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Diane's DiaryFebruary 7 Friday I felt much better today so it was back to doing things again. I did 2 loads of laundry and worked out in the gym with the new gym instructor. I also got a pedicure- a real treat for me down here. We stayed home at night and watched TV. February 8 Saturday Larry worked on regreasing the winched this morning. S/V Motu will take our mail back to the US so I sent a bunch of letters home with the article I wrote on "Naked in Blanquilla" in the January Caribbean Compass. We took the dinghy over to Power Boats at 4pm as Mo had invited Mima and us over for drinks before she leaves for home. Afterwards, we went out to Joe's Pizza with Mima. February 9 Sunday I made chicken cutlets this morning as we are having Ben from S/V Adventure over for dinner. He's a really interesting guy as he was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Ct for IL. We enjoyed having him over for dinner. He's a singlehander so he misses a home cooked meal. I called my Mom as my Dad is in the hospital. Having someone sick at home is very distressing to most of us out here cruising- phone calls are expensive, and so is flying home. But we definitely think of everyone and try to communicate as best as possible by email. Anyway, hope my Dad will be OK. I was thinking of them today. February 10 Monday I went with Steph into downtown POS to get the fabric I wanted. Unfortunately, the store was closed for several hours due to a funeral. We didn't want to wait until it opened because we didn't think it would open so soon. Anyway, we stopped at Price Smart and West Mall and got back to the boat tired but having accomplished lots of shopping, by 3pm. I rested a little, and then went to the gym and pool. We stayed home and watched TV tonight. February 11 Tuesday We accomplished a lot today. I went to the bank, grocery store, and the gym. Lori from S/V Pride flew down to Trini for some medical tests so we all went out to Joe's Pizza tonight. There was S/V Adventure, Lady J, Syrena, and us. We had not seen Lori in over a year so it was nice seeing her again. We all had a good time at Joe's Pizza. We have been on the diet 2 weeks today and I've lost about 7-9lbs already. I feel a lot better with the extra weight off and am glad we went on the diet. I would like to lose another 30lbs but we'll see. Just glad the diet seems to be working. Wish I could speed the process up faster! But, like they always say, the pounds didn't go on overnight so they aren't going to come off that fast either. Oh, well. February 12 Wednesday At 9am, we took the dinghy over to say goodbye to Motu as she is leaving to go back to the US today. Afterwards, we stopped at Mima for a short while. Larry let me off with the dinghy so I could go pay Members Only for some Carnival activities. Steph came over. This evening we went to the second Taste of Carnival event. We really enjoyed it and had a wonderful time. We were really glad we went. It has been a good introduction to Carnival. February 13 Thursday I took Lori from Pride into POS fabric shopping today, as I knew she wanted to get some fabric. I bought all the material to make another set of slipcovers and Lori bought a lot of fabric also. We also went to Price Smart and met some other ladies in West Mall. I left them in the mall and headed for home. I got back to the boat around 2pm. I went to the gym and then grilled at the potluck. Usually we stay, but since we are on the diet, we can't share any dished the other boaters bring, so it's best to just go back to the boat and eat ourselves. Besides, the temptations are to great this early in the diet, so we would rather not be tempted. Larry is not too fond of the potluck anyway. February 14 Friday- Valentine's Day! Happy Valentine's Day everyone- yes, they do celebrate that holiday here in Trini. The question is: do the guys remember us or give us anything on this special day? I went on the free bus for supermarket shopping today. I actually found the Atkins diet book so bought it. We have it in the US, but don't have it here on the boat and wanted it as a reference. Anyway, we didn't do anything special today for the holiday- especially since we are on the diet. I did go to the gym and pool. The America's Cup was on TV live from New Zealand so we watched it tonight. Larry really enjoys it but I am not as excited about it as he is. I find it very boring watching it on TV. It just can't capture the event properly. February 15 Saturday Well, I did a lot of cooking today. I made bacon and eggs for breakfast, a crustless quiche, and cleaned 4lbs of shrimp. S/V Enjoy went to the market, borrowed my cooler bag and got shrimp for me. With all this work, I only had time for a quick swim as we are going out to the Calypso Spectacular tonight. We left at 7:15pm to attend the event held in the huge stadium. Calypso was born in Trinidad. It's very interesting- they sing about current events or the latest topics. We enjoyed the performance very much but unfortunately we don't understand all "Trini talk" so a lot of the show was lost on us. However, for the $16USD it cost us including the transportation, we felt it was definitely worth it. We got to see about 25 performers and a show like this in the US would be around $30 at the minimum. So, we are glad we went got to go. Ben from Adventure had bought a few of the CD's so he made some copies of them for us. It was nice to have some of the music. He definitely bought the better artists and the ones we all seemed to like. We didn't get home till around 1:30am- far past our normal bedtime. We had a large group of boaters that went and I helped organize the event with Graham from Maja 3. We bought the cheaper seats and definitely liked it better as we were up high to look down at the stage on an angle. Also, this is where most of the Trini's sit, so we were among them and not in the rich seats. February 16 Sunday We were both tired from last night so we slept until 8am. I was still tired when we woke up but just couldn't sleep any longer. We decided to relax this morning since we are going to the pan semifinals at 1pm. We really enjoyed this tremendously but unfortunately the acoustics were horrible as the event was held in an outdoor grandstand. It was pretty crowded