Friday, November 30, 2012

BARBADOS

PB230082 Fifty percent of the cruisers we spoke to about sailing to Barbados said it wasn’t worth the effort. The island is almost 100 miles due east of the Caribbean chain and often a motoring trip dead into strong easterly trade winds. We ignored the nay-sayers and chose to put our trust in the more skilled sailors who made the passage to Barbados and found it to be quite a lovely place. 

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Government House
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Very cosmopolitan shopping district
                       
Our anchorage at Carlisle Bay was just off of the capital city of Bridgetown. The water was crystal clear and we could easily see that our anchor was well-bedded in the sandy bottom about 20 feet below. Although we were dog tired from our overnight journey, the beach looked irresistible, so we snorkeled ashore. Between the boat and the shore, we swam over turtles feeding, sea stars, and some strange looking winged fish crawling along the bottom.          

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Thanksgiving Day 2012- no turkey.   

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Caught a big blackfin tuna on the way- HOMEMADE sushi!
While in Barbados, we felt like we were on vacation.  It is a British island that benefits enormously from a significant amount of tourism from the USA and Europe, including many cruise ships.  It is often the first landfall vessels make when sailing across the Atlantic from European countries, but that is a very small slice of their tourism dollar pie. 

Without a doubt...

                         we'll be BACK!





Friday, November 9, 2012

GIVING THE FINGER IN TOBAGO

Having completed a great deal of boat work, we happily left Trinidad, saving many sights of this expansive, industrious island for a future trip. It is November and half of our friends have already sailed north while the balance are remaining a few weeks longer to participate in Trinidad’s annual Divali (Hindu Festival of Lights) celebration. We’ve chosen the path less traveled as we headed for Tobago, Trinidad’s “little sister” island.

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Used Beautiful Babe Spit on the lure
Tobago is just northeast of the northeastern end of Trinidad. Cruisers are challenged by this passage for three reasons. First, there is a strong easterly current between the islands; second, the wind often blows hard on the nose from the east in this part of the sea; and third, the Atlantic waves are usually very “lumpy” as they converge between the islands into this relatively narrow passage. Captain Dan has never shrunk when faced with such a challenge and I was on board with him one-hundred percent- literally and figuratively. I’d heard many glowing reviews about Tobago, so my thinking was, Yes, I’d like to see what Tobago is all about as long as we’re this close.  We stocked up on some foods and fuel and the Captain made one last shopping (really- it was a buying) trip to the local chandleries. Then we let customs & immigration know that we were leaving Trinidad to go to Tobago. (The islands ARE the same country, but vessels are required to check in/out when moving from one to the other…an annoying formality!) We spent the next two mornings motoring along Trinidad’s northern coast and over-nighted in Lavache Bay and Grand Riviere Bay. From there we SAILED slightly northeast toward the southeastern tip of Tobago.  We should have left earlier, but it was my birthday and the day had a leisurely start. BIG MISTAKE. It was nearly 3 PM when we arrived and we needed to go ashore to check in with customs/immigration. We waited for a bus at the stop for 25 minutes and none came, although all the while, we noticed some cars would toot their horns and others at the stop would hop into the car and vanish. Finally, we were the only people at the stop and a car tooted at us, so we hopped in. The ride to Scarborough where the customs/immigration office was not long, but the office was closed by the time we arrived. We left quietly frustrated and stood at the appropriate bus stop. The same routine was witnessed with no busses stopping and cars tooting at people at the stop. This time, we noticed the would-be riders stuck out their index finger when a car tooted. Once again, we were left standing alone at the bus stop shelter. Finally, a car tooted at us we gave them the finger and we had a nice chat about Tobago as we rode back to our anchorage.

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We don't think this was a real Kmart, just a "knock-off"
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Just about EVERY island has at least one of these- so sad.
              Unfortunately, we had to repeat the whole bus trip to customs/immigration this morning to officially check in to Tobago. But this morning we didn’t wait for someone to toot at us- I smiled and proudly stood, giving them the finger. (We made it there and back in record time!)
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Stacks of homemade island candy eased our frustration.






Monday, November 5, 2012

“GAME ON”

Those who know me, realize that I’ve an inherent competitiveness that doesn’t surface often in public. We recently participated in Jesse James’s Taste of T & T Tour with three other cruising couples. Jesse mentioned that the most Trini foods tasted on his tour was 67. It didn’t take much  to excite our tour group into breaking that record. WE DID IT! The foods are listed below, as spelled by Jesse, and every morsel was delightful!  Book your tour soon- you won’t be disappointed.

