Chaguaramas, Trinidad
10.40.822N
61.37.899W

Jesse, our guide, and about 8 other drivers he recruited, picked up over a hundred of us cruisers to ferry us to a Hindu temple in Felicity, Trinidad, to witness the celebration of Divali, the Hindu New Year and the Festival of Light. This was like a cross between Christmas and the Fourth of July. It appeared that the whole town dressed in traditional Indian attire and deyas (clay lamps) were lighted at sun down to show the triumph of light over darkness. They reminded me of our luminaries on Christmas Eve except for the occasional bamboo rockets being set off throughout the evening.

We began by entering the temple gates to the music of drums and cymbals being played by only 3 people but loud enough to hear throughout the village. We removed our shoes before entering the temple itself and were captivated by the beautiful colors displayed in the artwork and statutes depicting their various deities.

The Pundit (the temple priest) described the five day festival as beginning on the date of the new moon with a thorough house cleaning and opening of windows to welcome Mother Laksmi, the goddess of light. Kali, the goddess of strength, is called upon so that laziness and evil can be abolished on the second day. The lighting of the deyas takes place on the third day (the last day of their lunar year). The fourth day is the first day of the New Year and a time for old business accounts to be settled and new books opened. This is also the day that participants are encouraged to removed anger, hate, and jealousy from their lives. Finally, there is Balipratipada, when the life of the ancient king Bali is celebrated and everyone is encouraged to look for the good in others, including their enemies.

We were also entertained by a young Indian dancer. Many of her moves reminded me of the South Pacific dancers. Some of her hand movements reminded me of the gentle hands of Hawaiian dancers and other dance steps more akin to the Tahitian dances. At the end of the program, we were encouraged to join in the dancing but I prefer to keep all of my belly dancing behind closed doors, it keeps the laughter to a minimum.

We ate a traditional Indian dinner with our fingers from giant leaves the size of placemats. We used something akin to shredded pie dough to pick up curried beans, plantains, mangos, coconut burfi (like dried cookie dough), and a few other things I didn’t recognize but certainly enjoyed the taste of.

After our dinner, we walked along the streets of the village enjoying the displays of deyas and the beautify saris the women wore and the traditional garb the men wore. We stopped and talked with a retired customs officer who explained the symbol his deyas were placed in. It represented the trinity of his religion. Again, it reminded me of how similar this was to ours.

We finished our tour of the village and returned to catch our bus back to the marina and made it back before Elaine arrived with her son-in-law, David. Roger was too ill from his chemo and radiation to travel.

Clearly this was a difficult task for her to undertake but she wanted no assistance from outside her immediate family and we abided by her wishes. Dale and Dennis were able to lend a hand by replacing all of the canvas that had been removed for the season and shuttled them and their belongings back and forth a couple of times but other than that, she preferred to work alone. Surprisingly, she was able to accomplish everything she had set out to do in the single day that she had allotted herself. She gave Dale some wine and her conch horn that she blew at sunset and me some rum and her Mexican Dominos that we had learned to play in Luperon.

Life has dealt our friends a terrible blow and in turn, anyone who knew them. The most frustrating part is knowing that there is nothing we can do or anything we can say, that will change what’s happened or ease their pain. I was glad to hear Elaine comment that she had been able to sleep the first night she was with us, attributing it to the rocking of the boat and being back home on the water. I wish we could provide the same comfort to Roger.

Jesse picked Elaine and David up at 4 am for their return trip to the airport. Once again, Jesse amazed us with his dedication; I don’t think the man ever sleeps.

Just when I thought the crime spree had ended, Tuesday we had another mugging of someone heading back from the bank. On Wednesday, a restaurant located a couple of hundred feet from the back of our boat and one we had planned on going to that evening, was robbed by 3 men brandishing machetes and hand guns. We had changed our minds about going because we were running late from all of our shopping. The thieves approached the owner just before closing and robbed him of the nights’ proceeds. They were apparently surprised to find so many customers still in attendance but then quickly relieved them of their cash and credit cards and fired off a couple of rounds just to make their point. No one was injured seriously; a few cuts from the machetes. Again, it took a couple of hours before the local police showed up. The hired security never saw them or heard the gun shots.

We finished our week with preparations for leaving on the 1st of November. I’ve overstocked again and am in the process of precooking several meals for those days when we pull into an anchorage late; I’ll save the laundry until the very last day to make sure we’re as fresh as possible. Dale is running through all of the systems to make sure they are in working order, as well as coordinating a few last minute details for the transfer of DocNoMore to the new owners.
So once again, we’ll take off on a new adventure next week. Hopefully, we’ll meet up with Gerry & Nicky in December and there will be wonderful things to write about.

Chaguaramas, Trinidad
10.40.822N
61.37.899W

Happy Birthday to my sister, Carolyn!

