My ATM card got cloned at main RBTT bank in St. Georges! Happens often down here!

June 11, 2007  Monday

The pool party at the resort yesterday afternoon was fun; a welcome nice change of pace for all of us in attendance who are more accustomed to beaches than swimming pools.  Don’t know how Ed and Linda lucked into such a sweet gig of dog sitting at a luxury resort and free use of all the resort facilities for a month.  Also worked out quite advantageously for them, as they decided to have their boat hauled out for the annual bottom job here in Grenada while they are staying in the resort.  How nice for them.

Bill volunteered to help with dock lines for ALLEULIA! when they hauled out early this morning.  It is much easier when there are 3 people aboard --- one to drive the boat and one to handle the port dock lines and one to handle the starboard dock lines.  The third person isn’t necessary because one person can handle all 4 dock lines by running back and forth across the boat, but having a third person certainly does make the process easier and faster.  Again, Gary on ELLUSIVE acted as wingman in his dinghy, just in case a gust of wind might throw the boat around as she is entering the slipway between those high concrete sides.  None of us likes putting our boat in between 2 high walls of concrete.

Now we are off to do the FedEx & Customs dance; the paperwork was delivered to the boatyard this morning.  Next on the agenda for today is to find a bank that can sell us some US cash.  We will need US dollars while we are in Venezuela.  As those who read our logs from last October know, it is unwise to use a credit card or an ATM card anywhere in VZ.  So we need to replenish our supply of US cash while here in Grenada.  Hopefully there is still some US cash left in the banks from the last cruise ship that visited St. George’s.  If we are unable to find US cash, then our provisioning in VZ won’t take very long! 

While we are downtown I want to shop for gifts/trade items for the Kuna natives in the San Blas Islands.  So far all we have found are a few packages of crayons and one package of construction paper to give the little kids.  Saw a package of watercolors in the mall last week priced about $8 USD and a package of 6 balloons priced about $10 USD, but we refused to pay those exorbitant prices.  Also want to find sewing needles for the Kuna women and fishing hooks for the men.  I already have a nice selection of reading glasses to give them, thanks to the 99 cent store in Houston.  But, knowing us, we will get downtown today and get really hot and decide to just forget about doing anything except what is absolutely necessary right now.

June 12, 2007  Tuesday

This morning Bill went back into town to get more EC cash at the ATM and exchange it for US dollars.  And my ATM card wouldn’t work; got a message to call our bank.  Bill came back to the boat so we could call the bank.  This is when we learned that my debit card had been cloned yesterday.  Within 5 minutes of our using the card at the ATM at the main downtown location of the RBTT bank, my card had been cloned and used an another RBTT ATM machine at the downtown bus terminal.  Five minutes later it was used at another RBTT branch ATM in St. George’s.  About 10 minutes after that transaction, the cloned card (or another cloned card) was used for a $655 purchase at a Target store in San Diego, California.  Then the card was attempted to be used for 3 more purchases in San Diego, but our bank had already put a hold on the card.  They must have a good computer program for fraud detection because the bank had stopped my card within 25 minutes of us making the last legitimate transaction.  Talk about fast reaction time!

Now the paperwork hassles will begin.  Getting the 2 fraudulent ATM withdrawals reimbursed won’t be a problem because each ATM transaction is video recorded and it is obviously not us making those 2 transactions.  Our bank said the money will be deposited back into our account no later than tomorrow.  But we will have to file a claim regarding the purchase at Target in San Diego.  The bank cannot email us the claim form; it must be mailed to our address in Houston.  So for now we must wait in Grenada for that claim form to be received in Houston; then we will have to figure out a way to get it to us here in Grenada.  We are hoping that either Trey or Kristina has the capability at their jobs to scan this form and email it to us.  Otherwise, we will have to pay and wait for another FedEx international shipment.  Either way, we need to take care of this matter before leaving Grenada because we can’t do anything about it once we reach Venezuela.  My new replacement ATM card is also being mailed to our address in Houston, but we don’t need that immediately.  We can wait and have that FedEx’d to Bonaire.  

We planned to stay in Grenada until the weather improves anyway, so this isn’t too great an inconvenience.  And we will take the opportunity to do an island tour and a turtle watch tour.  There are worse places to be stuck for a week or two.  At least in Grenada there are things to do.

Grenada charges 37% duty if you have something shipped here!

