Trinidad - December

Nothing exciting to report for December. I am still in Chaguaramas, Trinidad listening to the barnacles growing rapidly on Sadiqi's hull. Having hauled out earlier in the year in South Africa I was not planning on hauling out again so soon. I had to run the Honda generator or Volvo engine every few days to keep the batteries charged. The solar panels just weren't  coping with the cloud cover and almost daily rainfall in Trinidad. 

Chaguaramas - rig tenders

Chaguaramas - Power Boats

Chaguaramas - Power Boats boat yard

My nemesis the sewing machine has been brought out on several occasions to cause me some angst. I do concede that I have more than recovered to cost of the sewing machine with all the work done using it. It has also been a good source of procrastination - where by I have been able to complete some of the less pleasant jobs around the boat. The main sewing jobs have been restitching sun damaged thread.

Christmas festivities: As part of the silly season I combined with Lindsay, another solo sailer, to cook up pizzas on the Cobb. Christmas day is planned to start with champagne breakfast (in my case beer), then a lunch where everyone brings something, then late afternoon get together if anyone is left standing.

Time spent with cruising friends in Chaguaramas: It has been very social with gatherings on shore at Coral Cove boat yard with several other cruisers.

Lindsay "Avolare" from Australia

Nick and Andrea "Muneera" from Australia

Ken and Michelle "Magic" from USA

Ian and Jackie "Blackthorn Lady" from UK

Bruce and Jill "Daemon" from New Zealand

Peter and Ulla "Lavina" from Sweden

Wayne and Tracey  ?  from South Africa

I raise a glass/can to you all on Christmas. I wish you all the best of health and happiness in the New Year.

Trinidad November

At the beginning of November I headed for Trinidad and Chaguarams. It was a good overnight sail until nearing the Boca and the winds dropped all together.  I stopped for a night in Scotsman's Bay to avoid paying overtime fees for checking in over the weekend.

The only change in Chaguaramas was that the temperature had cooled some what at night to make it more bearable. 

Chaguaramas sunset

Having done a fair amount of work on the boat in the last year it was time for the skipper to get sorted out and visit a few medical -ologists. This has more to do with the advancing years of the skipper. I thought I was still under warranty, but apparently not. Any rumours of having picked up a nasty disease in my travels would be greatly exaggerated and would  have had to have been an immaculate infection. Trinidad seems to be best place to get medical stuff sorted out in the Caribbean.  Tobago has free medical services available, however I figure you get what you pay for. Being used as a guinea pig or lab rat by of some still "wet behind the ears" Nigerian or Cuban doctor of dubious qualification is not my idea of fun to save a few dollars.

I caught up with Lindsay on "Avolare" and Olli on "Fagul Bla" whom had been working on their boats out of the water. A fair amount of beer was consumed attempting to solve various world problems.  Also met up with Eric and Lynne on Amarula. 

Over a beer or two Lindsay mentioned something called Mean Time Between Failures MTBF. This is the predicted elapsed time between inherent failures of a system during operation. It is amazing the stuff one finds out when there is nothing else better to do. It also means I don't have much to write about this month. MTBF can also be applied to people I guess. Our inherent life span was around three score and ten. However, with advances in medicine and better standard of living this has improved - apparently. The more complicated the systems on a boat the higher the MTBF index. Hence spending more time doing maintenance work on the systems. The bottom line regarding boats is to keep it simple avoid gadgets. As far as people go eat well and exercise regularly and expiry may be delayed. 

Mean_time_between_failures

I made the mistake of going with Olli, Hossian and his dog to Chacachacare. Chacachacare island is a former leper colony now abandoned and reputedly haunted. This has to have been on of the more dumb things that I had done in a long time. The island is about 7 miles from Chaguaramas and we went in an open RIB inflatable - no VHF radio and one paddle. Had the engine stopped we would have probably drifted to Venezuela not far away.

There have been several incidents near Venezuela recently. A friend of Olli's was boarded and relieved of all money, valuables and computers at gun point a few months ago near Isla Margarita. Another Dutch sailor was not so fortunate and was killed on his boat near the same islands. More recently two boats set off to go to Venezuela to  get anchor chain galvanised. The boats separated for some reason and one was within 5 miles of the shore. Before the crew knew it they had been boarded and had home made guns pointed at them. They were subsequently relieved of all valuables, computers and vhf radio rendered inoperable.

Trinidad being the Hurricane hole of the Caribbean has many cruisers biding their time waiting for the Hurricane season to end. I have met some fascinating people who have been sailing for many years. Two women solo sailors come to mind: Shirley on "Speedwell of Hong Kong", who has been sailing for the past 12 years. And Angela on "Angelos" who has been sailing predominantly around the Caribbean for the last 25 years. Angela's husband died last year and she is continuing on on her own.