37.77498° N, 122.51064° W

To get home from St. Martin, we had to fly through Miami International Airport, which is not very well organized. I was the only crewmember with a checked bag, and if you are arriving in Miami on a flight from outside the U.S. with checked luggage, you have go through the following:

• an immigration/passport checkpoint,
• find your checked bag at one of the baggage carousels
• take said bag to a customs checkpoint
• declare any items that might have duties levied against them (I had none)
• state that you aren’t transporting any agricultural products (I wasn’t)
• re-check the luggage with the airline
• go through a TSA security checkpoint to get back into the terminal of your connecting flight

The security checkpoint we were being funneled towards was total chaos, and I overheard wait times of 35 minutes or more. I was in a hurry to get back into the terminal to meet up with the rest of the crew before their flight to Seattle departed.

I have a TSA Pre membership, which meant that I should have been able to go through a security checkpoint very quickly, but only if I knew which checkpoints allowed TSA Pre screening. The signage in the airport was terrible, and I finally had to aggressively go after someone wearing a badge to find out which checkpoint offered TSA Pre. I was at Checkpoint #3; TSA Pre was at Checkpoint #1, almost a quarter-mile from my current location.

I shouldered my backpack and ran to Checkpoint #1. As I slowed up to get in line, a gentleman behind me told me that the zippers on my backpack pockets were open. I thanked him, checked that the open pocket contained my passport, wallet and cellphone, zipped up the pocket, then scurried through security. My flight to SFO was departing from gate 46, and the rest of the crew were already at gate 50 for their flight to SEA. I had come out near gate 25 after I cleared security, so once again, I shouldered my backpack and ran the length of the terminal to find my crewmates.

We only had 10 or 15 minutes to say our goodbyes before they lined up to get on the plane. I had had no food since a morning croissant on St. Martin, so I bought a Vitamin Water and a salami sandwich, sat down in one of the waiting areas to consume it, then went to gate 46, got in line and boarded the plane.

I tried to do some blog writing on the plane, but there was a fair bit of turbulence, and once again, my body wasn’t too happy that I was staring at a screen, so I closed up the laptop and slept fitfully nearly all the way to SFO.

Still dressed for the Caribbean, I got off the plane in SFO, picked up my bag from the luggage carousel, made my way to the wind-chilled upper-level of a parking garage to catch a Lyft ride back home. It happened to be a Tesla with a driver who was courteous, but said nothing once I was settled in the back seat and we were on our way. As I stared out the window at the expanses of barren concrete illumined by the cold light LEDs, I felt the pang of missing the sun and the heat and the lush overgrowth of Grenada.

The Lyft driver dropped me off on the curb in front of my building about 1 a.m. As I turned from taking my bags out of the trunk of the car, I could see that a homeless unhoused person was outside the front door in the throes of some sort of drug-induced episode. Eager to sleep in my own bed, I got near the front door, set down my bags and opened the pocket of my backpack to retrieve the house keys I had seen while packing the previous morning in St. Martin.

Except the keys weren’t there. My mind leapt back to the open pocket of my backpack as I ran through MIA and realized that I had missed checking for them along with the other important items. I called and texted everyone who was at home. They of course were all asleep with their phones silenced, and for about two seconds I felt a surge of frustration that they weren’t reachable. But I asked myself if it wasn’t better that my family was sound asleep with their phones off, as it should be? Of course it was, so I had to figure something out to get me through till morning. Now I was suddenly one of the unhoused, in front of my own house no less.

The shorts and t-shirt I was wearing clearly weren’t going to be enough, so I opened my suitcase, took out the one long-sleeve shirt, one pair of pants and one pair of socks that I had and put those on. Then I hailed another Lyft ride to take me and my luggage to Seal Rock Inn less than a mile up the hill from the house.

I asked the driver to wait while I checked to see if there was anyone at the front desk of the hotel. There wasn’t, and as I returned to the car, I saw the driver take my suitcase out of the car, leave it on the sidewalk, then get back in the car and drive off. He either didn’t understand my request, or didn’t want to.

I called two other nearby hotels to see if I could find a room. Neither of them answered the phone. I was getting a firsthand taste of San Francisco’s inhospitableness. The anger mounted along with the chill. I didn’t know what to do next. I considered trying to find a spot to lay down in the park across the street from the hotel, but even though I was familiar with it, nothing came to mind. I turned and slowly walked back down the hill up which I had just been driven, my suitcase rolling along behind me. The cold was becoming too much, so I stopped at a bench, placed my suitcase on it, pulled out my foul weather jacket and the cap that Dan had knitted for me and put those on to keep warm. Feeling a little better, I zipped up the suitcase and continued my stroll down the hill towards the beach.

As I got near the bottom of the hill, I noticed that there was a campfire still burning on the beach, and it appeared to have no one near it, and I knew then I had what I needed to make it until morning. I quickly walked back to the house, removed my critical items from the backpack, then stashed both the backpack and the suitcase in an outdoor utility closet. Free of the baggage and finally warming up under the high collar of my foul weather jacket, I walked quickly back to the fire on the beach. It was a huge piece of charred driftwood. A hole had burned in the bottom edge of the wood where it lay in the sand, and with the gentle (but cold) breeze coming in off the ocean, it acted like a tiny bellows that kept the huge piece of wood burning. It felt like a miracle.

