Power Boat paw paws of Trini

 10^th Sept 2012

Stinkpot raftup starts in Store Bay, Tobago

                       

Saturday 25^th August was a big day for the Trini power boat fundi’s….. especially those who get their buzz from SERIOUS power and speed….. like 100mph plus F1 racing boats powered by 3  performance tuned, popping, spitting and roaring  V8,s !

First over the line

We took about 12 ½ hrs to do the 60 odd miles from Trini to Store Bay, Tobago. These boys, on Race day, left from Port of Spain, some 15 miles further, took just on an hour to do the 75 mile trip. Their boat names also provide some insight to their thinking….. “Hauling Ass”, “Big Sam”, “Wet Dream”, “Feel This!”, “Monster”, "Energiser", "Hero", "Intense", "Rush", "Fire One" etc.

The inter island race, “ The Great Race”,  becomes a huge social event for all the well heeled Trinidadian luxury power boat owners, who stream over to Store Bay one day earlier, to create a Multi Million $ Raft Up . In the process they show total disdain for the cruising yachts anchored there for days, or even weeks, dropping anchors over and across  yacht anchors, way too close for comfort, etc. One irate German /Australian fellow had the temerity to suggest they were too close, and over his anchor, was promptly told to “F…K Off, and get out of my country!!”

  

Tobago, however, although politically a part of Trinidad, is very different. It is clean, and the local people are friendly. The water is clear and inviting, and we caught tuna mackerel from the boat in the anchorage.  The Soca music played over the bay is however, every bit as loud and obnoxious as it was in Trini , so with our visa expiring on 8^th Sept, we started looking at the weather to plan our hop to Grenada.

Thursday 6^th looked good, so we took a bus through to Scarborough to check out. Once again, the Immigration and Customs people went out of their way to make life difficult, exploit us and rip us off with outrageous “overtime” fees, generally pissing us off enough to say “thank goodness we don’t have to go there again!”

Having checked with the Customs guys in Trini, and advising them of our departure from Chaguaramus to Store bay, we asked them to confirm that it was not necessary to clear out with Immigration as well. This they did, after all it’s the same country! We expected our check out from Immigration in Scarborough to be a breeze…. But NO! “Where are your temporary Immigration Papers from Chaguaramus to Scarborough?” After heated arguments and 2 hours, we escaped to check out at Customs.

By now it was 2.30pm, and we were asked what time we were leaving. “About midnight tonight.” That will cost you $175 overtime fee. ”Why?” I asked.  You have to leave within 4 hours of checking out, so if you want to leave at midnight, you must come back here by 8pm, and that would be overtime!!

We also had to pay an additional months cruising permit, because we were never given a letter by Coral Cove explaining that we were in the marina, out of commission with no gearbox while it was being repaired. Producing the dated invoices from Gittens (the gearbox engineers) and Coral Cove, showing our contribution of $15000 to their economy, made no difference.

So in the end, we just “K’d & B’d”, and left. We later learned that the Customs “24 hr period with in which to leave” policy has never been accepted in Tobago, and that all “Fines, fees, and overtime levies”, are paid directly to the Customs office as a bonus, and that this is quite legal!

We ended up having to motor the entire way to Prickly Bay over flat, calm, windless, and fishless sea. After a couple of day’s relaxation, we again hauled out at Spice Island Marina for a final antifouling before heading west.  Our bright red bootstrap decided to peel off with the tape after the antifouling was complete, so it was back to more stripping, sanding and painting! This time with 2 part Awl Grip instead of the 1 part Brightside, which was way too soft.

New red stripe and ready to splash

Magic machine that moves yachts about the yard 

Back in the water, Mary smiling and lobster for supper

Nevertheless, we were back in the water in 4 days, and are now able to start our serious provisioning before we head on down to Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba, Santa Marta, Cartagena and San Blas, … to start the next stage of our  big adventure!  

