When you least expect them, amazing things happen.... We were very busy antifouling the propellor when a taxi drew up just beside the boat. Out jumps a man and a woman. Both Alan and I had to look twice before we started shouting at the top of our voices. It was Jack and Agnes Gairns from Troon Cruising Club. We haven't seen either of them in nearly six years. They were on the cruise ship "Braemar" and the ship had decided to make an unplanned call to Trinidad. They knew we were in Trinidad, but they didn't know where. A friendly taxi driver at the cruise ship dock brought them to Chaguaramas. They thought they were looking for a needle in a haystack, but they found us after a bit of a hunt through some of the other marinas and boatyards. It was so good to see them and we all jumped up and down like mad things in the boatyard, much to the amazement of their taxi driver. We just wish that they had managed to get "extended shore-leave" so that they could have seen some of this beautiful island but they had to return to their cruise ship and left us late in the afternoon after a leisurely lunch in "Sails" the restaurant in Powerboats.
Great to see you guys, come again soon!! Have a safe trip back to Scotland.
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We've had a couple of day's touring around. One trip we made took us to the Military Museum in Chaguaramas, which was quite incredible, and then we took one of "Member's Only" trips to the Pitch Lake down at the south end of Trinidad. On the way back we stopped off at a couple of Hindu temples.
Four of the photos and some explanations are below. The remainder of the photographs you can see by clicking on the link "Trinidad 2007" on the right-hand side of this page.
THE MILITARY MUSEUM
On a former U.S. military base, the military museum is a must-see for history buffs. Although the exhibits are in a large shed without air-conditioning, the accompanying mosquitoes and humidity are well worth putting up with. Exhibits cover everything from Amerindian history to the Cold War, but the emphasis is on the two World Wars. It must be one of the most unusual and interesting museums we've visited in a long time. Outside is an old BWIA plane (with only one wing), some trucks, a helicopter and other bits and pieces of engines lying around in varying degrees of delapidation.
THE PITCH LAKE
Trinidad Pitch Lake is the largest, commercial deposit of natural asphalt in the world. It is used in many ways, from building heavy-duty traffic roads to insulating compounds for the cable and electrical industries. The lake measures approximately 100 acres and is estimated to be 250 feet deep in the center. At the current rate of extraction, the lake is estimated to have renewable reserves of pitch for the next 400 years. As if to give the lake life, many Amerindian artifacts and other fossils have been unearthed from the lake. We were shown over the lake by a guide who pointed out all the places where we shouldn't stand - just in case we sank, got burned and disappeared for centuries. Half way round the tour, the weather decided it was time for us to get wet. It didn't just rain, it absolutely poured down and got us all soaked to the skin. Of course because there's nowhere for the rain to go (the pitch lake is below sea level) we had to wade and jump and navigate our way back to the maxi-taxi through the rainwater which had gathered in huge pools on the pitch. Great fun, but it took several hours for our clothes to dry out.
THE TEMPLE ON THE SEA
This temple was built by a guy called Sewdass Sadhu who was born in India, but brought to Trinidad and Tobago under the Indentureship scheme. He lived in a small village on the south west of Trinidad. Whilst visiting India, Sewdass pledged to construct a temple in Trinidad. On his return to Trinidad, he began the Herculean task of clearing some land, constructing the temple and installing the murtis (icons) for worship. Then in 1952, he was ordered to demolish the temple. His refusal to comply landed him in jail for 14 days with a fine of $400. While held captive in jail, the temple was pulled down and the land cleared of all evidence of its existence. Immediately on his release, Sewdass declared, "You broke the mandir on the land. Then I will build my mandir on nobody's land. I will build a mandir in the sea." For the next 17 years, he continued the construction of his "Temple in the Sea". His tools were simple - two buckets and a bicycle with a carrier at the back. In the buckets, he placed rocks, sand and cement. Balancing the buckets on the two handles of the bicycle, he would push the bicycle out to the temple site located some 500 feet off the shore into the sea. He more or less built the temple himself. The "Temple in the Sea" today stands out as a lasting legacy of Dharmaveer Sewdass Sadhu who died in 1971.
SGI HANUMAN MURTI
This gentleman is 85 feet high and represents the Hindu deity Hanuman. This statue is reputed to be the largest of its kind outside of India. The murti stands on the grounds of the Dattatreya Yoga Centre and Mandir and attracts thousands of worshippers offering gifts and performing rituals. The murti took two years to construct and was consecrated in 2003.
