"TRINIDAD"

We left Granada at 2:00 pm Thursday, July 9^th.  The auto helm worked for the first 4 hours of trip and then stopped after nightfall.  The auto helms alarm was constantly ringing and winds were gusting to W18.  We raised and set sails for a beam reach and turned the engine off.  Our boat speed maintained 6 knots until 1:00 am.  Around that time, the wind started gusting to 25 knots, causing a strong weather helm and the wheel became difficult to control.  On my watch 2:00 am to 4:00 am, I found it quite an ordeal to keep the boat on course…and auto helm still was not working. There was an AIS signal on the GPS Chart Plotter and lights on starboard indicated a cargo ship on near same track line as Navigator and going the same speed. To make matters worse, I saw bright lights ahead which we later identified as Hibiscus, a natural gas oil rig.

One of numerous oil rigs in Trinidad's waters

We were now averaging over 7 knots and this now presented a dilemma not experienced very often by an Island Packet.  


 We were sailing TOO FAST!  Yep I said sailing/no engine on, TOO FAST! At this speed, we would arrive in Trinidad too early for customs check-in and more importantly we needed to  head starboard to avoid Hibiscus and somehow avoid the cargo ship sailing too slow beside us. Cliff’s solution was to reef the main and the jib.  And, surprise surprise, no more weather helm…cargo ship passed us so that we could head starboard and avoid Hibiscus.

We arrived in Chaguaramas at 8:00 am as planned and checked in at the Customs Office at Crews Inn Marina. There, we met another sailboat crew who told us that they had been following us from Grenada all night. A bit later after clearing customs, we were checking into Crews Inn Marina, when a crew member from another boat heard Navigator’s name and said that they too had followed us from Grenada.  (Hmmm!  Thank goodness, we didn’t do anything stupid.)

Lighthouse Restaurant, Crews Inn Marina

Our plan was to stay in Trinidad for approximately three months at Crews Inn Marina.  Crews Inn is a really nice marina with a great restaurant, good laundry, good showers and nice, nice attendants and a wonderful swimming pool. During our stay, Navigator was happily berthed in a 50 foot slip (didn’t have anything smaller) with a t- dock, 60 amp service, and running her air conditioner and the microwave.  Such luxury.

Thanks to the slow service from Immigration, it took us much longer to check in on Friday morning and instead of getting some rest from our sleepless night, we decided to stay up (kind of like beating the jet lag) and ate both lunch and dinner out. Cliff surprised me by ordering a chilled bottle of Mumms Brut,  (my favorite champagne) at dinner to celebrate our successful arrival. 

Cliff was also able to rent “a wreck” during our stay so that we could explore Trinidad. During our first week,  we enjoyed dinner at Sails, across the harbor and brunch at the Light House in Crews inn. 

The next week, we settled down and started cooking aboard!

So let me tell you about Trinidad!

The land of beautiful cloud formations, high-rises, numerous shopping centers, KFC’s everywhere, grocery markets that are almost like home, truly inexpensive fuel, truly expensive liquor, gigantic offshore oil rigs, lush foliage, rain forests, warm friendly people, massive political corruption, a murder rate that rivals Baltimore (but one that only involves Trinidadians), terrible roads with huge potholes or well-maintained 6 lane highways.  And the worst drivers in the Universe!!!! 


Okay, how about a large city with Caribbean flair!

One of our first excursions was to Port of Spain less than 7 miles away for the marina.  Unfortunately, this distance is on the two lane pot holed road that is always crowded due to cars constantly swerving into the oncoming lane to avoid potholes, the stopping of cars to let passengers on and off without attempting to pull to the side of the road and the cars entering from the side lanes without stopping for oncoming vehicles.  Combined with the fact that the Trinidad map bought especially for my car GPS was not exactly accurate (would direct you to make a left when you should make a right), getting to our destination was an act of courage, defiance (playing chicken), patience, diligence and skill (Trinidad follows the English rule of driving on the right) exhibited by Cliff the driver.

