In this video, Barely Made it to Grenada, We sail south from St. John USVI to St Croix USVI once more to do our checkout of the US and stage our departure for the Island of Grenada, a 4-5 day sail to the south east which will take us well outside of the hurricane belt and to safety. Grenada Lima, a non-for profit organization together with MAYAG yachting association were able to arrange for safe entry and quarantine of yachts looking to shelter in Grenada from the 2020 hurricane lineup which has already begun. After a short stop in St Croix we leave for Grenada and spend 4.5 days at sea travelling there. Our longest single non-stop passage on Balachandra yet. On the last day our mainsail gets damaged just as we encounter a serious current that threatens to take us into the pirate waters of Venezuela!
#caribbeansea #sailinggrenada #2020hurricaneseason #sailingchannel

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In August of 2017 we sold everything and moved aboard Balachandra, a 1986 C&C44 sailboat, then sailed it over 300 nautical miles to Halifax Nova Scotia to spend a cold Canadian winter in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic. Sailing Balachandra is our YouTube sailing vlog inspired by other great channels such as Delos and La Vagabonde, which documents the sailing adventures of myself and my partner Nawal as we navigate the globe. We also dive into lots of DIY boat projects both above and below decks, and share with you all of the pros and cons of living aboard full time. Sailing Balachandra is published weekly so please subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos!

This video was shot with equipment from Optrix by Body Glove, Nikon, Apple, GoPro, and Polaroid

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"Thunderstruck" intro performed on acoustic by Daniel Cormier (SVB crew)

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Closed Captions (CC):
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last time on sailing Bella Chandra we

went spearfishing in Megan's Bay sale

tomorrow Bay st. John to buy a new low

board motor and found out that we were

accepted to corn in Grenada hi if you're

new to the channel I'm Noelle gonna bid

and we're selling Bella Chandra we've

sailed from Nova Scotia Canada all the

way to the Caribbean and we've been

cutting around for the last couple of

months now that's right and if you

haven't subscribed to our channel yet

please do so right now just go below the

video looks at the big red button that

says subscribe press that button right

now right over here this is Tortola and

over here it's been Dyke because we're

stuck here in the US Virgin Islands

through the coronavirus lockdown stuff

we're just leaving st. John Island right

now st. John's beautiful we spent some

time last night in Maho Bay and it was

gorgeous we had to come here to buy a

motor actually we had to get a new

Tohatsu because remember we were talking

about our Tohatsu and it was in bad

shape so we came to Maho here to meet

somebody to buy the motor used and it's

a pretty nice motor so things are going

well I did a little snorkelling a little

swimming so you've got a good run on the

beach and now we're off to st. Croix

we're going to st. Croix to stage our

departure for Grenada

we're leaving for Grenada in just a few

days and st. Croix is kind of our last

stop it's getting us about a day closer

to Grenada and also we should be able to

pick up some supplies

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so we've left st. John and we're on our

way now to st. Croix again our window

for Grenada is coming up that's what the

arrangement that we made with the

Grenada Lima organization to allow us

into the country during the kovat 19

situation we'll spend a day or two at

st. Croix picking up a few last-minute

items and the weather's right we'll head

straight for Grenada

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hey guys we've officially left st. Croix

for Granito

and we are on our way there it's the

first day we had a little mishap we

could have at the gate there's a reef at

the bottom of st. Croix on the west side

that you have to round in order to come

down here and I guess there's some reef

markers on the side and we were getting

kind of close to them and we hooked one

and we just saw this buoy just flying in

our Stern and we knew we didn't we

cooked it we had to pull down the sails

I had to get in the water with my

snorkel gear and debris the thing it

wasn't too bad it was a little wrapped

around her properly we're motoring for

time it was just up there and it was

wrapped around her wing keel which has a

real catch-all type design these wing

keels usually things do roll right off

but this one definitely didn't so anyway

we're all good now we're free and we're

sailing and we're going

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day two of our trip to Grenada yesterday

was good we covered a lot of good ground

the winds really picked up we're doing

about seven knots for like six hours

last night it was really uncomfortable

Zeus was so cranky he woke up in a much

better mood today

we started our motor trying to make up

some ground headed eat because we've

been doing mostly so this whole trip so

yeah let's get a couple of hours east in

and then we will turn off the motor and

start sailing again

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all right we're now on day three of our

