Clarks Court Dinghy Concert

"Lets have some fuuuun, under the sun"

Our adventure is all about trying new experiences so when we heard about a dinghy concert we put it in the diary. Yes despite having days full of no agenda, no rigid plans, we do still organise our lives via iCal else we would never get off the boat and frequently forget agreed social events. With each day shaped exactly how we want it, I need to remind myself what day of the week it is as to us a Sunday is no different to a Wednesday. On a couple of occasions we have rocked up to do a grocery shop only to be left scratching our heads as to why nothing is open….doh its a Sunday.

Anyway, the dinghy concert took place in Clarks Court Bay so we sailed there the morning of the event and it just so happened that we anchored right near where the concert was going to be. We could have seen it all from the comfort of our cockpit but that kinds of defeats the purpose of a dinghy concert! 

When the bass started up and we heard outboard engines whizzing past, we too took to our dink and puttered towards the action. The concert was sponsored by Island Water World (boat chandlery) and consisted of a barge complete with band, benches and bar drifting in the middle of the bay, attached to the side of an anchored yacht. The attendees (all in dinghies) then rafted together to form one big mass of inflated rubber with painters tied to the handles of the dinghies in front. 

The music was a bunch of classic and Grenadian styles, we even heard a reggae version of one of Adele's hits! Another favourite of the Grenadians is to sing their 'Grenada Song' with lyrics like 'Grenada spice, Grenada nice, lets have some fun, under the sun'. No prizes to the lyricist but its real catchy and you find yourself singing it for hours afterwards. The sun was hot hot hot as ever and we packed our dinghy with a cool box full of ice, wine and beers. As luck would have it we rafted near other boats we knew and spent a good few hours on the water soaking up the good company and atmosphere. 

This day also coincided with a blue moon - second full moon in the same month that wouldn't be happening again until 

2015. To celebrate the occasion, a shack on nearby Hog Island was putting on a party. So after the concert we let go of 

the painters in front of us and drifted towards the island. Drifted….literally, unknown to us, we had been let go from the 

rest of the raft and a bunch of 6 dinghies (us included) were so busy nattering, we didn't realise we had been set adrift

from the pack. A frantic pull of starter cords and a bit of towing got us away from the rocks and in the direction of Hog 

Island. Roger's Beach Bar sells lethal rum mixers and it wasn't long before I could see Dylan's eyes glazing 

over (I was on the diet coke). Already way past cruiser's midnight (9pm) we called it a night and started our navigating 

back to Orion guided by the bright moon overhead. 

Grenada Island Tour

We had been in Grenada for a couple of weeks now but yet to go on the infamous island tour done by a local guy called Cutty. With another cruiser organising a bus, we jumped at the chance of getting someone else to deal with the admin and eagerly awaited our pick up time of 9am.

I was all intent on wearing a dress until Dylan told me we would be doing a lot of walking so I decked out in shorts and tevas, totally unnecessary in hindsight!

There was an interesting mix of people on the bus with us. A couple with an adorable 3 year old daughter, an overly flirtatious Texan woman who insisted on sitting next to the bus driver and “whispering” in his ear. In summary, all Americans and us the token Brit and Saffa. Cutty was a really informative tour guide explaining the days route and stopping points of interest. 

We made regular stops en route to our first destination to sample or review the various native fruits and flowers. All the while Cutty explaining the medicinal properties or what it is used for. The first thing we learnt about was a Noni. A white waxy fruit that smells like ass. The juice is used as a health drink to boost the immune system. To get the juice, you have to let the fruit “ferment” in a glass and you drink whatever oozes out of it. Needless to say we did not try it or bring one home yet we were assured they are all the rage in health shops.

To counteract the pungent smell left in our nostrils we were then shown ylang ylang, honeysuckle smelling leaves used in perfume. Much better!

Eoucou

As with most of the Caribbean islands we have visited, the chinese have arrived. On Grenada they rebuilt the cricket stadium after Hurricane Ivan knocked the old one down. To thank the Chinese, the Grenadians had a big ceremony and then played the Taiwanese national anthem. Chuckle chuckle. We also looked down on the prison (figuratively and literally) which is in an old fort, where we heard about 5 British people being held there. All (surprise surprise) being held for drug smuggling. Further down the road, the Grenada police force band has its own building for it to practise in. We did not notice many houses adjacent...a bad sign? On the same road we passed a Coca Coca bottling factory, no wonder this soft drink is cheap over here!

