Pitufa.at

We’ve made it—Pitufa is in the water again!

We’re still in Grenada Marine working on Pitufa–the ten days we expected have turned into 3 weeks, but on Tuesday we’ll (hopefully) get back into the water. The mast has been repaired, we’ve finished sanding it this afternoon and now we’ve got the weekend to mount the hydrovane, put on a last layer of antifouling and finish a dozen other little jobs. We’re really ready for a holiday now

The mast was pulled without further problems this morning, but our poor boat now looks like a wreck… The welder thinks repairing the crack won’t be a big problem, but unfortunately the welding machine broke this morning and we’ll have to wait until Wednesday to have it done. We’ll use the opportunity to sand the mast (we’ve been talking about doing this for ages) and then put mast steps on. So tomorrow we’ll spend the whole day working on orbital sander, angle grinder and multi-tool.

Yesterday we thought we were almost ready to launch Pitufa again and eager to get away from the boatyard and the mosquitoes. The last job was to change the upper shrouds, but when the rigger fixed them on the mast he discovered a crack at the very top of the mast. A catastrophe. On Monday we’ll have to pull the mast and then hope to weld it or fix it otherwise… Let’s just hope it can be repaired.

The days fly by with all the work we’ve got to do on Pitufa while she’s on the dry. We’ve taken off the skeg, then the rudder and discovered that we need new bearings (as expected). Additionally the mechanic found that the bearings of the propeller shaft had too much play, so we replaced them as well. I’ve been sanding the hull for the past three days, because we have to remove all lose particles before adding a new layer of antifouling. I look like an alien with my respirator, goggles and all covered in black… Each evening we’re completely exhausted, only to be attacked by dozens of mosquitoes. Even though we have mosquito-nets on all hatches they manage to get in, it seems the little buggers somehow enter during daytime.

This morning at 9 we had an appointment at the boatyard to haul out Pitufa. We were quite nervous, because we had to take her into the berth stern first (so that the forestay wouldn’t be in the way of the crane). Unfortunately our smurfette doesn’t like going backwards–she usually goes unpredictably either sharp left or right… Not so this morning: she turned like a lady in front of the berth and went stern first without a hint of a complaint!

We spent the rest of the day scraping off barnacles and trying to remove the skeg to get hold of the rudder. After grinding away lots of filler we got hold of four giant bolts and after some more hammering and wiggling we had the skeg off.

Leeloo remained inside the boat during the whole haul-out procedure (craning, high pressure washing, moving to a space in the workyard) and was quite frightened. In the evening curiosity took over and now’s she’s happy with all the new smells and sights. I’m sure she thinks we took out the boat only for Leelootainment

Unfortunately we had to abandon our other pet (the remora suckerfish), but we hope that he won’t be homeless for a long time. Maybe he’ll pick a shark next, now that he’s discovered that boats aren’t reliable companions.

We wanted to hike up Mount Qua Qua, partly because Lonely Planet recommends it and partly because of the cool name… So we took a minibus up to Grand Etang Forest Reserve only to discover that dozens of buses from a cruise ship had arrived before us. Stalls had popped up because of them, musicians, traditionally “decorated” ladies–far from the peaceful area we had been looking forward to. First we were thinking of immediately going back to St. George, but then went on to the trail up Mt. Qua Qua. It turned out to be a lovely and even lonely walk–it seems “cruzaders” only make 10-minute walks around the parking space. The hike up Mt. Qua Qua took us about 2 hours and rewarded us with stunning views over the Grand Etang crater lake and to both the west and the east coast of Grenada.

Today we went to the veggie market and then the fishmarket in St. George. However, we forgot two basic things you should bring to an island fishmarket: a bag (you don’t want the leaky ones you’re given there) and small change (the change you get there might well be covered in fishblood ). Anyway, right after we got back Christian did some belly-scraping (not his own, but Pitufa’s, which is full of barnacles) in the company of our new pet: a slender suckerfish that has been living under our boat for the past few days. He’s about 60 cm long, very curious and not shy at all. He catches the barnacles right from under our hands while scraping–slightly scary considering that 4 fingers would easily fit into his broad mouth … But he’s cute and friendly, feeding on everything we throw over board. He loves catfood leftovers, freaked out when I cleaned the tuna from the market, but spit out the rice I served with it

We’re still in Prickly Bay, doing lots of jobs on the boat and I’m also working as a teleworker on an e-learning program for a company in Graz. It’s just the right time for earning some extra money for the kitty box–we’ve already spent two monthly budgets on spare parts for Pitufa and we’ll soon have to haul her out to do a new anti-fouling and some paint jobs. The new shaft and rudder for our hydrovane Wayne Vaney arrived at the airport last Thursday, spent a relaxed Easter-weekend in the local custom’s warehouse, but today we managed to get hold of the parts.
Prickly Bay is a bustling anchorage and a good place to catch up with old friends and meeting new people. We’re always eager to listen to other cruiser’s experiences, collecting info on cruising areas and ideas for interesting places to visit.

Our guests have left this morning–it’ll take them 24 hours to get back home… We had a really good time: we visited the Seven Sisters Falls in the rainforesty interior of Grenada, tasted loads of delicious dishes at Fish Friday in Gouyave, went sightseeing in St. George and spent a few relaxing days anchored off Calvigny Island. Grenada is great to get around, cheap minibuses take you anywhere (without the waiting times we got used to in the Cape Verdes, Suriname and Tobago), it’s safe and people are friendly and welcoming wherever you go.

We’re still in Prickly Bay (Grenada) installing newly acquired gadgets. Today we bought yet another inverter–this ends a 3 month power-tool-free period on Pitufa (even though we managed to do all kinds of repairs during that time using manual drills, manual saws, etc. we even managed to solder by heating up the soldering iron on a blow torch ). Additionally we’re doing a thorough spring-clean, partly because it’s spring and partly because tomorrow my Mom and my brother + girlfriend will arrive here

We’ve spent the last 2 weeks waiting for our liferaft (remember our encounter with the fishing boat in Suriname?) to be serviced. We had to ship it to Trinidad for that and it disappeared unaccountably on the way for a week, which left us quite worried and stuck in the rolly anchorage in Store Bay. Today it finally got back from the service station, so now we’re free to head on (after clearing out with immigration and customs in Scarborough) on Monday.