[password]seabird14
[position] 12 01.196 N 061 40.751 W
[heading] at anchor
[speed] at anchor
[weather] 16 kts ENE
[status] DAY 28 arrived Grenanda! At anchor, St Davids Harbour, Grenada. The wind started to die off and veer last night, making it hard to maintain speed in order to make our arrival in Grenada in a timely manner (ie after sunrise, before customs and immigration quit at 1200 hours). We went wing and wing, then found ourselves in the wee hours making too fast a time at 11 kts of boat speed, so it was time to furl the jib, put in a second reef and run. Still we had to heave too, and at 0630 local we decided it was time to make our run in to shore. A very scary entrance, as this bay is simply a narrow cut between two hills, not wide, and fringed with breaking waves and reefs to windward. Under a dbl reefed main alone we inched forward through the channel, found a spot to anchor, headed up, dropped sail and anchored. As we feared, the anchor chain had castled, but we anticipated it this time and managed to get enough scope down in time. It helped that there was only about 10kts of breeze inside the harbor. We were greeted by a local cruiser who came alongside in his dinghy, having heard that we were the boat coming in without an engine, and he kindly offered to bring us ashore so we could skip the whole dinghy unraveling process and make it to clear into the country before officials were gone (they only work on Tue and half days on Thu, and if you miss check in it is a $1000 fine!). So, 5 hours later, we remembered in fact we were back to island time ... finally got checked in by immigration, but it was not a challenging wait as we were able to spend our wait at the bar/cafe relaxing and imbibing. So relieved to be here safely. This was Kailani's 2nd longest passage at 4250nm and 28 days, and our longest as a family. Kailani performed admirably, but the star of this passage was Sophia. She stepped in to help rig the spin pole, furl sails, drive the boat, and even stood a 3 hour watch every evening from 7-10pm. All of this and she even managed to do 17 days of school work! Wow. We are back in the NW hemisphere, and feel lucky and blessed to have this ocean crossing safely behind us.
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