Happy weekend

Port Louis Marina, our current "home"

While on anchor we tend to ignore weekends, or better we just don't notice if it's a weekday or a Sunday. There is basically no day off, the life on board is the same everyday. You wake up when the sun is shining in your face and go to bed when night sets in (as mentioned in another blogpost, cruiser's midnight is at 9pm!) - the time in between is filled with boat maintenance, different chores, maybe sailing, fishing or snorkeling and of course cooking, eating and drinking (on your boat, on another boat or on the beach).
This changes significantly when we're staying in a marina. We take part on the landlubbers life again and go to the Gym, buy our food fresh in the market or store when needed, are running erands during opening hours, go to Happy Hour at 5pm, sometimes eat out and go to bed late. Sunday all the shops are closed and the city is quiet - no people, no hustle & bustle, no traffic. That's when we try to relax and enjoy a day off again.
I think both lifes have their pros and cons!

Here some impressions from our stroll through St.George's. Happy weekend everyone!

From paradise with love
Rahel

Best public transport system - ever!

Marco squeezed in the bus

If it comes to public transport we're spoiled. Back home, public transport is fantastic, it goes everywhere, is clean and on time. That's maybe the reason why small Switzerland is world leader with annual miles per person in public transport. So it was just fair to consider the Swiss public transport system as one of the best. WRONG!!! The public bus system in Grenada can top that:

There are minibuses running everywhere. They have a few lines which serve the whole island. Price for a fare/person is 2.5 EC (0.9 USD). But the price is not the point. The bus drivers act more like taxi drivers, they stop almost everywhere and fight for each customer (for a few EC extra they may even make a diversion to load you off closer to your destination). If you leave the marina they already yell at you before you even reach the exit, then they drive towards you to pick you up. You never wait more than 2 minutes for a bus. They are simply amazingly friendly - frankly I have no clue why there still are taxis on this island. 

Yes, the little buses are crowded like hell - I was not aware that you can seat 20 people in them (including the driver and the guy who collects the money, handles the luggage and yells for customers). So they may not be as comfortable as back home, but their better sound system is more than compensating for that. You always get the latest hits, some buses even run a small TV to show music videos. 

 

notice the TV in the front!

I give a damn about all the gimmicks like big seats with arm rests, WiFi and so on in the trains back home. I prefer this little buses which carry us with almost light speed towards new adventures than traveling in full comfort towards the office! Like I said, best public transport ever.

We DON'T like dirty linen!

Be honest, when was it the last time you've hugged your washing machine?? What, never?! Go.Do it.Now!! I can tell you, I miss mine terribly... It would be a luxury to have one on board and I appreciated it endlessly, sigh. Fact is, I had to find another solution.

There are three ways to wash clothes for a cruiser (without a machine on board):
First: you bring it to a laundry lady. Sounds convenient. It should be! But there is usually a drawback. Either the clothes aren't clean despite their vanilla scent that almost makes you faint. Or they are clean but smell just awful. And it's usually the most expensive way.
Secondly: you schlepp the bags of laundry to a do-it-yourself-laundry. If you're lucky the machines are in an OK condition and may even add water to the rinse circle. But I'm still not convinced that the clothes should be clean after 20 min of washing, let alone be dry after 10!? OK, there is still the possibility to schlepp the wet laundry (now double of weight!) back to the boat and hang it up to dry.
Thirdly: wash it all by yourself. Yes, you heard right - the oldfashioned way of doing laundry in a bucket.

I refused to try this for a long time. I mean, I'm a modern time girl and used to push a button to get clean clothes! The hardest work was to fold them. BUT, after half a year of disappointing attempts with No. 1 and 2 I decided to give No. 3 a try. And after some experimenting, I think that's the way to go! I'd already researched in the web and talked to fellow cruisers about their methods. One remedy mentioned most often was "Ammonia", the ordinary houshold cleaner with the pungent odor. Never, ever try to smell on the bottle - it can make you cry. And a real NO GO is to mix it with bleach - a potentially deadly gas can be the result (a chemical weapon commonly used in WWI). Hydrazine can be another unhappy result (one chemical used in rocket fuel - very explosive.) But it's not my intention to die while I'm blowing up my linen!

So this is how I do it:
Put the laundry in a bucket, cover it with water (warm or hot if available but cold water works as fine) and pour in 1 cup of Ammonia.
Mix it with a toilet plunger and let stay for 30min.
Pour in just a little of your normal detergent (Again: make sure it contains NO BLEACH), mix and let stay for another 10 to 15min.
Wring out clothes, empty bucket, put clothes back and cover with fresh water - Rinse. May have to be repeated.
Wring out clothes again and hang them out to dry.
Voilà!

Plus factor:
removes traces of sweat and body fat, nice smell, bright colors, cheap
Negative factor:
doesn't remove stains, I usually pretreat them with bile soap

I'm quite happy with the result! Despite that it's hard work it somehow is an exercise aswell - just try to wring out 3 loads of laundry and you'll know what I'm talking about...