Our trip to Asa Wright Park this week was wonderful, especially since neither Dale nor I could be considered ‘real’ bird watchers.

Jesse James, our local entrepreneur/guardian angel picked us up along with 4 other couples. Jesse caters his business to the cruising community and has a huge network of family and friends that he can call upon to expand his business to fit the need. He’s the first one to call if you need anything or want to go somewhere. He’s also the first to offer help when he learns of a misfortune to befall you. He’s ferried people back and forth to hospitals and doctor appointments when illness or accidents happened and usually knows who to call if you need some specific item that can’t be found in the area. He has a wealth of knowledge and has quite possibly the most even keeled personality I have ever encountered.

We began our journey up through the rain forest with a stop at a corner vendor for “doubles,” aloo pie, and kitachorie, some of the local East Indian fast food. Doubles are two small pieces of fried bread with curried split peas between. Aloo pie is a type of potato pie and kitachorie is like a hush puppy made with split peas. Dale and I liked the doubles and aloo pie best with just a touch of hot sauce.

We wound our way up the mountains through the rainforest while Jesse quizzed those of us who had been on his previous tours regarding the names of the local flowers. There was, of course, Christophene, the Trinidad National Flower named after the first governor, which appears to be a brilliant red from a distance but upon closer inspection is a tiny yellow flower surrounded by red brackets. There were the various types of haliconia like the red and yellow lobster claws and the small orange flowers that look like tiny birds of paradise but there was also flowers called “sexy pinks” which are becoming more and more scarce. These look like upside down pink, white and green lobster claws. I thought they were beautiful. One of the first plants pointed out to us when we arrived was a rare 'psychopsis papilio' orchid.

The Asa Wright preserve itself is an old coffee, cocoa, citrus plantation of about 200 hundred acres. We were lucky enough to be given a room in the original house which was built in 1907 and had 20’ ceilings. The house itself wasn’t as grand as some others we have seen but none compared with the view the veranda of this one had to offer. The house is located at an elevation of 1200 feet with the veranda overlooking the Arima Valley. You could, and we did, spend hours there, both at dusk and dawn watching the birds come to feed in their gardens and feeders placed just below.

They offered tea at 4pm, cocktails at 6pm, dinner at 7pm and a nature walk at 8pm. During the afternoon, we toured some of the trails surrounding the mainhouse and found a waterfall nearby. We ended up skipping the tea but sampled their rum punch in celebration of our 26th wedding anniversary before being ringed in to dinner. The nature walk later was directed more toward the insects, including a giant roach and praying mantis, but we ended up stalking a couple of pigmy owls by the end of the evening.

The next morning we rose early in hopes of seeing a toucan. One appeared but was so far away, you needed binoculars to get a good look, otherwise we were thoroughly entertained by the hummingbirds, banana quits, honeycreepers, orioles, blue-gray tanagers and crested oropendolas (which looked like crows with bright yellow tail feathers.)

We were ringed in to breakfast and soon after were off on another nature hike. This time we tracked bearded bellbirds, chestnut woodpeckers and looked deep into caverns for the noisy oilbird. We never saw them but definitely heard them.

We were able to shower and spend another couple of hours on the veranda before Jesse returned to pick us up.

When we got back to our boat, we were met by Dennis and Alayne (Audry Page) with news that Roger & Elaine had an offer on DocNoMore and that Elaine and her son-in-law would be arriving late Saturday night to remove all of their personal belongings before leaving early on Monday morning; she wanted to be in, out and gone before anyone knew. Unfortunately, the cruising community is small and people already knew of her arrival before we even stepped onto our boat and turned on the computer to read the e-mail. Oh well.

We’re scheduled to attend the Festival of Light in celebration of Divali, the Hindu New Year, on Saturday so we’ve left our keys with Dennis in case Elaine gets here before we get back. It will be good to see her again but I wish it were under different circumstances. Elaine & Roger touched our lives by having shared adventures with us, traveling to places we’ve never been before, exploring meandering creeks though desert islands, hiking to the highest forts in the Caribbean, jumping off waterfalls into chilly ponds below, defending ourselves against mighty bulls blocking our paths, and discovering all of this together for the first time. Christopher Columbus has nothing on us.

Chaguaramas, Trinidad
10.40.822N
61.37.899W

Well, I guess it has been a long time, so let me see if I can bring everyone up to date.

For the most part, we’ve just been killing time. Every other Tuesday we go to the movies. Every other Friday we go to the ‘Shark and Bake’ (I’ve been eating fried shark sandwiches, Mom). Every other Sunday, we head across the channel for the Sunday brunch and of course, every other Wednesday, there’s laundry and occasionally, there’s rib night at the Wheel House.

I started swimming every day working up to 50 laps a day until the dock master at the marina where I was swimming said that it didn’t matter whether or not I was Carol’s (Take Time) guest, I couldn’t use the pool. So I signed up at a local gym and pedal my old decrepit bones up the hill a mile and a half away to go just about every day. Linda (Rainbow Rider) goes with me quite a bit. When she can’t, Dale forgoes his daily jog and rides the bicycle with me.