On arrival, we found portions of Port of Spain to be charming.  
We walked by the magnificent 7, enormous Victorian homes that

One of the Magnificent 7

are undergoing renovation, the zoo, which had a delightful array of birds that can be found in Trinidad as well as lions, tigers and giraffes.  

Flamingos at the Zoo

Alas for Cliff, Trinidad only has one Rum distillery, but it was an interesting one.  Angostura distilleries is the home of Angostura bitters, which interestingly began as a Venezuelan Doctor’s formula for upset stomachs.  The Doctor eventually immigrated with his company to Trinidad and founded this distillery.  The formula for the bitters is a well-kept secret and the herbs and ingredients are imported to England by special license which avoids the customs authority.  The tour lasted 3 hours. Included a beautiful butterfly display, various historical information and artifacts in its museum and of course, rum tasting!  

In the next couple of weeks, Cliff and I got into organized mode and prepared Navigator for its first visitor on this trip.  Cliff’s friend and I hope now mine as well, Rick Gatsby flew in from Florida to spend ten days with us and help us discover the sights of Trinidad.

Cliff and Rick at Maracas Bay

Rick is an old friend of Cliff’s from his college days and with his spirited personality was definitely an enhancement to this adventure.  He also hosted us for a week last November at his home in Florida.  
 
So Cliff and I worked diligently at cleaning and organizing the boat and stocking up on additional food and delectables for this visit.  

 We organized special trips to what we thought to be places of interest.  One of them being a weekend sailing trip to Chacachacare Island an old leper colony until the 40’s and only 7 miles away from Venezuela.  The main attraction is a trail to the light house on the top of the mountain. 

Chacachacare Light House (Photo by Rick Glasby)t

Cliff, Rick and I set out to climb the trail and followed it for about 45 minutes until someone (probably Rick) suggested that the trail was getting narrower and that there may be snakes along the route.  That being said, I abruptly waved the two adventurers on to that part of the trail while I stayed put and patiently waited for their return. 

View from the Lighthouse (Photo by Rick Glasby)

 













Our next fascinating adventure was the International Pan Concert in Port of Spain that surprised us with the number of middle aged or older adults attending, the fact that the competition included a Japanese, Parisian, and American bands as well was surprising and very entertaining.  Some of the Trinidad bands (the originators of steel bands) included incredible dancers with colorful costumes, men dancing on 15 foot high stilts and of course spectacular rhythm and sound.

We set out a couple of days later to the ASA Wright Nature Center situated on 1200 feet high on a mountain near the town of Arema.   We planned to stay two days and were glad that we did after seeing how high, curvy and narrow the mountain road was.  It took that long to gather our courage to drive back down.  We found this center (formerly a coffee, cocoa & citrus plantation) to be amazing.  The elegant plantation home with its large veranda overlooking the center’s 200 acres was charming. There were a large number of feeders hanging from the railings that attracted over a hundred different species of humming birds in every color of the rainbow.  You could sit there for hours just luxuriating in the mountain breeze while observing the humming bird antics. 

Green Humming Bird ( Photo by Rick Glasby)

The overnight accommodations were equally as pleasant and airy with comfortable chairs on a screened in porch overlooking acres of trees, birds and interesting forest animals.  Obviously, this is a bird lover’s paradise and Cliff, Rick and I represented what could be called a kindergarten knowledge of birds.  So we would not have been surprised to be snubbed by the experience birdwatchers in attendance.  However, we were delighted to meet an elderly English couple who were not only informative, experienced bird watchers but also very interesting and sociable.  

The facility served breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet style in its large dining room.  We were seated at a large round table overlooking the gardens and pathways and joined by the English couple, a Trinidadian contractor and a Nature Center guide who married a Trinidadian and now made Trinidad his home.  The conversation flowed and Cliff, Rick and I were fascinated with their input about the island.   Later at dinner, we were surprised to meet up with two women and a child who were part of the Japanese band who played at the pan concert, and the others who joined us at lunch.  Topics of conversation ranged from American politics to bird watching to the Trinidadian Muslin’s view on nudity.  Consensus: better to murder than be nude!!