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Just to make sure you're all still keeping up with our progress. The boat is still on the "hard", we're up to our ears in black goo (for the windows) and epoxy filler (for the deck) and of course it keeps raining. Apart from that, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup yesterday and we were in "Sails Restaurant" cheering on South Africa!! We've had the other odd event in "Sails" as well, and the other photo is of Chaguaramas Bay from Crews Inn.
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While back in Scotland, Anne and her friend Marilyn went on a wee trip to Inverary. It was a lovely day, but absolutely freezing. We had lunch in Cairndow, then on to Inverary and wandered around the main street, climbed the clock tower and had afternoon tea in a neat wee cafe.
One wonders sometimes if the Scots like to be cold however. We were walking down the main street and kept passing people eating ice cream. I would have thought hot soup would have been better. There was one wee wifey who had ice cream all round her lips and a dod hanging from the end of her nose - she was of course completely unaware of it and would probably have been horrified if she'd known. But it was too cold to feel the ice cream just "hingin' there!! I guess I'm just too used to living in the heat!
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Everyone seems to be asking to see a photograph of "Freya" with her new coat of paint. I was going to upload photographs once she was ready to go back in the water, but hey, you can see her just now as an interim measure. (Ignore the fact that she has no bottom paint and her rudder is still blue)!
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Geoff and Kathleen from "s/v Gladys" invited us to the beach today. They picked us up from the boatyard in their car early (well it is Sunday and 8.30 am on a Sunday is early) and we drove for about half an hour to the north side of the island to Maracas Bay. WOW! The scenery, both on the way there over the mountains, and at the beach is absolutely fabulous. The beach is located in a sheltered bay with a mile of peach coloured sand set against the backdrop of a rainforest-covered mountain range. We spent a couple of hours playing around in the waves. The water itself is green (not blue because there is no coral reef there) and the waves are usually three to six feet high, but today the waves were not so high so maybe we have to go back again so we can body surf.
There are many huts with vendors on the beach and across the road, selling the famous Bake and Shark. Of course, you can't come to Trinidad and not have Bake and Shark at least once. You may ask, "What on earth is Bake and Shark? Well simply put it is a fried doughy pocket (it looks like an American bun or a British roll) filled with shark nuggets. Sounds really unhealthy and messy doesn't it - until you try one. The shark nuggets are seasoned, dredged in flour, dusted off and then deep-fried, always served hot. There are a number of toppings on offer - pepper, shadon beni sauce (shadon beni is like coriander or cilantro), ketchup, tamarind chutney, coleslaw, marinated cucumbers, pineapple chunks, garlic sauce and lots of salad accompaniments. Apparently, no day at Maracas Bay is complete without one of these and they are inexpensive. Mmmm. Very, very tasty! Geoff assures us that the Bake and Shark at Maracas Beach is the best on the island.
On the way back we visited the Bamboo Cathedral in Tucker Valley - not a cathedral in the real sense of the word but a bridge of bamboo over the road. By the time we got to the "cathedral" it was beginning to rain, so we didn't stay long. We turned back and got completely soaked by the rain - well at least it washed off all the salt from the sea. We wanted to see the Howler Monkeys, but they didn't show up today. However, we could hear them in the trees, but we were getting cold from the rain so didn't stay long.
Altogether a fabulous day - thank you Geoff and Kathleen!
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Hurricane Dean passed well to the north of us, but the south west wind from Dean hit Chaguaramas on Friday - quite an event! The boats in the anchorage were tossed around and a wee boat which was tied up on B Dock in Powerboats had major problems when his bow ropes snapped. We reckon the photographs say it all! The wee boat is made of steel - if it had been a fibre glass boat it would probably have sunk at the dock.
(We've borrowed the photographs taken by Steve on board yacht "Melika"). Chaguaramas is not the place to be in a south west wind!
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We got out of bed to find a US submarine docked in the Commercial Dock in Chaguaramas this morning. The local Guastguard and the chase boats are doing their best to keep the locals (and the yachties) outside their safety perimeter. It's quite amusing to watch as half the time the locals don't bother, and hadn't really noticed that the submarine was even there. This nuclear-powered attack submarine is USS Albuquerque and apparently it's here for a "liberty call". The submarine carries Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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Freya is back in Trinidad and on the hard. We expect to be on the hard for the next few months. Anne has got a Friday spot on the cruisers' net this time. It's great to be back here. We had our first "snack" in the restaurant here in Powerboats last night and "waltzed" back to the boat later on, with probably more of a liquid intake that we had originally intended. However, it was a good night. Paul and Janie from "Shian" came with us. They're on the hard right beside us, but they're flying back to Scotland on Wednesday.
