Position 10°40’614N 061°38’4184W
At anchor, Chaguaramas bay, Trinidad.
Hi dear friends, thank you for following our journey. Here is this week’s update.
Shortly after sending last weeks update we had an Easter egg hunt onboard SV Artemis. Later myself and Soren (Woody’s new crew member) walked the three miles (ya right, more like 6, as it was a steep climb to the highest point) to the lighthouse, what a walk but well worth it. Once there you could see for miles, even Venezuela was clearly visible. On the way down, we passed the lighthouse keepers in a 4×4 (on their way up), they are so proud of the lighthouse. It was built by the British in 1861, they kept saying. After sating our goodbye’s (several time’s) we made our way back down.
My replacement bank cards (lost while enjoying myself ashore in Brazil) have still not arrived, but eh, I have enough money to last for several more weeks (at Triny prices).
As for my shoulder, which you may recall I injured back on Christmas eve 2005 is about 70% fit now after ‘liming’ around Trinidad. A vast improvement, for on my way here it was still fairly useless so therefore my guitar practise (I am still not very good) has all but stopped but for the fist time since leaving Abidjan last year I have had a practise today, I am looking forward to finishing all the work onboard so I can just ‘lime’ out in my hammock and play, OK, learn to play.
I sail slightly different to the majority of people I have met so far in that (with crew) we are always on deck, regardless of the time and conditions. This means I have little time to do anything else, this will all change when I leave the Caribbean next year as I will fitting another type of self steering gear. The forty plus days sailing from Panama to the French Polynesian Islands will give me lots of time to do other things. I want to spend this time learning / doing something usefully, so perhaps another language but defiantly to play the guitar. However like most plans this is subject to change, I am contemplating spending several weeks around the Galapagos Islands subject to approval form the government and research teams there.
To my re-supply team due out here in late June, an update… English tea bags. The 1,300 I originally left England with are starting to run low. On my trip so far I have met many Europeans and they normally always complain about one thing, not being able to get good tea so I often give a few away.
One last thing before continuing, I have for this one time only attached a photo of Chacachacare Island (view from the lighthouse) so you can imaging being hear while you read this.. Happy dreaming
Life on board:
It has been a quiet week with a few visits ashore during the evenings but mainly I have been chasing up orders etc. Trinidad is a wonderful place with some of the friendliest people around but they all work on ‘Triny time’, this means what would normally take 5 days takes 10 – 15 days or more but it will get done.
The boat:
The new battery charging system is working great, what would normally take over 8 hours to bring the battery level up to 14 volts now takes 40 minutes. It then switches to slowly bringing the batteries up to the manufactures specification. The broken auto pilot bracket was finished and fitted, although a slight problem in that they had tapped the thread for the rudder sensor (this tells the auto pilot computer the rudders position) was on the wrong side I managed to get it working ok and all for under £24, in England this would have cost well over £150!
The bilge pump auto switch (basically a floating switch located in the bilge, the ‘bilge’ the space inside below the deck / (floor), the lowest part of the boat (inside) below the water line) failed, once removed and inspected I noticed that one wire was broken off. Replaced and tested ok.
Well that’s about it for this week but a quick comment about missing emails. At long last after several emails too / and from the winlink administrates the fault has been found although a solution has not yet been sourced. So to all my friends out there, in Abidjan, Azores, Spain and the UK I have been sending you emails, it just appears that when in a distribution list the email gets through ok but not when sent individually.
Fair winds and calm seas.
David.