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Raw Brazil Nut or "UFO"
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Jesse carves a roadside melon for us.
 

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The key ingredient in Chicken Foot Souse is...
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Our LAST meal was RECORD BREAKING!!!
  Nov.1, 2012 Contestants:s/v EXIT STRATEGY- Dan & Rose       s/v IRIS- John & Janet                                        s/v THE DOVE- Larry & Barb                s/v TUATARA- Alan & Jean THE List to Beat… 1 Salt Fish Bolgoh 2 Smoked Herring Bolgoh 3 Natural Cane Juice 4 Fish Pie 5 Doubles * ** 6 Pommareck * 7 Fry Bake 8 Sade Roti 9 Curry Bodi 10 Tomato Choka * 11 Eggplant Choka 12 Fried Cariali 13 Cow Heel Soup * 14 Sapodilla 15 Potato Pie 16 Portugals 17 Bhagi Rice 18 Stew Fish 19 Roast Bake 20 Peleau 21 Macaroni Pie 22 Christophene Stir Fry 23 Stew Pork 24 Cassava Boiled & Fried * 25 Kitchoree Rice 26 “UFO”- Brazil Nuts 27 Dasheen 28 Dhal 29 Saheena 30 Kitchore 31 Chicketo Banana 32 Silk Banana 33 Paratu- “Buss Up Shut” 34 Dhal Phourie 35 Stew Beef 36 Curried Chicken Gizzards * 37 Curried Goat 38 Curried Chicken ** 39 Curried Mango 40 Curried Pumpkin 41 Maubi 42 Sorrell 43 Peanut Punch * 44 Passion Fruit Juice ** 45 Paw Paw Balls * ** 46 Coconut Tuloom Balls * ** 47 Watermelon 48 Poulorie 49 Pommetay 50 Pineapple Chow * ** 51 Cassava Pone 52 Macaronie Pie Strudel 53 Pera Fudge 54 Jelly Bead 55 Bread Pudding 56 Coconut Turnover 57 Rock Cake 58 Coconut Ballerina 59 Sweet Bread 60 Barfi Fudge 61 Kurma Candy 62 Gullup Jamoon 63 Chicken Foot Souse 64 Jeera Pork 65 Milk Fudge 66 Cocoa Pods 67 Grapefruit ** 68 Grilled Jerk Lamb 69 Festive Rice 70 Green Fig Salad 71 Jerk Pork 72 BBQ Pigtails * ** 73 Fried Fish

 *Rose’s favorites
 **Dan’s favorites

Friday, November 2, 2012

The PEOPLE We Meet…

The top reason we cruise is to see the islands on a laid back schedule. A secondary perk of traveling the Caribbean at a leisurely pace is meeting all sorts of people from many countries. We hold a natural comradery with most Americans, of course, although the Captain has a thing for Texans that I won’t get into. The British we’ve encountered are a playful, happy lot and we always enjoy their company. The South Africans often seem to be organizing a party or know where one is and they tend to know where to get the best value for 6TT for $1 US dollar. The Germans and Dutch we’ve met are lovely people who speak perfect English and welcome a good time. The Canadians have sailed long and hard to get to these warmer latitudes and are delightful.

But some cruisers are haughty blokes. On the way to shop last week, one cruiser gent proceeded to preach to me that “We cruisers don’t use plastic grocery store bags. We bring our own assortment of sturdy, reusable shopping bags.” I wanted to scream (! * @ & # !!!) because I’ve been using reusable bags for over ten years before we started cruising. Instead I took a deep breath and smiled, saying- “Yes, I do too.”

So we’re shopping at the mall (YES, there are malls in Trinidad that closely resemble those in the USA) and I happened upon a great sale on swimsuits. I went to find Lilly who was in the clutches of the cruiser gent’s wife. Lilly seemed eager to leave with me…Unfortunately, the wife followed us to check out the swimsuit sale. I showed Lilly a group of cute suits I thought she’d fit and like. Then the wife started saying “You really should buy bikinis because it’s so hot in the Caribbean!” Lilly and I glanced at each other long enough to send an unspoken message- INHALE DEEPLY, EXHALE DEEPLY…SMILE.  What the wife didn’t know is that Lilly only likes one piece suits and I have generally only worn bikinis FOR-EV-ER! Could our shopping trip get any more annoying?