trip to Grenada and things are going

well it's been really windy at night and

we've had to put a reef in every night

but it's not a bad idea to put a reef in

at night here are the Caribbean because

you never know if there's gonna be a

squall and you want to be prepared and

it's a lot easier than waking the well

that's been bringing her up here to help

me put a wreath in the middle of the

night the winds kind of dying right now

and we still have a lot of east to go

because the wind here is always blowing

from the east with trade winds we have a

lot of east direction to make up so it's

easier just a motor to the east and then

continue sailing so right now we're kind

of going south east and we want to hit

our mark a little better and come in on

time so we might start bordering there

now the fishing hasn't been great

because there's so much of this seaweed

in the water and every time we throw the

line it seems to catch on some seaweed

but I've been noticing in the last

couple hours there hasn't gained much so

we might start fishing again hopefully

we'll catch something

that I was up to the fishing store that

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I lost all the good lawyers on

squid put some weight in there grab some

more of these in the leg weights

this is

big fish

on the front you've got this big tongue

and that tongue helps the Lord go really

low in the water

we've squid I bought a really big boy

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this is day four of our sails to Grenada

from st. Croix US Virgin Islands

motoring now because today we had some

pretty high winds this morning

it looks like some stitches were coming

out of the main we dropped the mainsail

and I taped where the stitches were

coming out thinking that sales table do

the trick when we raised the sail again

the sail camp just gave out and the

stitching just kept it from moving

and now there's like a whole

a motive

three or four points section of the

mainsail that it's very sound

so just keep it from causing more damage

we drop the main and now we're sailing

on the jib only and using the boat

normally we can fail on just the jib but

down here close to Venezuela there's

some trees serious

maybe like two not three not concurrent

that is pushing us away from Grenada

towards Venezuela which is not good

because that's pirate waters and we

don't want to go anywhere near there so

in order for us to arrive on time in

Grenada

we need to motor sail that's putting out

the jib and running the motor but not

the main and hopefully we'll get there

roughly around 8 a.m. tomorrow morning

arriving in her native made to Grenada

guys we're here

we had some squalls actually quite a few

squalls but halfway through to the end

it got worse it just seemed like squall

after squall I was kind of crappy and

then we had that seem separate on our

main sail so we couldn't fly the Maine

anymore and had to motor the rest of the

way and so we had about 12 hours or so

just motor sailing with the jib and the

engine running but we did manage to get

in and we came in in the morning on the

last day and it was pretty ideal

actually were able to go right in to do

our chicken all told the trip took us

four and a half days from start to

finish to go from st. Croix just south

of st. Thomas USB eyes and we just did a

straight line right to Grenada we had to

do a lot of easting there was a fair bit

of current that we didn't expect about

halfway through and some very strong

East and then southeast winds so when it

was blowing from the east we could move

the way we wanted to but we were close

hauled the entire time into the wind

nose in which is tough tough to do that

for four to five days straight but it

worked out and we got here and you know

we didn't suffer too much damage except

for the stitch out on the main which

we're going to repair as soon as we're

allowed to go ashore otherwise we're in

good shape and we made it upon arrival

we called the marina on the VHF they

told us what side to put our lines on

pulled in

put on our masks and we walk towards a

tent where they just took our

temperature and gave us a breakdown as

to what we can expect of being in

quarantine for the duration of the two

weeks we're in the quarantine Anchorage

right now you can see there's boats

behind us there's probably about a

hundred boats here in this quarantine

Anchorage we have to serve a two-week

quarantine and there's kind of a

changeover so boats are coming and going

all the time here so just after checking

in and having our temperatures take and

we had to proceed out into the

quarantine area which is a designated

square with GPS points drop our anchor

there and basically sit here for two

weeks waiting for the quarantine period

to end then we can go in and have a co

big nineteen health test to see if we're

you know healthier if we have the virus

and if we pass and everything's good

then we can actually anchor somewhere

else and go about our business and

Grenada so that should be good you know

what I can't complain I'm just happy to

be outside the hurricane zone oh yeah

exactly we're really lucky to be here

moving between countries right now is

pretty much impossible this was a very

special case as we mentioned before and

so us and other boats like us who needed

to get out of the hurricane zone and

find a place to spend these few months

we've we've got it Grenada we must been

really great it gets all volunteer work

they're not being paid the employees

aren't being paid to go that extra step

in setting up barriers and the tents and

the staff you know standing around all

day wearing their masks it's all

volunteer really done and we're so

grateful that they have gone above and

beyond what was needed in order to

welcome us yeah exactly

thanks for watching this week's video I

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you later yeah

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