Home from Home

Going home was something we had both looked forward to with growing anticipation. We missed our family and friends after a two and a half year absence and were looking forward to hugging our family, spending time with our friends and drinking lots of good coffee!

Although the excitement was building, the thought of spending two days travelling back to Auckland was far less appealing and I tried to suppress the growing sense of dread as the days became hours and the time of our departure arrived. As we flew over Benji Bay, I could have sworn I saw King Richard on the deck of the cottage, sipping a can of beer as he enjoyed a few days of peace and quiet on his own in our slice of paradise!

The flight was as awful as we had imagined it to be, missing our connecting flight to LA from Miami due to long delays at immigration, and having to spend an uncomfortable night trying to sleep on the floor in the airport while our pre-paid Air B&B in LA remained unused and unrefundable! However, the thought of the warm welcome that awaited us in NZ kept our spirits high.

We arrived in Auckland ahead of schedule and were first through the doors into the arrivals hall, surprising my daughter and Steve’s mum, with our speedy passage through immigration and customs. It felt so good to give and receive warm embraces to Rebecca and Joy and the memories of the flight slowly faded as the realisation sunk in that we were really back home with our loved ones.

Our time in New Zealand was spent catching up with family and friends – every day it seemed we were with different people, making the most of our time with our children and family. We travelled from Auckland to Christchurch, where I screamed with delight as my son, Jak, surprised us at the airport, confusing and alarming the crowd of people at the luggage belt! I loved being back in Lyttelton, staying with my wonderful, generous and beautiful family – Erin and Dave – and catching up with so many friends. While there I gave a talk to about 60 people at the Little Ships Club about our travels to date and was really surprised and happy to see so many old friends attending. Bex travelled from Wellington and we had one glorious evening with both my children with me for the first time in so long. After a few blissful days relaxing with Jak and Ju in French Farm – the location of ours and Jak and Ju’s weddings and the beautiful second home of Dave and Erin’s – we continued on to Wellington where both Bex and Steve’s son, David, live. The saying, “you can’t beat Wellington on a good day”, is so true and we were lucky enough to have several days of clear skies and bright sunshine. It was wonderful and comforting to see how settled both Bex and David were and once again, will treasure the time spent with them both.

Back in Auckland we mostly focused on Steve’s family and spent time with all his siblings, children and grandchildren. It meant so much to us that everyone took time out of their busy lives to create special memories with us – we will live off those memories for the next couple of years and beyond!

All too soon, it was time to pack our bags and prepare for the long journey back to Grenada and the growing list of boat jobs ahead of us! We were staying with my cousin, Brent, in his beautiful home when Brent and Sandy both came down with Covid, so we sadly had to keep ourselves away from them and only communicate at a distance with a staircase between us! We were returning with more luggage than we had brought, weighing ourselves down with much needed new clothes and boat gear that was cheaper and more accessible in NZ than Grenada.

Although very long, the return flight was not quite as painful as the outward journey, with no stressful tight connections to worry about. We arrived back in Grenada about 40 minutes late and sped through immigration and customs before being spat out into the hot humid temperatures of the Caribbean where Sue, our landlady, met us in her beat up old truck. She drove us down the rutted, washed out road leading to the apartment we had rented from her for the next week. It was a welcome relief to experience the cool air conditioned rooms as we looked out over Benji Bay and spotted the familiar boat of our friends Kim and Ann, moored just off the private jetty below our apartment. Benji Bay was now full of yachts spending the hurricane season sheltering in the protective paradise of Grenada. As we looked across the bay and watched the sunset and the colours in the sky change from blue to pink, red and orange, we felt like we were home.

That night we slept really well and the next morning Nathan, our Australian friend and neighbour who was doing up his boat in the same yard, gave us a ride so we could start working on Cerulean. The batteries were dead as the solar panels had not kept up with the draw of the dehumidifier, but apart from that, everything seemed in order. We worked hard for three weeks, moving back onto the boat a week after our return, draping the hatches, opening windows and companionway with mosquito netting to try and keep any of the numerous bitey things out of our living space. At night the swarms of mosquitos and no-see-ems became particularly bad and, when mixed with the heat, it became almost unbearable as we scratched, swatted and fanned ourselves throughout the evenings!

Our beautiful new stainless steel watertank was hoisted into place and then hidden under the seating as we carefully re-installed the furniture, solving the krypton-factor-ish puzzle as we tried to remember how everything had come apart, and reversing it!!! It was a huge relief when finally, everything slotted into place and we were able to restore the cushions on the seats and have our comfortable saloon back together! It’s funny how a small amount of furniture can make the space a home again.

Our time out of the water was sociable as we celebrated success and met fellow boatyard dwellers! Each evening we made good use of the endless supply of water and enjoyed long showers as we scrubbed off the days dirt, sweat and smells! One night we were woken to the sound of torrential rain, quickly shutting all the open hatches and returning to our stifling hot bed as we listened to the storm gathering outside. The wind whipped round the boats, shaking us in the cradle and we lay there, relieved we didn’t have to worry about anchors dragging but still concerned about things hitting us! It was later announced that this sudden storm was actually classified as a grade 1 hurricane with winds reaching over 80mph. It was slightly disconcerting how quickly the system developed with no prior warning as it was apparently an extremely difficult event to predict – the perfect storm of conditions, I guess!