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We decided to take a bus tour while in Grenada. We started the day at 9.15 in the rain and got picked up from the Yacht Club. Amongst others on the bus, we had Janie and Paul from "Shian" and Denise and Paul from "Vixen". Despite the occasional deluge of rain we had a wonderful day - we visited Fort Frederick which looks down on St George's (built by the French against the English), a chocolate factory and a rum distillery. Lunch was in a wee town called Grenville on the eastern side of Grenada - we would never have found the restaurant if someone hadn't shown us it was there. We were supposed time take at the viewpoint at the topmost point of Grenada in the middle of the rainforest, but it was raining cats and dogs at the time, so we didn't even stop. We did however stop at the Annadale Falls (photo below) - gorgeous! The rum distillery was something else - everything is done by hand - even the bottling, none of it would pass the EU regulations on health and safety and it was as if we had travelled back 100 years in time, but we bought a bottle of 138% proof anyway! We also visited La Sagesse Bay on the south side of the island - just beautiful!. Some of the most interesting parts of the tour were when our tourguide would just stop the bus at the side of the road and pick up some herbs or leaves or flowers to smell. Amongst all the things he showed us were lemongrass, garlic, cashew nuts, loofas (yes those things you wash your back with) and he even cut some cinammon from a cinammon tree. We got back to the Yacht Club just in time for sundowners and a bite of dinner before collapsing in a soggy heap on the boat later that night. A great day was had by all! To see some more photos click on the link on the right hand side of this page.
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We're back in St George's Lagoon in Grenada. There's a great big marina being built here at the moment - it's the baby of a British guy called De Saverey. The building is going pretty much to plan and time (which is something else for Grenada). Apparently the owner of the marina has leased more or less the whole lagoon, except for the yacht club property and about 200 yards alongside the shoreline, which means that nobody will be able to anchor inside the Lagoon after it's all built and the docks and mooring buoys have been put in place. However, this is apparently called PROGRESS?? It's all a bit worrying - all the great anchoring spots in the Eastern Caribbean are disappearing to developers in one way or another and we're getting pushed further and further out.
Maybe it's time we moved on to the Western Caribbean ....
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One of the most manic anchorages we have been to is Clifton on Union Island in the Grenadines. It's a beautiful anchorage as you can see above (photographic licence), but in reality (see below) it's totally manic with too many boats, ferries, boat boys, bad holding and a great big reef right in the middle of the harbour.
But yes, it is absolutely beautiful.
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We're back again in beautiful Bequia. It's very quiet, with hardly any yachts, which is very strange as there's usually hundreds of sailing yachts anchored in the bay. We had a fabulous sail from Martinique - 97 miles in 15 hours - must be the fastest sail we've ever done. We arrived in the bay just after 11.00 pm last night and had to anchor in the dark - which is not always easy. We had to identify anchored yachts, mooring buoys and other obstacles by radar helped by the little light we were getting from the shore, and of course, our trusty flashlight!
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Quite a few cruisers have asked us about our new raincatcher, and rather than try to describe it in words we thought it might be easier if you could see it, and then ask questions!! Let me know what you think .... we've managed to collect over 100 gallons of rain water, not all at the one time but it's amazing what you can get from one heavy shower of rain. At the moment, we're catching the rainwater in a water container, but when the rain gets really heavy we just put the water hose straight into the water tank inlet. We've used a spare boat hook up at the bow, tied to the staysail rigging wire and attached to the guard rails. The criteria for this raincatcher was that it didn't become a tripping hazard on the foredeck and that it was above head height.
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We are back in St Maarten after a horrible sail from the Virgin Islands - wind on the nose the whole way and a big lumpy sea. Simpson Bay is very rolly so we're anchored in the Lagoon again.
When we arrived in Simpson Bay Anne went through to the Heads (as you do) to find the floor awash, the hot tap having disconnected itself from the pipe - we had lost about 60 gallons of fresh water into the bilges. The only consolation is that we didn't actually BUY the water - we had collected it in our new rain catcher. We don't want it to rain here, but it would be good to top up the tank again!
Take a close look at the photo above - "Grand Bleu" - there's a whole lot more toys on this boat than you think! At 370 feet she's reckoned to be number 12 on the list of the World's Longest motor luxury yachts.
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