Maintenance in Trinidad
23 May 2012 | Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Francina
Too soon and we had to leave the magnificent island of Tobago. It is the first time that westart sailing at night. Normally we prefer to start sailing early morning to ensure everythimg goes well before it gets dark. This tiime we started sailing at 01h00 in order to reach Trinidad during office hours. if you arrive outside office hours you need to pay TT$203.50 overtime. Our reference material indicated office hours as 8h30 to 16h30 and we arrived at customs at 15h55 in Tobago and still had to pay overtime. The office hours are 08h00 to 16h00 and immigration took a while to assist us. We learned our lesson and will therefore ensure we are within office hours. The wind died on us and we had to motor for a good couple of hours especially in the light of the overtime....
Population 1.3 million
Size 4828 square km
Capital Port of Spain
Economy: Substantial proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Heavy industrial such as steel, methanol and nitrogenous fertilisers are well developed.
They have two supermarket chains VaLu and HiLo. We found very nice tinned vegetables to stock up with. There is very little water and lots of veggies, which makes it more cost efficient than the mixed veggie tins bought in SA. The taste is also very good. It is almost as if you are eating fresh veggies. It is a pity that we do not have a bigger boat to stock up more....
Meat is imported - lamb from New Zealand at TT$24 and TT$32 per kilo
Beef steak imported from US at TT$54 or TT$56 per kilo
Goat is local but it costs TT$72 per kilo
Diesel is only TT$1.50 per liter, but the marina is charging us more than TT$5.00 per liter. It will therefore be more cost effective to rent a car for the day to buy diesel at the local petrol station instead of using the marina. We will then have the use of the car to transport the groceries, etc
Public transport is again inexpensive. We paid only TT$2.00 per person for a trip from Chaguaramas to Port of Spain in the local bus. The very short passage from the Bus station to the airport is a bit more expensive at TT$6.00 and it is only departing every hour at 5 min past the hour. When we arrived at the station to go to the airport to meet Ed, Johan's friend who is joining us, the bus just left. We were scared that we might be arriving too late at the airport and decided to take a Maxi Taxi. The taxi was only TT$5.00 for the trip, but it was like the taxi's in SA. Stop for every person standing next to the road and keep on loading on and off, ensuring that all the seats are taken. We went through the informal areas, but never felt unsafe.
We used the Maxi Taxi back to the station in Port of Spain and used the bus back to Port of Spain. Ed said it is his first ride in a taxi ever and the first ride in a bus since school/army. We all enjoyed the experience and arrived safely at the boat in the dark. Exhausted and ready for a good meal and good nights sleep.
Johan bought an additional solar panel to charge the battery for the fridge and paid less than what he paid in SA for a similar panel. He also replaced the Trojan batteries (cheaper than SA). I was quite upset about the batteries because the one was already replaced in Cape Town before we left. Unortunately you need to replace both the batteries and not only one at a time (according to the agent). That is what Johan did now and I hope it will not give us any problems on this journey.
Johan also bought a spinnaker pole for us to use with the head sail. The pole will be used to keep the headsail open when the wind is from the back. With the pole we would not need to tack all the time like we did on the route from Cape Town. It is apparently something we definitely need on the next voyage.
Distance: 67 miles
Average 5.15