Cocoa pod

There were many many fruits, herbs and veggies that Cutty pointed out but I shall only mention the more quirky ones. EouCou are a funny looking red soft spikey flower that locals use for red lipstick, colouring and nail polish. Basically it stains the hell out of everything a kind of reddish colour. I have a bunch sitting in a vase in our saloon, pretty looking flower decorations. Not all fresh produce is in abundance though, the hurricane destroyed 90% of the nutmeg trees. We drove past many abandoned nutmeg processing plants. Sad to think of the loss of an entire industry after a day or two of severe weather. Grenada was apparently 3rd largest producer of nutmeg in the world prior to Ivan.

Eoucou

We stopped off at an old plantation where we sniffed, prodded and tasted cocoa, golden apples, tumeric (good for fighting skin cancer – but then again most things that Cutty pointed out were apparently “good for fighting cancer”), nutmeg and mace, rockfig (like a banana), cloves, cinnamon bark (which we chewed and was very cinnamony), lemongrass, allspice berries and soursop (anti cancerous and they export it to the US). Just before we got back in the taxi, we were shown “Sleeping Beauty”, a grass like plant who's leaves curl up at the faintest touch. Apparently slave owners would plant this around the slave quarters to see any tracks of escaping slaves. I spent a good 5 mins touching these leaves, rather therapeutic!

Our first official stop was Annandale Falls. Most people decided not to swim, but we did. Why on earth would we pass up on the chance of wallowing in fresh water?? Leaping into the pool we swam under the waterfall and were stung on the head by the falling water from 30ft above us. Feeling like I hadn't bought any souvenirs for a while, I purchased a spice necklace, loaded with the spices we had previously been sniffing and prodding in the plantation. It now has pride of place hanging in our boat, giving off a wonderful fragrance of cinnamon and bay leaves.

Next on the agenda was the cocoa processing plant. We were just in time to see the farmers bring their buckets of cocoa beans to sell. They received about $18 EC for a bucket. Seems like a lot of hard work for £4! Interestingly they still use the old method of drying the cocoa in the sun on these enormous drying racks placed on narrow gauge tracks. If it starts to rain the racks are hauled under cover. The cocoa is still placed in hessian sacks and probably hand sewn shut for the trip abroad to be processed into cocoa power / chocolate. 

We drove to a stop off point where Cutty honked his horn a few times and out popped a pair of male monkeys. Here Cutty held bananas out for them and they would leap on people in order to get them. So perched on someones shoulder, they would then endure stroking by admirers while they ate their bananas. Great to have your photo taken with a monkey on your shoulder, until it decides to have a pee on you! Luckily I didn't get the pee but I did have a monkey shove his hand in my eye, they were so tame! Apparently Cutty was the only person that came to feed them when hurricane Ivan tore down their usual feeding habitat so now they even recognise the sound of his engine!

Off to Rivers Rum Distillery next where we had lunch. Fairly average lunch for the $35EC's /pp we were charged. This distillery is one of the only still using a traditional water wheel to drive the mechanism to crush the sugar cane. Huge mounds of cane stalks litter the distillery and Dylan couldn't resist climbing up one. It is a very impressive sight to see the waterwheel in action crushing the cane. We toured the premises with a lovely lady providing the tour that she had done a thousand times and had long ago lost interest in both the tour and the patrons. Sampling the rum was an experience not to be missed. The rum produced is specifically for the local market. It is all white rum and at 75% alcohol content is enough to use as cooking fuel if ever needed. Drinking it should come with a number of health warnings. The mere fact you are not allowed to fly with a bottle of the stuff should be warning enough. It tasted terrible and smelt like nail polish remover. It had a numbing effect on ones mouth and would probably make a good substitute for rubbing alcohol in a pinch.

Suitably fed and watered we headed back to our boats, stopping at a crater lake on the way where we saw a mongoose run in front of us. A fantastic tour that we would whole heartedly recommend!

Get Stuffed!

We thought we could manage with the steadily increasing drip of the stuffing box. 

Until we were emptying the bilge multiple times a day and the drip had become a trickle and was threatening to become something else sooner rather than later.

We were literally sinking at anchor. 