June 10, 2007  Sunday

Prickly Bay, Grenada

BEBE was splashed at the boatyard on Friday afternoon as scheduled.  Spice Island Marine Service did a great job; what a difference from our “haul-out from hell” at Independent Boat Yard in St. Thomas last year.  This time everything was done exactly right and on schedule.  Pleasure doing business at SIMS and we would recommend them to anyone contemplating a haul-out in the West Indies. 

The only “problem” that we encountered had nothing to do with the boatyard.  We purchased another 80 feet of high-tension anchor chain.  We plan to use this to extend our current chain to a total of just over 300 feet because we will be anchoring in deeper waters if we go to the South Pacific next year.  ACCO makes a single chain link that connects two sections of anchor chain.  It has 2 little rivets that you pound in with a hammer to secure the connection.  We needed one 10mm single chain link connector, but there is not one to be found on Grenada.  Every chandlery is out of stock on this particular size.  They have the 8mm and the 12mm, but no 10mm.  We cannot substitute a 12mm connector link because that would jam in the anchor windlass gypsy.  Budget Marine showed that they were supposed to have received 10 of these connectors in their container shipment received last week.  But after searching through all the boxes received, it was decided that these were backordered with no definite delivery date provided.  So, for now we have stored the new 80-ft section of chain in the deck locker near the bow where we store our 2 secondary anchors and rodes.  Maybe we can find the correct chain connector link in Isla Margarita (doubt it) or in Cartagena (doubt that too) or in Panama (probably).

Yesterday we took the bus to the Lagoon Road and did more boat-stuff shopping.  Found a wonderful 24V oscillating fan, which we will use to replace the stainless steel 24V trucker’s fan we brought down from Houston last year.  The original fan is making noise and is expected to die at any time.  This new fan puts out so much air that we will try to go back and buy a couple more to have for spares.  BEBE has 9 fans built-in.  We had mounted the trucker’s fan onto an old cutting board and attached a long electrical cord.  We can move this fan all over the boat and down into the engine room to provide extra ventilation whenever working in the heat.  We also sometimes use it in our aft cabin when the weather is exceptionally hot or if it is raining and we cannot open the hatch or ports.  This new little oscillating fan puts out much more air than any of the Hella fans or the old trucker’s fan.  This little thing is a keeper.

Ed and Linda on DREAMTIME have lucked into a sweet deal.  They are anchored in front of a resort here at Prickly Bay, and they became friends with the owner of the resort.  The owner went home to the states for the month of June, and Ed and Linda are dog-sitting for him.  They have been given a hotel room at the resort (although they prefer to sleep on their own boat instead).  They are hosting a pool party for a select group of their cruiser friends this afternoon and we are invited.  This should be fun.  I have missed lounging around a swimming pool. 

We invited another guy over for dinner tonight.  His wife has gone back to the states for a month to visit the kids and grandkids, so he is on his boat alone doing the bachelor thing.  Thought he might enjoy a home cooked meal. 

We are waiting for a FedEx shipment of Bill’s prescription medication that should arrive in Grenada early this week, so we should be able to pick it up by Wednesday – hopefully.  Receiving packages in a foreign country is much different than back in the states.  FedEx will deliver a waybill and a copy of the invoice covering the contents of the package.  This will be delivered to the boatyard since it was the only land address that we could utilize in Grenada.  Then we will pick up this paperwork from the boatyard office and take it to the nearest Customs office which happens to be on the opposite side of Prickly Bay from the boatyard.  Customs will verify our boat documentation and our clearance papers into Grenada.  I will complete a form stating that the contents of the FedEx package will be coming aboard our boat and will be leaving Grenada bound for Venezuela.  We get the paperwork stamped by the Customs officer and take another dinghy ride back across Prickly Bay to the boatyard.  We tie off our dinghy and walk about ½ mile to catch a bus to the FedEx office in downtown St. George’s.  There we will spend at least an hour (if we are lucky—could be a lot longer) collecting our package and paying Customs fees for it.   Then catch another bus back, walk a ½ mile to the boatyard and collect our dinghy.  And all this time the FedEx website will show that our package was delivered on the day and time that they delivered the waybill to the boatyard office.  Tracking international packages online is a joke; you cannot believe anything. 

