Position 10°40’614N 061°38’4184W
At anchor, Chaguaramas, Trinidad.
Hi dear friends, thank you for following our journey. Here’s is this week’s update.
Firstly many thanks for the cake recipes, they went down very well. Indeed they are still doing so!
We arrived in Chaguaramas at 13:40hrs, that’s 17:40hrs (GMT) so it has taken us a little time to adjust to the time difference of four hours. The anchorage is ok, it is just off a commercial port so there is work going on 12hrs a day. However this is the port of entry for Trinidad so we had to come here first. That aside it is a nature reserve and as such the scenery is stunning. I intend to stay here for about two weeks why I arrange the importation of new equipment to fitted to Pinta, first of which is a water maker. I had not bothered before but I have now decided to do so. You should have seen the sales persons face when asked what our water consumption onboard was, I said ’eight litres a day’. He said he could not survive on that! eh but that’s long distant sailing for you.
After our experience in Ascension I will be fitting an electric windless, mainly because I will be upgrading from part chain and part rope to all chain and that’s a lot of weight to pull up.
The next upgrade will be to increase the battery capacity by some 400 amps then finally the last upgrade will be an ‘Aries’ self steering system, as the route has changed, i.e. I will now be following the trade winds the battery management system will not provide enough power to run the auto pilot and charge the batteries.
If the price is right.. whoops a television show I think of year’s gone bye.. anyway I will be looking at replacing the lazy bag, spray dodger and perhaps a bimini.
Life on board:
All is going well although we would like to be able to go for a swim, catch our breakfast etc but the water is not too good here, we intend to move to a beautiful bay just some 2Nm to the west. The scenery is stunning with a backdrop like something out of ‘Tarzan’.. Tall trees and nothing but greenery, mountain after mountain with shear drops in the sea only metres off land from 30 metres to well. too deep for my depth finder to find.
With the prices they are out here we are indeed eating too well (and with the cakes) and fear for the first time since leaving England we may put on weight and just after we had bought new cloths to replace the ones we left with so that we would no longer look like tramps while going ashore in our baggy clothes..
The boat:
I have replaced the impeller on the main cooling water intake pump and rebuilt the outboard engine after it refused to start upon our arrival. The problem turned out to be contaminated fuel which I purchased in Brazil. It is a widely known fact that they weaken the fuel buy adding alcohol or similar product but in our case it was just dirty fuel.
Our tender, the dinghy used to go back and forth form our mooring to shore suffered two small punchers this week. At this port there are dinghy parks near any major outlet. You just arrive, secure your dinghy and go to the pub, the shops or whatever but on this occasion there was no such park. So after asking the security guard he suggested securing the dinghy just alongside the restaurant.. big mistake for it was out of sight of those in the area.. So, someone who was smoking could not see the dinghy and just through there used cigarette into the sea, unfortunately it landed in the dinghy. Two small perforations in the air deck which I later repaired. I now have a sheet of heavy duty PVC lining the deck so should the same happen that will stop the air deck getting damaged.
Fair winds and calm seas.
David.