Return To Trinidad!

I am greatly in remiss my avid readers, for the lack of updates to this blog!  Also equally sorry that you have the knitty gritty details to wade through, since this is my personal diary as well as your favourite reading!  Thank- You all for your hospitality and we are so sorry we couldn't have stayed longer.

To begin, we left a very cold UK 8 C and returned to the warmer climes of Trinidad 23 C—cool for once– checked in to the Power boats apartment and chilled out after the long flight.  It seems an age ago and so much has happened.

The first day back and we arrive bright and early at the shed to have an inspection of the work.  We are thwarted by the lock on the door which WILL Not undo! Even for Al who arrives and finally gets it open.

As we take a first look at the shiny new gel coat we are amazed to the perfection of the workmanship.  Colin and Spanish have excelled themselves.  It must be an optical illusion that in some lights the whole boat looks cream but if this is the case it certainly looks great!  The question is how long will it stay so pristine??

Thanks to Susan & Andrews for these snaps.

Spanish doing the polishing

Colin checking justice has been done to his craftsmanship.

Now begins the hard labour of finding items needed for on going work and humping boxes back aboard to unpack into their usual homes.
One of the first items needed are a couple of pieces of headlining one of which, Al manages to uncover in the container, the other still needs to be made,  by Carlos.  While I help the carpenter (Jimmy) and his mate (Leroy) Malcolm busies himself with more technical work which needs his personal attention.
When the workers leave I can resume box humping to my hearts content and by the end of the week I have re-homed the majority of the container.  All that remains are items to large or heavy for a 'girl' and they are moved by the lads with the aid of a truck and chain gang.

Friday 22nd

First the mast is re seated.

Bang on Schedule, Thanks to Graham and his team at 'Dynamite'.  We are launched smack on the set day. We arrive at Crews Inn to our same berth which we left in the summer.

Thursday 28th
Another day of scrubbing the decks and polishing the mainbraces , plus all the usual housekeeping jobs of running about shopping washing clothes etc etc etc ! topped with Potluck at Crews Inn.  Andrew (S/Y Andromeda) baked a large fillet of Sea-Trout in wine , butter and herbs to perfection—my goodness did we really eat it all ???

November 29th Friday.
  Final preparations for the shakedown sail, a few items of shopping, a long dip in the pool and at last the mast has been re-wired such that I can re-cover it in the saloon and repack the shelves behind it.  Which also means I now have access to the shower so can hang the curtain and scrub it ready for guest use!

December 1st
  First a quick run up to Debbie the swimsuit lady to collect Malcolm’s new shorts, he liked them so much he wore them on the shakedown sail!
Susan & Andrew (S/Y Andromeda) arrived with their overnight bags to join us on this epic adventure.
We slipped lines at 10 ish and motored out into the bay to hoist the mainsail and set the reefing lines as we went.
Then hoisted the Yankee and Staysail, somewhere here the instruments on deck went off and the helm was steering blind.  Fortunately Susan , (like me ) is an ex dinghy sailor and coped easily. ( But I know that when she is dancing she only needs my forefinger to steer!) With full sail up we then turned the iron horse out to pasture and had a terrific sail down to Chacachacare Bay.  On the way we were greeted by a few huge and battered Dolphins who cavorted under the bow, one even doing a tail dance with pleasure alongside!

  The close we got to our destination, the sky became more ominous, with grey patches under the clouds.  We telephoned S/Y Quicksilver to ask the depths, for anchoring and with the aid of the lead-line dropped the hook in about 5m of water.  The stern was close to the shore with 2.8m so we floated peacefully all night.

S/Y 'Piano' Chacachacare Bay.

  We were then taken for a short hike to the old leper colony and Nuns graveyard, by Irene and Ray, which ticked the box for exercise nicely.  Ray and Irene (S/Y C–Drifters) stopped for the first drink of the evening and made admirational noises as to how beautiful ‘Piano’ was looking.  A quick shower to freshen up and we all went across to C-Drifters for a Chilli supper.  As before the hospitality of Irene and Ray was profound!  There were eight of us in total Sharon and Chris (S/Y Quicksilver) brought home made garlic bread and Chocolate chip cookies (yum yum).
  The evening ended with a natural bonanza of Fireflies in the jungle ashore and Bioluminessence in our wake.  Even the jumping fish were silvery with a coat of light giving water !

December Wednesday 4th

Much rain today so we treated ourselves to Ribs and Swordfish at the ‘Wheelhouse’ Bar.  Instead of cycling we took the rib and motored across.  Thanks to Jeff for the major service and over haul he gave the engine it sounds like new!  Welcome back to Mark and Willie (S/Y Liahona) Just back from Guyana.

December 5th.
Another week has flown by with Grahams team aboard to sort out minor items which the Captain is not happy with.  Falco found a minor problem, he hastily disconnected a pipe which was feeding seawater into the exhaust elbow, discussed his reasoning with Graham who then took his advice and fitted a long pipe to vent the seawater from the exhaust and potentially the engine.
The main winches had made a ‘funny noise’ on the shakedown sail so were taken by Ian the winchman to be sorted out.  Curtis and Al came by to re-seat the Smart pilot processor.  Jimmy stopped by to screw a few more screws into place,  run a line of sealant around the kitchen sink, and those in the heads and shower room also some cosmetic work in the cockpit. Dennis from ‘Goodwood Marine’ fitted a new battery to the B & G instruments processor.  Jim from ‘Shore Power’ meanwhile is procuring another switch for the generator so that we can run it without holding the stop toggle down.
 We hope to set sail towards Grenada sometime next week.  Today (7th December) I heard about the floods in the UK.  In Kent mother has sand-bags around the door and much of the town is under water.  I sincerely hope that all of you reading are not suffering too much, our thoughts are with you all.