BTW, Grenada charges duty of 37%!!!!  The Customs officers both at the Prickly Bay location and at the FedEx office both told us that the duty will not be collected on Bill’s scripts but that we will have to pay some customs fee----supposedly it won’t be much, but neither Customs officer could tell us how much “not much” will be.  So we arrange for the invoice accompanying the FedEx package to state a lower value than the $2200 that this script actually costs.  Unfortunately, the medication that Bill takes daily to control his ulcers is not available down here.  We have not found it anywhere except in the USA.  The same drug is available in tablet form everywhere that we have visited, but Bill’s doctor wants him to take this drug in capsule form.  So we are stuck with getting a 6-month supply shipped to us twice a year.  Thanks to John, Helene, Trey and Aaron back in Texas for dealing with this for us.  Don’t know what we would do without their help.

Once we receive this FedEx shipment there will be no reason for us to remain in Grenada.  It should be a nice overnight sail to Los Testigos from Grenada.

Haul out at Spice Island

June 4, 2007  Monday

Gary from ELUSIVE and Tito from ALLEULIA! volunteered to assist us in getting BEBE into the slipway at the boatyard this morning.  Tito offered to toss lines to the dockhands and Gary offered to use his dinghy to help fend us away from the shallow areas and rocks in case of gusting wind.  Just as we were pulling up the anchor I looked at the slipway and noticed that another boat had jumped in ahead of us!  We had a reservation for 8:00 a.m. and were supposed to be the first boat hauled today.   While we were finishing getting the anchor up at 7:40 a.m., Garry zipped down to the slipway to talk to the people on the other boat.  Turned out that they claimed to also have a reservation for 8:00 a.m. this morning.  Uh, oh.  Somebody made an error.

When we got closer to the slipway it was obvious how this error could have happened – the name on that boat was BABE.   Sounds and looks an awful lot like our name of BEBE.  Now what are the chances of two boats making a reservation for 8:00 a.m. on the same morning at the same boatyard and the boat names are almost identical?  I hailed Spice Island Marine to find out what was going on.   They were totally confused and promised to get back to me as soon as they figured it out.  In the meantime, BABE would be hauled first since she was already in the slipway.  So we circled the anchorage for almost an hour until it was our turn. 

The water depth is exceptionally shallow all around the slipway and there really was not adequate space for us to remain in the area of the slipway awaiting our turn.

Our wonderful bow thruster handled the tight turns wonderfully and it turned out that we didn’t require Gary’s help in his dinghy, but we very much appreciated his offer of assistance and his waiting nearby just in case he was needed to fend us off the concrete docks in case of gusting winds.   Tito handed off the lines on the windward side to the dockhands; then he climbed down into Gary’s dinghy and they both returned to their boats.  Thanks guys. 

Then Judy went up to the boatyard office to set up the work orders, etc.; and to find out what the screw-up on the reservation.  Turned out that it was exactly what we thought as soon as we saw the name of the other boat.  We had made a reservation first.  The other boat was being delivered to the boatyard by a delivery crew; the owners had already left Grenada.  The delivery crew had understood from the owners that they had a reservation for haul-out this morning at 8:00 a.m..  When BABE called in to reserve a haul-out, the office clerk has checked her calendar and saw that BEBE was already slotted for that date and time; so she confirmed their reservation.  An understandable error, but truly weird!

This little screw-up for the first haul-out of the day caused the boatyard to be backed-up all day long.  That travel lift was busy all day long, one boat right after another.  This boatyard is very busy right now.  But they seem to be doing a good job of handling all the business.  Our boat had been pressure washed, wet-sanded, boot stripe taped off, the prop had been cleaned and they were half-way through applying the first coat of bottom paint by the time we left the boatyard at 2:30 this afternoon.  We are impressed!  This is far better service than we received in St. Thomas last year.

Jerry and Sally on TI AMO gave us a ride over to the Cool Runnings Apartments, where we had reservations.  Jerry and Sally have rented a car for a couple of days so they were nice enough to give us a lift.  Bill told the office manager that he wanted to see our room before we checked in.  Good thing that Bill did this – because he said there was no way we were staying there!  It reeked of mildew smell.  So we lugged our bags back to the boatyard (not very far) and sent to De Big Fish for a cold drink, where we again ran into Jerry and Sally.  They suggested another place called KiKi Apartments where they had stayed for several months while having major work done on their boat a couple of years ago.  Judy found a pay phone and got a reservation.  Then Jerry and Sally gave us a ride to KiKi.  This is more like it!  Same price as Cool Runnings but much nicer.  Television and air conditioning, 2-bedroom apartment.  It is a longer walk to the boatyard but worth it.  So, thanks to Jerry and Sally for recommending the KiKi Apartments.