The day of our launch arrived and we were ready. We had a new watertank installed which we had successfully tested for two weeks with no sign of leaks; a new water guage so we can easily see how much water we have in the tanks; new antifoul (although we did have a colour disaster with the blue stripe and had to changed it to black at the last minute), propeller serviced, small leaks found and remedied, boat polished and cleaned, sails serviced and repaired, chaps made for our new dinghy (donated to us by Kim and Ann and named KAM), repairs made to our sprayhood which were more preventative than anything, shower sealed, generator exhaust repaired and all through hull seacocks serviced. We felt ready and eager to get back on the water. The yard had let us know we would launch at 2pm, so I decided I would jump on a free bus to town and renew our cruising permit (which from this point forward is known as a cursing permit). As I was waiting for the bus, I got talking to a South African man named Bert and we shared sailing stories as we pondered whether the bus was going to come. No sooner had this been vocalised when a man pulled up beside us in his rental car and offered us a ride. Unsure where he was going, and feeling a pang of guilt that I’d already told Patrick, the bus driver, that I wanted a ride, I turned down the offer. We continued to wait until, eventually Patrick’s bus slowly approached the yard. As we hopped in, joining a couple who had already been collected from another marina, Patrick informed us that he had a problem with the bus and proceeded to lift the front seat to expose the engine which was obviously overheating but when Patrick removed the radiator cap, a great puff of steam rose up into the already hot bus! I voiced concern and questioned out loud whether this was a good idea to head to town when we would be launching in a few hours time. Patrick assured me it would all be fine and, sure enough, it did not take long for us to be on our way again, hurtling down the narrow, winding roads in true Grenadan style! Our next stop was Whisper Cove Marina, a small settlement not far from the apartment we had rented when we first returned to Grenada. At this point Patrick announced his bus was too sick to continue but he had called a friend who would drive us into town. As we stood waiting the couple on the bus decided to head into the cafe for a drink and we were joined by a Canadian husband and wife as we passed the time talking and laughing, while inside I was starting to get concerned about the amount of time left for me to get the permit and return to the boat. The replacement bus and young driver arrived and the four of us piled in to the the hot van and waited for the missing couple as we tried to extract them from the cafe! Bert, knowing my time constraints, had some stern words to say to them as we eventually sped away. The driver was even more frightening than Patrick and I couldn’t watch as he overtook on blind bends and beeped at any car infront of us who would not get out of his way. It was when we slowly drew to a halt on the side of the road, that I realised we had broken down again and Bert lent forward and said to me – “Remember that guy who offered you a lift? It was a sign and you should’ve taken it…..!” Not helpful! A few minutes later we were on our way again, catching up with all the traffic we had earlier overtaken as we sped down the road that the driver seemed to think was a formula one race track.

We arrived at the chandlery and, as the driver was paid based on the number of passengers he brought to the shop, I went inside after telling him I would not be returning on the bus! Bert followed me in and told me to return to the chandlery when I’d got my permit and we would share the cost of a taxi back to the boatyard as he didn’t rate his chances of getting back alive on the bus. With that I started to run the 1.5km in stifling heat and jandels to the customs/immigration office in Port St Louis. As I turned into the approach road a young guy in a golf buggy must’ve taken pity on the disheveled looking woman who ran like a seal out of water, and offered me a lift to the marina entrance. I hopped in, grateful for the chance to catch my breath and cool down in the shade of the covered buggy. Finally I was at the customs/immigration office and a small queue greeted me, followed by a man telling me the officer had left 10 minutes ago and had not been seen since…..! It was now 11.30 and we were due to launch in 2.5hrs and I still had to find a taxi, pick up Bert and get back to Clarkes Court. At this point I was about to leave and admit defeat when the officer slowly ambled back towards the office, unlocked the door and invited the first person in the queue inside. While I waited two other men joined the queue, with one recognising me as being from the boat in front of his in Clarkes Court. I cheekily asked if he was driving back there and he offered to drop me at the end of the very rutted lane that leads to the boatyard. I explained that I was meeting Bert and he said “no problem, we’ll go find him”. Relief!!! The permit only took five minutes to sort and we continued to talk while my new driver (Shayden) waited for his friend, a large Russian man named Igor, sorted his permit. By the time we reached the car, we were old friends and with the air con pumping, we headed back down the approach road to find Bert. Bert, in the meantime, had run several errands and was making his way to Port Louis so it was with surprise that I saw him walking towards us. I’m not sure who was more surprised when I threw the passenger door open as the car was still moving forward and yelled at Bert to jump in, which he deftly did and bounced in beside me as the car continued moving, not missing a beat! We all chatted on the way back until we got to the turn off and Shayden decided to continue down the road all the way to the boatyard, dropping us outside Cerulean to a somewhat bemused and confused Steve! It was an adventure but we now had our cruising permit and, after a short delay in our launch, we were afloat just 2.5hrs later on our way to find a quiet anchorage. As we left the slipway, Steve announced how surprised he was at the joy he felt being back on the water and that was music to my ears as we dropped the anchor just off Benji Bay, surrounded by boats belonging to friends. The wind was cool, the mozzies non-existent and we breathed a huge sigh of relief as we headed out in the dinghy to have a rum with friends to celebrate being back on the water!