After 13 months of moving – we are hauled out at Chaguaramas, Trinidad, West Indies for hurricane season (July to October). BUT they didn’t tell us that they have earthquakes – we felt our first tonight while I was typing this. We were SHOCKED as we are on the hard and had never felt that movement under us before! Oh well, that’s what an adventure includes I guess. So now we have to think not only about wind but earth moving as we put Sojourn to sleep for 2 months.
The night crossing of 85nm was good with 6-8′ seas and wind 20 — mostly close hauled. A good sail. It was abit of a challenge down in cabin to not get tossed around. Our navigation PC flew off and landed on Rose’s foot and got a few other bruises but at least the PC continued to work. We did sail east about 10 degrees so ended up passing oil/gas platform on port. Really didn’t see any current issues so ended up 3-4 nm west of our rhumb line. Came abit early to the mouth of the dragon entrance as tide wasn’t slack yet — Oh well — trip was faster than expected and we even rolled in head sail 10nm out to waste some time. About 3-4 nm out the wind and waves picked up — not sure if due to cape affect. Arrived to mouth at 2-3 knots of current and calm large rollers against us. It was slow movement but beautiful!
We went directly to Coral Cove as customs dock was full with rafted boats and then were told to go to customs before we could check fully into Coral. Interesting for us to dock as weren’t really prepared for lassoing pelican posts on both sides as the tide was 3′ low and our boat is so skinny/low anyway. But we managed and were pleased to be done with passages for abit. It’s the first custom/immigration office where they wanted to see both of us.
Its been a LONG time since we were at a marina and had running water to clean the boat! We have a small A/C unit installed and have been taking 2 showers a day — a luxurious life!!!! Its abit warm in these marinas, but with our shade cover and A/C we are great.
I have been checking out the new neighborhood during the day. I took the local bus $.75 US or $5TT to Port of Spain to get some marine fabric and then to St. James to get my folding bike tire repaired @ $10TT or $2US. That was a trip in learning how to point your finger in the right direction so that you get the right bus to stop. Keeps the mind alert! Its VERY difficult to understand the locals English – it seems that as we progressed down island – it gets more and more slurry and a lot of slang/abbreviations. But if I keep trying to tune by ears – I think I will pick up more each day. I have been walking 6:30am with another cruiser as its amazing how many green parrots fly back/forth at dawn and sunset – Always in pairs. I even heard wild boars back in the mangrove/bamboo bush. We sort are prisioners to our marina gate at night however as there has been some problems with theft – but we are usually in bed about 9pm anyway. The population is about ½ Indian and ½ south African but have a lot of other cultures here as well.
We have worked out tails off looking at all the systems. The normal cleaning, waxing, sanding to add better salt water antifouling BUT also fixing head, bildge, diesel injector timing/oil change, outboard lower unit grease, change oil in generator, corrosion that sheared mainsail shackle, replaced windows on dodger, replace cutlass bearing which requires pulling motor forward, oil teak, wash upholstery, equalizing batteries, fixing wind/speed instrument, fixing VHF remote mic, etc. etc. etc. They say that the cruising population in Trinidad is down but also recommend that we get as much done now vs October as the mad rush will happen with all the cruisers wanting to get put back in the water and move on. So that’s what we are doing.
Its the same amount of work that we used to perform to put boat away for winter in MN but this time its only for 2 months. But then we’re usually not sailing for 1 year straight either! The prices for labor and dining are abit cheaper than US but not much. The groceries are cheaper so we will be doing another heavy provisioning here before depart to go back up. I was surprised that we actually ate A LOT of what I put on boat since Miami. So I did a great job of keeping my baby caker “Tom” happy.
I also decided to create a visual trip log via google map – so view at our website under Links. Its not done yet but will be soon.
Looking forward to seeing you the next couple months back in MN to share more about our journey!
Live Slow, Sail Fast
Rose & Tom