As I wrote in the last post, Tracy was out on the deck redoing a bunch of the blue masking tape the guys had laid down yesterday. It was extremely bothersome to her eye(as well as mine) seeing square shapes around round fittings. They cried out for re doing and redoing they got. She made templates of circles of different sizes and used them around the angles that drove her crazy. When the workers showed up, she showed them what she had done and how to do it and do it quickly. They were just laying down small pieces of tape till they made the angles they wanted. Tracy showed them a easier way. Lay down a bunch of tape around where you want it, put a circular template over it and cut where it needs cutting. Much faster than what the guys were doing. While she worked with them, I grabbed our deck prisms and cleaned off the excess caulk that had covered some areas that didn't need covering(like the top surface of the prism). It took a while as I couldn't use a razor knife as it would scratch the plexiglass prism. I ended up scraping off the excess with my fingernails. Slow and steadily it came off. Now we just needed for the guys to finish their painting so we could install them.

While Tracy continued working with the guys on the tape, I took off for the local chandleries. We needed a tube of 3Ms 4200 caulk for some of the fittings on the deck. It's fast curing so that should help getting things set up. The store here at Power boats only carries it in black(we already bought a tube of it)but we felt now that the boat is all white, we needed white caulk. So I was off to visit the two remaining stores close by. Here's where comparison shopping and the price gouging shows it ugly head. At Power Boats, the cost of the black 4200 is $107.95TT or $16.25US. Peakes had it in white for $146.45TT or $22.04US. When I saw that big difference in price, I turned around and hiked down the road to "Budget Marine". Their caulk--$181.50TT or $27.32US. Twenty dollars more than Power Boats and $5.00 more than Peakes. I put the tube back on the shelf and headed back for Peakes. Heres where it gets crazy. The government of Trinidad has slapped a 12.5% tax on just about everything you can buy in Trinidad. Where other countries offer a tax exempt status for most cruisers, it's not that way here. In order to help out we poor cruisers, Peakes gives a 12.5% discount on everything taking the sting out of the extra tax. Power Boats and Budget Marine only offer a 5% discount so it makes more sense to get what you need at Peakes and that just what I did.

On the way back to Zephyr,I passed one of the food stalls where we had gotten some great pulled pork during our trip of "Taste of Trini" a few weeks ago. I'd been stopping in a couple of times and each time they were either out of or she hadn't made any. Today, she had some so I loaded up with some on a Roti with cabbage and a garlic sauce and a second one on home made coconut bread. I was having the roti and Tracy was having the coconut bread. When I got back to Zephyr, the men were still taping away and Tracy had retreated inside to cool off. I deconstructed Tracy's sandwich so the bread wouldn't get soggy while we waited for lunch(it was just 1000). I left mine intact as I was just going to drop it in a frying pan to reheat. As we had been up early and had an early breakfast, we had lunch about 1130. It was great but could have used a bit more spicing up. Maybe next time I have them put on hot sauce.

With the men still taping and Lobster(our contractor)going to be rolling down the anti skid and pouring on a bit of sand, it was again, best to just get off the boat till it was dry. The last time we were forced into exile, Tracy's butt had hurt sitting for so long on chairs with no pads and horrible back support. She opted to just stay on board for the rest of the afternoon. I opted to head down to the internet room and do some surfing. I returned to Zephyr about 1745 and climbed up the ladder to see a deck covered in paint and sand. Looks great and Lobster left us a way to get on and off if necessary. While the paint was probably dry, we opted to just stay inside for the night. Once they had rolled on the paint for the non skid, they used a tin can with small holes punched in the lid and then shook out the sand to cover the deck. The excess was cleaned up and gotten rid of. Tomorrow we will see in broad daylight how it looks. If all is well, they will be applying two more coats of paint to the deck to seal the non skid to it's surface. Lobster is planning on building the hatches we still need for our deck. One for the anchor lockers up front and one for each side in the stern to cover big storage areas built into the deck. We still have a ways to go as once the deck is all done, we have to drag everything out of the cockpit and then it gets painted too. We only have one month left before we are due in Grenada. It may be close.