It seems hardly anytime since we completed our overnight passage and arrived through the Bocas into Chagauramus Bay in Trinidad. We have gone from a group of 6 yachts to 4, 2 of which are on the hard over in Powerboats. Island Time joins the hard on Tuesday and we still have a week to go before lift out.
We have had a lot of fun in our cosmopolitan group of travellers and enjoyed sharing Trini dishes with them, ‘Lost in translation’ took on a whole new meaning at times but it has been a laugh.
We have been very busy working on the boat. She has been scrubbed, rubbed, polished and primed and although there are still jobs to do we finally feel we have broken the back of the chores.

It is hard work at the best of times but working in the high humidity just saps your energy and leaves you incredibly dehydrated. Can finally understand why it takes so long for jobs to be done around here and the lyrics of the song ‘ too damned hot’ keep popping into the head whilst scrubbing or rubbing!!

Anyway it hasn’t been all work. We have got a bit of a routine going in that we try to go to the small gym each morning for a 30 minute session on the tread mill and weights. This has the added appeal of being air conditioned and has a t.v. with over 50 channels. One of which is the BBC world news. It has to be said the more we watch the more depressing the world seems to be, what with oil spills, economic hardship, floods, tornados and world cup football. It’s almost enough to make me want to keep my head buried in the hot Trini sand!

So we have been playing tourists on our days off. We visited Matura beach last Friday night and saw leatherback turtles lay their eggs in the sand. It was a fascinating process to watch and the whole trip lasted over 6 hours. The time she took to come up the beach, dig the hole, then bury the eggs and get back down the beach was about 2 – 2hours 30 min. The beach was very busy with lots of people out turtle watching. You have to buy a permit on site in order to be able to get on to the beach.
Sometimes you might not even see 1 turtle. We were really fortunate that there were at least 4 that came ashore close by within 10 – 20 minutes of each other. The beach was very long (over 4 miles) and it is divided into sections so that the guides can direct people to turtle sites. There was no moon but lots of stars and the surf was huge (this helped them get ashore) – it was just an amazing thing to witness (although did feel we were intruding a bit) – apparently the turtle is in a bit of a trance and is unaware of you anyway. Find this hard to believe as they get upset when people start flashing cameras and shining torches their way. That apart it was a great trip.

This Friday we took a tour into a nature reserve in the rainforest. Before we got there we had to make our way through the traffic in the main town, Port of Spain. We have been travelling around in the maxi taxis and have learned that you avoid rush hour traffic like the plague. It’s worse than being stuck on the Edinburgh city bypass.
Anyway our guide Jesse (a real character and such a lovely guy) took us on some detours as it was the official opening of the new parliament and the traffic was even more manic than usual. So it was a bit like taking one of those city tours by bus. There is a lot of wealth in Trinidad due to its natural resources. Historically cocoa and sugar cane and now gas and oil. As a result and depending on which party is in power there are a lot of huge hi-rise structures in downtown Port of Spain. Huge office blocks and most recently an enormous 5 star Hyatt. There are famous cricket grounds and sport stadiums. One of the gaffs of the last government was to pay someone 2 million trini dollars for a large flag to fly beside the stadium. (I could have run one up for a tenth of the price if they had asked me!). We also saw some of the old colonial houses which now house various dignitaries such as archbishops, prime minister etc. Beautiful architecture and some of it well preserved. Other bits are not so fortunate – the west wing roof of the Presidents residence fell down a few weeks ago. The area is quite exclusive and is set among the botanic gardens, parkland and local zoo.

The road leading up into the mountains and rainforest meant we had to climb quite high and Jesse stopped the van at a viewpoint which gave us a magnificent view of the whole of the Gulf da Praia which is only interrupted by the Venezuelan coast. we have a photo of us taken there that looks as if it was a “soft focus lens” on the camera. In fact the camera had been under the cool back and was steamed up in the high humidty but we look great anyway.

We stopped at a roadside food stall and tasted our first ever ‘doubles’ These are pretty much a batter which is thick enough to be flattened out and dropped into deep hot fat. It comes out like a flat bread and is then filled with spicy chick pea and done over like a wrap. Delicious – and NO do not think about the calorie consumption! (infact all the food we have had is hi calorie Shark and Bake;Burgers; even the kebab)

Once we had travelled for well over an hour on tortuously twisty road/tracks we got to the Asa Wright centre.

There is a hotel within the sanctuary and it is geared to bird watching. The lady who founded the place was called Asa Wright. Again a great experience walking through the rainforest spotting rare species of birds, bugs and other such creatures. Lunch was included and after it we sat on the verandah with the most stunning view of the rainforest and outlying mountain range watching the humming birds come close in to feed and drink.

Tranquility was the order of the day – even the nature trail walk was not exacting. Later we dipped out toes in a pool fed by the run off from the forest (first time my feet have been cold in a year – it was fab!!) Think however I would be bored and looking for a bit of movement after a day or so.

Once we had completed that part of the trip we rejoined the crazy traffic system and headed for Caroni swamp. This is an area where the Red Ibis, which is that national bird of Trinidad, nest. At this time of year you can’t get really close but you can sit in the swamp area and watch them fly overhead and into the nesting grounds. We board piroque type boats and headed up into the swamp with a guide. He stopped at several places on the way up to spot birds such as red capped cardinals (apparently very rare). Of course to philistines like ourselves it was beautiful to see but that was about it. My moment of challenge was when Sean (the boat boy) stopped to show everyone the snake in the tree branch. Think I stopped breathing for a bit but at least I didn’t scream. (Did have nightmares tho!) We also saw quite a few blue heron which are quick magnificent in colour. There were snowy egrets as well as cattle ones.

After travelling about 3 miles up the swamp we saw the red ibis. There were lots of them flying by in large groups initially and then in groups of 10 or less. They are stunning to watch in flight and as they come into the trees to nest their beautiful colour is highlighted even more against the lush green background.

The whole trip took a couple of hours and fortunately we got back to the dock just before the rain began. Then of course we had the challenge of getting back home in the thick of the holiday and Friday night time traffic. It took an hour and a half longer than was planned. As a result we just dropped into bunks totally whacked and needing to process everything that we had seen throughout the day.

The rain has been pretty persistent throughout this last week and things generally feel damp most of the time. Today was no exception so it was back to ‘auld claes and porridge’ not forgetting of course yet more scrubbing, oiling etc etc. Whatever happened to a life on the ocean wave? We are really missing the sailing bit.