I knelt down to warm my hands near the coals and thought back to the last time I had worn the foul weather jacket. It had been off the coast of South Africa, and I recalled that I had been cold, tired and hungry then too, plus a little seasick, but I hadn’t minded it then…what was the difference?

Expectations. I had expected to be cold, tired, hungry and sick when I was on the boat in the middle of the southern ocean, but I wasn’t expecting those same challenges standing in front of my own house. And because it was unexpected and uncomfortable, some sense that I was being treated unfairly triggered an angry response in me. Once I let go of the expectations, the anger disappeared with them.

I sat in the sand in my warm jacket and my warm cap, staring out at the moon reflecting on the Pacific ocean and the lights of a fishing fleet on the horizon, just like I’d done for 30 nights crossing the Atlantic. Another member of the unhoused community approached out of the darkness and asked if he could join me at the fire. I of course said yes. He plunked down his belongings and settled in nearby, and for a long time we sat in silence, staring into the small fire. Then he got up, left his things near the fire, and went up to the sidewalk running along the beach to rummage through the garbage cans. After 10 or 15 minutes he returned with a bag full what appeared to be Presto® bricks. I can’t vouch for their environmental friendliness, but adding them to the existing fire made it brighter and warmer. I asked him what his name was, and he replied “Therrin.”

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I took it out, I saw a text message from my daughter saying she was awake and could let me in. I bid Therrin a good night, and as I walked up the beach and back to the house, I realized that my daughter had texted me back at exactly 3 a.m., the very hour that marked the end of The Harpooner…I wasn’t on a boat, but I had just stood my final watch of the journey, and now it was time to sleep in my own bed.

I was in Grenada for 30 days, and I posted a few blurbs while I was there, but nothing that really described my impressions of being on the island. I am back in San Francisco now and the tyranny of the urgent is setting in, so I will only be able to do one post to sum up my Grenadian experience. I’m limiting it to words that start with ‘B’, forcing the egregious omission of Kirani James, Soca (“soca does give meh meh powers!”), GH3, fruit, and most egregious of all, rum.

The Buses

Riding the buses was actually one of the most delightful experiences I had while I was in Grenada. It was the complete antithesis of the cold, impersonal independence and personal space that Americans are used to.

Picture a boxy vehicle about the size of a minivan, many of them with nice paint jobs and gleaming chrome rims. Now picture everything behind the driver’s seat stripped out and replaced by four relatively spartan bench seats. Except for the one in the back, all of benches have a single folding seat at the end nearest the van’s sliding door; this allows passengers to move to benches near the back of the bus.

Now imagine 20 people in a vehicle that only has seating for 7 in the U.S., then consider that none of these buses have – brace yourself – air conditioning. Mercifully, there are three windows on each side of the bus that actually do a pretty good job of funneling a breeze around the passengers, at least while the bus is in motion…

All bus routes start at the bus station in St. George’s, and the various bus routes almost never cross each other, which means one has to go all the way to St. George’s to change to another bus line. This is due more to the topography of the island than anything else; there are simply very few roads that intersect on the island, at least outside of the parish of St. George.

It’s usually hot, and most passengers have a job or school to be at, so the buses careen along the narrow roads at a terrifying clip. The driver taps the horn as he rounds curves and corners to let potential riders know that a bus is approaching. While there are official bus stops, simply raising one’s hand whenever one hears a bus horn is enough to make the driver stop the bus and the conductor throw open the sliding door.

Getting on the bus is a relatively straight forward affair. When the sliding door opens, one simply plunks down in an available seat, unless told otherwise by the conductor. I usually headed to the back of the bus, which was sometimes awkward, but I figured that since I was a tourist with no strict schedule, I’d get out of the way of folks who had some place to be. When possible, seats near the door and in the front next to the driver are reserved for plus-sized passengers.

The actual bus ride is a surprisingly intimate experience. If the bus is full (which is almost always), there are 20 people sitting shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. The locals seemed a little more acclimated to the heat than me and therefore less prone to sweating, but there was plenty of moist skin contact regardless. On one bus ride, a young woman in a beautiful white dress – apparently on her way to some kind of social event – sat down next to me. I did my best to maintain a quarter-inch gap between us to avoid perspiring on her lovely dress.

Getting off the bus is where things get interesting. If the exiting passengers are near the door, then the process is simple. But if the exiting passengers happen to be sitting opposite the sliding door and/or near the back of the bus, then all the passengers between them and the door have to get up and step off the bus to allow them to exit. Once that is complete, everyone piles back in, the conductor slams the door shut, and driver roars off down the road. The locals are pretty adept at the process, and it doesn’t actually take as long as one might think.

Fares are XC$2.50, XC$3.00 on Sunday (approximately $0.80 and $1.00 US, respectively). Exact change is preferred, but if passengers don’t have it, then bills are passed amongst passengers to the conductor, who makes change, which is then passed amongst passengers back to the payor.