Next stop was the Coroni Swamp where we boarded open aired wooden boats that seated about 20 people and motored slowing through the swamp where the guide stopped to point out a snake hanging from an overhead tree (I refused to look, kept my eyes firmly shut) and other interesting facets of swamp life.

We finally came to a large opening where several other boats were waiting and were delighted to see the beautiful scarlet ibis flocks flying overhead. 

Scarlett Ibis

It was quite a site to see the amazing bright red birds.

After several smaller excursions to the nearby park with its zip line and bamboo cathedral path and boardwalk in Chaguaramas, Rick’s visit was over and Cliff and I were back to our routine.

Daily, we listened to the Cruiser’s net which advised of various activities going on in all the marina’s in Chaguaramus.  There was always time given for new arrivals to announce themselves and one day, I was shocked to hear a man named Bruce on the boat Wild Matilda announce his arrival to Coral Cove Marina.  Seems Bruce Amlicke was a long ago SOS (my sailing club) member who has been single handing his boat in the Caribbean for many years.  So, of course, we reconnected and since he had been in Trinidad several times, he proved to be a great source of information concerning the area.  We usually met each week for dinner at a Jam Session where a few really talented boaters entertained us with their music,

While on the subject of small worlds, the slip behind us at Crews Inn had two men from South Africa aboard their relatively new boat.  One day, the older man started talking to Cliff and me and when he found out that we were from Maryland, he started reminiscing about the time he spent at Maryland Yacht Club and talked of his friend, J. Treuth, who actually sailed to Bermuda with him.  Stunned, I told him that he was recently deceased and that his wife Carol Ann was a classmate of mine from high school.  We were both equally amazed at the coincidence.

Cliff and Jesse James by Touring Van

We had heard so much about Jesse James, the owner of Members Only tour guides and taxi service, that we decided it was time to take his famous “Taste of Trini” Tour.  We were picked up with 3 other couples, one from Venezuela with 3 teenagers, in a comfortable air-conditioned van at 9:00 am by Jesse James himself.  What a treat this excursion became.  Seems Jesse knows everybody all over the island and felt it his duty to introduce the cruisers to the food customs of the island.  He stopped at over 50 different street stands, open air restaurants, and fruit stands from West to East and back. Below is the list of foods tasted.

                                                 Taste of Trini List

After tasting a bit of everything on the list, I suggested that ice cream would be a great ending to our tour.  Jesse being the perfect guide that he was, decided to end the tour at a homemade ice cream stop near the Chaguaramus boardwalk.  Alas, they were closed and Jesse apologized to me profusely, coining my name to be Ms. Navigator. So after a long, and fun day, he dropped us off at Crews Inn Marina along with some of our fellow tourist.

Peakes Marina

We moved the boat to Peaks Marina to have it hauled for waxing and bottom painting and to get some things repaired as well as having the on deck teak refinished by one of Trinidad’s specialist, Abdul. While there, we rented a room at Peakes where we stayed for almost two weeks.

Navigator spic and span ready to go back in the water

Finally back in the water and back at our slip in Crews Inn, a couple knocked on the hull and introduced themselves as Lee and Sharon on Allegro.  They then invited us to the weekly barbecue at Crews Inn which for some reason we were unaware. So, the following week we did participate and were delighted to meet four more couples, some who had been cruising for years.

 The following Tuesday, Lee and Sharon suggested that we go off to movies at Movie Towne to see the Bridge of Spies  and have dinner after at Rizzoni’s (a great Italian restaurant in the center).  This seemed an ordinary thing to do except that Cliff had not been to a movie theater in 20 years and the updated comforts of the theater were a complete surprise to him. 

With just a couple of days left in Trinidad, we decided to venture to another Trinidad city called San Fernando . On the way, we stopped at Pitch Lake, the only pitch lake in the world that you can walk on, the Gulf Shopping Mall and later, stay at the Royal Palm Inn Motel for the night. 

