People We've Met

I thought maybe you would like to know a little bit about some of the people we have met here in Trinidad.

The first Trini we had anything to do with and have continued to deal with is Jesse James. Jesse runs the Maxitaxi service out of Chaguaramas. He is the main tour arranger for the cruising community. We have gone with him or his drivers to the Aza Wright Nature Centre and Caroni Swamp, the Saturday morning fresh market, the pan factory, Price Smart, hiking and the movies. Jesse will also refer you to dentists, doctors and probably lawyers if you have the need. He seems to work 7 days a week and is available by phone or email after hours.

David, Dennis and Regina of Goodwood Marine were most helpful getting our autopilot installed. We mentioned David before. He is the 70+ year old who owned the company and who we initially were working with. He has lived in Trinidad for 50 years and was a commercial airline pilot before his mandatory retirement at age 60. He had interesting stories, but some days it was very difficult for Griff not to jump in and do things for him. He moved so slowly and at times it was painful watching him climb in and out of the hatch or up and down the companionway stairs. He was very thorough and conscientious about the job he was doing. We have no doubts the autopilot will see us through. Dennis has purchased the business from David and seems to be just as conscientious as David. He has an engineering back ground. Regina was their 'right hand man' in the office. She made sure we had all the paper work necessary to get the autopilot VAT (value added tax - like our GST) free and to register the equipment for warranties.

I must say a bit about Ronnie. We first met Ronnie when we moved into CrewsInn. Almost before we had finished securing our dock lines there he was smiling, handing out his card and saying he was available to do any kind of cleaning on the boat. At that time he mentioned polishing the stainless steel on deck. That was something that definitely needed doing and I wasn't looking forward to doing it again. We told him to come back later and we would talk. He did come back in a couple of days. When he arrived Griff was just starting to strip the hatch cover in preparation for varnishing. He gave us a reasonable quote for that and over the next couple of days what we had him do expanded. Eventually he did the varnishing on the salon table, the nav table, the workbench, and the companionway including the stairs; he polished the stainless and today we agreed to have him refinish the remaining teak in the cockpit and give us a quote to replace the teak along the fairleads on the deck. All of this was stuff we were planning on doing ourselves, but it is easier to have someone else do it and here in Trinidad the cost is reasonable. Ronnie is a very hard worker. He would show up every morning around 10:00 (he has about a 45 minute drive from home), smile on his face and double straw hat on his head. He would work through the day until about 3PM. He was also working in the evenings because he had taken the table tops and stairs home with him so he could spray the varnish on. He is working on our neighbours boat and has kept the same schedule there.

We have also met a number of cruisers here, some we had met coming down the island and some are new aquaintances.

D and Don on Southern Cross - We initially met them way back in February in Nanny Cay, BVI. They took a while getting here as they went to San Juan and Barbados before coming here. We were going to travel up the Macareo River with them until the fuel situation occurred. They chose to jerry can fuel and headed out yesterday with Rose and Tom on Sojourn. We had travelled with Tom and Rose to Tobago.

Roberta and Tito on Alleluia - Tito and Griff worked on their dinghies together while we were in Grenada. Roberta and Tito have been sailing in the Caribbean for 5 years now. They spend the hurricane season, July to October, in Trinidad and the rest of the time they spend between Trinidad and Martinique. They haven't sailed further north than Martinique nor have they gone west or south of Trinidad. They do know their way around Trinidad and are helpful with questions.

Leona and Bill on Voyageur C - They are located across the dock from us and are fellow Canadians from Nova Scotia. They set sail from Nova Scotia in September 2007 and sailed down the Intracoastal Waterway of the Eastern US. This is a course that uses the river systems rather than sailing off shore in the Atlantic. They arrived in Trinidad about a week after we did. While here they are also having work done on the boat and then will be heading west as well.

Steve on Receta - We briefly met Steve before he headed back to pick up his wife Anne in Toronto. For those of you who have read it, Anne is the author of "An Embarrassment of Mangoes" the story of their first year cruising in the Caribbean. I finally read it after meeting Steve and borrowing the book from Leona.

Judy and Bill on Wanderlust - They, along with their three children Alice, Noah and Benjamin, are in the first year of a two year circumnavigation of the Caribbean.

Sarah and Richard on Quintessence - Like us they bought their boat this past year and are just starting out sailing as a couple. The stories of their trip up the Rio Macareo inspired us to change our initial descision not to sail there. Unfortunately the fuel situation caused us to revert to that initial descision and as you know we are not going up the Rio Macareo now.

Lynn and Randall on High Stakes - Canadians from Toronto. They too are getting an autopilot from David. Lynn volunteered to be the representative from CrewsInn on the group submitting cruisers concerns about the fuel situation.

Lynn and Bruce on Alize - Lynn organizes the potluck for CrewsInn and the weekly Mexican Train Dominos competition. We have attended this, but haven't played.

Honore and Bob on Will of the Wisp - This is their second year here and they organize the weekly hikes that we have been going on. They spent 6 months in Bonaire this fall and helped with the volunteer turtle group there.