Walking In The Rainforest

Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad
10 40.6N 61 38.3W

The other early morning excursion we manage each week is a walk in the rainforest that surrounds us here at Chaguaramas Bay. An ealry start beats the heat and the afternoon rains that make the vegetation so lush here.

The forest/jungle is full of flowers, butterflies, huge stands of Bamboo and the screams of the hundreds of howler monkeys that call it home. We have yet to see one but the blood curdling screams that they send out are a familiar sound track.

Davits and repairs still on track, for next week!

Market Day

Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad
10 40.6N 61 38.3W

We celebrate the end of the working week with a few rums, but can't have too many as Saturday is market day, or more accurately Saturday morning at 6am is market day. We catch the maxi taxi into town and have a fabulous hour or so wandering among the stalls at the huge market.

Colourful food and colourful locals make for a great trip and the prices are superb, fresh tuna $2 a pound, steak $3 a pound and huge avocados 50 cents each. This plus fresh herbs, spices and "organic" fruit and veg mean we are eating like kings and spending like paupers.

Work is going well and we are hoping to have the davits installed in a few weeks which will free us up to explore and use the boat.

Steel Pan "Factory"

Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad
10 40.6N 61 38.3W

We went into Port Of Spain today for a look at the sights, and as part of the trip we stopped off at a pan "factory". Basically this is a lean to in the back blocks where the very talented Andy makes his pans.

Each steel drum is made from a standard oil drum. The barrel is turned upside down and using a hammer (or occasionally his 200 year old cannon ball) he gradually beats the lid down and down until the full 8" deep curve is produced. The drum is then cut off depending on the amount of bass required, and each individual note is inscribed onto the inside of the pan.

We are now trying to hunt down a pan concert so we can listen to the combined sound of a couple of hundred of these in the full pan orchestra.

Hard At Work

Chaguaramas Bay, Trinidad
10 40.6N 61 38.3W

We got back to Trinidad after our travels to the UK and Canada on 5th August and after a couple of days of antifouling, propeller changes and various other essential out of the water maintenance we were safely relaunched to the relative cool of the harbour here.

We have picked up a mooring and will spend the next month or two working through a huge list of things to do, as well as getting this seasons major upgrade done which is an arch davit. This will mean we can pull the dinghy up at the stern and have a place to mount solar panels and a wind generator which will give us some much needed alternative power sources. We have been relying heavily on the generator and it will be nice to not feel so vulnerable to mechanical failure.

We are hoping to get some days off to explore Trinidad a bit too, but mainly a few weeks of hard graft!