Trinidad

Five weeks of hanging around Bago's Beach Bar it was time to move. I pulled out the Powerdive unit and cleaned the bottom of Sadiqi. There were a fair few barnacles. On July 15 at 2230 hours I hauled anchor and headed toward Trinidad a sail of 60 miles downwind. It was a pleasant sail with the wind and current. On nearing the entrance to the Gulf of Paria the wind dropped. I started the engine and headed to Chaguaramas Bay. Chaguaramus is a ship and boating centre - very industrial. Many people store their vessels in the boat yards of Chaguramas during the hurricane season (June to November). I dropped anchor near Lindsay on Avolera. 

Chaguaramus

Lindsay and I did a small tour of Port of Spain and Chaguaramus national park. I visited the Chandleries to buy cruising guides for the Caribbean and bits for the boat. Being a bit closer to the equator than Tobago, Trinidad was hotter and more humid with less wind. Lunches were spent in the Wheel House Bar for food and replenishment of the fluids. 

Chaguaramus national park

After a week in Trinidad I decided to head back to Tobago a much more pleasant, cleaner  and cooler anchorage. I checked out with Immigration and Customs, hauled anchor and headed for Scotsmans Bay for an early morning start to Tobago. Having had an easy sail from Tobago I was in for an uphill sail - against the current and prevailing north east wind. My strategy was to hug the northern coast Trinidad, hopefully finding the counter currents before heading to Tobago. 

Scotsmans Bay

I should have listened to the advice I was given about only sailing toward Tobago when the wind was from the South East or South. The winds swing from the south east just after, what is called locally as, a Tropical Wave. Tropical waves, tropical easterly waves, also known as African easterly waves in the Atlantic region, are a type of atmospheric trough, an elongated area of relatively low air pressure, which moves from east to west across the tropics causing areas of instability and thunderstorms. The tropical waves are not as organised as tropical storms or hurricanes and occur about every five days. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_wave

The sail along the north coast of Trinidad was not at all unpleasant. Sadiqi made good progress beating into the wind (10 to 15 knots) until nearing the north east tip of Trinidad when, to all intensive purposes, we appeared to be making little progress. I started the motor in an attempt to improve the forward progress. There is a 2 to 3 knot current that we had to cross to get to Tobago. It was a long motor sail. I eventually dropped anchor at Store Bay 0345. I had not had much sleep the night before and had only about an hours sleep while sailing. I find these short overnight sails close to the coast much more tiering than sailing long distance in the open ocean.

I was relieved to back in the clean, cool waters of Store Bay. The obligatory visit to Immigration and Customs was done around midday without mishap.