Bad Moon Rising (Trinidad - Grenada)

 

We’re anchored in Chaguaramas bay up on the NW corner of Trinidad. Our idyllic return to life back on the water was somewhat spoiled by the bilge pump going off shortly after we splashed back in. One bucket worth of salty water had appeared in the bilge an hour after we launched. I spent a frustrating afternoon lifting floorboards trying to track down the source. At time of writing (the next morning), happily with now drier bilges, I have a working theory that the water was not newly added, but had in fact been present during our long stay on land, but wasn’t visible due to our tilted position… time will tell. The good news: I don’t think we’re sinking just yet!

Last night, for the first time in a long time, in pleasantly cooling temperatures, we were gently rocked to sleep. Small lapping waves kissing the hull, and we enjoyed a pleasing absence of any mosquitos.

The only disturbance was around 2am when ‘DJ Steve’ in a thick Trinidadian accent, loudly and repeatedly asked if his audience (and everyone for miles around) was ready for him;

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!”

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!”

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!”

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!”

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!”

“ARE YOU READY FOR DJ STEVE??!!” etc.

This strangely timed persistent query emanated from ‘Power Boats’ - the marina next to Peakes Marina where we’ve just left. Power Boats have a Friday night, well…. a Saturday morning, jam session. It was more amusing than annoying, and although I don’t remember hearing when DJ Steve’s music eventually stopped, I did sleep quite soundly for the majority of the night.

Mid morning a day later, during one of the frequent rainy and windy spells that rapidly whip through here, the peace of Chaguaramas Bay was once again shattered. We hear an airhorn blasting somewhere close outside. Heading up on deck to investigate, we see a motor catamaran very close, (about 5m) just off our bow. Our friendly French Canadian neighbours were the horn-blowers, and signalled to us that the catamaran had been dragging anchor our way. The catamaran’s captain, somewhat bleary eyed and not immediately grasping the situation (possibly not overly used to anchoring) shrugged his confusion over to me. As we’re frantically putting fenders out, we signal and call across that he’s dragged and needs to reset before he hits us. This is a horrible situation for him; we’d watched him and his wife arrive a few days before, and they hadn’t had the best of times getting the anchor to set then either. He spent the next two hours touring the anchorage unsuccessfully trying to get the anchor to stick - eventually getting sick of ineffectually dropping and lifting their chain, they headed into one of the marinas to try and find an unoccupied berth instead.

Peace once again reigned.

We look to be checking out and leaving Trinidad tomorrow, with an overnighter planned, up to one of our favourite islands so far; Grenada.

Before coming here, we’d heard numerous reports of Trinidad being rife with crime. Not to say that isn’t true, but we personally have had no experience of it. The seed had been sown however, and instead of embracing all the charms Trinidad has to offer, we’ve opted, in the main to stay either in or very close to the marina fearing the worst during our limited time here - a lot of which Chez has spent alone. That said, the marina itself does have a 24hr guardhouse with an army checkpoint style lifting barrier, and a tall surrounding fence topped with a continuous loop of barbed wire. The few locals we have interacted with have been as warm and friendly as any we’ve met in the Caribbean islands. Sad really that a place’s reputation can be so sullied by both the actions of a few, and the uninformed repeated hearsay of others. Should anyone ask me, I’ll provide my experience and little more: it’s very green, there’s an abundance of vibrantly coloured birds, it’s hot, it’s often sunny and it rains a lot.

Today is checkout day. We plan to head off to immigration/customs at 10am, then spend our remaining local currency on lunch (as it’s unlikely we’ll be back) before upping anchor around 4pm. Well… that was the plan. The first hurdle we encountered was the outboard cutting out on the tender as we left the boat. I rowed us back to Serenity Now, and spent an unsuccessful half an hour changing filters and checking the fuel line. The upshot being that I ended up then rowing us back over to the dinghy dock at Peakes marina from where we took the long way round, on foot, to immigration.

In the small air conditioned office there’s us, a frustrated French yachtsman, a commercial ships captain with a large stack of Filipino passports, and a podgy security guard who is struggling (and often losing the battle) to stay awake. The Frenchman tells us he’s been there for 2 1/2 hours already….. oh dear it’s going to be a long day.

