When we pulled the boat out, there were barnacles on the hull which had to be scrapped off. What you see here is not that bad compared to many other boats. The barnacles comes off quickly with a scraper, it is the “glue” that they use to attach to the hull that requires a little more work.

Here is where they finally put us. We told them we weren’t putting the boat back in the water until December, so they put us up against a drainage ditch and I’m sure they’ll pack a bunch of boats behind us, completely blocking us in.

At Spice Island Marina. They pick the boat up and move it with the travel-lift. I can’t remember how much weight this travel-lift is rated for, but our boat weighs about 15 tons.

Since we were squeezing the boat into a very tight slip, we lined the sides of the boat with foam pads. The green pads are actually yoga mats we bought at the local hardware store (they were going fast because I think other people were thinking the same thing), while if you look more towards the stern (back of the boat), there is a white pad (half covering the rear window). The white pads are pads taken out of our outside cushions for the seating area.

It looks very stupid, but it worked very well.

Spring Tradition is hoisted out of the water and up in the lift to be put away for summer.

That’s me in the blue shirt and our friend Chris in the red shirt.

I had to back the boat in because if I brought it in forward, the fore-stay (the line that holds the mast up from the front) would have hit the travel-lift cross beam.  Needless to say, backing is much more challenging than going in forwards.  The steering mechanism is all in the stern (rear) of the boat, so if you get half-way into the slip and a cross-wind develops, the bow (front) of the boat is going to get blown to the side and there will be nothing you can do about it.

If you can tell the quality of an organization by how they approach the little details, Spice Island Marine does a pretty good job. Here you can see the straps that go under the boat have been covered with plastic before haul-out. This is so that any crap leftover from a previous boat doesn’t get embedded in the fiberglass on your boat.

I had been told that we would need to pad the boat where the straps touched it because of this, but the boat yard did it for us so we didn’t have to. Nice touch.

This is a shot off the stern (back) of our boat (you can see our dinghy and outboard, which hang off the stern) as we go into the slip.

As I explain in another post, we had to go in backwards because the fore-stay on our boat would have hit the cross beam on the travel-lift if we went in forwards.

Also, now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know who took this picture. I certainly didn’t as I was so nervous just trying to back the thing in straight. There were about 4-5 people per pier (out of the shot) trying to keep the boat centered and from rubbing against the concrete/steel side of the pier.

This bay, on the south coast of Grenada, is called True Blue.  Lovely little bay.  Fancy resort on the other side of the bay, a small marina, and a mooring field to hold your boat.  This bay is right next to the bay where we hauled out our boat, so this is a couple of days before haul out.

There was a mooring field in this bay, so we tied up to one of the moorings. Since COVID was ruining the cruising industry that season, there was no-one to take payment for our stay.  We looked and called and emailed, but couldn’t find anyone. So we just stayed one night.  Also, there were a lot of swells, so we didn’t sleep all that well.  It is interesting how swells are usually from the north, but somehow also come into bays opening to the south.

BTW, this is the medical school where Reagan rescued the hostages back in the 80’s.

There are not many good harbors on the west coast of Grenada. The main port, St. Georges, is great, but busy and still fairly exposed to swells unless you are in the inner-harbor where it is way to busy for anchoring.

So, on our trip from Carriacou to the marina in St. Georges, we decided to stay the night in Halifax harbor on the west coast of Grenada. It is about 2/3 of the way down the island from the top, so just a short ride for us the next day to pull into the marina.

Unfortunately, Halifax is not a great harbor. Still not very protected from any swells, it has overhead electrical lines crossing that you have to watch out for, the bottom is fairly steep from the shore leaving little room to anchor, and the area of anchoring has huge coral heads that you have to watch out for so your anchor doesn’t ruin the coral and so that the chain doesn’t get tangled. In addition, when we pulled in, some local “boat people” came out and tried to “persuade” us into giving them some beer in a rather threatening way. I ignored them, but still.

This picture is of a small, tall island in Halifax harbor that we were anchored close to which has a dwelling propped at the top, a rope bridge from the shore to the island, and windy walks down to the water. I haven’t looked how they advertise this, if at all, but this is one of those places that they could make sound wonderful and adventurous, where in reality, I bet it would be buggy, dangerous, and unbearably isolated (also, one of the island refuse dumps is further in the harbor, so probably smelly also).

Sandy Island is a small sand reef off the north part of the southern part of Carriacou. Nothing on it. A mooring field where you can pay to spend the night. The day we were there, it was pretty windy and not very protected from the waves, so we ate lunch, walked ashore and left for better a better anchorage. The island is pretty idyllic, as you can see. Hopefully, we can go back as there is supposed to be good snorkeling here. South of here on the mainland of Carriacou is Paradise Beach, a nice long strip of beach.