Yes………we’ve made some big decisions which we’ll cover in the next blog!    

Escaping Chaguaramas..................20 August 2012

Customs Dock, Chaguaramas

When all the essential work alongside is done, most people haul out and head home for the hurricane season, or else head out to the anchorage. It is convenient, and much cheaper, but it is also horrible!! Dirty, un-swimmable, and even dangerous, as the local power boats and fishermen roar around not giving a brass fig about the yachts at anchor.

One of two Power Boats storage units

Stink pot owners around the world are known to hold similar attitudes, but the local Trinidadians raise the bar to a whole new level, almost regarding boating as a contact sport! A fellow RSA cruiser, Pieter de Klerk, from “Aqua Viva”, was lucky to survive being run over by a high speed fisherman in a pirogue, who trashed both his dinghy and his new Yamaha engine, leaving a luckily unharmed Pieter swimming in the anchorage. Pieter was the third “victim” of this pirogue owner! Nor is it only the fishermen. Affluent locals with twin or even 3 x 300hp outboards, “slow”  down to 15knots through the anchorage, chucking up 6ft waves in the process. Pity the yachties who are cooking, painting, or heaven forbid, working with power tools such as angle grinders!

Escaping is the only option!

Chacachacare with friends

 Thankfully, there are a number of delightful islands, bays, and anchorages where one can escape to restore the “Wa”.

Even Vikings need some R & R

Scotland Bay, Grand Fond (on Monos Island), and Chacachacare are such places.

A typical  weekend raftup

Scotland Bay is close, 3nm, and great during the week, but is taken over by great rafts of noisy power boats (this one in the pic dragged anchor for about 300m before anyone noticed!!). Overloaded local party boats add to the general mayhem! The common denominators are, rum, loud music, and floating rubbish!

This is a common sight.........so sad!

Grand Fond Bay is equally close, and relatively quiet, but it has a number of holiday homes around the bay, which can sometimes be filled with water skiers, wet bikers, and others who cannot resist doing doughnuts around anchored yachts!

Lovely private houses in Grand Fond

By far the nicest escape place is Chacachacare, which is a horse shoe shaped island about 7nm from Chaguaramas. It is the closest Trinidadian island to Venezuela, and as such one is reluctant to go there alone. We planned a weekend there with Mike and Muffy (Extasea)and their guest, Marita (birthday girl from the SA cat Alleycat) and Chuck and Patty (Soul Mates), and it was really special.

Marita, Patty and Muffy

A couple of the abandoned doctors homes at Chacachacare

In 1924, the island was developed as a leper colony, run by Dominican nuns. It operated as such until 1984 , when a cure for leprosy was found, and it has been abandoned ever since. The hospital wards, doctors houses and jetties etc are all much as they were 30 years ago, but are all now sliding into disrepair, and neglect. 
    

When Extasea and Soul Mates headed back to Chaguaramas, we stopped off again in Grand Fond bay, where we could at least still swim, and pick up the cruisers net.

Rainbow Warrior at Chacachacare

A negative here is that customs are a pain in the butt, and require one to advise them whenever one wants to overnight in one such bay. And no, they won’t accept a phone call or an email….. one has to visit to get a piece of paper signed so that raiding officials can see you have notified customs!

Even when we sailed yesterday to Store Bay, Tobago (actually 12 hrs motoring leaving midnight to catch the right tide in the Boca, and the lull in the wind), we were still expected to catch a bus to customs in Scarborough to let them know we had arrived.

The trip over went well, and we caught a Kingfish and 2 Tuna Mackerel, arriving in time for a nap and a glorious sunset.

