First Days of Trinidad

As promised - I'm back. It feels like the old serial radio broadcasts (before my time - honest) "when we last met, Griff and Cheryl were........."

Anyway, Wednesday night we went to bed early and set the alarm for 2:30. We had prepared the boat for passage i.e. unzipped the sail cover, put the dinghy up on the davits and the outboard on the mounts, checked the engine - all the good stuff. As it turned out the alarm didn't go off but neither of us were sleeping deeply and Cheryl noticed at 2:45 that the alarm hadn't rang so up we got. It still took us about 1/2 hour to gather ourselves, I had some tea, we raised the anchor and away we went. It was a beautiful night, the moon about 1/2 to 2/3 full and the seas were calm. the only problem we had was wind, or lack thereof. The passage from Tobago to Trinidad is to the southwest and the wind was from east/northeast so it was practically dead behind us BUT it was very, very light. We put the mainsail directly out to the side with a preventer attached. The preventer is a sheet (rope) that is tied to the end of the boom, led forward to a pulley and then brought back to the cockpit. The purpose is to keep the boom and therefore the mainsail out to the side. That way if the wind shifts, the boom won't swing all the way around to the other side, possibly breaking the boom off, or snapping the mast at the boom/mast join and perhaps most importantly not taking someone's head off as it swings around from one side to the other over the cockpit.

We tried running the foresail out the other side but we didn't have the whiskerpole rigged and there was not enough wind to hold the sail so we kept it furled.

True Wind vs Apparent Wind. Before I tell you about the wind conditions, I will explain the difference between true wind and apparent wind. True wind is the speed of the wind that actually exists. It would be what you would measure for wind if you were standing/floating in one spot. Apparent wind is the wind the sail actually feels. For example, in our case we were (luckily) in a current of about 3 knots that was favouring us - going in the same direction. If true wind was 10 knots, that would mean that the sails would feel 7 knots (apparent wind). Add in to that some motor speed - say 2 knots - and the sails would actually feel 5 knots. This can be figured out from whatever direction the wind is coming from but the only time there would be a noticeable difference between true and apparent wind is when it is either coming from pretty well the front or pretty well the back.

How does all of this probably unwanted knowledge relate you ask?? Well, because of the very low winds but the very strong helping current, for a good part of the night we were sailing in only about 3-5 knots of apparent wind or 8 to 10 knots true wind so we chose to motor sail part of the time. We were also able to sail a good deal too (usually when we encountered squall winds!!). So, in the final reckoning we averaged about 6 to 6 1/2 knots. Although we would have preferred more wind, we were certainly not going to complain about fairly smooth seas and 6 knots of speed.

Sunrise at Sea

When we arrived at Trinidad we had to sail a bit along the coast before making a turn to get around the end of the island and into Chaguaramas. The turn was into a strait between the mainland and Monos Island and in that passage the current all of a sudden was running 3 knots against us. The tide was also changing and as a result the water was bubbling and wave-making and actually looked kind of scary. You could see the results over time of the conditions on the coast because there were a series of caves into the hillsides caused by the way the water turned and changed with the tides and current.

On the way to our destination we took a quick detour to look at Scotland Bay, an anchorage we will likely stay at for a few days while we are here. Apparently at night the howler monkeys let loose and even though they are not large primates, they make an astounding amount of noise that our friend Tom said sounds a lot like lions roaring. Looking forward to that.

We got into the bay about 3:00 and picked up a mooring ball. Tom came over in his dinghy to help us pick up the ball and of course God picked that time to open the heavens, as again happened when we went to clear into customs. Of course that time there just happened to be a pastry shop close by so we were FORCED to buy some goodies until the rain stopped.

Chaguaramas Bay is not really a great place to stay. While there are lots of marinas and haulouts and yacht facilities, there is also a lot of commercial marine traffic and consequently the water is kind of dirty. The Orinoco River also runs off close to here so the water is already a yellow/green colour because of that so that means we can't swim in this area. We have a pass to one of the marinas so we have shower facilities and laundry and book exchange etc etc but as soon as we do what we want to do here (checking out autopilots and tuning the outboard) we will likely move to another cleaner anchorage.

Today is Sunday and we have been here since Friday and we have done some things and learned some things but we will save that for the next blog - except - I went up the mast again but this time to the very top to install a windex and fix our anchor and steaming lights. This is not a bad trip - up I mean - but I truly believe that all of those power boats out there keep an eye out for yachties going up the mast so they can go speeding by creating huge waves, thus causing the boat to rock like a toy boat in a tub and of course causing the person on top of the mast to hang on with legs, arms and lots of prayers at the top.