with a lot of Trini's in attendance- they really love their pan music! Larry also really likes pan. I enjoy it but am not as crazy about it as he is. Anyway, we got back around 7pm. Unfortunately, our taxi service did not give us time to sit and listen to all the bands. However, there were 23 bands and this event literally went on for hours! We saw only 6 bands in the 5 hours we were there. It takes a while for the bands to set up and take down so there is a lot of time just waiting around. Plus, the music is very loud. We were glad we bought our earplugs! February 17 Monday I spent the morning doing errands. I walked over to the other side of the harbor and went to Mima, Lennox Woodworking for Larry and to Members Only to pay for Carnival tickets. I found out Crews Inn was NOT charging the $1.20per foot per night charge for the 5 days of Carnival IF you were in the marina on 12/31. We arrived in Trini on 12/20 and had a reservation for 1/1 but wanted to come in sooner. We kept asking to come in but the person didn't vacate their slip so we finally got in on Jan 2. Surely, if we had known about the discount for Carnival if we were in the marina on 12/31, we would have taken another slip prior to 12/31 so we made sure we got the discount. Anyway, I went to speak with Cherry James, the rooms manager, to make our case that we should have gotten the reduced rate. We had emailed her from VZ several times and she never answered our email that's why we had S/V Lady J make a reservation for us. They didn't know the exact date we wanted so that's why they made the reservation for 1/1. Well, Cherry and I had a huge fight as she said we had no reservation and I said we did. She raised her voice to me and acted totally unprofessional. Of course I was able to find the emails we had in our file confirming this reservation! Her attitude was definitely unacceptable! I wanted to speak with the manager but unfortunately he wasn't in. It was actually better that he wasn't as it enabled me to find the emails and write down the whole experience we had coming in to CI. I will go speak with the manager tomorrow. We went to the pan yards and mas camp tour tonight with Members Only. The pan yards are the actual place the individual bands practice and the mas camps are where they make the special Carnival costumes. Mima was supposed to come too but they couldn't make it. We had a superb time and were really glad we went. We got to hear 3 bands although 1 band was on a break when we arrived (Phase 2) and had only one section practicing. We liked this band the best and understand they may win the entire competition so it was exciting to hear them. We also heard Silver Stars, which Larry liked a lot, but I liked Phase 2 better. In all, we had a really good time and were really glad we went. We got home around 11:30pm tired but happy. February 19 Wednesday We were tired so actually slept till after 8am. Actually, I usually sleep until that time anyway, but Larry seems to need less sleep than me and is always up earlier. I was actually up at 5:30 and couldn't sleep but finally got back to sleep. I spoke to the manager at Crews Inn and explained the problem I had with Cherry Ann. He graciously gave us the normal rate for Carnival so it won't increase for that time. If it had gone up to $1.20/ft day for the 5 days of Carnival, we weren't going to stay but rather just go up on the hard since we need to do that anyway. It's been 1.5 years since we hauled the boat and we have some work to do on her. Anyway, after speaking with him, I put away the laundry, and went to the gym. By that time, it was time to go to the "Taste of Carnival" at 5:30. Tonight was the last event and it was definitely very good. We enjoyed all of them as they had different performers at each event. February 20 Thursday I walked over to the other side of the harbor to check with Mima today as they had a big problem. I stopped at Lennox to see if the work Larry wanted done was finished yet. I took a nap in the afternoon as I know tonight will be a late night since we have the King and Queen costumes preliminaries. We left at 7Pm and returned about 1am. We enjoyed seeing all the wonderful costumes- it was really terrific. We were really glad we saw them- some of the costumes were absolutely beautiful and truly outstanding! I called Dad today for his birthday, as I wasn't sure I could call tomorrow and didn't want him to think we forgot his birthday. February 21 Friday Larry went to the dentist at 9:30am. While he was gone I finally got to use the computer and do some emails. It's hard for to me to get on the computer as Larry is always on it. My computer is down and we don't want to spend the $200USD to fix it right now. Anyway, I did a whole bunch of emails this morning. Other than that it was a quiet day as we were both tired from all the Carnival activities the last few days. We have a pretty busy Carnival schedule coming up so we wanted to take it easy today. February 22 Saturday I made bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning then helped Larry with our new side-boarding ladder to enter the boat from the water that we bought from Lady J. It was missing the mounting brackets so Larry had to design our own. I actually think it would have been cheaper and easier for him to just contact the company in the US and get it from them but he decided to make our own. He spent a lot of time and money to do the brackets though. I did a few other errands and then we left for the Red Cross Kiddies Carnival at 11am. This event is where all the kids dressed up in Carnival costumes and was absolutely wonderful. We had a fantastic time watching all the kids and seeing them cross the stage. Some were scared, some nervous, some cried and others were big hams and just loved it. It was definitely an event that should not be missed. Larry took several hundred pictures. Unfortunately, we left at 6pm and it wasn't over yet as we would have stayed. This is the disadvantage when you take a taxi service to these events- you have to leave when they do and not when you want too. However, with all the drunk drivers and lack of safe parking, it's not good to rent a car at Carnival time. I even managed to get a free Red Cross event T-shirt as we met the event chairlady and started talking with her. |