Our aim was to hold out until we next hauled out. We were a bit wary of anything that requires work on holes in the yacht while water desperately tries to invite itself onboard.  

Once we realised that it was A) too expensive to haul out just to do a packing replacement and B) it would not last the next 3 months until we planned to haul, we decided to bite the bullet and replace the packing while in the water.

We made sure we did it on a week day and in close proximity to the local haul out in Prickly Bay (Grenada). Just in case!

All a bit daunting as i had never replaced packing let alone in the water!

Tools used: 

Grease 

Rags

Packing (over 1 ft for a 1 inch shaft)

Cable ties

Screwdriver

Pool Noodle (or something to hold the rags in place)

2 x Large pipe wrenches

Packing removal tool

Stanley Knife

Duct tape 

What we did:

First, we needed to block the stern gland to prevent water from coming in while we were working

Step 1:Tear a rag into strips and coated them liberally with grease.

Step 2: Dive down and wrap the grease coated rags around the propshaft and jam them into the gap between the hull and the shaft. I did 3 separate strips and only wrapped one all the way around the shaft. The other two were used to stuff the gap above the shaft. The rags were pushed in with a screwdriver. Check that the water is no longer coming in. This can be done by loosening the stuffing box housing.

Step 3: I then cut an end off a "pool noodle" and placed it around the shaft. Securing it in place with 2 cable ties. This would hopefully keep the greased rags in place for the duration of the work. It was probably unnecessary in hindsight as the rags were in there good and proper, however I am a "belt and braces" type of guy. I also wrapped some duct tape around it too. Overkill maybe.

Step 4: You should have an idea as to the correct size of packing that your boat needs. If not buy a few other sizes. (It is cheap enough). Our Tartan 37 with a 1 inch prop shaft takes a 1/4 inch packing. This i found out from reading various forums. But some people had used 3/16 inch so i bought 2 feet of it just in case. While you have a bit of the shaft exposed between the coupling on the gear box and the stuffing box, wrap the packing around the shaft more and then using a sharp Stanley knife (Boxcutter, craft knife) cut the packing. You should get 3 strips just the right size.

Step 5: Open up the the stuffing box using large monkey wrenches or spanners (if you have the right sizes). Do it carefully to test for any water dripping out. It is not a catastrophe if you do have some water leaking as you are not trying to place the packing in the area with the water flow.

Step 6: Remove the old packing. I had a packing removal tool that looked like a cork screw. You could probably use a cork screw or a piece of wire with a hooked end.

Step 7: This was probably the hardest part. Trying to clean out all the old packing from the housing. The 3 main pieces came out but there was all sorts of bits stuck in there. If i had to do it over I would try have a spray can of compressed air and a thin long nozzle to blow into the housing to clear it of left over material. I used the packing removal tool and removed most of it.

Step 8: I inserted the first piece of packing and scratched a line on the bronze housing where the join between the two ends was. I then tightened up the nut and this forced the packing to the end of the nut in an even manner. (i.e. if i had tried to do it with a screwdriver i would have ended up pushing in one side then the other etc.). I reopened the stuffing box and placed the next piece of packing in and ensured that this was 120 degrees or so from where the first packing split was. Another mark on the housing and I tightened it up to press it in. To do the final one I reopened the housing, added the last piece of packing and ensured that the join was mid way between the other two marks on the nut and then tighten it up.

Step 9: A big one is to only HAND TIGHTEN the stuffing box. Tighten it up as much as possible to make sure it is as water tight as possible.

Step 10: Remove the greased rags one at a time. I had my partner keeping an eye on the the coupling as i removed each rag. After the second rag was removed, there was a drip happening every two seconds. I HAND TIGHTENED the nut a little more until it stopped dripping and went back in the water to remove the final rag.

Step 11: Test run the engine at anchor or in the marina by putting it astern (if on anchor) and tighten or slack off the nut until you get a bit of a drip when the shaft is turning. Better yet take your boat out and run the engine at your normal revs and adjust the stuffing box until you get the required drip. It should not (preferably) drip while at rest (read engine off). It may drip in neutral due to the vibration of the shaft in the stuffing box.

Warnings: If you over tighten the stuffing box, you introduce a lot of friction. The result will be more work for the engine and more heat applied to the packing and the stuffing box. 

If you over tighten the packing, it also has a tendency to harden and can then score your prop shaft with a groove. So change your packing rather than keep tightening!