Calypso's Journal: Trinidad

October finds us hauled up in Chaguaramas, Trinidad where we are doing some much needed repairs and maintenance. Calypso is getting a face lift in the form of new anti-fouling and a freshly painted hull. She was looking really quite sad after her Atlantic crossing and the months in dirty warm waters.

Chaguaramas is a huge boating community – all businesses are geared to various aspects of maintaining yachts and believe me, there are hundreds and hundreds of yachts. It is a popular haul-out and storage venue, purportedly safe from hurricanes. I think most people leave their yachts here and fly home for the northern summer returning again after autumn.

It's still so incredibly hot and humid. The rainy season is supposed to be over and, for the most part, we have had very little rain, however, guess what it’s doing today? We had a great sail over from Tobago, stopping off at a couple of bays on our way before rounding the corner to the sight of thousands of masts. We will be heading back shortly but that will be a slower run as it’s against both winds and currents.

With all the work on the go, we haven’t managed to tour Trinidad yet but are enjoying the people, (the Caribbean accent is amazing) as well as the social life amongst all the cruisers. We have cottoned on to roti Trini-style but some other foods look (or sound) a little suspect.

A typical T&T menu might include:

Callaloo or Cow Heel Soup

Flying fish sandwiches

Shark & bake (bake is a deep fried doughy bread)

Conch & dumplin's or crab & dumplin's

Goat Buss Up Shot (shredded roti served with curried goat) (also available in chicken & beef)

Doubles (small breakfast snack of two flat round bread-like things filled with channa (curried chick peas & potatoes), shadow benay (sauce made of plant similar to coriander), runny mango chutney and pepper sauce (fiery chilli & garlic sauce). Extremely messy but very tasty!

To drink – soursop, peanut punch or sea moss juice

(Yeah, well, no, fine as the SA expression goes!)

Our daughter, Robyn, is flying out to join us in a few weeks time and will stay with us for four months! She was originally just going to come over for a while at Christmas but I think the onset of another grey dismal winter in London wasn’t as appealing as holidaying in the Caribbean (I wonder why), so we all decided ‘why wait’. We’re really looking forward to her visit and plan to sail around Grenada and The Grenadines during her stay or wherever else takes our fancy at the time. She’s landing in Tobago which is the reason why we’d like to get back there fairly soon. We also really enjoyed our few weeks there and want to show her around.

We’ve bought ourselves an early Christmas present in the form of a water-maker. Calypso doesn’t carry that much water so we were always having to be extremely conservative which is a bit of a problem on long trips. This will now allow us to have fresh water showers after swimming and wash down the salt encrusted gear on deck – such luxuries! It also means no more lugging 25ℓ jerry cans back and forth in the dinghy. Paul’s busy installing it now which means some major disruptions internally but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end.

For us, the people we meet in our travels has got to equal the enjoyment we get from seeing so many different locations. We had a wonderful stay in Charlotteville where there is really nothing to do but swim, walk and enjoy the company of fellow cruisers. It’s probably a good thing that living in a small confined space bobbing up and down on the water is not everyone’s cup of tea as it would be so damned crowded at each anchorage, and there would be no secluded spots left in the world. I’m sure those who were cruising many years ago will tell how crowded it’s become of late but we’ve certainly managed to get away from it all! Chaguaramas is a totally different scene but, if you need to work on your boat, this is a great place to do it!

The large Indian population of Trinidad celebrated Divali recently so we joined in the activities by attending a Festival of Lights at a small village on the island. As we wandered around the village the people handed out small gifts of foodstuffs, usually homemade sweets and their homes were decorated with hundreds of lights and candles. We were then led to a hall to watch their traditional dancing and the more serious side of their holiday celebrations.

Trinidad also has an incredible array of birds and we had a brief insite into many when we took a trip up to the Asa Wright Nature Centre, a reserve up in the mountains of cental Trinidad. This is the sort of stayover any keen birdwatcher should take. There are numerous short and long hikes one can take in beautiful indigenous forests teeming with the most colourful birds. Its always encouraging when we find these protected areas in places that generally do little to conserve nature.

PHOTO GALLERY: