Trinidad

Turns out Flamingo Bay is private and during a morning swim with the fish, Dwight came by in his dingy and told us to move to Dragon Bay and come to the underwater sculpture gardens. He indicated that he would be there to help us grab the mooring, but he was not. We ended up grabbing a dicey mooring where the line was fraying and decided to go for another snorkel…. We went out around the point and into the next Bay… where lots of boats moored to take advantage of the sculpture gardens. My favorites were the mermaid, person in prayer, turtle and dancer. We had been in the water for the better part of 2 hours when we decided to head back. At the point the current became fierce…. Brian, also struggling, suggested we swim out and then back in. We tried for awhile but for every 10 strokes we only moved a foot (like being in a lap pool). Finally, fatigued, I stopped and started to flag down a boat (a family we had briefly chatted with earlier … 8 year old son named Crew and his parents). They eventually realized that I was asking for help and came over with the dinghy. I climbed in and then they fetched Brian who was still unsuccessful trying to make some distance. They took us back to Lorena and we chatted for a little while (Dwight also visiting for payment).
We did some light boat chores, and then smoke started to roll in from the dump, so we moved to St George’s to grill the steak and get some sleep…. Brian ready to sail and me holding back to sleep. During the day we got the news that the USA bombed Venezuela — the American and the Canadian had very different views on what this meant for our safety.
At 11:30pm after messaging surveyors for insurance, and trying to figure out the Trinidad immigration requirements… we left Grenada. It was a beautiful sail during the night and Brian slept most of the time while I was in watch, starting to nod off around 6am.
I went below after breakfast to get some sleep in the forward crew bunk (as the noise from auto pilot in our aft room is so loud). Unbennounced to me, Brian had landed a tuna and when I got up he was just finished filleting it. I took over and prepped it for freezing.
We filled out the float plan and health clearance and sent it to all 5 people on Saturday evening… on Sunday we started calling to find out next steps. Jesse James finally indicated that we could not clear customs untill we had health clearance which the marina would have to do… so we needed to run the Q flag untill the morning. With that info, plus the fact that out Garmin Chart-plotter maps were good for Tobago, but not Trinidad…. Lead us to Scotland Bay. We arrived around 2:30pm and anchored. We went for a swim in the murky waters (although saw lots of fish), and tried to relax. Unfortunately the party noise got incredibly loud and Brian could not bear it. The bay was small and very deep and we were big (with three other boats in the area)…. We tried several times, into the dark of night to anchor but ended up back in the same spot. About 30 minutes later the noise died down.
The sleep was divine…. The first time since Saint Lucia that we were not rocking. The Bay reminded me a lot of Cape Brenton and it was a magical morning! As we left the Bay, moving 3nm to Chaguaramas, dolphins joined us, to my delight! 🐬
We got to the well to be hauled out and had to wait so thought about grabbing a mooring, but the boat around d us was empathetic that we were to close. We got to the well and were told to go to the office to get out haul-out card. We went to see Danielle and she realized that we were no checked in. There were not hoppy, but started the process — we needed health clearance before going to custom and immigration…90 min later we got it and we’re heading via dinghy to the office. Customs was fine, although so many paper forms to fill out. Immigration asked for papers we did not have, so we had to go all the way back to the boat and return. It was already past 11am (and they had another boat scheduled to splash). Finally we were cleared into the county and got hauled out at 12:30.
I had secured a room for two nights and the motel on premises and once the boat was on the blocks we inspected the damage we did hitting the rocks in Mystic. Nothing structural, but we will need a glass guy to fix it. That day and the next two days spend hiring contractors to do various things to Lorena: re-rig the boat (remove the mast), fix the code zero attachment, paint the bottom, repaint starboard side below the rub rail, remove varnish on the chairs, crows nest and helm floor, plumber for aft head, carpet for aft cabin, carpenter for teak in forward head and cabin…
On Wednesday I taught a class, packed and left for Barbados for 3 nights.Read more