We woke up the next morning rocking and rolling to the westerly wind and sea state caused by Hurricane Isaac up North. We were now on a lee shore, and dinghy launching and landing would be quite hazardous. Leaving the boat for a few hours just to let customs know seemed unreasonable, so I phoned them to appraise them of the situation. Not the happiest bunnies, these desk jockeys! “You mean its impossible to come to customs because of conditions?”  “No, not impossible, just unwise and unseamanlike, and as skipper, that’s my decision! That’s why I have phoned you to give you my details. I’ll see you tomorrow with all the papers”

Hurricane Isaac impacts on Store Bay

I don’t know whether the customs visit tomorrow will be a glorious sunset, or hurricane Isaac…. Time will tell!

PS, It proved to be a sunset in the pouring rain!

A Taste of Trini.................................20 July 2012

Chicken Foot .......delicacy?????

                                                                                               

About a year ago, Anne Vanderhoof and Steve , from “Receta”, of “Embarrassment of Mangoes” fame, persuaded Jesse James (friend of cruisers and Maxi Taxi operator extraordinaire), to take them on a tour of Trini to explore the unique foods, flavours and cuisine in the less visited and off the tourist map parts of the island.

Now Jesse is the official Seven Seas Cruising Association host, apart from running his “Members Only” Maxi Taxi business, regular weekly shopping trips, island tours, airport shuttles etc etc. He also runs the Cruisers net on vhf 68 on one day a week, has a wealth of knowledge, and is an all round great guy, as well as being an astute entrepreneur.

Coral Cove gourmets!!

 No surprise then, that this “Taste of Trini” tour has grown into one of the most popular and unique island tour available! We booked one such tour with Jesse, and had the added bonus of being accompanied by a fun crowd of Coral Cove residents we had got to know really well.

Lunch at Manzanilla Beach

 The tour combines a route around the back waters of Trinidad, rarely if ever seen by tourists, and what can only be described as a gastronomic endurance marathon! We were warned not to have breakfast before we left, and with good reason! Within minutes we were into Coconut bakes and the famous “Doubles”, which turned out to be the first two of the 64 dishes and foods that we ate/tasted that day to break the previous “Taste of Trini” record!

Hot on D' Spot doubles

Other dishes and delicacies included saltfish Bulghol, Sada Roti, Callalloo soup, Tomato Choka, and Cow-heel soup.

Cow Heel soup

 Buss up shot, (a sort of smashed up roti), Barfi, (an Indian desert fudge)????, Alloo pie (potato based) and BBQ’d Pigs tails followed.

Pig tails on the braai

Pig Foot and Chicken Foot Souse were also on offer, and had to be tried, but neither topped the pops in either visual or gastronomic appeal !

Pig and chicken feet souse

 A number of dishes were highly spiced and hot. Dave was foolish enough to accept a challenge from Jesse to try a fiendishly hot Polouri and hot mango chutney dish……..

I can do this!!!!

 He managed to get through it …just… turned a kind of puce/purple colour, and broke out into a lather of sweat! Alloo pie was served to put out the fire, but Dave was still complaining about the “ring of fire” two days later at the Friday Braai!

Tasks in Trini

 30/7/2012

Braai Master at his new work station

 Trinidad is a primarily a place to work on ones boat, while staying south of the Hurricane zone. Prices are reasonable and there is a great infrastructure in terms of skills, materials and boating equipment.
  

 We arrived with a long list of things to be fixed, acquired, varnished or painted . The one thing that was NOT on the list was to re-do the toilet plumbing again, but as they say in the classics….. shit happens….like when the pipes get all blocked up again!

So from not being on the list, to First Priority in a nano second! Everything just had to move down one place! Things like the removal of the gearbox for a set of new seals and bearings, servicing of the injectors, oil change, filter changes, engine re-alignment etc.

Romovable 3rd forestay with No3 jib

 Also on the list were things like fitting a removable third forestay. We have found ourselves doing a fair bit more beating than we originally anticipated. Fortunately a Shearwater does this extremely well, but our wider than spec spreaders often required us to lead a second genoa sheet inside the cap shrouds to achieve the right trim. Being a roller furled sail, however, the sail shape is compromised when a few turns are taken in either due to wind strength, or to prevent the luff touching the spreaders.

