First Trinidad impression

We feel pretty lucky we arrived when we did as there was a nasty weather system headed from the US coast south and 30 foot waves in the north Atlantic, resulting in damaging 9 to 10 foot waves breaking ashore in all the Caribbean islands. We were on the safe side of the island but did get some surge as a result of the high waves.

We had a lot of clean up and fixing to do, poor Sid was in the bilge for days and also had some extra work to do on the engine and exchanging the sump pump which by now was corroded and refused to work. It took us four solid days to get back to normal and barely left the boat other than to take showers or take a dip in the pool. This is a first ever that we didn’t explore our new surrounding, not until about the 7^th day.

The Crews Inn Marina is a top notch marina and fairly expensive, at least for us, about 2/3 more than in Venezuela. The slip charge is for minimum length of 40 feet which means if you are a 36 foot boat like us you pay for 40 feet.

1 – 7 nights 0.87 / ft $ 34.80 per day 243.60 week

8 -30 nights 0.76 / ft $ 30.40 per day 912.00 month

31-179 nights 0.63 / ft $ 25.29 per day 758.70 month

180 + nights 0.56 / ft $ 22.40 per day 672.00 month

If you arrange a 5 day stay then extend they will not adjust the days you’ve been here already, that will stay the more expensive price.

But it is the marina to be in as the others have to deal with surge and the wakes of the many fishing boats going in and out. It gets so bad that the boats are banging against the dock. Crews Inn is also the only marina with a pool and gym and the newspaper gets delivered on the boat every morning. Hi-Lo the best grocery store in town is located in our marina too and the restaurant has wonderful food. On Saturday they have the captain’s special breakfast, eggs, bacon, sausage, hash, baked beans, fruit, toast, juice of choice and coffee for $4.15. There is a bank with and ATM machine as well but won’t take our pin number. Neither does the bank over at Peake’s, so we have to go down town to the Scotia bank for money.

Chaguaramas is the biggest boating center we’ve ever seen and has as many as 11 well equipped yards and each yard has its own marine store, so you can get pretty much anything. What you can’t find here you can have shipped in duty free. The yards are all pretty impressive and they do good work from what we’ve observed. Our first excursion to check out all the yards we ended at Peake’s and one of the first boats we noticed in the yard is our sister ship, a rare find and of course we wanted to meet the owner and found out that he is the store manager. He was just as excited as we were and we swapped hints and tips about our boats. He promised to come over and look at Paradise and chat some more.

The Autohelm guy here told us that Max is beyond fixing and so we had to dip into our cruising kitty and buy a new one Raymarine S2G. Sid also sent the GPS in for repair and we were amazed that it arrived in the States the next morning already at 9.30 now that’s what I call good service, go FedEx.

In the mean time we’ve been here for almost 3 weeks and honestly can’t say yet that we like it. The marina is nice and the Trini's are super friendly it just does not feel homey for some reason. It’s a damper too knowing that it is not very safe to walk around as cruisers occasionally are getting robbed, so does the bank here. Trinidad has a huge crime problem the newspaper is filled with just robberies and murders. For as small as this island is the crime rate beats Los Angels.

Chaguaramas is a busy place during the day and it almost boggles your mind with all the boat yards and just across the street turns into a tropical scene with the screams of squawking parrots filing the air as they fly over the boats to their roost in the near by jungle. The bird life here is amazing, you see all kinds of birds and bugs I was doing laundry I saw a dried out leaf on the floor and tried to pick it up and it moved. Upon closer inspection I realized that it was a moth looking just like a dried up leaf, very interesting. A the dock there is an underwater light and attracts all kinds of fish at night, including parrot fish and get this a school of about 20 squid, dinner right under the house, no we let them live, but the thought was there. It’s nice to see clear and clean water in a marina for a change too. Weather is amazingly cool and it can rain daily for a brief time, so you need to keep an eye on open hatches.

On day 7 we finally had settled in hired a taxi for 5 hours to drive us around and through town, good idea as we now know where most things are and can take the public MaxiTaxi instead of the expensive taxis.

Also when you greet somebody it’s either “morning morning”, or “gooday gooday”, “evening evening” or just “hi hi” and when somebody asks you how you are you say “oh, goodish”. The most difficult thing is trying to understand what the Trinis are saying, it’s a totally different language as “thirty” is “tirtty”, thanks = ttanks, road = rod, “A”s are pronounce like a heavy NY accent, and they speak so fast it frankly doesn’t sound English anymore. You know the accent India people have just quadruple that, it’s a foreign language. It’s actually funny Sid he can only understand the first three words, then its gibberish, so he thought it was his hearing problem and let me do all the talking and dealing, well I had to tell him that I had the same hearing problem.

