How Time Flies When..............

I know the saying is how time flies when you are having fun, but that doesn't exactly apply completely to the past week. It's hard to believe that another week has gone by without us writing a blog entry. We are still in Chaguaramas waiting for parts to arrive.

Some of the past week has been fun. We met up again with Denny Morgan who we had spent some time with in Grenada. He is just finishing some work on his boat and will be heading west in the next few days. He has been sailing since the late seventies, although this is his first time in the Caribbean, and he is a wealth of information. He came out to the boat one day to give us some advice on the spinnaker pole and sail. This is a light weight sail that is used across the front of the boat in light winds or winds from behind. More about that later if we ever use it. Saturday Denny took us shopping to one of the malls. It could have been a mall in any city in Canada - the same types of stores although the names are different.

While we were in the mall there was a loud clap of thunder and all the lights went out. This was followed by a horrendous downpour of rain that lasted about an hour. We were glad we were in the mall and not outside. After having lunch and buying a few groceries we headed back to the boat.

Later that evening, the three of joined Rose and Tom and another couple at one of the restaurants for 'shark and bake'. This is usually done as a buffet/barbecue outside, but because of the rain the cooking was done inside and then served. Bake is a bread that is deep fried very similar to Indian bannock or fry bread. The shark was fish strips that were battered and grilled. I can't really say what the flavour was like because you eat it with a garlic dressing. The texture was closer to chicken than to fish.

Sunday we spent washing the outside of the boat. Griff had mentioned that this is a commercial harbour. So what happens is the commercial boats drain their bilges into the bay. Quite often the bilge water also has oil in it. This was all over the topsides of the boat. To clean it we both got into the dinghy with a bucket of soapy water. I held the dinghy in position, Griff wiped off the boat and then rinsed with salt water. Sounds simple right. However, the boats that were going past while Griff was up the mast were still going past. That meant the dinghy was being tossed around every which way while we were trying to keep it still. We did get it done. Two days later we looked over the side and there was another oil slick going past. Needless to say the white part of the boat has another coat of oil along the bottom.

On Monday Griff went into a couple of boatyards to check out having an autopilot put in. An autopilot is used to keep the boat on course. It is tied into the course you set on the compass and adjusts the course if it changes. The course is affected by the wind, waves and current. Without the autopilot the person at the wheel is constantly adjusting to maintain the course. With the autopilot on you don't have to work quite as hard to stay on course and if need be both of us can be away from the wheel at the same time - bathroom breaks or meal times.

Anyhow, Griff found someone whose competency he felt confident with. This was David Foster, a 75 year old who has lived in Trinidad for 51 years. He was a commercial airline pilot for 39 of those years. He moves extremely slowly now and we were concerned about him getting on and off the boat while on the mooring ball since he had an operation on his inner ear that affects his balance. He did manage though. We are going to go into one of the marinas for a week so we can get the equipment installed. We ran all the wires yesterday. We are quite fortunate in that our rudder pole has already got a piece of gear on that that allows us to hook up the linear drive without having to clamp anything new on to the rudder. David said he has not seen that particular attachment for years and could never understand why they stopped using them. Needless to say it will make our job easier.

The other things we are hoping to get done are re-covering the cushions below decks, making some awnings to cover the hatches so they can stay open when it rains, and maybe get the companionway and companionway hatch re-varnished.

One of the things that we have gotten done is to put up our back awning. The previous owners had it up when we first saw the boat but one of the supports looked broken and although she said they would have it replaced, based on their previous record, we didn't have much hope. Lo and behold, however, we put it up and it works fine. We are going to have to waterproof it however.

The second thing we got done was we got the spinnaker pole down from where it is kept running up the mast. Unfortunately we had to take the support that was fastened to the mast off because we couldn't open the latch that clamps the pole to the mast. After getting it down, we still couldn't open the latch so rather than break it through lack of knowledge, we are going to get a rigger to open it up and get it working properly. That way we can use the spinnaker if we ever get the nerve up but we can also use it as a whiskerpole with the foresail when we run wing on wing (mainsail out on one side of the boat and foresail out on the other side - used running downwind).

We are going to start going on some tours, the first one being tomorrow to the open-air market in Port-of-Spain. We also hope to go to a pitch lake, to a swamp where Trinidad's national bird, the scarlet ibis, nests and maybe to a bird santuary that is inland where there are many multicoloured macaw, parrots and other noisy but beautiful birds.

A Fellow Sailer

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.