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Larry's LogWe planned to go into town to get our airplane tickets for home. Before we left though, I went over to Legacy. Their son and daughter-in-law had just come in the night before and they were planning to leave for the Tobago Cays that day. I wanted to drop off an article Joe had lent me about the Rio Orinoco (we were thinking about visiting there after Trinidad) and to get the USA Today newspaper that his son had brought in from home. I also stopped at Side by Side to pick up a CD to see if I could get my old laptop to work. They were also leaving so I said I would drop off the CD with Pride when I finished with it. They weren't going very far but since we were planning to leave before they got back, we made arrangements to leave the CD someplace safe. After my errands, I picked up Diane and we went into town to a recommended travel agency and had no problems at all getting our tickets. We wanted paper tickets since we heard that e-tickets could be problematic in the Caribbean. My experience was that they can be a problem in the US, so we both felt paper was the way to go. That done, we did some shopping, tried the Internet place but found that their server was down, ate lunch out and then went back to the marina. We saw Darius that morning and explained about the problem we had the last time we took his van service. He knew about it and deducted the extra bus fare with no problem. Back at the boat, I worked on the old laptop and actually got it to work properly. Great, now we had a backup PC. Diane and I decided to go in to shore for Happy Hour and the Friday barbeque so we could spend our remaining EC currency. We wouldn't need it after we left, at least not for quite a while. So we went in and saw many of our friends there. The weather had been really bad so I think that kept a lot of people on their boats, but Pride was there and Bob gave me a lesson on playing Cribbage. Someone had given me a set as a Bon Voyage present, but I never learned how to play. We played a game and I started to catch on. Eric from Driftwood also showed me how to play a bit. Between them, I think I understand the basics. It's an interesting game but I wonder if Diane will like it. Ah, the rainy season! The next morning, Saturday, it rained again but cleared by mid morning so I put up the clothesline and hung up the wet towels and things. Naturally, it rained again but they were wet anyway. Hopefully they would dry sometime that day. We had planned to go to Trinidad on Sunday or Monday but after we heard the weather forecasts that morning, we weren't so sure. Sunday didn't sound too good because of a tropical wave coming through that would give some squalls and gusty winds and Monday there were supposed to be some squalls left over and the synoptic winds might still be above 15-20 knots. We wanted to do the 80 mile crossing at night with winds hopefully from the East and around 15 knots. We didn't want to leave Tuesday night because Wednesday is a holiday in Trinidad and they charge 50 US to clear in as an overtime charge. We would have to see how it worked out. Naturally, we also needed to clear out of Grenada on a weekday to avoid their overtime charges. Fortunately, it stopped raining for most of the day after about noon. Lori on Pride called over the see if I wanted to play Cribbage. Bob, her husband had taught me the day before and since Bob was running the engine and reading, she wanted something to do. I liked the game and had nothing particular to do so I said sure. She came over after lunch and we spent a couple of hours playing Cribbage, although it was still mostly a lesson for me. I won the first game but lost the second. Nice game, but I doubt if Diane will ever learn it. After Cribbage, Lori went back to Pride and we went to shore for a swim and a shower and then went to a dinghy raft party. This was a get together of the cruisers in Mt Hartman Bay, and some other from Prickly Bay, in which people got in their dinghy, brought drinks and a snack to share, and all tied up to a mooring. Connie from Kristali had organized it and it was really fun. Eleven dinghies were tied in a circle up to a large mooring ball. Many boats had couples from other locations so there were a lot more than 11 cruising couples represented. We passed around the snacks and we even had an agenda. Everyone had to introduce themselves, tell about their boat and then tell an "amazing" boat story. Ours story was about the passage down to Bermuda. There were some really interesting stories about a great variety of things. Maybe the most "amazing" was from Side by Side about their trip to St. Martin, going through the infamous "Bermuda Triangle." It seems that three days out their compass started spinning, the instruments went dead and the electronic log just recorded zeros. This lasted for about 10 minutes and then everything went back to normal. They thought it might have been a submarine that they later saw but Eric, from Driftwood, had been in the Navy for 25 years and worked on submarines and said that nothing on a sub would do that. Still a mystery. The next morning we listened to 3 different weather forecasts and they all said that the tropical wave coming in would bring some gusty winds and rain. It never happened although it did rain a bit and stayed overcast all day. We probably could have left Sunday night but since we hadn't checked out, we couldn't. We thought though that it would be OK to leave tomorrow so we made plans to leave. Driftwood and Amphitrite were also going to leave at the same approximate time so we would have company on the way down. There were several things we would have to finish, like cleaning the prop and rigging the jacklines along the deck. I also wanted to try to rig the windvane. That day, however, was occupied in trying the fix the stove. It oven wasn't heating up the way it should and I tried cleaning the burner and other "stuff" associated with it. It didn't help. We were low on propane and that could be it but I think it may be the thermostat. We would have to see once we got to Trinidad. I also checked over the engine and retuned the rigging, from after I rebedded the 2 chainplates. There was a hose that needed some extra chafe gear but that was it, although I did clean up the engine compartment bilge a bit. The next day we would finish the preparations. The remainder of Sunday though was in taking a swim and a shower. Monday was hectic even though we had all day to prepare for the passage and we had most of the boat ready. We continued stowing things and I decided to look at the setup for the windvane, just in case it would prove easy to rig. Naturally, it wasn't. I had all the pieces but the lead from the wheel connector to the side blocks wasn't quite fair, so I would have to look at building or having built, a custom piece to hold these 2 blocks. |