Every step of the journey IS the journey

Disappointment is a relative thing. It varies from person to person and can be anything from devastating to a minor inconvenience.

I’d say that our cruising life hasn’t involved any marked disappointments at all. Until we found ourselves with itchy sails, ready after last week’s storm scare, to head out. Even Roger’s vibrant Sunday beach party had lost it’s lustre – and that it just us getting spoiled. We needed a new adventure and finally got it together yesterday to do just that.

Even our ladder was ready for a new scene - this is what it looked like when we pulled it up to go...

Captain John in his element

 We sailed around to Grenada’s capital, the pretty port, surrounded by house spotted hills, pulled in to the yacht club to fill up all our tanks. All went smoothly, mostly, and we anchored out in the bay.

We filled a huge shopping cart at Foodland and loaded up the dinghy. We got back to the boat and planned a walk on the beach. It was all going swimmingly.

And then JW went down to do a standard check of the engines. There were tools and oil bottles and rolls of paper towel – up and down the hull steps he went, sweating heavily. Silent.

And then he shouted up:

“The sail drive seal is leaking again. The oil has drained out and there is milky residue in the bottom”.

Which translates to:

“We not only can’t sail off as planned, but we have to head back around to the south end of Grenada and get a booking at a boat yard to haul out”.

Which further translates to a night or more of life up in a sling, with no use of water (toilets, kitchen (galley) sink), no breeze, mosquitos… basically hell.

And so for the first time in a long time, I felt it. The stomach gnawing claw of disappointment. I was heartbroken, crushed. Not quite devastated.

And as all things are relative, I remembered that we were anchored near Grenada’s best long white sandy beach. And that Umbrella’s beach bar has the best burgers around. Even on a global scale. And I remembered I had to do laundry, and here I am, and there is high speed Internet here, a light breeze, and this is my view:

 They say sailors have short memories. Soon we'll have 'accomplished' our latest maintenance feat, and we'll be headed off. And disappointment sounds like a foreign word.