07/17-23/2006
Chaguaramas, Trinidad
10.40.822N
61.37.899W

Happy Birthday Veronica!!

Rainbow Rider finally made it! You may recall that we’ve been expecting them to catch up to us since we left Jacksonville. We’ve been introducing them to our boat buddies and they have made a great addition to our little group.

Since we anticipate being here for a couple of months, we’ve settled into a bit of a routine. Dale has returned to jogging in the morning. Linda and I walk over to Crews Inn around the end of the harbor but located directly across from us in the channel to swim laps in their pool, then we return to our own boats for our various projects or goofing off.

To spice things up a bit, there is a local entrepreneur who offers shuttles into town to the larger grocery stores, malls, movie theater, open market or wherever you might like to go (price depending upon how many people want to go with you - the more - the cheaper). Sunday is Mexican Dominos at Crew Inn and potluck night at Coral Cove. Tuesday is the shuttle to the movies, Wednesday is Price Smart day (like Sam’s or Cosco), Friday is the larger supermarket and Saturday is open market day.

This week we went to the open market. Fresh fish, meat and poultry (as in butchered, plucked or filleted in front of you) and rows and rows of stalls selling fruits and vegetables.

We also went to see the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was great fun to nudge each other saying “we’ve been there, we saw that!” Of course, a lot of the movie was shot on location at St. Vincent, an island we avoided for safety reasons. We met some other cruisers who were boarded there but luckily were able to send the thieves running. We figured the movie crews must have had their own security force.

Speaking of security force, we’ve set up a sort of neighbor hood watch organization here. It has gotten to the point where we have at least one theft per night lately. Usually it’s dinghies, engines or something in the cockpit not locked up that get stolen and generally from boats out in the mooring fields but there have been two separate robberies of people walking along the road and a robbery at gunpoint of the driver and passengers (all but one were cruisers) on a bus that has the marina route. One cruiser on the bus had just gone to the ATM and the pocket in which he placed his money was ripped from his pants. Clearly, he had been watched.

Because of the thefts and robberies, a very well attended meeting was organized at one of the local restaurants to discuss the situation. That’s where some “cowboys” surfaced. Everyone is concerned and wants to do their part but most of us prefer the less radical method of protecting ourselves. The most interesting aspect of the situation is that of jurisdiction. If the theft occurs on land, it’s a police problem; if the theft occurs on water, it’s a coast guard problem; the Chaguaramas area itself seems to pose a dilemma and has its own organization to report to. Our biggest problem was that no one was responding!

The meeting ended with a consensus that those in the mooring fields would divide up the days into segments among themselves, taking turns shining their million watt floodlights periodically around the field checking for intruders from their own boats and hail the coast guard on channel 16 if something is found amiss. Hopefully, this will at least dampen the interest or resolve the situation if the thief or thieves can be apprehended.

In the meantime, we’ve all be encouraged to raise our dinks high, and lock them to the boat. I made a mental note to update our insurance and registration to include the new dinghy which at this point, as no markings whatsoever to designate who it belongs to.

On a happier note, we finished our week with sushi on Take Time. Brian on Wasabe, used to own a shushi bar in California and prepared our meal in Carol & Wayne’s large galley. We reaped the benefits together with the crews from Sea Bird, Rainbow Rider, Take Time, and Wasabe. Although I took a steak, I did scarf up a few of the seaweed wrapped rice pieces in addition to it. The thought of raw fish just doesn’t sit well with me but the taste was pretty good and the seaweed salad was delicious. I’m slow, but I’m learning.