Another time, I put out an all-call query on the VHF radio seeking recommendations for getting a canvas dinghy cover made. I got three responses and one cruiser said I could have one that he didn’t need any more. We were in the middle of a project on board ES, so I told him we might not be able to come to see the cover that day. Dan and I went to check it out the next day and were told that M from s/v For-A-Lie (not real name) came and took it! I was totally teed off! M had to have eaves dropped on our conversation on another radio channel to know that it was even offered to me. I repeatedly called M on the radio with no response. So Lilly and I dinghied over to For-A-Lie and confronted him. I don’t think we looked that intimidating, but M readily admitted that he indeed had the cover and handed it over. The cover was in decent shape and fit our dinghy fine after I used some Sunbrella remnants to sew in an extension.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people we meet while traveling are the salt of the earth-like our dear friends on Tiger Lilly. And every now and then, the Lord just throws in a few odd ducks to pepper our life up a bit.

NOTE: After listening to this morning’s Cruisers’ Net, I can confirm that ALL of the odd ducks mentioned in this piece are from the same country. 

TRINIDAD

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Micheal, the trailer driver (center), paused to see just how
close ES was to those other yachts.  (It was too close for me to look!)
Funny- in nearly 39 years of marriage we never lived in a gated community until this month when we had Exit Strategy hauled out for some deep maintenance here in Trinidad. We spend 15 days living on the hard in Peake Marina right in front of our best cruising buddies on Tiger Lilly. The marina complex is not only gated, but also has 24-7 security patrols. We figured it would take a maximum of 7 days to complete the task, but once hauled, an initial inspection resulted in the recommendation for sand blasting some spots on the keel, followed by five (yes, 5) coats of epoxy, a coat of primer, and finally two coats of antifouling paint. While on the hard, we had the vessel washed, waxed, and polished. We also had our refrigerator box enlarged, refinished the head seats, laundered all the curtains, plus Dan hoisted me up the mast twice-first to retrieve the windex gauge and then to reinstall it. The sewing machine was pulled out to add length to a dinghy cover a fellow cruiser was recycling and, as long as the machine was set up, some mending was done for both Exit Strategy and Tiger Lilly.  Time passed quickly with most things we needed being easily accessible at reasonable prices from anyone of three chandleries within a short walk. There were many opportunities to also be distracted from our work here, as many other cruising acquaintances planned activities to fill our dance cards.

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Captain Dan was transformed to BLUEBEARD as he sanded the bottom.
 



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The new Micron 66 antifouling is a stunning shade of blue.

But the longer we were here, the more concerned we became about safety. Lilly and I walked many mornings at 6:30-8:00 to avoid the extreme heat and we felt safe unless we encountered the occasional pack of stray dogs. I carried pepper spray, but never had to use it as the mongrels stopped and retreated whenever we (Lilly mainly) turned to face them and sternly yelled, “NO!” We took one walk part way up a mountain road and intended to walk it all the way on another day, however a Trinidadian resident and  friend of Tiger Lilly’s strongly advised us against it.   


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This area is rich with oil.
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A Howler Monkey


Once ES was launched, the Captain and I high tailed it for calmer, cleaner waters among the nearby out islands of northwestern Trinidad. We spent two nights in Grand Fond Bay on Monos Island in the company of four other boats, followed by one night in Sanders Bay on Chacachacare Island. The solitude of Chacachacare was a pleasant surprise as we were the only vessel there. However, one can see Venezuela from the anchorage and we had read about incidents of “pirating” over the years. It was a peaceful piece of paradise there, but its history made me nervous, so Dan agreed to lock up the companionway for the first time since we began sailing. That night I had quite a vivid dream about a pirate attack that scared me awake in my dream, and then I really woke up and was about to shake Dan to man our self defense devices when I realized it was only a dream. 

        

 
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We’re currently in the Trinidad & Tobago Sailing Association (TTSA) anchorage just south of Chaguaramas off the mainland. This morning the local news was laden with discussion that focused on the new travel advisory issued for American travelers by the USA for Trinidad! It is customary for a vessel to fly a flag astern to indicate one’s nationality. The Captain removed it this morning without prodding.


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Lilly & I were high scorers in Mexican Train Dominoes,
i.e. BIGGEST LOSERS!
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The Bamboo Cathedral on the way to Marguaripe Beach.
              
PS for MY FAMILY: PLEASE DO NOT TELL MOM THE DETAILS ABOUT TRINIDAD’S SAFETY STATUS.