Thursday night and we enjoyed the last views out to Calvigny Island as the sun started to set. It’s been fun but we were ready to move on.

Friday and we are up early and got ourselves ready to go to sea… Took stock of the last views of our anchorage and then moved out through the reef. A following sea and some nice wind meant that we had a fantastic sail – making up to 7 knots – under reefed headsail alone, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Turned at the airport runway – watching out for planes – and moved up the west coast of Grenada to the capital St Georges, having to douse the sails in the end as unfortunately we couldn’t hold the new course. We had made online reservations for Port Louis Marina and radioed in for our slip information – to be informed that we would have to go stern to as there were no alongside slips available. Damn…..really not happy with that!  Anyway, we get all the fenders and lines out ready and realise that we have to drop dink – if we go stern to between two boats dink will be trapped and we need him to get around. So we do this whilst underway and partially in the shipping channel – and guess what? – I forget to take off one of the securing lines so managed to get a nice rope burn around my upper arm. Ouch!!!!

As we mooched around waiting for the marina rib to assist us they then told us that someone had just left so we could go alongside after all….. great news, but now we have to change all the fenders / lines. Oh well…   Rest of the day was spent working hard.

We awoke Saturday morning to another mixed weather day…. but at least we have a different view!  We went in dink to Foodland to get a major shopping trip out of the way – finding some weird soup mix, not sure I fancy that!

Having stored all our provisions we headed into the Carenage to top up our local mobile phone and have a wander around. There was a Windjammer cruise ship in town and the tourists were milling around looking bemused by the fact that most of the shops were closed!  We enjoyed our first rainbow of the day while we were out and about.

Then the heavens opened again – so we took dink over to Sails – a restaurant which is located at the end of the Carenage – and which overlooks the commercial harbour and the marina. Service was slowwwwww – but we enjoyed a couple of cold beers while watching the weather moving through and then another spectacular rainbow. This one finished at the container port – so we wondered whether this meant a pot of gold had been imported???

The rain moved away so we headed back, got cleaned up, and went into the marina for happy hour where we were joined by the crew from Dragon’s Toy who we had last met in St Lucia.  Nice to catch up again.   Richard was blown away by the huge sailing megayacht in town and took some photos – and informed everyone that we were thinking of trading up!  Not sure that even a lottery win would be enough – $50 mn to buy, $5 mn to run per year???!!! Oh well who cares, we have our dream boat in Morphie anyway and we don’t need crew.  He wasn’t so impressed by the huge stinkpot next door though!

Back on board and we enjoyed playing with the star gazing app and realised that the very very bright planet we could see tonight was Jupiter. Simply amazing….

Sunday morning and a day of rest – just as well really – as it rained and rained and rained and rained…. Got pretty fed up even though we did some useful jobs down below and ended up having a lazy day followed by an early night.

Monday morning and the shops are open again – so laundry delivered, drinks delivery sorted, gas bottle filled and chandlery visited along with numerous jobs done… Richard spent a lot of time with his head down a hole sorting out a Y valve and cleaning out (smelly!) calcium build up in some hoses…. I topped up the varnish again and cleaned all the salt off Morphie. And another happy hour and early night.

Tuesday and it is New Year’s Eve – Happy New Year to our friends and family!!!  We miss you all and wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014….

For New Year’s Eve we went a bit mad and decided to party in style!!!!  So we purchased all inclusive VIP tickets to the marina party and the amount of preparation that has been going on looks like it could go on and on and on and on…. It doesn’t even start until 10 pm. We were pretty excited…..

Whilst doing boat jobs down below there was a knock on the hull – Sha Sha are in town.  They have come into the marina to have lunch so have sought us out. Fantastic – had a really nice couple of hours with them in the restaurant – and then said our fond farewells as we probably won’t see them now until later in the season…. Rest of the day was spent lazing around waiting for the party.

We arrived at the New Year’s Eve party promptly at 10.00 pm and there were about three of us! There were huge numbers of security, police and marina staff around too…. Had a wander around and looked at the stage and the setting for the party and were glad to see loads of bars and covered areas in the VIP area cos the rain keeps on coming down…. Even the superyachts were lit up for the occasion.

There was an additional elevated VIP area too but we couldn’t gain access as this was for ‘special’ VIPs only – jokingly we said that this must be for the Prime Minister and his entourage and, guess what, it was!!! So funny…..

Anyway between torrential rain showers we were out and about drinking, eating, dancing and enjoying the show – lots of twerking going on as usual, but not by me!   We also spent some time with our dock neighbours who have just sailed across the Atlantic from Denmark – really fun people – and one of the couples got engaged half way across the ocean. How romantic…

The New Year arrived and was heralded by the usual countdown, firework display, champagne quaffing and more dancing…. Followed by more rain – and most of the VIP guests ended up under cover on top of what is usually the swimming pool – the floor was vibrating with the movement and the bass from the stage and we did wonder whether it would hold at one point!  Anyway…the party continued and we had a blast, getting back on board at 5.45 am today… and the event was still going strong!   Pretty tired but great fun.

Gone to recover now…….  And yes, it’s still raining!  Bye

Jan