Lift Out, Jungle and flight to the UK

Date: 9th August 2020

Location: True Blue Apartments, Grenada

After the southerly swell had abated we set about removing sails, preparing fenders and lines and generally preparing to lift out.

But before that we met up with land based friends Jenny and Paul.

We also joined a dozen other cruisers led by Peter from "Milly" to climb Mount Moritz. It was a hot day, very hot, and I found it hard, but 15 kilometres later we were back on the boat.

Liftout itself was the easiest ever. No wind, easy dock, experienced handlers, experienced us. All went to plan except for leaving the main hatch open as a storm passed through!

After two days of hot, hard work in the boatyard when we scraped the hull of a small amount of vegetation and congratulated ourselves on the condition of the copper coat antifouling it was time for another "Milly" walk. This time a bus took us up into the tropical rain forest from where we set off for Mount Qua Qua and thence through thick jungle to Concord Falls. Now this was described as a Very Difficult trail. I found it a lot easier than Monday's walk but it was higher and therefore cooler. It did turn into a bit of an epic though as we lost the trail for a while and bashed our way through the thick foliage tumbling through rotten bamboo stands and razor grass. Finally a rope down a cliff appeared and all was good again. A tired but happy group swam in the falls at the end of a great day's walk.

One casualty of the day was my poor left boot. A small price to pay.

All in all a very jungly day.

Here we are at the top of Mount Qua Qua.

More boat jobs followed interspersed with time at our lovely accommodation, True Blue resort.

Tomorrow our now firm friends, Peter and Sally leave for Toronto and in 15 days time we too should finally be departing Grenada. We have a flight booked back to the UK via Barbados. There's confusion over whether a Covid test is required for Barbados and whether any test that is done here is valid. However we think we have a way through.

We have a massive list of boat jobs to complete before we leave but I'm sure we'll get them all done. It'll be VERY odd to be back in Covid ridden England after our easy life here. Hopefully we can avoid it, avoid passing it to my mum, and enjoy our time back. We shall see!!