Trinidad has is cultural mixture but the India culture shows through most, you can tell by the delicate faces and beautiful almond shaped eyes. But this is also the land of the Rasta Man.

The food definitely has the India influence and is pretty darn good too; I doubt we’ll loose weight here. The main flavor is curry. The most traditional food is Roti kind of a tortilla wrap with chana (chickpeas) and meat, the other “Bake and shark”, bake is a deep fried bread, reminds me of the jelly filled donuts without the sugar or jelly, filled with breaded and fried shark and topped with cucumbers, tomatoes, salad, onions, garlic sauce, hot sauce and ketchup, very tasty. Oh, ketchup is a staple food here and is used on pizza, yes ketchup and mustard on pizza, they smother it so much you cannot recognize the slice of pizza anymore.

At the Crews Inn potluck which is held every Thursday we met Wendy and Lee on Word Wide Traveler a 47 foot Catana, we hit it off pretty good with them and next day when they came to inspect our canvas work they invited us for a sail to the leper island, Chacachacare. They had a rendezvous with a local charter boat and we rafted with them. It was fun for a couple of hours and when we were snorkeling we realized that the boats were dragging as they followed us into shore. We got out of the water just in time before WWTraveler hit on the underwater structure. We pulled anchor and headed to the next cove, set the hook, relaxed and enjoyed a wonderful dinner while the full moon came up over the tropical hill and many hours later we sailed back to Chaguaramas. What a beautiful way to spend a sail ending with a romantic dinner.

Sid was so excited to hear that they have Hash House Harriers here and of course we attended so did Wendy and Lee. Sid’s done two in Grenada for me this was the first one. Hash House Harrier is an international group of social, non-competitive running, social and drinking clubs or as they say “a drinking club with a running problem”.

The template for a hash run is loosely based on hare hunting. One or more hasher (the “hares”) lay out a running trail, that the rest of the club (pack or “hounds”, club is also called ”Kennel”) follows. The trail may include false trails, or short cuts, dead ends, but everybody knows at the end there is ice cold beer waiting for them. I was amazed over 100 people attended from young to old, kids and dogs. It was really fun and we are signed up for the next run already. What a better way to meet locals and get to see the island as the next one is going to be on the south end of the island.

It was actually funny out of four, Lee, Wendy, Sid and I, only one (Lee) heard the time right, we all said the Hash started at 8.30, while it started 15:30 so we headed to the Saturday open market instead. The market was huge but I must say I was pretty disappointed in the fruit selection as the only tropical fruits they sell here are pineapple, banana and papaya. Venezuela spoiled us that’s for sure. I’m also disappointed in the grocery stores; the veggies and meat selection are also just limited again Venezuela spoiled us. But they do have coconut water and is sold in a two liter bottle. This stuff is so yummy, I’m drinking a bottle a day, not just yummy it’s very healthy too.

So here we are in Trinidad, widening our horizon with a yet new culture. There are a lot of things to do so I know we will not get bored here. End of this coming week the carpenter is starting with the teak cabin sole, then right afterwards installing the new galley counter and he also is making us a cockpit table we never had. One way or another we’ll be busy. Ahhhh just another exotic place to work on the boat !!!!!!!

Please be patient for the next update, since we're remodeling the inside I may not have a table, room or time to play with my computer.