There’s a TV in the corner showing a cop comedy film which I watch to make the time go faster. Eventually (now into the second film.. a prison drama) we are called to the desk by the somewhat frazzled officer. We tell him we’re departing to Grenada and he passes us a stack of forms to complete in triplicate. Fast penned Chez starts whipping her way through the stack and we’re soon back to the counter, seemingly having a significantly better time of it than the Frenchman, who remains seething and unprocessed on a plastic chair next to us. Finding that we’ve missed some of the forms we’re again sent off to fill them out.. this time finding sheets of blue carbon paper - a true blast from the past, that speeds things up considerably.

Once that was done, with a bit of newsreader style paper shuffling by the immigration officer, followed by a few satisfying stamps in our passports, we’re finished with immigration (or so we think). Next, off to Customs. Their office is quite close in the same complex, and we’re immediately beckoned over to the counter by a smiling lady in a smart light tan military style uniform. She goes through our papers - we once again have to complete multiple copies of the same form. There’s a document missing - this had been mistakenly retained by the immigration officer. I head back over and quickly manage to get the right document from the officer we’d seen before. He apologises, it’s been so busy that he hasn’t even had his lunch yet. He tells me this holding up a greasy brown paper bag as evidence. I sympathise, also missing out on mine so far. I then head back to Customs. The Frenchman has now caught up with us, I pass him coming out of the door at Customs - he had been missing the same document as me. He apparently didn’t take it as well as I did, reportedly shouting in heavily accented English:

“This is bullshit!!” at full volume to the unfortunate customs lady.

We’re back at the customs counter once again… and almost comically by this stage, she tells us there’s another document missing that immigration have again kept hold of in error. I traipse back up to immigration once more - he still hasn’t had his lunch, and sheepishly finds our next missing document. Stamp stamp stamp back at customs, then $10 for the harbour master and we’re finally done. Both ready for some (late) lunch and a cold beer.

Lunch is marlin, chips and coleslaw eaten outside at the Wheelhouse restaurant. We’re closely watched by two rather lovely cats who’s patient vigil is rewarded with the scraps we leave.

After a quick shower back at Peakes Marina, we (well me actually) row back to the boat, accepting a tow from one of our neighbours along the way. As planned, we do manage to up anchor at 4pm.

We wave farewells to a few of the other boats in the harbour with whom Chez has made firm friendships over the last couple of months. We leave Chaguaramas behind us as numerous low flying pelicans cross our path heading home to roost.

I’m writing this some 3 hours later, after motoring away from the island, we found favourable wind to whip us North at around 7knots. A full ish moon is due

to rise in the East any minute now, so I’ll pause there to watch that come up.

Cue song: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising”

Heavy cloud cover obscured the moon’s face completely, then even darker clouds turned the whole sky an ominous starless black.

Sure enough having enjoyed the first few hours of the journey, a long, fierce, rain filled squall with accompanying strong wind gusts marked the remainder.

The vicious swell affected Chez’s stomach, so I took the helm as she wretchedly wretched.

As I fought the sea and weather it came to me that this duty always falls to me in nasty weather.. I should perhaps give myself an appropriate title.

Initially I thought:

‘Stand in puke skipper’ but realised that sounded like a Morris dancer having a bad day. Next I considered ‘Storm Captain’.. but that had a bit of a German military feel to it, and I was worried that I’d rapidly promote myself up to Führer and nothing good would come of that!

I’m waffling, I know, but I’ve spent a lot of these diary entries describing really horrible sailing conditions in the past - and this time was no different other than location - it’s not nice, it’s dark and the sea is fierce, wet and scary.

We made it safely to Port Louis Marina in St. George’s at 8ish the next morning, having had (on paper) a good fast (16hrs) crossing up from Trinidad, with no sleep.

An easy (by comparison) check in followed at the welcoming Port Louis Marina. We also took the opportunity to grab some savoury pastries from a good nearby baker who’s wares we’d previously sampled. Before heading back out we saw some massive tarpon fish under the pontoon, (1m +, like a reef shark, but more podgy and fishlike). From there, our destination was Woburn Bay and all the delights it has to offer. One more heavy squall for the journey drenched us on the way there, reducing visibility to a worryingly short distance. Both tired as tired can be, we were very glad to finally drop anchor close to our favourite spot opposite Whisper Cove Marina nestled in Woburn Bay. As the sun came out.. we head off to bed