Position 10°40’614N 061°38’4184W
At anchor, Chaguaramas, Trinidad.
Hi dear friends, thank you for following my journey. Here is this week’s update.
Life on board:
Here this coming Tuesday is ‘Indian arrival day’, it is a national holiday to celebrate the arrival some 100 years ago immigrants from India.
The localised theft of boat equipment continues with two outboard engines being stolen from the dinghy dock at ‘Peaks’ and an attempted theft of a dinghy and engine from a yacht anchored around the bay. They were unable to free the dinghy from the chain but managed to take the spare outboard. On Pinta I use 8mm stainless steel chain to attach both the engine to the dinghy and the dinghy to wherever I leave her.
As the work has nearly been completed onboard so the social side has got busier, a week of sundowner’s and entertaining. Last night myself, Karlos and his partner Rosia (from SV Jonathan) went out (after a few cocktails to celebrate the sun setting – sundowner’s) to the wheel house bar located in Tropical marine, later moving onto the ‘Lure’. The ‘Lure’ is a fancy restaurant although they have recently opened a massive bar above the restaurant. Unfortunately by 22:00hrs Karlos was a little worse for wear, he is ok when drinking wine or cocktails but after one or two beers, he falls asleep so Rosia took him back to ‘Jonathan’ then returned to the ‘Lure’.
Upstairs where the main bar is located they have setup a nice little stage area where girls are invited to dance, now after many hours of studying this I can say with some authority they know how to move out here, ok back to what I was saying… Needles to say this was a popular area to be, the two lucky winners, one for the sexiest girl / dancer receives a return flight to the USA and other one going for the best dancer, they also receive a return flight to the USA. We returned to our respective boats sometime on Saturday morning. I had a meeting arranged for the morning, although I made it I was a little fuzzy headed.
The boat:
After waiting six weeks the 5/8 hose I need to finish the water maker installation arrived today, by 14:00hrs this was fitted and during the initial test the water maker was producing 45 litres an hour.
The electric windless, a Lorfrans project 1000 also arrived this week and after carrying it (60lbs) some 1.3 miles from the chandlery to the dinghy dock then getting it onboard I had it fitted and working by the following day although the remote control (wireless and with built in chain counter) unit will not be here until mid June. To enable me to use in meantime I bought a cheep control unit, this would also be used as a backup should the remote unit get lost or broken. The downside of the windless is that it has a gypsy for rope and 8mm chain; I currently use rope and 12mm chain. It works fine with the rope but just means I have to pull the chain and anchor up by hand, which to be honest is the easy part, the difficult part is the rope because of the amount of barnacles that are attached to it. You can easily cut your hands to shreds.
The electronic charts for the chart plotter / radar also arrived this week, although I have electronic charts covering the whole world on my computer I like where possible to also have these, why, well I find the radar a brilliant aid to navigation OR weather watching. With the unit I have you can overlay the radar onto the chart so straight away you can see where the rain is relative to the islands. I used this system to great effect while in the doldrums, as soon as a big area of rain was spotted on radar I would head for it, albeit slowly. Then once near it the wind would pick up and off we would go once again, squall hopping…
After searching high and low I managed to find the last solar panel in Trinidad, I have temporarily fitted this why its permanent home is being fabricated. This will be built into the top of the back section on the Bimini. This will be located between the backstay and the radar post about 5cm above the Bimini.
The dodger (canvas covering the main hatch / cockpit are to stop or reduce the effect of any spray coming over the bow of ‘PINTA’) has been completed and so has the new awning. The awning will cover the main coach roof. The ‘sail pack’ (a system used to make the stowing of the mainsail easier) will be fitted on Tuesday meanwhile the Bimini’s stainless steel frame has been fabricated and should be fitted on Monday.
I am pleased to say that normal email serves has resumed so please email away so that I can make you as envious as possible ha ha ha.
Fair winds and calm seas,
David.