Wayne, our guide, lifts pitch from the lake with a stick

This area of Trinidad has a very high Indian (Hindu) population and appeared to be a thriving community.  On the way back to the boat, we stopped to see the Temple by the Sea which had a charming view of the sea and brought a nice end to our stay in Trinidad.

Fissures in Pitch Lake

Temple by the Sea

Next….heading Home!!!

Almost there!!!!!!

St. Vincent and the Grenadines

                                                                                       About Boat Boys:   

                                          Wallilabou, St. Vincent 

We noted via the cruising guide and first-hand experience that boat boys can be a bit of a nuisance when entering strange harbors.  They usually “fly” up to us in all versions of speed boats, dinghies, wooden fishing boats, paddling boards etc. offering to help us pick up the moorings of their choice.  So, by this time, Cliff and I are quite leery of this help especially since I have become rather proficient at picking up moorings.  So, when Alex approached our boat and offered to help us in Wallilabou, St. Vincent, we were a bit reluctant, however, since he seemed rather cleaned cut and mentioned that he was a designated Wallilabou tour guide and managed to not only tie us up to a mooring but also extended a line from our stern to what was left of a dock where Johnny Depp’s ship in Pirates of the Caribbean was sunk, we warmed up to his help.  We even accepted his offer as tour guide to the local waterfalls.  So, after settling in, we dinghied ashore and explored the left over movie set where scenes from Pirate’s of the Caribbean were filmed.

Movie Set for Pirates of Carribean

We had dinner in the open air restaurant (the tavern in the movie) and were treated to pictures of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, a dummy pirate hanging by his neck from the rafters, a trunk full of fake treasure, and other pirate things.

The next morning, we met Alex for the waterfall tour and were surprised to find that there would be no car to take us part way up the mountain as this would be a walking tour with tidbits of information about identifying, nutmeg trees, birds and basic island info.  

After a time, we finally made it to the little park where we would see the waterfall.  Since by this time, I was extremely warm, the pool below the falls looked so inviting that I decided to follow Alex in and showered beneath the rapid flowing water.  Surprisingly, Cliff hesitated for a bit before he finally decided to join us as well.  This proved to be a really fun adventure and we were so glad that we met Alex, the official or, maybe not, Wallilabou tour guide.

Alex and Kathy cooling off under the Wallilabou waterfall

Bequia ( pronounced Beck Way) was a delightful surprise.  A very neat inviting town with lots of restaurants, a boardwalk of sorts and water so clear that you could see red starfish at the bottom near to shore.  

Among the places to eat, we were surprised to find a Gingerbread House in the Caribbean.  This one was complete with ornately carved woodwork attached to the roof line and was especially nice to have breakfast in its open air facility overlooking Admiralty Bay.

We also visited the Frangipani Hotel which was written up in our cruising guide as The Place to meet up with fellow sailors and find out the scuttlebutt of the area. Unfortunately, though the food was good, we were out of season for most cruisers and therefore not privy to the latest happenings.

One evening we ventured to the Fig Tree restaurant where we met Cheryl Johnson the owner and cruisers net announcer. 

Home of Vivacious Cheryl in Bequia

She entertained us for some time with her stories of Bequia and her dancing.  Seems everyone knew Cheryl and all had some stories to tell about her vivacious personality.

We found that we shared Admiralty Bay with at least four other cruisers that we met along the way and thought it would be a good opportunity to rent a taxi (truck with wooden bench seats in its bed) and see the sites.  So Cliff and I plus 3 other couples ventured out in the open air truck, “Fatman Taxi Service” to climb yet another hill to the local fort. We were stunned to find a sign there telling us a bit of history on Alexander Hamilton.

FATMAN Taxi Service

After seeing the fort and descending a huge hill, we set off to find the Whale Museum in Friendship Bay whose emphasis was on the boating skills of the men who were known whalers in the area.

Whaling Musuem

We left Bequia after a week to travel on with Slow Dancing 

for the.........

Tobago Cays..

Wow! what a beautiful anchorage. 

Tobago Cay

We were assisted with a mooring by a most personable “boat boy” who turned out to be a “entrepreneur”  named Simon who just happened to have a beach barbecue business and smoothly solicited both boats to participate in the feast that evening.  For the record, the food was inexpensive, really good, and the beach was spectacular.  What a treat!   

Cliff and I dinghied over to the neighboring anchorage (very rolly) to view the incredible reef and turtle beach.  The views were terrific but water was really rolly.

Granada

One of many waterfalls in Grenada

Off to Granada which was the final stop for Slow Dancing.  But first, we needed to go to Customs and Immigration in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou at the marina.  Highlights of this visit were that we ate lots of pizza at the the Turtle Dove restaurant and that Cliff purchased water from the marina in a large barrel and used the marina’s battery powered pump to fill Navigator’s tank.  Very interesting to see Cliff  piloting the dinghy equipped with a huge water barrel .  We stayed in Carriacou for 3 days while waiting for a weather window to move on to St. George’s, Grenada. 

During the passage, we gave a wide berth to the underwater volcano.  Called Kick 'em Jenny, it is thought to be the only 'live' (likely to erupt again) submarine volcano in the Eastern Caribbean. It is also the most frequently active volcano in the region, erupting at least 13 times since it was discovered in 1939. The most recent eruption of Kick 'em Jenny occurred in July 2015, which thankfully was about two weeks after we arrived in Trinidad.  Frequent alerts go out to all boaters to insure that they keep a safe distance from Jenny at all times. 

We arrived at Ft. Louis Marina in St Georges, Grenada on June 17^th. Ft. Louis is a relatively new marina with restaurants, pool, cold water showers and mostly med moorings. Of course, only med moorings were available to Navigator.  This crew person almost opted to stay on the boat permanently rather than climb over the bowsprit and drop down two feet and across one foot of water to disembark.  However, with a little innovation using the dingy folding ladder, I was safely delivered to the dock without episode.  This enabled me to join Cliff for a walk in town to St. Georges, shop at the local grocery store and make arrangements for a rental car. 

The next day, armed with a map, and my portable auto GPS, Cliff and I set out to visit two rum distilleries.  The first was relatively easy to find and after a short tour, rum tasting and buying, we set off for the next one which was less than 5 miles away.  2 and ½ hours later, passing the same traffic circle made from 4 truck tires piled on top of each other, we found ourselves completely disoriented and frustrated.  There are no (that is zero) road signs in Grenada.  The GPS could only tell us to make a right on road and then right on another “road” etc. etc. etc.  Maps had no road name labels either.  Seems that when Grenada won its independence from Britain, part of their rebellion was to remove all of the cement road name markers and simply never replaced them.  We were enlightened to this fact by a most interesting tour guide at the Westerhall distillery (yes, we finally found it) where included in the tour was a small museum of interesting artifacts from old sewing machines to one of the concrete road markers disposed of during Grenada’s independence.

Cooking Class

Our next excursion was by a Taxi driven by Shaveman… to a cooking class at a local hotel where several cruisers were entertained by a taste testing experience and watching the two cooks arguing with each other on what ingredients worked the best. Pretty sure their disagreements were staged but it did add to the fun. 

A day later, we took a taxi driven by George to the IGA food store and had lunch at Umbrella’s Beach restaurant.  This was a popular beach side hangout for Granadians and offered hearty sandwiches, and drinks for reasonable prices.  George came back later to pick us up and drive us back to our dinghy at Secret Cove Marina.  We were quite surprised to find that George also had a dinghy there as he was a live aboard and his boat was moored very close to Navigator in Hartman Bay.

During our stay, we also visited the Aquarium restaurant for dinner and were awed by the restaurant ‘s open aired setting overlooking the beach and an incredible sunset.

Steep but gorgeous entrance to Aquarium restaurant

Hartman bay proved to be an excellent and calm anchorage which allowed us to explore the area by dinghy.  During one exploration to the Hog Island area, we found Le Phare Bleu Marina, (French for Lighthouse) and liked it so much that we decided to check into the marina for the last two days before we left for Trinidad.  Nice place to end our trip in Grenada.

Next:  Trinidad…Coming Soon!!!!