No matter how many times we have done this it is always exciting to see Celebrian picked up and taken to the water. In The Bahamas it was all done with the travel lift; however here at Spice Island Marine Services the boats are stored so close together that a hydraulic trailer has to come and pick up the boat and take it to the travel lift. Celebrian, being somewhat on the smaller side was shoe horned in beside a rather large boat and it took some fancy driving to pull her out of her spot. The travel lift here can lift 70 ton so Celebrian was a light weight at her 12 ton;although she did get 200 feet of new anchor chain from the captain for Valentine's Day. The old chain was literally disintegrating from the years of salt water. I love to swim in salt water; however living in a salt water environment is hard on everything.
We are tied up to the launch well dock at Spice Island Marine Services for the weekend so that the captain can make love to the batteries until Monday morning. Even though the batteries were new last winter storing them in the tropics takes its toll. Only one cell is poor so we should be in good shape by Monday. Friends had their whole battery bank dry out so we are feeling fortunate.
Last year we spent some time sailing with John and Kathy on Katerina. I had kept them up to date with our travel plans and they surprised us with a visit yesterday. They stored Katerina here at Spice Island and have been sailing since early January; although John was down in December doing some work on the boat.
This weekend will be very busy as we do our major provisioning. We were happy to hear that the grocery stores deliver free if you are at the boatyard and purchasing a significant amount. Grocery prices here are a little breathtaking....my $3.50 romaine heads are $10.00 ....we are eating regular head lettuce. Once we are established we will have to check out the local markets. Grenada is most famous for its spices and nutmeg and mace in particular.
We have just returned from two major provisioning trips. This is approximately $700.00 worth of mainly bulk goods from CKs. Gratefully they deliver so that was incentive enough to shop there. Our second grocery shop was at the IGA Valumart where we handed over another $160.00 and took a cab back to the boat yard. The good thing is that we don't have to row everything in the dinghy since we are tied up to the dock until Monday morning. We are tired, hot and a little grumpy; however this too shall pass once we find a place to store everything.
Before the hydraulic trailer came for Celebrian we had to hoist Goldberry up to the davits. This picture shows that my fitness classes this winter are truly paying off.
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