Many Grenadians aspire to having a car. In spite of cars being very expensive, the island already has too many of them. Traffic in and out of St. George’s slows to a crawl every morning and evening, and there is very little room or resources to expand the infrastructure to alleviate it. Marketing campaigns will no doubt make people feel ashamed that they have to suffer the indignity of riding the bus, but I hope the Grenadians recognize the insidious miseries that come with being dependent on autombile infrastructure before they abandon the intimate discomfort of their modest but effective transit system.

The Bars

Say what you will about alcohol, but the fact is it’s strongly correlated with socializing. After a busy day of getting work done on the boat, the evenings could be hot, boring and lonely, so I often ventured out (perhaps too often) to places I thought I’d have a decent chance of striking up a conversation. Here are some establishments I imbibed at, ranked in ascending order of memorable experience(s):

The West Indies Beer Company

While Coda was docked in Port Louis, another Outremer 51 named Black River docked right next door. Her owner, Doug, was very outgoing and helpful, and when the topic of what to do in Grenada came up, he said “Ah! You have to go ‘The Brewery’!”

It took a bit of Googling to figure out that ‘The Brewery’ was The West Indies Beer Company. I wasn’t too familiar with Grenada’s bus system at this point, and couldn’t figure out exactly how close the brewery was to a bus route, so I opted instead to take a Haylup rideshare from Port Louis.

The place was nearly empty when I arrived (it was after dark, but apparently still too early). There were a staggering number of taps, and it took me a few minutes to read through all the beer options on the blackboard behind the bar. I ordered a pale ale, a type of beer that I was missing from back home that had been unavailable at any locations in the voyage.

I inquired about food and was directed to a window opposite the bar. Feeling a little tired and awkward, I opted for the safe and simple choice of a burger and fries. I ordered another beer – this one more unique to the establishment – and waited for my food to arrive.

It was exclusively tourists and a few expats that trickled in as I ate my burger and sipped my beer. Since they were coming in as couples or groups, I didn’t see much opportunity for starting a conversation, so I wandered around the place a bit to have a look, then called up another Haylup ride to take me back to Port Louis. It might have been more enjoyable had I been with a group of friends, but as it was, the tourist/expat/college student vibe didn’t really work for me.

Nimrod’s Rum Shack

Wes had heard that Nimrod’s had live music on Thursday nights and suggested that as the night to try it out. By the time a Thursday rolled around, I had learned enough about the bus system to know that the #2 route would get me there, so I rode the #1 line into St. George’s and transferred to the #2. I let the conductor know that he would have to tell me where to get off the bus. There were a few snickers when some of the riders had to remind the conductor that he was supposed to have remembered where it was that I was going, so I ended up getting off the bus about 200 yards farther down the road than I should have.

Nimrod’s most certainly had rum, and it was most definitely a shack. It was built on a very uneven lot, and there were two places to order a drink: across a short, crowded bar just inside the front door that opened onto the road, or by climbing up a ladder to a small window at the end of the shack that sat on stilts where the ground sloped down away from the road.

I ordered a beer (at the bar, not the window), then went outside to see more of the place. Down the hill from the bar there was another ramshackle building that housed a kitchen; it was built around the trunk of a giant tree. Attached to the kitchen was a covered deck of sorts where some musicians were indeed setting up. There were picnic tables of varying sizes and quality between the deck and the street, so I sat there nursing my beer, wondering if I should have brought bug spray.

Nimrod’s is located at the narrow end of Woburn Bay, about 150 yards across the water from Clarke’s Court Boatyard and Marina (where Coda was hauled out of the water). It’s just up the hill from a dock where dinghies can be tied up, so it is an ideal location for the numerous people living on boats anchored out in the bay (for free!). The yachties started to roll in as the sun was setting, and the place was buzzing by the time it was dark (there isn’t much twilight in the tropics; it’s dark about 30 minutes after the sun goes down).

People got their drinks and ordered food from the kitchen and the picnic tables filled up. A brother and sister from the Vancouver, BC area and their Kiwi friend sat down at the table I was at, and we swapped stories from our recent sailing trips. The music finally got underway in essentially an open-mic format; the quality of the music got a little better with each new performer. A gentleman named Tom, who seemed very well known to the audience, was the best and final performer.

While there were noticeably more locals at Nimrod’s than the brewery, the whole place had the vibe of a clubhouse for retired senior expats who happened to live on boats. Other than the Canadians I spoke with, I didn’t get the impression that there were many people present who had recently done any offshore sailing, and it made me realize that having (or living on) a boat is not the same as sailing a boat, and that I preferred to be around the sailors rather than the liveaboards.

By the time the music was done, the buses were no longer running, so I was left with the more expensive option of a Haylup back to Port Louis.

The Cruisers Galley

I didn’t exactly realize what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to stay on the boat while it was taken to Clarke’s Court Boatyard and hauled out of the water. The boatyard is a long ways from anything, so walking anywhere wasn’t really an option. Nimrod’s was across the water, but that would mean using Coda‘s dinghy to get to and from, and I wasn’t really comfortable with that (after the engine conking out in St. Helena, I didn’t completely trust it). There was also the issue of having no air conditioning while the boat was out of the water (the A/C heat exchanger relied on salt water being pumped over the coils to remove the heat).

