Having almost reached the date for departure to Colombia, and with Bonaire off the agenda, we sat in the saloon and once again tried to be completely honest with ourselves. It started out with the same conversation we had almost daily since the storm experience in Rodney Bay.
We had only diverted to Rodney Bay to get an end cap fitted on the recently rebuilt watermaker. The part was in stock when we arrived, and the job fitted in almost straight away, however our masthead wind transducer had called time out, as had the passive AIS antenna, so we hung around for replacements. During the hanging around, we got hammered in the storm. The rib went off on a little adventure, but we recovered that (thanks Tony and Heather). The anchor was written off, but a new one would be sent out FOC.
Then we discovered that the Duogen was not making any contribution. We did what we thought was the right thing, and ordered a new regulator. Sadly that did not fix it. Then we found the burned out diode was the culprit.
We should have been in Bonaire, sharing another Christmas with our dear friends Ian and Steph on Nautilus. Instead we just grew increasingly frustrated.
Of course St.Lucia is a wonderful place, the people are friendly, and the weather a little warmer than back in the UK, but we really wanted to move on.
It reached the stage when just about the only topic of conversation between us was "Do we stay in the Caribbean for another season, or go through into the Pacific?"
We decided to go for it, went up to Martinique to provision for the near 4000nm passage from Panama to the Marquesas, downloaded the Navionics cartography, and said farewells to good friends we caught up with in Martinique.
We had even started the twice daily ritual of looking at the weather with the intention of nipping down to St.Lucia, picking up and fitting the Duogen parts, then straight off to Santa Marta in Colombia.
And then it happened. We both said that this does just not feel right. Funny thing gut instinct. We gave ourselves a hug, the truth was out. But we found ourselves deflated.
Neither of us had much enthusiasm to go back to Grenada for the hurricane season. We figured that we liked the place so much we may never leave! Steve said, we need a sign! What should we do? It will now sound a little surreal, but straight after saying that, Lynne said "Where is the Rio Dulce?" that our friend Gerry had mentioned.
We looked it up, scanned a few sailing blogs of people who had been using the 3G browser on our black and white Kindle screen, and said that's it! Almost straight away our lethargy evaporated, our MoJo reconnected, no longer just Mo and Jo. For the first time in a while we were truly excited.
Our friend Frank had taken 12 years to circumnavigate. We had probably lost sight of his inspirational voyage. He left few places unexplored. Sadly, due to the prevailing political climate and violent crimes, some of the places he visited are no go zones, but we can, and will do a little more in the backyard of the Caribbean before we move on.
So why all the indecision before? Well that is easy to answer. We have until recently been sailing in the company of Ian and Stephanie, you can see their great blog here: The Travels of Nautilus. They are the most amazing and inspirational friends we could ever wish for. Since a chance encounter in the Balearics in 2013, and a short conversation about our respective cruising aspirations, we went about our season and met up again in Sicily. They kindly asked us to join them in a circumnavigation, we had sold Scarlet Lady, and the new boat had the kind of equipment needed, so why not?
We have, and will again in the future, shared some of the most amazing experiences of our lives together. We quickly learned that there is nothing they would not do to help us, and in turn we the same. They patiently taught us how to use the cruising chute, removed a net from our prop, and so much more...
It is even hard to write this entry knowing that for now, we won't be chatting on the radio on our long passages, playing pool and table tennis, making plans to see sights ashore, seeing a Nautilus navigation light at night, and so much more.
This blog entry is dedicated to Ian and Steph. We will truly, sorely miss you both. Safe passage to New Zealand, and see you down the line.
XX
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