Back in the saddle...or rather the cockpit

After almost 6 wonderful and very busy weeks back home, we made it back very tired and surprised to see all of our luggage. A big thanks to Ken and Diane for hosting us (and our extra luggage) during our layover in St. Lucia. The people we know who have stayed in Grenada all summer said that the only thing we missed was a great deal of rain while we were gone so I guess we picked just the right time. As great as is was to land back in Grenada, it wasn't so great to discover that no matter how many precautions I took, we still had developed some mold on the boat from the high humidity here - not in great quantities, but enough to get me re-acquainted with a sponge, a gallon of vinegar and every square in of the interior. This was a pretty big job, especially in heat that we have definitely become unaccustomed to in 6 very fast weeks. Despite two sets of bug bombs, we also had more tiny (harmless) little sugar ants on the boat than we've ever had, but the good news is there isn't a single living cockroach within a mile of here. We have since discovered the magical power of Boric Acid and now are completely critter free - yippee!! As boat life goes, we had some trouble getting the batteries to charge properly causing the fridge and other things not to work properly. After 5 days of searching for the problem, Ron was all set to replace a $1200 charger/inverter when he discovered that the leads on one of the consumption regulators had corroded. This cost a total of $65 EC or $22 US to fix. So thanks to some smart thinking and persistence on the Captain's part, we are back in cool cheese and ice cubes. As I write this, it's early Sunday morning and we were all set to leave at dawn and true to our luck lately, discovered at the last moment that the alternator belt needed replacing so Ron is down in the engine room getting dirty and hopefully getting us underway. Engine is now running which is my cue to get navigating... next stop, Union Island in the Grenadines. Thank you Grenada!! What a fabulous time we've had here and will love the memories of the people and places you've shown us!