The Cruisers Galley was a restaurant and bar located within the boatyard, situated between where the boat hoist hauled vessels out of the water and the docks of the marina. Captain Andre and I had breakfast there when we first arrived with Coda and waited for her to be pulled from the water.

It became clear on my first afternoon in the boatyard that the heat was going to be an issue. Sitting in the sun all day with very little air circulation meant that the interior of the boat turned into an oven. The sweat poured off of me even while sitting still reading a book. I really was leary of finding a place for a cold beer that might turn into a habit, but sitting in a puddle of my own sweat every afternoon didn’t seem like the best way to help the resale value of the boat, so off to the Galley I went.

Due to where it was located, the Galley had a fantastic breeze blowing in from Woburn Bay. Not only did that keep things cool, it also kept the mosquitos away (another problem I had staying on the boat). There were other yachties having work done on their boats, security guards, boatyard workers and even some locals that frequented the place. One evening, the owner of the boatyard and the owners of several of the vendors (some of which had lost almost everything in the recent fire) gathered at the bar.

The kitchen served breakfast, lunch and dinner. For the most part, I was only there in the evenings, but occasionally I would order a coffee in the morning. On Monday mornings, local vendors would use the restaurant tables to put out fresh bread, fruit, yoghurt, canned goods and other food items for sale to the folks staying on their boats in the yard or out in the bay. There was a free pool table in one corner, so Wednesday evenings were lively for a couple hours while a group of yachties shot pool and drank beer. A very talented husband-and-wife duo performed live music at least one night while I was there.

The staff was obsessed with music, so they were forever selecting music to play on the big-screen TV. Reggae, Dancehall, and (my favorite, in case you hadn’t guessed) Soca were all played each afternoon and evening. It seemed like they knew the words to every song, and I would pepper them with questions about the various artists and the locations of the live performances. They poured a very generous rum punch, and since the place closed at 9, I had no choice but to be in bed fairly early every night (by which time the boat had cooled off enough for me to sleep).

It was the type of place that wasn’t particularly remarkable if only visited once, but its charm revealed itself over the 10 days I was at Clarke’s Court, and it was a blessing and a relief to be able to have some place to go while I was stuck in the boatyard.

Dappa’s (De Everything Place)

This bar was an absolute dive. It was also the site of one of my favorite experiences in Grenada.

I first entered Dappa’s with my daughter, sister and brother-in-law as we wandered through St. George’s on a hot, sleepy Sunday afternoon. There were no cruise ships in port and almost everything was closed, but Dappa’s had a sandwich board out front with a menu, so we decided to pop in. Unfortunately, they had run out of food, so we bought some Pink Tings and struck up a conversation with the proprietor. He mentioned that he’d spent 30 years in Boston, but had returned to Grenada after having had enough of living in the U.S. He gave us directions to a nearby (very Grenadian) restaurant that was open, so we finished our Tings and filed out to get ourselves lunch.

After the family had returned home and I was still getting my bearings on the island, I decided to return to Dappa’s in hopes of talking with the owner again to see if he had any recommendations about what I should (or shouldn’t) do while I was on the island. He was there when I walked in the door, so I ordered a beer and introduced myself. As we chatted, he would occasionally converse with four guys playing pool on a well-worn pool table. They seemed Caribbean, but something told me they weren’t Grenadian.

I watched them play for a bit, nodding in approval when one of the players who was quite a bit better than the others made a good shot. At the end of one game, they asked if I would like to play, so I set down my beer and picked up a short, battered cue.

It took a bit to get some conversation going, but when I learned that they were crew members on a container ship that was currently unloading in St. George’s and they learned that I had arrived in Grenada after crossing the Atlantic, the floodgates opened. We played game after game of pool, accompanied by round after round of beer. Three of them were from Guyana, and the pool shark was from Honduras. The boat they worked on hauled cargo between Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and (I think) Dominica. We made some good shots (cheers) and some bad shots (laughter), talked about home, and what we did on the boat. The Honduran and I did our best to help the Guyanans improve their game, but it seemed to have little effect.

By then it was closing time for businesses in the area. More and more locals came into the bar, and the reggae music from a seven-foot sound tower near the front door got louder and louder. Some of them looked to be rough and tumble characters that worked on the waterfront, and a couple of them were pool sharks. They put down coins to get in line for the pool table and had no trouble taking control of the table against the Guyanans. I ended up playing a few games against them. I shot pretty well, but I scratched on the 8-ball in a couple games. Being the only white guy in the place, it didn’t hurt to show some skill but still lose.

The place started to empty out around 7 o’clock, when the buses stop running. I hung around to play a few more games of pool, then ended up having a candid conversation with the owner. He was a man of imposing stature, and I had observed through the evening that he kept a tight rein on what was happening in his establishment; anything other than unwinding and having fun was met with a glare and a few stern words (usually out of earshot of the other patrons). Had it not been so, I might have quickly found myself out of my depth.

The Boat

For my first 10 days in Grenada, while friends and family were still on the island, I was essentially a tourist. It’s OK to relax by the pool and go sight-seeing, but the interaction with the locals tends to be at arm’s length in that context. Taking care of the boat gave me an opportunity to interact with Grenadians in a way that wouldn’t have been available otherwise, and so Coda was really a catalyst for some much more personal interactions that made me really appreciate the island.

