We posted an update a few days ago celebrating passing the one year cruising mark, but a few things happened before and after the anniversary.
Jackie’s Back
The first big news is that Jackie is back in Grenada. She left for the States almost three months ago to have minor surgery on her shoulder. The surgery went well, but the rehab took a while. Finally it got close to time for me to return to the States for my annual doctor visits, so I flew back.
Reefer Madness
Stuff breaks on cruising boats to the point that cruising is sometimes referred to as repairing your boat in exotic locations. We have spared you the gory details of most of the repairs so far and there have been plenty. The most recent was the loss of refrigerant in our refrigerator (known to cruisers as the reefer). Before I flew back to the states, ours began to run longer and longer and finally got to the point where it never shut off. I borrowed a sniffer from another cruiser and found a leak where a filter was installed in the line.
This would not be a big deal except that our unit uses R-12 refrigerant, which is nearly impossible to get. Luckily the friend with the sniffer had a can of R-12 to spare. I don’t have the tools needed to repair the line and replace the coolant, so I called in a repair man. It was nice to have cold food and beer again.
Compass Reef
Before I could go back to the states I had to move Compass Rose into the local marina. That required me to clean all the growth off the anchor chain so it wouldn’t rot in the anchor locker. That took almost two hours of scraping, prying, and chipping. There is still a lot of growth on the bottom of the boat.
Rock Tour
My trip to the States was to be quick. I would arrive in Detroit on Saturday night and return to Grenada the following Saturday. During that time Jackie and I would attend a wedding in Detroit, visit my family near Cleveland, visit friends in Eastport, MD, and visit more friends and go to doctor’s appointments in Virginia. Four states in one week – sounds like a rock tour.
Somehow everything got done and we went from this…
Washington, DC
…….to this……
Mt. Hartman Bay, Grenada
More Reefer Madness
We got back to the boat oly to find that the reefer had sprung a new leak. It didn’t take much discussion for us to decide to replace the reefer with a new unit. It was expensive, but we really need reliable refrigeration.
Changes in Attitude
It didn’t take to long for Jackie to fall back into the cruising lifestyle. I’m sure it helped that we went to a little beach bar.
The Aquarium beach bar and restaurant.
We played in the ocean.
Trudie and Jackie playin in the water
Or just hung out.
Eric, Dave, and Jim discuss something animated
One Year
As mentioned in our previous post, on Oct. 28 we passed our one year anniversary of the beginning of the cruise. It has been an extraordinary experience. There have been challenges, but for the most part it has been easy and relaxing.
Then along came Tomas.
Tomas? No Mas
Tomas started as a low in the Atlantic east and al little south of Grenada. Typically the lows and tropical storms form near the latitude of Grenada, but track WNW passing well north of here. Tomas was different. He formed at a more southerly latitude. The computer models looked like someone fired a shotgun at Grenada with some tracks going north and some south of the island.
Tomas becomes a tropical storm
As you can imagine Tomas’s approach and the uncertainty of his track caused quite a stir. We decided to move Compass Rose back into the marina mostly to protect her from other boats tat might come loose and run into her. Quite a few boats moved into the marina and we spent the day preparing for the storm.
Partway through storm preparation
We fnished preparing for the storm. All we could do was wait and check weather forecasts. Tomas continud to develop, but his course began to look lik it migt go north of us, thus sparing us the worst part of the storm.
Tomas continues to grow
Luck was with us. Tomas went well north of us. We never saw more than about 25 knots of wind and very little rain. All in all it was an interesting exercise. We now have a lot of ideas about how to prep for a major storm. Let’s hope we never have to do it again.
The Adventures of Little Rosie 
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