Temperature of 20°C brrrrrr

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:

Well it has been a quite week for me here in Chaguaramas although I did meet a couple from onboard the catamaran ‘Jonathan’, he is a writer who has been sailing around the Caribbean for the past 14 years, the last four years of which he has been carrying out research for a book about pirates, the history of all the major pirates / privateers and modern piracy. He spent three years trying to locate the location of Drakes base’s around the area using the latitude & longitude taken from those days. He initially was unable to find anywhere suitable using this information.

He later realised his error which he feels was in using the latitude and longitude’s given to him because in turn it relied on the skill and therefore the accuracy of the person using the sextant, instead he used reference information handed down over time to locate them. After many years he feels he has located the seve7 bases (some on un charted area’s for even today’s charts of the Caribbean use data taken over a hundred years ago) and from the layout it would make sense for they are strategically placed around the Caribbean so should Drake be in trouble he would always be able to re-supply he vessel.

I was invited onboard for a ‘sundowner’, now this just a little drink onboard to watch the sun go down although around here you often end up watching the sun rise as well but on this occasion I was a good boy and returned fairly early although I am a little fuzzy headed for Jonathan was making all the local punches, like Plantation punch, a wicked drink in which far too much alcohol and other ‘stuff’ was mixed together for me to remember. Watch out for those visiting me later next month for I will have recipe for all the local cocktails onboard by then.

The only change here this week was the nigh time temperature, for the first time since 28th November 2005 I experienced a temperature of 20°C. Brrrrrr it was a cold night.

Quick update for those who have not heard, the volcano located in the Soufrièr Hills on the Island of Montserrat (UK) spilled out tones of ash yesterday.

The boat:

For the first time since arriving here, I have run out of job’s to do onboard, well that is entirely accurate as I am waiting for container that arrived from St Martin on Friday to be unloaded by my local chandlery. Once unloaded there should be some 5/8 hose, which I need 3 metres off to finish the plumbing for the water maker’s intake.

The windless should be here this Thursday and it’s controller should arrive from Italy also later this week, the controller I hear you say, well this little baby (the windless) has networking built in, by networking I mean it has wireless data being sent from, and too the windless. To take advantage of this feature I ordered a wireless remote control for the windless, this would save me running control wires from the windless all the way to the cockpit. The remote control also includes a chain counter; this will tell me how much chain I have out.

In emergency mode, the windless is capable of letting out 45 metres of chain a minute.

I thought being single-handed and later converting over to all chain this would be of great assistance.

Last but not least, here is an update from David., the skipper of Woody’s new vessel. Thought you might like to read it.

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Just a quick update to let you know all is well aboard Artemis. We are nearly four days out of St. Martin and making about 160 miles a day, until this morning when the wind disappeared, we are currently only making 4 knots.

Woody is still yet to catch a fish so has washing up duties until he does. Last evening I had a huge bite, stripped the line from the reel against full brake then broke the 200lb line, God knows what it was. We would not have been able to land it but it took my new (expensive) lure.

Well that’s all for now, not much else to report, hope everything in Trini is going to plan.

******

Well that is it from sunny Trinidad (temperature 33°C), have a great week everybody.

Fair winds and calm seas.

David.