Hasta Luego Trinidad

Well today is the 4th July and we are out to a celebration meal at TTSA with a bunch of Americans who want to maintain the traditions of home. Connie and Ralph are from California and have been our companions for the last few weeks. They are seasoned cruisers who have spent so many years travelling the world we feel privileged to hear of their experiences. Nothing seems undoable listening to their tales. They have been meeting up with friends they have made in their travels across the globe and all purely by co-incidence as well. Anyway we want to join in the celebrations and with good cause. It is exactly a year to the day that we waved a tearful and apprehensive farewell to the kids at Helensburgh. Such a lot has happened and we have had such a lot of fun it deserves to be acknowledged.
It was an excellent evening, meeting yet another posse of cruisers who can add to the range of destinations we already have lined up with their tales of great sailing, beautiful scenery and lovely local people. Where will we head to next year??????

We have got most of the jobs done on jalan-jalan. As she was lifted from the water we were dismayed to note the huge number of barnacles on her bum. This added to what is quite a stressful event in any case as our pride and joy hangs in the slings of the boat hoist. Tales of dropped boats always seem to be recounted at such times and that certainly doesn’t help us remain calm. However the boat hoist driver is well experienced and he carefully threaded his way up to the top of the yard with only minor hiccups.
The guys at the yard scraped most of the barnacles off as soon as she was in the hoist, however, they leave white spores on the hull and these also need to be scraped of. It is a huge job and takes forever. Have spent about 10 hours on it so far and still have half a hull to do.
At the moment we are being held up by constant rain. At times it comes sheeting down and everything gets soaked and the yard runs like a river. On the plus side it is warm rain and the atmosphere humid – on the down you get the most amazing number of bugs and they bite like the devil. John has done a good job of covering the boat with tarpaulin in order to protect the gelcoat from U.V. while we are at home. Worry is that in a big wind will it hold tight? Time will tell. The inside has been disinfected, scrubbed and dried till it should repel any would be cockroaches looking for a cosy place to live during the hurricane season. Hopefully the air conditioning will take care of any damp and mould. Engines have been washed with fresh water and pipes hosed through with sterilising fluid to try and stave of the hellish smell that builds when they are not in use. As long as the power doesn’t blow we should be fine. We have a local guy coming to check on her regularly while we are gone.
So apart from packing that is us – homeward bound in a couple of days.

Last night we were brave and went to town in the evening. Connie and Ralph kindly drove us to the Queens Hall to see a local production of Aida by Must Come See Productions. It was excellent and much easier to follow than the original Verdi version. Tim Rice and Elton John’s score was much more melodic and the lyrics were quite fitting to the tale. There were times when the tale did not lend itself to audience appreciation, particularly the ending! The audience were clearly flattened in mood by it although the production was terrific. They have a culture of song and dance inducing feelings of happiness and well being – carnival style, so a tragedy of ill fated lovers was not offering that.
We were once again made aware of how small the world is – as we were standing in the foyer at the interval we were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Looking for a pen I approached a guy to try and borrow one. Turned out he and his wife were Scottish and he had been working at the University of the West Indies for the last 18 months. They return to Scotland in 2 weeks and she is going to be doing research work for the University of Stirling in Wishaw. She said that he had pointed to us earlier and said he thought we were Scots – John didn’t even have on the socks and sandals! Anyway we had a lovely chat with them before returning to the second half of the show. This paralleled a chance meeting with Brian, who hails from Perth, in the yard, is of our vintage, is occupying the room next to us and is flying home on the same flights; except he is business class as his current partner is a travel agent!!! We don’t think we have any common friends from sailing as he didn’t sail on the Tay and only took it up in his 30’s but it’s yet another co-incidence that emphasises how small the world can be and how dispersed we Scots can get. (Turns out we do have a mutual acquaintance from Dundee – he went to school with John!)

The journey home from the theatre proved interesting. Downtown Port of Spain is a different place at night. Lots of bars/restaurant was full of folks having a good time. Some sophisticated eateries and nightclubs lit the sidewalks. They have a building which looks just like the Armadillo in Glasgow and it was all lit up as well. Lots of people line the streets by parkland as there are jeeps which sell ice cold drinks, rotis, doubles and other local snacks. They are all just ‘liming’ and enjoying the slightly lower temperatures. As we moved through the town and out towards the marina via the Carenage we noted the traffic slowing. On the sidewalk there were armed soldiers in pairs every 100 yards or so. It is a bit disconcerting to see so many machine guns in the hands of the young (police/soldier) men and worrying as to why that level of security is necessary on a Saturday night. Fortunately the hold up was on the other side of the road and we were waved quickly through by one of the men working the vehicle check. Safely back in Powerboats we were looking forward to a cuppa tea and bed. The bar on the opposite side of the dock had other ideas. It had the music (can I really call it that) up full blast and it went on till about 2.30 a.m. The night before it had been after 3.00 a.m. The earplugs don’t work it is so loud!! It is a local bar so difficult to appeal to their sense of neighbourliness. How we shall miss it all.

We had one last adventure back to Chagauramus National Park. We went to the beach at the end of Tucker Valley and did some snorkelling for the first time since we left Joni and Ken. Alas there are so many nutrients in the water that it is very murky and visibility is very poor. However the fish were quite big and so we did see quite a few. Unbelievably the water was not very warm and as a result we had to do a lot of swimming to stay warm and keep the cramp at bay. It was just good to be in the water after so long out of it. After all the excitement we headed downtown to the Movietown and watched Knight and Day which is the Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz effort. It was just like the multiscreen in Falkirk! Big bag of popcorn and we were sorted. The a.c. was so efficient we were chilled when we left!

Time once again to say farewell to some lovely folks who made our stay in Trini quite memorable and who are great advocates for the cruising life. Hopefully we shall meet again next year.

So we will close our ‘Big Adventure’ blog for now and give thanks for the safe passages we have had and the friendships old and new which have sustained us in our travels. Now all we have to do is plan next years trip!!!!