Everyone that I interacted with was proud of Grenada, and was keenly aware that their reputation as a safe place full of friendly people that did good work was critical to the health of their economy. To get a sense of individuals, and because I don’t want to forget these people, I thought I would record their names here, and how they helped me:

• Thaddeus - he did varnish work on Coda (and several other boats in Port Louis). A former Rastafarian converted to Seventh-day Adventist, he was a farmer when he wasn’t doing varnish work on boats. I gave a donation towards his efforts of obtaining kidney dialysis for people on the island too poor to afford it.
• Patrick - he lived on a boat while building another boat, his 25th boat-building project. He was a boat guy. Coda had some knicks and dings in her gel coat, as well as flecks of paint that were apparently overspray while she was out of the water in Cape Town. Patrick visited the boat many times to address those issues. He could be a little prickly, but he did good work to get Coda looking her best again.
• Lucy - an assistant to Patrick who was only on the boat for one afternoon, but she left an impression. She had worked for many years as a housekeeper for a very wealthy family in New York, and sent her wages back to Grenada to put her son through college, who was now a successful accountant. She had the whitest teeth I think I’ve ever seen, which gave her a radiant smile. She stopped working for several minutes to tell me about her life and to warn me that chasing money was no good, that happiness came from hard work, living simply, and growing one’s own food. She was very convincing.
• Terry - when asked for recommendations for someone to look at technical issues on the boat, Terry’s name came up over and over. He was impossible to get ahold of, and yet, one afternoon he and his crew just showed up at Coda in Port Louis. They caught me a little flat-footed, but together we tore the boat apart looking at fresh water and electrical issues. If you’ve ever wondered what it might look like if a tall, skinny white guy and a group of hardcore rap artists were crawling around on a boat, well, that was the scene, but they absolultely knew their stuff. The only time I ever walked in and out of Clarke’s Court boatyard, Terry happened to be driving by and stopped to give me a ride back to the boat.
• Martin, Glocky (sp?) and Donson - While the boat was out of the water, these three guys polished all of the gel coat and stainless steel on the boat. I had beers with Glocky and Donson on the day they finished up, and it turned out that Donson was a striker for the Grenadian National Men’s Football Team. I ran into Martin one afternoon in St. George’s, and he helped me find a place to get a haircut. On the day we set sail for St. Martin, he arrived at the boat with a papaya, two dozen bananas, some delicious sapodilla, and a dozen of the best tasting white grapefruits I think I’ve ever had, all from his backyard.
• Father Ambrose - a Russian Orthodox hieromonk (a monk who is also a priest) living alone on the island. The last Sunday I was in Grenada, he and I celebrated the Divine Liturgy together (just the two of us). Afterwards, he offered me lunch, which included my first and only cup of sea moss. After lunch, we walked together around his neighborhood. Being the only Orthodox priest on the island, many people seemed to know who he was.
• Lorenzo - he was a bartender at Cruisers Galley, a drummer and a passionate farmer. He had one acre of land where he raised fruit, vegetables, pigs, sheep and goats. He had hopes of buying another acre of land, but he said things were getting expensive. He was also an encyclopedia of Caribbean music and cheerfully answered my many questions. We played a couple games of pool together.
• Rachel, Lydia and Biggie - also on the staff at Cruisers Galley. I didn’t get to know them as well, but they were always friendly whenever I was there.

On March 13th, Brianna returned to Grenada, along with Jon and Nate, two other crew members from Bellingham, Washington. I arranged a ride for them from the airport to Clarke’s Court Marina and asked their driver to play the best, fastest soca music he could on the way. He gleefully obliged. (I later learned that in addition to the blaring music, he also drove like a maniac during the 15 minute drive to the boat)

We had less than 24 hours to prepare Coda to sail to St. Martin. A boat orientation was conducted. Systems checks were performed. Rigging for the flying sails was re-run. Safety equipment was taken out of storage and checked for readiness.

We had to hoist and furl the genoa (which had been taken down prior to Coda being taken out of the water, per the boatyard requirements). That turned into a nervy affair because it was very windy when we did it. The boatyard crew came over to help us reduce the boat’s exposure to the wind, warning us that there was a chance that the cleats on the wooden dock might rip out due to so much force with the sail in the air. It would have been catastrophic if the cleat for the bow line had torn out, but we managed to get the sail furled before anything terrible happened.

I took a taxi to the grocery store and raced through the isles, filling my cart with provisions for the journey. While I was gone, the daggerboard that had been removed from the boat for repairs was reinstalled. I returned with the groceries and stowed them away. Then we cast off from the dock and motored to Secret Harbor Marina a few miles away to refuel the boat.

At a little past 4 p.m., with her fridge, fuel and water tanks full, Coda and her crew left the island of Grenada for good. We had hopes of flying the newly repaired Code D headsail, but as afternoon turned into evening, it became clear that the wind was not going to cooperate. It was too strong and too far forward of the beam to use any of the flying sails, so we were forced to use the genoa and the mainsail, each with two reefs.