Trinidad at last

The wind didn’t lay down, so we decided to spend an extra day battling the flies, what a war (it took a lot of scrubbing and cleaning in Trinidad to get read of all the bodies), just good we had the netting which kept them mostly out, the ones that somehow found a way in got greeted with “Flytox” the best insect killer we’ve ever found the split second they get hit they fall straight down, that stuff works instantly. The wind finally slowed down after sunset and at 10 pm we lifted anchor and headed out into the dark night. Although we had a problem with the GPS, it could read the satellites but couldn’t come up with a position, so Sid finally hooked the handheld up with the computer, which worked just as well. We had a pretty calm crossing and arrived in Porlamar at 11 am. A couple hours into the trip Max the autopilot decided to quit as well and after we had anchored Sid tried to fix Max and thought he was successful. I jumped ship and raided the wonderful stores on Isla Margarita and loaded up on especially rum and wine, heard they were pricy in Trinidad. Imagine buying a case of wine, three cases of rum, 6 bottles of champagne, 2 Cuervo Gold Tequilla and 1 Camapari and spending less than 200 bucks. We even managed to get the diesel guy over and filled up four jugs of a total of 24 Gallons and paid 8 bucks and that’s the inflated price. He comes up in a boat full of big black jugs with a hand pump and a long hose and away he goes. The pump, pumps a liter every pump and that’s how he counts how much it is. What a busy afternoon that was, we were exhausted and finally could relax at 6pm, had a quick dinner and tried to get a nap until midnight. The Porlamar anchorage is always rather on the rolly side, especially that night so needless to say we didn’t get much sleep as the swell were on the beam tossing us from side to side. The wind was still making Maxine our wind generator scream but we pulled anchor anyway and headed out into an even darker night and fairly unsettled sea. We had to leave as there was two more days of a good weather window and God knows when the next one would be, besides our visa had run out so we had to go. There hasn’t been a good window since January 10^th and Chris Parker our weather guru said that this one will close in two days and that he didn’t see another opportunity for a long while. The sea was confused I guess Max did not like it more than we did and gave up the ghost for good, which meant manually steering the boat for the entire 146 miles or 36 hours. Besides that the GPS still couldn’t read the position, the two most crucial instruments we need were out. Max is like a third person and on a long crossing and even more so needed when it is rough, at least we have a backup GPS. About 3 miles out to sea the boat started to run sluggish. My watch was over and I had just settled in and started to doze off when I heard that alarm again. Sid went immediately down below to find the same mess I found a couple of weeks back, water was spewing up through the engine box. The bilge was filled to the rim again and this time came above the floor in the aft cabin and the carpets in the galley were soaked as well. NOT AGAIN!!!!! While looking for the problem I turned the boat around and started to head back towards Porlamar, just in case. Sid found another hose clamp that came off, all rusted out, this time on the engine. He fixed it the water pumped all out and we turned back in route to Trinidad. Wow, that was a close one again, not to mention the cleaning that lay ahead of us. As if that wasn’t enough the stress from this ordeal and the rough seas made me seasick, so Sid let me sleep it off for 4 hours. Then poor Tika missed her litter box, the smell of it was lingering inside the boat and it was too rough to even think about cleaning it up. Of course we found the counter current (1.5 Knots) which runs 1/3 of the way against us and so we steered our course a bit closer to the Araya Peninsula hoping to loose the current. It was a bumpy night but passed without any other problems. When daylight arrived we enjoyed seeing the beautiful coast line of the Araya and Paraya Peninsula, unfortunately this area is off limits for us cruisers as too many boaters in the past years had problems getting boarded and still are at risk. What a shame as this is by far the prettiest coastal area of Venezuela. The wind was blowing a steady 15 knots and of course on the nose, we had 6 foot swells with cross wind waves which gave it that washing machine effect. It was a bit uncomfortable but doable. When night came we hoped the wind would clock due south again and slow down a bit but that was just a nice wish that never happened. Instead the wind blew a steady 16 Knots and the sea was fairly unsettled. It was pitch dark and therefore it made it seem even rougher than it was.

Poor Sid developed a horrible migraine headache and we both were sleep deprived. Not to mention that it was too rough to cook so we lived off soups and didn’t even attempt to make tea. By sunrise we approached the end tip of the Paraya Peninsula and as the first sunrays warmed our faces we turned Paradise into the channel between Venezuela and the Trinidad islands. What awaited us there was rip currents, 8 foot swells and really churned up water, but the most beautiful thing was hundreds of small dolphins plaid in the wake of the giant swells; a picture that couldn’t have been captured by any camera. It was about an hour and a half in that chop inching our way closer to our destination while the dolphins accompanied us having more fun then we did as Sid still had a tremendous headache. Of course while heading towards the islands three huge freighters had to cross our path. Once around the island all was calm and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of first three lush green islands and then the main island with rolling lush hills.

