What a fantastic sight it was to see Grenada at a distance. The passage had been long (just over 15 days at sea), and we were looking forward to being able to take long hot showers and finally rest on dry land. As we approached the island we encountered a lot of very small sargassum seaweed. We saw a lot of it on passage but this seemed to be smaller and younger.
We rounded the south western tip by the airport and the wind suddenly died. As we were so close to our final destination nothing was going to stop us getting there, so we fired up the motor and put the prop in overdrive to motor in to St George harbor.
As we approached the entrance, a huge squall hit us and we slowed right down to let it pass. We didn’t want to have to dock in rain and high winds on our beam!
A little closer to the harbor I spotted the shape of a very familiar boat. Could it be? YES! It was the Mandalay! The last time I was on the Mandalay was back in 1996 when I sailed on her from Antiqua down to Grenada with Sarah. It looked old, neglected and tired with rust stains everywhere. No one had given it any love in quite a while. Sarah and I certainly had been on her in her better years 28 years earlier.
We tried contacting rally control as we approached the end of of ARC at the marina, but could not raise anyone. Another boat SV Falcon acted as a VHF relay as the handheld radios the ARC yellow shirts (staff) had didn’t have enough power to reach us. With the squall passing we docked and were greeted by 8-10 other ARC participants and all the crew were given the customary rum punch to mark the occasion.
A long hot shower. A quick hose of the crusty salt off TUIs deck. Kira disappeared with her boyfriend Joe who had been waiting days for her arrival. Time remained to fix the radar, get missing rivets put back in the whisker pole track, resolve battery charging issues and repair sail chafe.
Las Palmas to Mindelo 5.5 days. Mindelo to Grenada just over 15 days. We had crossed the Atlantic.
We had made it!
PS – My heartfelt thanks go out to my great crew members who amde this Atlantic adventure possible.
PPS – To continue to track TUIs ongoing adventures go to www.sailingtui.com for updates!