For the next 36 hours, the wind and the swell were both coming in forward of the beam, which made the boat’s motion notably uncomfortable. I somehow managed to fight off feeling queasy, but the rest of the crew struggled mightily with being seasick. I suspect having had such a long flight from Seattle to Grenada and almost no time to adjust put them at a significant disadvantage. The conditions made sleeping almost impossible in the cabins below deck; most of the crew ended up sleeping (or trying to) in the cockpit or on a bench in the main salon when not on watch.

On top of all that discomfort, the ocean finally managed to find a soft spot in Coda‘s otherwise iron underbelly. The alarm for water in the port bilge went off several times, and it took us at least three tries to remove the water from the port bilge using sponges and buckets before we were finally able to determine that the seal around the port escape hatch (used in the event that the boat capsizes) was allowing water in at an alarming rate.

On the morning of March 16th, conditions finally abated enough that sailing the boat actually became enjoyable again. After passing between the islands of Sint Eustasius and St. Christopher, we were able to turn downwind enough to fly the newly repaired Code 0 headsail, comfortably reaching speeds of a little over 13 knots as we approached the island of St. Martin:

We doused the sails about 3 miles from Fort Louis Marina (everything in the Caribbean seems to have George, James or Louis in the name) and motored in. For 30 minutes we attempted to hail the marina on the VHF radio to get instructions for docking, but received no response. Not knowing what else to do, we crept into the marina and found an accessible spot to tie up until we could figure out where we belonged.

While Brianna went to the marina office with our passports to see what was what, one of the marina employees grumpily told us we couldn’t stay in the spot we’d found. He seemed to revert to a more jovial mood when we explained we’d attempted to make radio contact without success (since he was the guy with the radio). Brianna returned a few minutes later with Coda‘s location in the marina. We were guided into our spot between a large power boat and another catamaran, tying up stern-to with the dock. It took a few minutes to get stern and bow lines (tied to a mooring buoy) adjusted correctly, and then we paused for a moment to relish the fact that we’d made it.

Since we were flying out the following afternoon, we had to make the most of our time to get the boat “picture ready” before leaving. We washed down the deck and the rigging to remove the salt, stowed the rigging for the headsails, put on sail and deck hardware covers, tidied up the cockpit, scrubbed down the galley, gathered up sheets and towels to be taken to the laundromat, wiped down the floors to remove salt from the water we’d spilled emptying the bilges, tossed leftover food and half-used bottles of sauce, put away tools and parts, then fluffed up the accent pillows to make Coda as pretty as she could be.

That evening we enjoyed a very nice meal at a French restaurant called Tropicana. Our table allowed us to watch the chef send out each carefully prepared dish through a little paned window, ringing a service bell each time he did so. A French gentleman played cover songs on his guitar, and we enjoyed a shot of the house rum at the end of the meal.

The following day involved pastries, final touches to the boat, hauling garbage ashore, packing, wandering the nearby waterfront, meeting with the new skipper Dave (who would be watching the boat while it remained in St. Martin), trying and failing to find an open laundromat, arranging a taxi, whisking off to the airport and boarding a plane for Miami. Our jam-packed adventure in the Caribbean was officially at an end.

1˚00.144 S, 42˚21.282 W

As Wes noted in his “Bloody Mess” post on predictwind.com, it took us 26 days and 4500 miles before we caught our first game fish, which was a 175-pound swordfish.

That yielded close to 50 pounds of meat:

With so much fish, I had to get a little creative with different ways to prepare it. I’d never cooked swordfish before, so I started with just simple pan-fried steaks in olive oil, sprinkled with salt, black pepper and some lemon juice. I overcooked them slightly, but it was a good way to get through a lot of fish.

We had two cans of lychee fruit on board, and at some point earlier in the trip while we were still dreaming of catching a fish, I had done an internet search for a lychee salsa. That lead me down an internet rabbit hole, where I found a recipe for lychee ceviche. I had to modify it based on the ingredients we had on board, and ended up with this:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound marlin, cut into bite-sized cubes
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 2-3 limes)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
• 2-3 spicy sweet pickled red peppers, sliced into thin strips
• 8-10 fresh or canned lychee*, peeled, pitted, and cut into wedges (about 1/2 cup total)
• 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup packed fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon simple syrup or reserved lychee syrup
• flake sea salt, for garnish

Directions:

1. Season fish with sea salt, then combine with lemon and lime juice in a bowl. Add peppers and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until fish is just opaque on the outside.
2. Add lychee, red onion, chopped cilantro, ginger, and simple syrup and toss to combine.
3. Divide among serving bowls, spooning more juice over top as desired. Sprinkle with flake salt and garnish with more cilantro, as desired.

I was quite pleased with the results. The acid in the lemon and lime juice actually “cooks” the fish, so if you’re someone who doesn’t like the thought of raw fish, perhaps give ceviche a try.