We headed into Chaguaramas and went straight to the custom dock as you have to check in right away. Keith on Tortuga waited for us and helped us tie up to the concrete dock. Check in was fairly easy especially clearing in Tika, as there is a quarantine time for pets. They simply told us that if she does not get off the boat she’s fine. Right after check in we took a slip in the Cruise Inn Marina, not what we had planned but under circumstances having almost sunk the boat again, we needed water to wash the bilge down and especially the batteries which this time were under saltwater. After all that rock n’rolling on the water I had a hard time being on land again. I guess they call it land sickness as I had the spins like the spins you get when you’re drunk I had to literally hold on to everything near not to fall over. That lasted for about an hour, it was really strange and too funny. After enjoying a beer with Keith and catching up on stories Sid went straight to bed to get read of his headache and I went to work emptying out the bilge and hosing the salt crust off the deck. Too tired to cook we went to the restaurant that belongs to the hotel and marina. We had most delicious meal and are realizing we are back to the prices of the US the reasonable life stile of Venezuela is over for a while. So we’re in Trinidad getting to know a new language, even though they speak English it’s a really tough dialect we cannot understand, or not yet. People are super friendly and we learned to “lime” already, actually this liming is called “bar liming”, there also is street liming, car liming, beach liming and in the morning you say: “morning morning” that’s the traditional way to great your neighbor. Keith took us to the bar restaurant (bar liming get it) at Power Boats Yard, we had a wonderful time. It’s good to see Keith again after 7 years when we said our “see you later” in Cartagena. He’ll be here another week before heading up islands.
As for us we’re not sure what the future holds as we have to buy a new autopilot and send in the GPS for repairs, but we’ll keep you up on that, so we may have to postpone the teak floor we came here for, but there is always next year. But for now the boat is all cleaned up and back to normal so it’s off to discover yet another beautiful tropical place. It shows again that cruising plans are written in sand at low tide and cruising is finding tropical places to work on your boat.

35 knots of wind and cristal clear sky

We waited for a squall to pass then lifted anchor and left Medregal for Laguna Grande, 14 mile trip taking about 3 hours. The wind blew with about 15 knots and not knowing how much it would blow we just pulled the jib out, probably a good idea as just 5 miles along the coast the wind was swept down the tall hills and created at certain places a strong funnel effect. We started getting gusts up to 25 knots and decided to reef the jib. About 7 miles before Laguna Grande the swell, started beating against
the hull and splashing water into the cockpit. We started to head towards shore to get more protection from the swell. The wind now blew 30 with gusts to 35 knots and Paradise was doing up to 7.2 knots. At least we were going with it so it wasn't all too bad, now that the swells were behind us as well. Coming into Laguna Grande was a big surprise seeing nothing but white caps rushing towards us, the wind was blowing a steady 30 and slowed us down to 2.3 knots even though we ran high rpm's. Sid thought
that maybe we had a transmission problem and instead of heading to our usual anchor spot we chose the first bite into the big bay to drop the hook, (later Sid checked the motor and luckily it was just the wind that had slowed us down). Here at least we were protected behind the small hill from the direkt force of the wind, but gusts still whipped us from side to side and the near bay sounded like a raging river. Concentrating on the anchoring procedure I didn't pay attention to what was going on
in the cockpit until we were securely anchored I noticed the cockpit covered in black. Ohmygosh, I have never seen so many flies, they were everywhere. Sid couldn't believe his eyes either as he stepped into the cockpit and saw everything covered with thousands of flies and the war started. No matter how much we sprayed it seemed every fly that fell 20 would take it's place. The cockpit turned into a gruesome battlefield which seemed the flies had the upper hand. Time to bring the real weapon out
the net I made for the cockpit and the sticky fly strips you hang up which usually just catch your hair instead of flies (or
Sid's sleave as I am writing this LOL). You should have seen this, the second it was hanging in the cockpit flies were fighting each other to get to the sticky tape. The buzzing of all of them getting stuck on that gooey stuff was amazingly loud and oh so annoying, it filled up in just a few minutes. At the end we won the battle and sat comfortably inside the netting tent sipping on a cocktail and watching mama goat with two babies hop from one rock to the next and up he hill.