BTW, we are glad that we bought our bottom paint in St. Martin.  We paid about $840 for a pail which is approximately 5 gallons.  Here in Grenada the same paint if $223 per gallon, so we saved a couple of hundred dollars.

June 6, 2007  Wednesday

Bill’s 60^th Birthday!

Yep, this is one of the “big” ones!  Bill is 60 years old today.  Actually, the bigger birthday will be his 62^nd because then he can start to collect Social Security.  I caught him making an ugly face the other day while he was watching another boat doing something odd in the anchorage and I told him to never make that face again because it made him look like a bewildered old man.  He said that sometimes he feels like a bewildered old man, but he agreed to try to avoid the expression that makes him look that way.  I’m certainly not ready for him to become old.  We are both still too physically active to start looking and acting like old people (old being a relative term).

BEBE is scheduled to splash at 1:00 p.m. Friday.  She would be splashing tomorrow except that it is a holiday:  Corpus Christus Day, a day the Grenadian people consider good for planting trees. 

This haul-out has gone very smoothly.  We were about an hour late getting lifted on Monday morning, but by the end of that day the first coat of bottom paint was complete and the hull had been hand-washed and the prop was all shiny. 

On Tuesday the second coat of bottom paint was applied and the hull was waxed and buffed.  They even waxed and buffed the brown rub rail without us having to even ask.  They discovered a few tiny marks in the hull white gel coat and those were repaired.  I noticed a few bubble looking areas near the bottom of the keel and got concerned.  I pressed on one and out popped some water.  Uh, oh; this could be really bad!  They ground down and found that it was just a few drops of water that got covered over with bottom paint.  There was not problem with the keel and they did not even disturb the epoxy layer that coats our cast iron keel.  They re-applied the two coats of bottom paint to those areas that were ground down. 

Today they painted the third coat of bottom paint around the water line and rudder and keel, and they waxed again right around the boot stripe.  This was done at our request in hopes that it will help somewhat with the problem of slime that attaches to that area so very quickly.  Cleaning the waterline weekly is a tiresome chore.

While the painters, Miguel and Jonathon, did their job, Bill also had Jean Ives at the machinist shop in the boatyard do some work.  Jean removed our windlass gypsy because the key was slightly askew.  Then he fabricated a new key.  That was reassembled this afternoon.  While this work was being done, Bill reversed our anchor chain.  He turned it around so that the end that was attached to the anchor is now the bitter end inside the anchor locker.  This puts the clean, almost unused section of chain at the end with the anchor and the most-used end of the chain where it will likely never be let out all the way. 

We also purchased more anchor chain so that we now have a little more than 300 feet on our primary WASI Buegel anchor.  The only thing that we are missing is the connector link for the chain.   Both Island Water World and Budget Marine carry the 10mm connector link for joining sections of chain, but both are out of stock at the moment.  Budget Marine supposedly received 10 of these connector links on a shipment yesterday, but they haven’t found them yet.  They are supposed to be in one of the many, many boxes that were in the container that was emptied into their storeroom yesterday.  Who knows how long it will take them to find this one small box, which is inside some larger box.  We desperately want to have this link before we splash Friday because we would like to have Jean Ives spot weld it once the taps are splayed into place.  It is not necessary to have these spot welded, but we would like to have it done if at all possible.

Once we get back into the water then we must vacuum the entire interior of the boat.  We are placed in the yard directly downwind from a cement factory.  There are piles of sand and concrete powder right behind the fence directly in front of us.  The winds have blown steadily and now every nook and cranny and crevice of our boat is gritty with concrete dust.  We will need to do a major clean-up inside the boat once we are back out on the water and away from this flying crap.

Bill was exhausted by the time we walked the 1.2 mile back to the apartment in the heat late this afternoon.  But he got a much-needed hot shower and is taking a short rest.  I will wake him up in a few minutes and we will walk down the road to the True Blue Resort for what we hope will be a nice birthday dinner.  I did manage to buy a Rocky Road cake for him today when I went into town to get my hair cut.  We have no oven in this apartment, just a stove top and a microwave and toaster oven; and we sent both of our propane tanks on the boat in for refills; so I could not bake him his favorite chocolate cake for his birthday this year.  A store-bought cake will have to suffice.

