Great trip to Trinidad

We can not say it enough how lucky we were with the weather especially being January when the Christmas winds hardly ever slow down. The whole week we watched the weather we were sure we would be stuck in Margarita at least until the end of the month, then all of a sudden a bubble formed, I call it a bubble as it looked just like that on the wind chart.
It formed off the eastern Coast of Venezuela and over Trinidad and held long enough for a two day passage. There was a wave underway and would probably hit us ¾ into our tip. We left Margarita at 7 am with anticipation of how rough it would get. We had practically flat seas with some 6 foot gentle swells, the wind as usual was on the nose but did turn south for a couple of hours. We motor sailed the whole 147 miles in 26 hours, last time it took us 36 hours. Entering the Boca we had some confused seas but it was a calm crossing. Trinidad is strict with checking in or out so we did what was required, tie up to the customs dock first and check in. The immigration guy had his usual attitude of showing his authority, which made me laugh, it was so silly. The four stamps he had to stamp in our passports and papers, took over an hour, while he had a great time chatting with his fellow employees. We also had to pay an overtime fee for arriving on a Saturday. Then it was off to customs, he made sure we understood that he was not suppose to work that day and that we were inconveniencing him, at least he had a friendly attitude about it and got it off his chest. He did not give back our boat documentation papers though and after many trip to his office they finally found it, stapled to our entrance papers.
These photos were taken the first morning in the anchorage:



As we walked into the Cruise Inn Reception where Heart Jump was checking in we were greeted like we were long lost family; it was like coming home. Since we’re not staying at the hotel they invited us to come over and relax at the pool. After we helped Heart Jump getting in to their slip we headed back to Paradise still tied up to the customs dock when we notices dark clouds heading towards us, realizing once more how lucky we were not just with the flat seas but also that we managed to get here before the rain started. We found a 10 minute window between rain showers and tied up to a mooring ball and then it rained pretty much until late afternoon. For dinner we headed to one of the restaurants that on Saturday’s has Bak’n Shark and reunited with Loren and Dave on Good to go. Yeah, we’re in Trinidad!


Things are moving rather fast, two days later we were hauled out at Power Boats where Paradise is sitting right next to the water with a coconut palm tree behind the cockpit and the most spectacular view over Chaguaramas Bay. We have our deck chairs set up and after a hard day of work we’ll be enjoying a cocktail with front row seat to the beautiful Trinidadian sunsets. Not just that, we have steps to climb up into the boat and not those cumbersome ladders, which makes it much safer to get on and off the boat. If all goes well we should be back in the water in a couple of weeks.

Looks like I'm not going to be able to download the film yet or photos, Internet here is soooooo bad. Imagine having to pay 30 US dollars per week for Internet service that does not work well.