A day or two later, we caught a nice hefty yellow fin tuna, which yielded another batch of delectable meat. Wes made crusted tuna steaks with one of the fillets:

Continuing with the raw fish theme, I made a spicy tuna tartare that also turned out pretty well:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons Sriracha
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 3/4 pound piece of really fresh tuna from a reliable source (we considered Auden to be a reliable source, especially since we watched him reel in the fish)
• 1/4 cup finely diced red onion
• 1 not-too-large clove of garlic, minced

Directions:

1. Mix first three ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
2. Dice up the tuna as finely as you can without shredding it.
3. Place tuna into a medium-sized bowl, add the onion and garlic, and then add some of the Sriracha mayo (maybe 2 tablespoons) and start to gently mix. Add more of the Sriracha mayo, bit by bit, until you get a taste and consistency you like. Save the leftover Sriracha mayo for another dish!
4. Serve with good quality taco chips or fried wonton skins for scooping. You can also put the mixture into a cone of seaweed.

By the time we reached Grenada, we still had uneaten fish, so we gave it to Tom, one of the first drivers we had on the island.

Some photos and a video that offer more glimpses into our time on Fernanado de Noronha.

It’s always reassuring to hear “yeah, these brakes are a little suspect” as one careens down a bumpy, cobbled town square full of other vehicles and pedestrians:

The relatively small island of Fernanado de Noronha has three beaches that were each rated “Best Beach in the World” at various times. We made it to five or six different beaches, and that was really only a fraction of what the island had to offer.

Wes and Brianna both had their diving certification, so they went on a scuba excursion, while Dan, Auden and I took the buggy to the south shore of the island. The beach we intended to go snorkeling at was closed due to a tiger shark being sighted in the water. So we headed back to the north shore and found ourselves on a beach near Two Brothers Rock.

Perhaps the most interesting of the beaches we saw was one that had indeed been rated #1, and was only accessible by climbing down a ladder and then a staircase through a crevasse in the cliff overlooking the beach. Auden and I had been designated “pack mules.” With a few contortions, I was able to make it through the crevasse with a backpack, but the bag of snorkeling gear was too big to carry down, so an employee of the national park helped us lower it via a rope. The folks in front of me were having a bit of a tough time; I think at one point a woman in their party was having a minor panic attack in the close confines of the crevasse. But we finally made it down with our towels, reef-safe sunblock, water, snacks and snorkeling gear.

The beach actually had a posted schedule of when people were allowed to descend, and when they were allowed to ascend. It worked pretty well, and there were plenty of people on the beach. We took turns snorkeling; I managed to spot an octopus amongst the other tropical fish that populated the rocks at the east end of the beach.

The west end of the beach had almost no one on it, so Dan, Auden and I walked down to that end to try out the snorkeling. Dan and Auden had fins, so were able to go farther and faster than I could. I swam out along the rocks, climbed out after a bit for a rest, then started to make my way back. I got more than I bargained for when a couple unexpected big swells pounded me into the rocks and tore my mask and snorkel off. Fortunately, I was able to float on my back, gather my wits, and make it the last few yards toward shore where it was shallow enough to stand. When we finally left the beach, the bumps and bruises made going back up the stairs and ladder a little painful. It was our last beach stop, which was fine by me, because I was all beached out by that point.

I am old enough to remember a time when traveling carried with it the obligation of sending postcards to friends and family back home. For those that don’t know, a postcard is a piece of cardstock, usually 4x6” or perhaps 5x7” in size, almost always with an image on one side, and on the other, a place to write a blurb, a mailing address, and spot to stick a postage stamp (do I have to explain what a postage stamp is?). It was the pre-21st century equivalent of “pics or it didn’t happen.”

Assembling the necessary materials to send a postcard from Fernando de Noronha was deliciously, hilariously difficult. Almost no one sold postcards. The only ones I found were in the national park’s gift shops. And of course, the national park gift shops didn’t sell stamps, so that was yet another quest. As in South Africa, the only place to buy stamps was at the post office (never take for granted that grocery stores and other locations in the U.S. sell stamps).

There was only one very poorly marked post office on the island. It was on a very steep cobbled street, and the nice lady who greeted me at the counter knew exactly what this gangly white guy was there for. She assumed I was European, so I had to explain that I wanted to mail postcards to the U.S. (sorry European reader(s)!). They had no stamps denominated in the correct amount for sending postcards to the U.S., so I had to buy stamps in two different denominations, twice as many of one as the other, for a total of three stamps per postcard to cover the postage (I’m still not 100% sure I understood her correctly).

It had taken me two days to gather the cards and stamps, and I had only one more chance to get anything in the mail before we departed the island. Back on the boat, I hastily composed some blurbs, scrawled some addresses, and affixed stamps in triplicate, then stuffed them in a plastic bag so that the spray from taking the dinghy ashore wouldn’t make the ink bleed.

When I walked into the post office on February 8, 2024, I had to wait a bit to find someone to give the postcards to. A gentleman finally helped me, and after a split second of confusion, he inspected my postcards and confirmed that they were ready to be sent.

As of five weeks and counting, I still have no comfirmation that the postcards ever made it out of that mailroom. Sure, I could have used a half a dozen different digital services to accomplish the same thing, but where would the fun be in that?

Scrolling through the pictures that I took from the last leg of our journey, it became evident that at some point during our stop in Fernando de Noronha, I reached my saturation point for amazing new stuff.