Perfect work on the new bimini modifications made in Carriacou

Prickly Bay, Grenada

June 2, 2007  Saturday

Prickly Bay, Grenada

11.59.852N; 061.45.745W           Sailed 40 NM

At about 8:30 this morning Bill started cleaning the anchor chain as it was slowly raised.   We did not want that dirty, stinking mess down in our anchor locker.  So Bill stood on the bow with a bucket of soapy water and a scrub brush and scrubbed down the chain in 3-ft sections as we slowly raised it.  This got the attention of Andy at In Stitches and he came zooming out in his dinghy with the final bimini pieces.  Maybe he was afraid that we had decided to leave without waiting for the final pieces – and that we were trying to skip out on paying his bill!  Actually, he was just joking with us about that.  Turns out that the only person who has ever not paid his bill was a local politician.  Figures.

The side panels fit perfectly.  We think we will very much enjoy having this additional shade.  Plus we hope that it will help keep at least some of the mosquitoes and flies out.  There are lots of gaps and spaces that could not be fit tightly due to those silly things called running rigging, winches, and cleats that are required on sailboats, as well as the mizzen mast.  I hope to find several yards of bridal veil netting to crumple to fill those gaps for those few times that insects really are annoying.  Total cost for the altering the bimini extension and making 4 side shade panels that zip together and 2 heavier mesh rear shade panels was about $1,000 USD, including labor and materials.  We think that was a very reasonable price, plus we had the convenience of dealing with people who spoke English so there was no language barrier. 

We had cleared Tyrrel Bay and were on our way south by 9:45 a.m.  Winds varied all day between 22 knots and 30 knots; seas were the 7-ft to 9-ft as predicted; light squalls were visible most of the day but only a couple managed to aim their drops on us.  All sails were triple reefed.  When current was against us our boat speed would drop down to as low as 4 knots; but at other times our boat speed was over 8 knots.  At one point Bill changed the genoa to be only double reefed instead of triple reefed – and our boat speed shot up to over 9 knots!  That was a bit too fast!  Since we were not in that big of a hurry to reach Grenada, we soon took in the genoa back to being triple reefed.  It was a very enjoyable sail.  Even when we reached the bottom of Grenada and took in the sails and motored the final few miles directly into the waves and wind, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we had expected. 

We anchored and soon found it was too rolly to stay there.  So we pulled anchor and set down again farther back, closer to Spice Island Marine.  It is much calmer here.  ALLEULIA! and ELUSIVE are anchored nearby.

One nice thing we have discovered about the new bimini side and rear shade panels.  For some reason they help create more breeze through the boat and in the cockpit.  That is a nice surprise.

BTW, the Texas flag that John brought us in February is now shredded.  These flags simply do not last very long.  And I had triple stitched that flag for reinforcement before we ever put it up.  And our SSCA blue Associate burgee is also shredded.  Don’t want to buy another blue one and pay for international shipping because we are in the process of being sponsored for Commodore status.  If we pass approval then we will be buying a red Commodore burgee in 4 months.  Hoping I can find a fabric store on Grenada where some blue fabric can be purchased for repairs.

Waiting for bimini shade modifications to be made

May 30, 2007  Wednesday

Caught a “taxi” over to Hillsborough so we could max out both of our ATM cards again.  Figure we will need EC cash to pay for the bimini modifications when they are finished.  The ride over there and back was on a somewhat different route than we went the last time, so we saw a bit more of the island.  Funny, one part pretty much looks just like any other part.  Walked around a bit but Bill’s toe didn’t feel up to a long walk.  Didn’t do much else today.  Made more granola; I have modified granola recipes and have settled on one that Bill enjoys.   Also have learned to make our own yogurt but I am not yet satisfied with it and need additional experimentation in yogurt production.  First I need to find a sealable glass container because our plastic containers are truly not suitable for making yogurt.

May 31, 2007  Thursday

Another Make & Mend day:  do the laundry and make some water; clean the boat.  Routine weekly chores.

