Pole Pole put to bed for hurricane season

With our lunchtime deadline, Rowan was chasing me out of bed at 7am. We were meeting the freezer man at 9am but we had to get to a chandlery at a different marina before hand to buy the pickling granules to pickle our water maker’s membrane, so it doesn’t dry out.

We got back to Pole Pole and worked at a pace. Rowan had decided to do the pickling himself as the marina wanted to charge $500 for a relatively simple job. Rowan let out a very frustrating yell and I knew things were not going to plan. He tried to phone all his helpful resources in the UK but nobody answered. Finally he went to the marina office to see if someone could help, and the guy said it was most probably an air lock and he would send someone over when they were free. Clever old Rowan had a bit of a brain wave to resolve the airlock and hey presto it worked, very satisfying for him! I did a mega clean up of all the outdoor cushions before getting them inside. Slowly but surely things came together and we were both very pleased with the state we were leaving her in.

The best looking resident at the marina!

Rushed back for a quick shower before going down to the restaurant to meet Karen and Dennis for lunch. They have anchored their Catamaran WITWAT in the bay nearby and came over in their dinghy. We had a wonderful time getting to know each other’s life stories. Theirs was incredible, having retired at 42 taking I think 6-7 years camper van-ing around America with her geriatric cats from South Africa. Then learning to sail and buying a boat to live on. They have been at sea for a few years, but we had some good laughs swapping stories. They are definitely a few years younger than us, and have packed in so much travelling, plus they lived in Japan for 4 years which they obviously really enjoyed.

View across from our balcony to WITWAT.

Rowan got a message from one of the couples (Maurice from Newcastle) who bought the tickets on our charter flight, turned out they were nearby and joined us for a drink. A very pleasant couple who are obviously salty sea dogs having sailed for years on the West coast of Scotland. They crossed the Atlantic last year and are doing the same as us, just over for the 6 month season, they left their boat here in Grenada last year, Covid has meant they never got very far this year, so like us plan to be back in January.

A very jolly sociable ending for our last night.