England. Chic-let’s body was found a couple of years ago in the nude shot by an unknown boater with a flare gun. They then showed me the rock where he used to leave his clothes while out at work. I later confirmed the story with two separate bus drivers who said the brothers had garnered a lot of attention for their deeds. For us it was an interest ring aside to an old story unfortunately with a tragic ending where the end result far outweighed the crime.
We decided to start moving north up the island chain and headed up to Carriacou, raising the anchor we lifted the main and ran with the usual headwinds right on the nose past the top of the island and then through the sloppy seas funnelling between the two islands. Tyrell Bay was pretty full on arrival but we managed to drop the hook near our usual spot back by the barges in what we call little Venezuela and settled in to what has almost become a home port.
To be continued....