The visit to the island began on a very thrilling high point just moments after we dropped anchor in Port San Antonio harbor. As we tidied up on deck, the boat was surrounded by dozens of spinner dolphins – perhaps more than a hundred. I won’t do them the disservice of posting my poor quality attempts to capture their rather impressive displays of athleticism, so I’ll post a link to a more professional rendition:

Based on what I observed, I don’t really agree with any of the reasons proposed in that video for “why” spinner dolphins do what they do. In my opinion, their leaps into the air are purely for the purpose of showing off.

At first, we only saw dozens of fins moving through the water. But as I stood on the stern, one of the pod members about 10 yards from the boat shot out of the water in a perfect triple-revolution spiraling arc that would make NFL quaterbacks jealous. There was no belly-flop at the end; it re-entered the water with all the precision and grace of an olympic diver. Then another, farther out, leapt 8 feet straight up out of the water and back down with nary a splash.

There were many other people out on the water in much smaller craft. Various pods of dolphins would swim close and then proceed to put on a show for the visitors. People would drop their paddles and reach for their cameras, but by then it was too late. Perhaps the most charming act were the juveniles doing their best to impress the tourists, with leaps of half a turn, or swimming on their backs while slapping the water with their tails.

We had gone for a swim shortly after the anchor was secure, but with dolphins visiting, there was an urgent flurry to get back in the water. If we dove down, we could hear them communicating. When I first heard it, I thought it was a tiny, high-pitched air leak in my mask, but from the number and variations in pitches, I realized what it was. Wes pulled himself down the anchor rode and was surrounded by so many dolphins that he wondered if it might have been a mistake.

It was at this point that we were scolded by a passing sight-seeing boat. I didn’t really understand what we were being scolded for, and assumed that it was because there were people in the water with no diving flag visible to mark their location. But then Dan figured out that we were being told that we shouldn’t be swimming with the dolphins. This was later confirmed by the customs and immigration officials, who stated more than once that we should not swim with the dolphins. If dolphins came around and we were in the water, we should get out of the water.

The dream of “swimming with dolphins” is of course almost a cliché. So why the big fuss? In the case of the spinner dolphins, their apparent extreme level of sociablilty probably does in fact mean that they don’t need to get any more comfortable with humans than they already are. God knows it would be used against them if someone decided that they were some sort of delicacy. It was impossible not to respect the Brazilians’ intense love of their island paradise. We never got in the water again while the dolphins were around, even though they showed up every morning for a few hours and did their routine for the tourists (but only in the morning…they left for parts unknown around 11 a.m.)

12.01049° N, 61.74044° W

A local captain named Andre and I left the dock at Port Louis at 6 a.m. this morning. We chatted as we crossed the flat water of St. George Harbor, but it got considerably less comfortable when we rounded Point Salines and motored into the chop caused by wind and current coming in from the Atlantic.

We made our way past several snug little harbors, then turned left between some reefs into Woburn Bay. The water smoothed as we made our way to Clarke’s Court Boatyard, but the wind was still blowing pretty good. Captain Andre nudged Coda toward the dock with the boat lift and when we were close, I threw docklines from the bow and stern to workers on the dock. With the wind on her port beam, it took two burly men a few minutes to get Coda centered enough where the straps of the boat lift could get under the hulls evenly. It seemed she was resisting coming out of the water, like convincing a cat to go to the vet.

A diver guided the straps to the appropriate spots on the hulls, they lifted her clear of the water and then brought her over dry ground so someone could pressure wash her bottom.

When that was complete, they moved her to a spot in the yard, put blocks underneath her, then rolled the giant boat lift back to the dock.

Now when I go up the steps from my cabin, I see gravel through a porthole through which I’ve only ever seen amazing shades of blue and green.

During hurricane season, many boats come to Grenada for repairs and/or to be put in storage, so this is a quiet time of year for the yard. Sadly, it’s more subdued than usual, as there was a devastating fire about a month ago that wiped out the buildings of three major vendors in the yard. The suspected cause is arson by a disgruntled employee, and it has meant loss of work for dozens of people. They’re making a go of setting up temporary structures in the yard to continue their work, but the loss of tools and supplies was a huge blow.

There are zero bugs on the ocean, at least once you’re a mile or two offshore, except for an inch worm that Brianna found in a head of lettuce we bought in Fernando de Noronha, and of course weevils, but those came with our food…oh and maybe some fleas, if we’d had rats aboard, which we didn’t (that we know of). But other than that there are no bugs at sea. It’s one of the many reasons that life is simpler and in most ways more enjoyable when land is out of sight.

So it was immediately noticeable when I saw a dozen or so new “friends“ scurrying around on the port deck just outside the cockpit a couple days ago.

A gentleman named Thaddeus, who’s been doing some varnish work aboard Coda, also noticed them, and warned me that it was something I should get ahead of with the help of some bug spray. I told him I wasn’t fond of using chemicals as a means of trying to control Mother Nature. Being a farmer (when he’s not working on boats), he appreciated my reluctance, but said that in this case there weren’t any better alternatives.

Apparently Crazy Ants like to live in electrical equipment and are vigorous enough that they can actually damage electical systems. So I chose the lesser of two weevils and used bug spray on the docklines, fenders, shore power cords and places on the deck where they were visible.