Chilly nights

Resting, eating, drinking, relaxing, reading, resting, eating, drinking, relaxing and realizing time has just run away again. We arrived in Medregal Village almost two weeks ago and have gone through at least 8 novels combined. The third day here Chris and Luima came to visit and spent two nights at the Medregal Village Resort. We had such a good time with them and I think all we did was eat, drink and relax. Although Chris did take us on a car trip around this area, enjoyed snacks on the beach with ice cold beer and Cuba Libre (there goes the eating and drinking again), relaxed at a lonely resort with more ice cold beer and a platter full of sea snails and crabs which had just been collected in the shallow waters in front of the Hotel, get this the whole platter cost us $1.50 and the beer 30 cents each. I noticed a papaya tree with the biggest papayas, the owner saw me eyeball them and told me to pick one. They were still very green and unripe, but the perfect papaya to make Green Papaya Salad, most delicious. As we left the owner's son came towards us with a dead snake dangling in his hand about 6 feet long. Luima was not too jazzed about it but I got a good look at it and couldn't keep my hand of the silky skin. On the way out I spotted a banana flower for my banana flower salad and along the way we passed a Tamarind farm and the tree limbs that hang over the road side we though were fair game and picked quite a few Tamarind. I made some tamarind sauce which I basted onto chicken legs baking in the oven, end result wonderful tasting Tamarind glazed chicken legs, a new recipe in our galley. Unfortunately time went by too fast and Chris and Luima had to leave. We went right back into reading and relaxing, cleaning the bottom of the boat (Sid), early morning water aerobics with pool noodles (Manuela), meeting at 5ish at the resort with all the other cruisers for cocktails. Every Saturday night Jean Marc organizes a BBQ, this time it was a plate full of sauerkraut, sausages, bacon, smoked pork chops and pigs feet, yummy. Can't wait to get away from here and start a diet. 

Last summer we were here Jean Mark had just hauled out the first boat in his new yard, in the mean time he has 8 boats in the yard and the first one just got launched with a brand new paint job. Good paint job for a fraction of what we paid in AquaVi. The lift is really neat as it lowers across the beach into the water and even a boat with 7 foot draft can easily get onto the lift, then it is pulled back out over the beach onto the yard. He just received a trailer to haul out Catamarans as well. Before we leave Venezuela we'll haul out here too for a new bottom paint job. The yard reminds us more of a nice KOA campground and each boat gets the most beautiful view over the beach and water, not to mention the mountains behind them. Palapa huts are also available one between each two slips, to work in the shade, power and water and all. This yard is out in nowhere so shopping for things are a bit tougher, but most everything can be found in Corupano a two hour car drive away. Jean Mark drives there every Wednesday and offers a ride to cruisers. I went last Wednesday and again had a wonderful time. Corupano is a small but very busy town and pretty much anything can be found here knowing where everything is of course. Just before the town are some saltwater ponds and to my amazement I saw hundreds of pink flamingos standing on one leg close to each other across the other side of the pond and on our return they were all right next to the road, my first wild flamingos.

The weather here is just amazing, we were surprised last summer how cool the evening got even during summer. Now it gets down right chilly at night and on occasion during the day I have to put on a jacket to keep warm and sip on hot tea during the day. Sid likes to sleep in the cockpit and the other night it got so cold that he had to use two blankets to keep warm. This morning he read 70 degrees inside the boat. The Christmas winds are still howling and for the last 10 weeks we had 20 to 25 knots blowing almost daily. It's definitely been blowing non stop since we arrived, except it lays down at night but starts right up again around 10 in the morning until sundown or even later. Last night was the most peaceful of all nights not a sound was to be heard not even a little splashing the water was as slick as the surface of a mirror. Today it's howling again and we are actually getting tired to listen to the howling through the rigging. Looks like next week we should finally have a good window for Trinidad as the wind are predicted to slow down to 15 knots, so lets hope for the best. We're leaving tomorrow for Laguna Grande, then on Sunday to Isla Margarita with a one day shopping spree to load up on rum and wine and Tuesday off to Trinidad. Yeah, Trinidad here we come.

 

BANANA FLOWER SALAD

 

Slice flower and soak in salt water at least one hour. Drain.

Cover with salt water and boil 5 minutes. Drain and cool.

Mix 1 cup each soy sauce, oil and vinegar with crushed red peppers and garlic. Heat.

Mix flower with 1 chopped onion.

Pour on warm dressing. Stand one hour. Chill and serve with sliced bread or crackers. Holds well in refrigerator

 

GREEN PAPAYA SALAD                                       Serving Size: 2

 

1 large green papaya (a touch of yellow showing is OK)

1/2 cup raisins

2 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 clove garlic -- crushed

1 carrot -- shredded

salt and pepper -- to taste

Peel papaya and cut in to half. Scrape out the seeds and shred papaya flesh on a coarse grater. Add all the above ingredients and toss. For variation, cabbage or bell peppers may be added.

 

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