Otherwise, Dale's kept busy fixing things. He replaced the circuit board in the genset we ordered several months ago. Replaced the alternator on the engine (we had a spare). Replaced the shower sump pump. Added a new solar panel regulator. Cleaned the dinghy engine. Replaced circuit board in the air conditioner. Cleaned all the through hulls. Pulled plastic bags from our water intakes on a fairly regular basis (I have to disinfect him when he comes out of the water-no pump out stations around here). Washed the boat a few times. Ordered a new WiFi antenna - hopefully soon to arrive so that I can find better internet connections along the way. And we bought a new dinghy. The old one just wouldn‘t hold air for any length of time.

I’ve been sewing and giving sewing advice. I made a couple of kayak sacks for Linda’s kayaks, replaced our back awning, and made a cover for our life raft, as well as showing our neighbor how to make jerry can covers. Word has gotten out, so Linda and Dale are trying to protect me from the onslaught of those wanting to put me to work, which is strictly forbidden without the proper visa.

One exciting thing, a week or so ago, we did have a couple of earthquakes. Both were in the 5 point range (5.6 and 5.4). Dale was riding with me to the gym during the first one, which neither of us felt, bumpy roads and all. The second one came when we were getting some papers off DocNoMore; shades of California. I guess the people here aren’t used to them, which was surprising to us considering the volcanic activity along the island chain.

What truly shook us to the core was the news that Roger on DocNoMore has pancreatic cancer and would not be returning to finish cruising with us. If you’ve followed this blog for any time, you know that we’ve been sailing with them since November of 2005 and have become quite close to both Roger and Elaine. We were looking forward to them returning and comparing Dale’s ponytail with Roger’s and continuing our adventures with them. Now, we say our prayers for them and do what we can in making their transition back to shore life as easy as possible.

When last I wrote, we were in the mist of a crime epidemic. I’m happy to report that our neighborhood watch has paid off and only 2 dinghies have been stolen since its inception; the second just today. I suspect that with time, complacency is starting to set in or newcomers aren't locking their dinghies religiously. Dale and I keep ours locked at all times and hoisted and locked if we don’t anticipate using it. I haven’t heard of any more muggings/robberies targeting cruisers but then, people are encouraged to travel in groups.

Last week, Dale & I, together with 4 other couples, signed up for a hike in the mountains up to the Rincon Waterfall. I’m glad I’d been working out in the gym because I don’t think I would have made it any other way. It was advertised as being a moderately difficult hike. This was very true; it was not easy but it wasn’t extremely difficult either. Roger and Elaine would have been in their element. At the highest point, it did require ropes to descend into the pool at the bottom of the falls and then to pull ourselves back out again. I managed to slip and rip a few layers of skin off my hand catching myself on the rope; should have worn gloves, I guess.

Our guide, "Snake" pictured with his pet boa.

Along the trail, a fleur de lance snake was seen, caught and milked for its venom. The venom was then licked off the knife to demonstrate that it was only poisonous if injected into the bloodstream. I sincerely hoped that our guide did not stumble and accidentally bite his tongue. We also saw various spiders and poisonous fruit that I would have sworn were as edible as the real thing. Other vines, berries and fruits were pointed out to be excellent sources of food, tea or spice. I told Dale that I hoped we never got deserted on an island where we had to fend for ourselves because I’d be hard pressed to figure out what was edible and what wasn’t.

The large, neon blue Empress Butterflies were a delight to see in their natural habitat along the hillsides of the rainforest by the waterfalls. It added a bit of enchantment to an otherwise challenging experience.

We’ve noticed that cruisers who went home for hurricane season are starting to return and splash their boats back into the water after being stored “on the hard“ all of this time. We too are in the process of getting ready to head back north to meet Jerry & Nicki, our very dear friends from home who on their way back to their original home in Australia. We’re stocking up on food and toilet paper again as well as making sure that all of the systems are up to snuff. We anticipate unplugging from the marina the first of November and stopping at some of the anchorages nearby before making our cross over to Grenada. We’ll go north until we meet them or as far as Puerto Rico, and then sail south again possibly accompanying them all the way to Panama and returning via the western route to south Florida, eventually returning to Jacksonville by July. The route will depend upon what our insurance company will allow. Our plans are firmly written in warm jello, so we’ll let you know what we do, when we do it.

Until that time, next week, we’re joining a few other couples for an over night trip to the Asa Wright park. It’s supposed to be a botanical garden/bird sanctuary type of park. Pictures will follow when we return.

So dear readers, we have not fallen off the face of the earth as many have suspected but are sitting around catching up on our favorite TV shows, movies and thoroughly enjoying the air conditioning, cable TV and laundromats while we have them.