A few days ago we made a reservation for Shelter Bay Marina in Panama for December 10 through January 10.  A friend with a boat just like ours stayed there a few months ago and said it was very nice and a secure place to leave your boat for a trip home.  Then we bought airline tickets home to Houston from Panama.   So we should be home for the holidays!  We will arrive in Houston on the evening of December 19 and depart the morning of January 9.  Talk about planning in advance!  Now if Mother Nature will only cooperate.  This is all totally dependent on the weather, a/k/a hurricane season.  Bill said that guess this means we are really going to Panama.  I reminded him that anything that can be done can also be undone.  Nothing in our itinerary or schedule is carved in stone.

This put me on a search of Continental airlines and its partners.  Bill still has several hundred thousand OnePass miles with Continental.  I found that we can fly home from Cairns, Australia, for 240,000  miles plus $200.  Not sure we would want to leave our boat as far north as Cairns during the typhoon season; but KLM is a partner with Continental, and KLM services Sydney.  We cannot get any information about the KLM flights using reward travel miles; it would involve a telephone call and it is way too early to get into that.  But it is remotely possible that we could again fly home for Christmas holidays 2009.  That makes Bill feel a little better about heading off to the South Pacific.  He is concerned about being so far away from family for such a long period.  I think he had it in his mind that we would not be able to go home again until we reach the Med. 

Thinking about Panama has put us both in the mood to further research the passage to Cartagena and then the San Blas Islands.  Then that got me to researching further into the South Pacific.  There is so much that you have to plan in advance that it boggles our minds a bit.  Visas for French Polynesia, requests to Ecuador for permission to travel to the Galapagos Islands,  more malaria prophylaxis,  verify health cards are up-to-date, find and reserve a place to do a quick last-minute haul-out to clean the bottom and prop before heading out in Pacific, find  and buy foul-weather suits for colder climate, sea boots or waterproof shoes/boots for cold weather, remember to pick-up some cold-weather clothes and shoes from our stash in John’s attic when we visit Houston in December (REALLY hard to think about that stuff in this heat!), find more courtesy flags for the various countries we will visit in Pacific, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum.  Not to mention the spare parts lists to review and the provisioning lists. 

We will do major provisioning in Isla Margarita in July.  That will take us through the San Blas Islands; then we will do major provisioning again in Panama City in February after we transit the canal.  That will require a lot of thought and advance planning; but we have been warned how terribly expensive everything is in the South Pacific, so you do need to stock as much as possible while in Panama.  But you don’t want too much because New Zealand is exceptionally restrictive about what they will allow you to bring into their country.  They come out to your boat and take away all fresh or frozen meats and all cheese (even canned) and a whole litany of other food items.  They even take your vacuum cleaner bags!  And they check your shoes for any dirt.  They are very serious about not letting destructive parasites into their country.  So you need to stock your provisions in Panama to last until New Zealand, and you want to arrive in New Zealand with your cupboards and freezers bare.

A single chicken in the South Pacific can cost $20 USD – YIKES!!!  And a dozen eggs often costs $12-$15.  Beer in Tahiti runs $10 per can.  Prices like these give you an example of why it is important to provision correctly in Panama City.

And this cruising thing is supposed to be care-free!

Of course, all this advance thinking and planning could be for nothing.  Bill could change his mind again and we might end up somewhere else.  My mind is already made up about going to the Pacific.  I can’t believe we would have sold our house and everything to move aboard this boat and then just sit in the Caribbean the entire time we live aboard.  But we are in this together and if one of us doesn’t want to do something then we won’t do it.

June 1, 2007  Friday

Weather forecast for Sunday is for sustained winds of 25 knots with gusts 35 knots and 10-foot seas. Yeehah!!  What a ride down to Grenada that would be!  Especially since the final 5 miles would be directly into the wind and waves.  Thank goodness that Bill has been pressuring Petra to finish our bimini shade panels as quickly as possible. 

Petra and Andy brought the panels out to our boat late this afternoon for a final fitting.  Andy installed the turnbuckles that were needed to hold the panels down nice and snug, and Petra did final measurements for the last zippers.  They said these would be delivered tomorrow morning about 9:00 a.m.  We will then immediately leave to sail down to Grenada; praying that we arrive before the worst of the wave arrives.  Weather forecast for Saturday is for winds of 22 knots and the wind chop component of seas to be 7-foot.   That should be lively enough!