Finally, it's Greetings from Grenada!

We have finally left Trinidad after nearly 6 months of heat and humidity albeit with 5 weeks back home in July/August and 5 weeks of adventure and misfortune in Tobago and Guyana in Sept/Oct!
Moonshiner is now briefly at anchor in Prickly Bay, Grenada after a lumpy 13hour and sleepless overnight trip from Chaguaramas. Everything onboard now works………
We plan to leave early on Monday for the 30 hour sail to Blanquilla. (Look it up on Google Earth?) It’s supposed to be a lovely place but we won’t be staying there long unfortunately as we would like to be in Colombia by Christmas and that is quite a long way away
After Blanquilla come the Islas Los Rocas which is a Venezuelan national park. If we‘re lucky, we can stay there without paying (almost $100 for this boat if the Park Rangers spot us!) and then sail on to the ABC islands, Bonaire being the closest.
In Aruba, I intend to sample once again the legendary cocktail “Ariba Aruba” which I last tasted in 1976 as a cadet aboard the good ship “Esso Scotia”….my vague memories tell me that it was rather potent, that I managed to down three of them while on a run ashore and that I missed my cargo watch as a result but didn’t get into trouble because I had been in the company of the ship’s captain and the harbourmaster!! This time, I shall be more mindful of what I’m doing because I should like to see some of the island this time, slightly more clearly….. My memories of Curacao are still less clear as I didn’t even get beyond the dock gates of the oil terminal there, choosing instead to stop at the Seamen’s Mission where the beer was plentiful and cheap. Well, I was young and foolish then and the world was my oyster, as they say. This time, I may actually manage to take photos………

The leaving of Trinidad.

It's not over 'til the fat lady sings....well, she's not exactly fat, just well rounded (!)and she's not exactly well er at the moment and I'm not sure if she can actually sing (maybe people are just being polite!) but it will be over soon anyway......the Trinidad saga I mean. This is because the "final thing" is nearing completion and it should be back on the boat on Monday so we are now making preparations to go!!!

The generator is the final and the biggest thing and it has taken over three weeks to sort it out but, fingers crossed, it's sitting on a bench, no longer in half a million pieces...... and running. It just needs to be nestled back into place in the lazarette and connected up correctly to various bits. This will be no mean feat as we have to be alongside the dock rather than bows on as we are at the moment but it can be done!

We have to get fuel to fill the main and the reserve tanks as well as filling 14 x 20ltr containers because most of the fuel was removed when the tank was cleaned. This will be quite some task....the best and cheapest fuel dock is about a mile away by dinghy. This means at least seven trips there and back as we can only take four containers at a time in the dinghy. A possible alternative is to talk nicely to the tanker drivers just across the way who come down to refuel the fishing boats..... The yachties here are very good at finding the cheapest way of getting things done on their boats but this method of refuelling apparently hasn't been discovered yet. The little station previously mentioned sells diesel etc to the pirogues and at about a quarter of the price that one would pay in the marinas. So diesel and petrol cost about 16p per litre! Well worth the effort.

I went into Port of Spain yesterday with Pam (Delicado) and Chris (Canadian, Little Meg). We had a wonderful time doing "girlie" things which meant mostly looking in material shops. You would not believe just how many of these there are...a whole street of them and,inside,they are VAST....miles and miles of the most amazing fabrics. They were also incredibly busy: people here still make most of their own clothes, soft furnishings etc. We also spent some time in the shops dedicated to "carnival" which as you may know is huge, held annually in February and which seems to take a whole year to prepare for. These shops were a mecca for anyone who likes making things. I just wish I'd had my camera to show how colourful the place was.

I contented myself with buying some spandex (very cheap) to have a go at making bathers etc and to buying the most brightly coloured dress/skirt I could find (as shown above!). I love the amazing colours you see everywhere here. I shall miss that but we are more than overdue to move on. I shall miss the friends we have made here too although we hope to catch up with many of them further along the route. Some have left already. Pete (Troutbridge) left for Grenada nearly two weeks ago now but he is still there, waiting for us I believe!

So this may be my last blog for a while as the current plan is to head straight for the offshore Venezuelan islands having sailed north and west in a big arc to avoid "pirate territory". These islands (Blanquilla and Los Rocos) are virtually uninhabited but are far enough away from the Venezuelan pirates and make convenient overnight stops on the route to the ABC islands. First stop there is Bonaire. I have never been there but have visited the other two, Aruba and Curacao, in 1976 when I was a tanker cadet. It'll be very interesting to go back there!!

Ramblings with the heat.

It's just too hot to do anything apart from stand by the galley fan or lounge around in the pool. Trouble is, the pool is at least 25 yards away and getting there is just too much effort when the temperature is 34 degrees yet again so here I shall stay until it cools down by about 4.30pm... I was going to make some little Christmas cakes using "Delia" but I have no glace cherries. Going to the shop to buy some would mean the most enormous effort, actually walking about half a mile. This is an absoloute impossibility so cakes will have to wait until I can get the airconditioned bus to the shopping mall next week....

The work on the boat is progressing which is a good sign. Many boats sit here for months with nothing being done at all. The yard workers are very good at stopping work for all sorts of reasons so they have to be gently nudged into continuing until the job is finished.

I have been helping to feed the dear little cat, Phantom who lives around here. She is well fed and quite contented! She only gets fed in the evenings though when it's dark otherwise the birds eat her food. Cats in some of the other boatyards get fed too but not all. The uncared for cats look very skinny. There are also lots of sad and sorry dogs roaming around all over the island. Someone needs to sort out a neutering progamme I think.