We think that a well shaped No.3 Jib hanked on to this new stay, with sheets inside the cap shrouds will be more efficient. It will also enable us to sail down wind with two poled out headsails, (and no mainsail) if we so choose.

All the teak woodwork has been stripped and re vanished (all 7 coats), the non slip deck scrubbed, cleaned and touched up in places…

New teak cockpit table

I built a smart new teak fold up cockpit table (unfortunately the pic won't rotate so you'll just have to twist your neck!), and we have filled all our diesel tanks to the brim (560 litres)………(1TT$ is about R1.10!)

Can you believe these prices!!

Butterfly hatch with jerrycan covers in background

Mary has not been idle either, and has been busy redesigning and replacing a great deal of our aging sunbrella……. A new rain proof wind scoop over the fore peak hatch, new individual covers for all the on deck water and diesel jugs, a new butterfly hatch cover, new fender covers to replace the ones pirated for the genoa’s UV repair etc etc.

Hatch cover

Windscoop over forepeak hatch

We have also had a new stern mooring line reel made up, to store the 80mt line, and have replaced the cockpit flooring,

Stern mooring line in action with new reel

So the tasks are now done, and its time to play again! First up is a tour of Trinidad with Jesse James, sampling some of the special and unique cuisine??? of Trinidad. The tour is called “a Taste of Trini”, and I’ll cover it in the next blog!

Yole Boat Regatta

   16/05/2012

What on earth is a Yole Boat Regatta?? A joyous fusion of traditional Martinique fishing boats, being sailed by energetic sailors, in an atmosphere of Caribbean Carnival, bright colours, loud music and plenty of rum punch! Yacht regattas are a dime a dozen around the Caribbean, but these guys are something else! After the Antigua Classic Week, it was very different, and very special!

Yole boats are  open traditional 35-45 ft Martinique fishing boats, constructed out of local Pear tree wood, in a time honoured way. Sailing them requires considerable skill, as they have no keels or ballast, no rudders, and carry huge Lateen sails, on bamboo spars, and with no standing rigging! Every one of the 13-18 crew members has a vital role to play to avoid capsizing. The inter village rivalry is huge, and correctly sailed by a skilled crew, they can reach amazing speeds.  One little mistake,  and everything goes pear shaped very quickly! With the boat filled with water, one guy has to get into the boat and bail, while the others keep it upright. When enough water has been bailed, a second guy gets in to help bail, and so it continues until all 13-15 are on board again. Trying to hoist the spars and sails in the water must be almost impossible! The one capsize we witnessed was towed ashore after bailing.

The basic rig comprises two bamboo masts, one supporting a square headsail, and the bigger second one, the mainsail. The head sail mast is un-supported, while the mainsail mast is supported by two guys flying trapeze on the weather side. Each of the Lateen gaffs are controlled by a sheet, as are the clews on each loose footed sail.

The ballast is provide by 8-10 “pole riders”, who move with their poles from side to side for each tack, taking their instructions from the calls from the helmsman. Helmsman? Each boat is steered by a single big oar, which is fitted into one of three notches in the transom. When “going about”, or tacking, the stern is rowed around through the wind, by three helmsman/rowers.

On the lee side of each boat additional speed is generated by one beefy fellow paddling for all he’s worth with a giant handscoop!

Spectator craft are everywhere, some complete with their own bands, dressed up in traditional Madras cotton check uniforms!

The regatta we watched in St Anne was only a warm up event for the big Round the Island event, held in July /August each year, but nevertheless it was a fantastic spectacle and we were very fortunate to have been there.

The races are started from the beach, Le Mans style, with a blast from a Conch shell.

We had tied our dingy on to a big yellow “Swimming  zone” buoy about 200m away from the windward mark….. way to close, and ended up in the thick of things, living very dangerously!!