With love from paradise
Rahel

Learning curve

The Hurricane Season break is a great time to ponder on the past months. And there is a funny aspect about sailing we never really talked about: The learning curve of complete new things. Of course you would expect that I learned to sail and steer a boat, know about knots and some of this sailing language stuff. I admit I'm still not a heroine when it comes about handling the sails, but I love to steer and navigate! But there is some other, I guess not very girl-like stuff you have to learn when cruising.

Here is my personal Top Ten:

1) I'm in the meantime a pretty great "Tool Nurse". When Marco is buried in some deep locker to fix something I'm usually handing him the tools. I admit it was a nightmare in the beginning as I could hardly distinguish a side cutter from long nose pliers, but by now I know most of the tools by name and I even have somehow a clue how you may use them...

2) And yes, I would be pretty confident to make an oil & filter change on our engine by know - which I'm probably impressed by most ;-)

3) But it's getting better: I'm even able to understand most of the emails from Chris Parker's Marine Weather Center with all its acronyms: TROF, WAVE, RIDGE, LO, wind-chop, surface-convergence

4) Which leads to the fact that I'm always knowing the weather forecast - even now in the marina. And I do not talk about the usual landlubber stuff like sun, rain and temperature. Ask me and I'll tell you wind patterns (direction and speed for a particular time of the day!) and even the regional outlook for at least a few days. I may know where a storm is building up, yes I normally even know the exact timing for tides, sunrise and so on....it's scary.

5) For some obvious reasons I'm more or less always aware of the cardinal direction. I mean instead of 'turn right' I may say 'go South'... even on land. I'm a bit afraid that I even may use this accidentally in a supermarket or so, guess it sounds real silly if I'd say: the milk is East of the vegetables, right?

6) I really love our navigational toys: I plan a trip with the navigation computer, underlaying it with wind and waves for best direction. Then submit that into the hand held GPS for backup, and to our chartplotter at the helm. For longer trips I may even plot our course on paper. Sounds very complicated, and believe me it was in the beginning. Now it's a daily routine which even is fun!

7) Since I'm working so many times with maps I have a complete new understanding of geography. It's obvious that I learned about the islands we visited which I could not even point out on a map a few months ago. But further on, you get a complete new sense for distances. Looking at a world map is complete different while you plan to travel this beautiful blue planet!

8) After all this discussion what is to lube with which special grease, which chemical cleans that, what glue for this purpose and knowing the difference between hard and ablative antifouling it's just fair to say that I may have earned as well a degree in chemical engineering by now...

9) I don't like AC/DC too much, I mean the band. You probably knew that AC and DC can also stand for alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC)? I'm aware of that fact now too and I directly live with it day and night! When we're not plugged into shore power we try to live with DC only, that means with the power that's provided from the solar panels and the batteries. When we want to charge our laptops (or run the hairdryer or the vacuum cleaner, which we hardly do) we can switch to the inverter - that does the same job as if we'd be plugged into shore power aka AC... Clear now?

10) and yes, I can start and drive a dinghy by now, but I still don't like it at all...

From love with paradise
Rahel

Swiss Apéro

sunset in St.George's anchorage

Switzerland has an estimated population of 7.9mio which is roughly 0.1% of the world's population. Around 1'300 high sea yachts are sailing under a Swiss flag. Of course I don't know how many of those are currently cruising in the Caribbean! But the number has to be tiny aswell. Despite this facts we bumped into Swiss boats on almost every island! They have been mostly from the German speaking part - which was a relief as our French unfortunately is very sparse. Most of the Swiss cruisers we've met were very experienced sailors, many had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and have been on the sea for a couple of years already.

You know, English is not our native language and we're sometimes still struggeling to explain boat related stuff in the right words (time to thank all our English speaking friends for their patience!). So to exchange tips and tricks in our mother-tounge is usually a big relief all the more considering the wide experience of our compatriots. Like for example our newest acquaintance, Vreni and Hansruedi on their s/v Verena, a beautiful Amphora 38. Since we got to know them here in Grenada they have been sharing their wealth of experience about sailing and boat maintenance in general and about the Caribbean, especially Grenada in particular. Besides the fact that they're eager to share their boat related knowledge they are very warm people and great to chat with. Which we were able to do again this late afternoon as they'd invited us for an Apéro on their boat. Apéro is how Swiss call an Apéritif or Cocktails. We had some beers and a bottle of Cidre and our hosts pampered us with delicious snacks (bacon wrapped dates and garlic bread). We chatted about everything and anything while the sun went down.
A special Thank You to Vreni & Hansruedi and at this point to ALL the nice people we've met so far during our trip on sea and land for their hospitality!

I'm wondering: do we connect fast with Swiss cruisers because of the language or because we share a similar way of life? Any thoughts?