We are going a barbeque this evening, the third time in a week I believe but it's probably the simplest way to cook and maybe the cleanest too in the end? A group of regulars meet "under the trees" for sundowners and food at around 5.30. We are mostly english speaking, Aussies, Americans and Brits. We were invaded by some Germans last week but we eventually learned to get there first and claim our seats before they arrived! At last Monday's gathering, I did some earcandling on a willing volunteer, Bill the retired US lawyer. See the photos on Pepe's blog address..... http://blog.mailasail.com/beezneez/381 I hope this link will work. It saves me a lot of writing.

On that note, it's started to rain so that means closing the hatches and absoloutely steaming below decks unless you sit outside and get wet. Some choice!!

Still in Marina with water, power and shiny clean diesel!

I have been trying to upload a few photos which Jim from Delicado has very kindly given me but have been thwarted every time by gremlins and bugs in the system....the power goes off, the computer runs out of battery, my time online limit expires or something else happens.....but THIS time I think I may just have succeeded in getting one or two......
Meanwhile, we wait in the marina on the boat for the "final thing" which is the putting back together of the generator, currently in millions of pieces in a workshop.
Then we prepare to LEAVE...... we are all "Trinied" out!!!

The pictures I've managed to upload are of an enormous moth which landed on the boat, about 5 inches across and of me washing my hair in rainwater in Guyana. Eat your heart out Timotei girl!!

Update from hot and sticky Trini..

An update on the boat repairs so far!
There were five things that had to be fixed, namely the GPS battery, the echo sounder, the “dirty” fuel in the tank, the engine (and start battery) and last but not least, the generator. So far, we have had three out of five done. Today, the boat is in a marina for the first time since February so that the fuel can be “cleaned”. The fuel was “polished” back in July but there is apparently an awful lot of gunk in the tank which finds its way into the engine and clogs it up so that it then stops running and leaves us up a creek etc…
The generator is still in bits in a workshop and will be the last and most awkward job to get done, the most expensive too!

From my point of view, it’s nice to be able to step onto dry land whenever I want and there are showers etc ashore as well as a couple of reasonably priced eateries nearby. We will stay here over the weekend while the work is done then fill up the water tanks and go back out onto a buoy while we wait…..and probably wait, for the dreaded generator.
It’s the time for fellow cruisers to move on westwards one or two have actually managed to leave but most are still waiting for things to be fixed. There always seems to be a hitch somehow. Sometimes it’s the weather…it absolutely buckets down many afternoons bringing all work to a halt. Mostly though, it’s the Trini problem (actually it’s the same throughout the Caribbean I think) that the workers are just “waiting” for something, anything really. They are good at that!

The constant heat and humidity makes any effort uncomfortable so people move very slowly to keep cool. It is better at night now, well it IS November after all! The decorations are up around the shops and Christmas music can be heard. I don’t feel at all Christmassy though. It’ll be my first one in a warm climate and I’m sure it won’t feel right at all. No one will get cards this year!! I haven’t seen any on sale yet and the postage will be prohibitive so it’ll have to be emails or short phone calls instead.
I think most of the yachties are planning to be somewhere special for the 25th Dec; the San Blas islands seem favourite at the moment. Let’s just hope that we can join them in time. It is a thousand miles to get there with a few short stops en route….so if the work is done within about two weeks, we will have enough time….

Now I’m off to explore ashore!!

Definitely NO "Greetings from Grenada!!"

So.......here we are back in Trini.
Which news do you want first? The bad,the worse or the worst?
Well today's news is that the water in the yard was suddenly turned off for the third day in a row just as I was rinsing my hair so I had to stand under a hose and get it finished by one of the cleaners!
Er.......we were all set to leave Guyana on schedule last week and head north to Grenada with the generator in bits to get it fixed there.... Then the trouble started when the engineers in Grenada said they wouldn't fix it and neither would any of the other engineering firms we tried there.Then the other problems started........ the echo sounder wouldn't work properly so we closely followed
Pete again on Troutbridge downstream. The GPS was also playing up with an internal battery going. So much for that.
So...we turned north west instead as we left the Essequibo River because Chaguaramas would probably be the only place nearby that could do anything to help.
I have to say that we had a wonderful sail doing around 200 miles in 24 hours albeit with the help of a strong current! THEN, we turned the northern tip of Trinidad and lost the wind and current as expected. Trouble was, we also lost the engine (it just suddenly died). Eek!! Thank goodness for Pete on the good ship Trouters. They were only a mile or so away and so took us in tow into Chaguaramas and safely onto a mooring buoy.
SO, this is where we now sit....... with so much going on and NOT going on too. All very frustrating.
Watch this space for updates....the boat isn't being abandoned........yet!

Photos next...

A close up of the falls at Kaieteur... they start about two feet away from where I was standing 741feet straight down!

Just a nice rainbow...

Obligatory posing shot....we all had one!!

From the islander aircraft as we circled round the falls.

This is a gold mine!!

We are due to leave Guyana tomorrow and head north westish for Grenada where we have to have some important boaty things fixed (the generator!) and then plan the trip west to Blanquila. I've enjoyed being here a lot for all sorts of reasons. The people are so nice and the wildlife is spectacular. The weather has also been spectacular. Thunderstorms nearly every day and blistering heat inbetween.

The problems on the boat made things a little difficult as we couldn't take the boat to other islands nearby...so I didn't get to see anteaters or armadillos but we did manage a trip to the zoo in Georgetown before we left and although it was a little old and run down in places, the animals looked quite happy and well fed. They had a jaguar there too!

I shall be out of touch for a week or so but hope to get back online in Prickly Bay, Grenada where the wifi is excellent.