Finally Trinidad
22 June 2017 | Chaguaramas
We arrived at Trinidad on June 6 after 3800 miles and 32 days from St. Helena. From Capetown to Trinidad was 5500 miles - about 10000 km - and a total of 52 days at sea with a 4 day respite in St. Helena. Now we have spent the last couple of weeks preparing to leave the boat on the hard for the hurricane season. Trinidad is a safe storage island for cruising sailboats with tropical disturbances a very rare event.
However on June 20th, the rare event occurred with tropical storm Bret passing just to the south of Trinidad. The northwest end of the island, where the cruising sailboats are, only experienced very short periods of winds greater than 30 knots. On the interior of the island there was flooding and a few roofs blown off. But in effect, the passage of Bret was anticlimatic as everybody expected much worse. This was the forecast from U.S. hurricane centre just before landfall.
"The center of Tropical Storm Bret, at 20/0600 UTC, is near 10.3N 62.1W, or about 50 nm to the west of Trinidad. It is moving WNW westward, 285 degrees, 20 knots. The maximum wind speeds are 35 kt with gusts to 45 knots. The minimum central pressure is 1008 mb. Convective precipitation: Widely scattered moderate to strong from 10N to 14N between 60W and 65W."