Apéro in our host's cockpit

From paradise with love

Rahel

one table, two uses

work table in the salon

As we mention on our blog (Upgrade/Projects - Wood Work) we had this table built for the salon in order to be able to work on a laptop or having dinner for two. We are now not forced to fold down the big table all the time. I learned later, that the original idea came from Hayden on his gorgeous Island Packet 35 (http://islandspirit35.blogspot.com). Guess the carpenter helping "deploy" our table was aware of his design. Anyway, a clever solution.

But one thing was still bothering us. The wooden cockpit table was very small. Even folded out to its full size it could hardly handle any additional guests as it was simply too short. So I thought extensively about any easy way to extend it while avoiding too much hassle and another big piece of wood to store somewhere while not in use. I was hit on the idea while sitting in the cockpit on a rainy day. Why not using the existing table from below when in need of an extension? It's easy to move and doesn't have to be stored away.

existing cockpit table

After a few attempts the modification was very simple. I screwed two wooden brackets below the table so it sits tight in the frame of the existing cockpit table. I may glue some rubber below where the table touches the wood and the helm in order to avoid any scratches and movement (I still didn't find the right material over here). This way the extension can't move in any direction as it lays simply on top of the existing table. I added a wooden bracket which holds an additional leg in front of the table for support. Just in case a guest would lean on it while a full meal is on top :-) I used a self made wooden bracket on purpose - it would be easier just to screw in a metal bracket for the table leg. But this keeps the whole profile underneath the table as low as possible and you avoid hitting the brackets with your knees when in use down below.

mounting of brackets below work table

It worked out amazingly well and we even think the look is OK. The table is much longer, finally enough space for four -  guests with "special food needs" are welcome again! Pulling it out from below and putting it in place in the cockpit takes less than one minute. Additionally it's even more comfortable to eat on it as it is slightly higher. The best, I spent less than 25 USD as I had the stainless leg from my scrap box.

work table on top of cockpit table

We really love this solution, but let me share the minor drawbacks & a few hints as well:

- I would have used nice teak in the beginning if I knew of the double use - but that's what I had already on the boat. 

- Since the table has now a few wooden brackets below, it's roughly 2,5 cm higher. It may not store that easy under the upholstery anymore. For us not an issue as we never did this anyway. Remember, the table is built so you still can fold the original table down while the small one is mounted. 

- Keep the brackets below the table as low as possible. As soon you use the table in its original position in the cabin you have to slide in sideways. Your knees will appreciate small brackets with round corners. It's not a problem on Habibi but keep this in mind before you screw in any big, easy to fit, stainless brackets :-)

-  And finally, the table would be nicer if it was 5 - 10 cm wider for use in the cockpit. Since that would not fit below anymore we needed a complete new table and where to store that damn thing again? Guess it's a great use of existing stuff - on a boat you really like if one thing can serve multiple purposes. 

Hopefully see you soon at our "new" table for some cocktails and nibbles!

New toy on board!

We don't miss to have an iPad even though so many cruisers swear on it and try to convince us!
BUT what really made us think was the discussion about the Amazon Kindle. First we thought it's just one of many e-book readers and never really digged deeper into it. Then we did of course notice the big number of cruisers that own such a device. "Bookworms", we thought. That turned out to be not entirely true. Yes, when you're finished with the daily boat maintenance, repair and cleaning and fed up with snorkeling there might be time for reading ;-) And as the space on a boat is rather limited it makes sense to carry and store just ONE "book" namely an e-book which is even lighter than a paperback but still gives you the possibility of keeping a decent library. But that's just one side of the coin. What made us badly want to have one ourselves was another benefit that comes with it: the Amazon Kindle includes 3G and WiFi connectivity! What is that 3G, you ask? I did aswell! So basically it's using the mobile phone signals to give you a free (Yes, FREE!) internet connection. I learned it's called "experimental" since it uses some unused bandwith on the cell phone signals. Even though it can be incredibly slow and the keyboard is not that handy, it's still a great source to get weather reports and a few emails. What we believe to be the biggest advantage: it's working without a local SIM card. In case it's still not entirely clear, here is the explanation taken from amazon.com:

Kindle Keyboard 3G offers the convenience of no wireless setup--you are ready to shop, download, and read right out of the box. Kindle Keyboard 3G uses the same wireless signals as cell phones, so you don't need to worry about Wi-Fi connections, passwords or internet charges. Unlike cell phones, with Kindle Keyboard 3G there are no monthly fees or commitments — Amazon pays for Kindle Keyboard 3G's wireless connectivity. 


So it will be of great use in a remote anchorage where there is no internet available but cell phone signals (just imagine where you DON'T see people clued to their cell phones?!) Especially important to us is the possibility to download weather forecasts. That will give us more peace of mind. And last but not least: it will be great for reading books, newspapers or magazines!

A big *Thank You* goes to Miriam & Rick Longay from s/v Me Gusta who kindly offered their help and delivered our Kindle!

With love from paradise
Rahel