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Larry's LogClearing the land, we found the wind about 15 to 20 knots and the seas 6 to 8 feet. The swell was still high from a large system north and east of the Caribbean (even though it was 1500 miles away) and with our course of 190 degrees magnetic, we were on a beam reach. That meant that a rolly trip although the wind would stabilize the boat a little. Diane took the first watch although I was still awake and trimming sails and checking things. But about an hour into the passage, I just relaxed on the leeward side and tried to rest. The autopilot was on and steering well so all Diane had to do was watch for other boats and such. Unfortunately, the motion was just too much and she soon became seasick, even after taking the Sturgeron for the last few days. At about 8:30, she couldn't do any more so I got up (moved over to the upwind side of the cockpit) and she tried to lie down and rest. I slowed the boat down a bit by turning off the engine (we had been motor sailing to charge the batteries) and the reduced motion from the slower speed seemed to help her. We weren't in any hurry to get to Trinidad so if it helped, that was fine. About 9pm, I saw the lights of not one, but three ships. Usually we don't see any, except maybe another yacht doing a passage, so this caused some interest. Two of the ships were headed north but one was headed south or southeast - I couldn't tell at first. Initially, I thought this one was on a parallel course and going to Trinidad as well, since it looked like a tanker and Trinidad is a large producer of oil and gas. But as I watched, he got closer and closer and eventually, it was clear that we were on a collision course. I woke up Diane and said to take the boat off autopilot and try calling the ship on the radio. I wanted to make sure he knew we were there. Theoretically, a vessel under sail has the right of way but if he didn't see us, or didn't care, I would need to take evasive action. As it was, there was no response from the ship on the radio and if I hadn't tacked when he was about 100 yards away, we would have hit him amidships. As I tacked, Diane came up and we could hear his engines as he kept his course and passed in front of us at a distance of about 75 yards. I guess he was going to some port on the east coast of South America since he certainly wasn't going to Trinidad! After that encounter, the two other ships passed us going north about ½ mile away. After all that traffic, we didn't see anything else until we got about 30 miles north of Trinidad when we started seeing the natural gas platform that's about 25 miles north of the Trinidad coast and the lighthouse on Chacachacare Island, that's visible 30 miles away. Around 3am, the wind lightened and the seas started to calm down. We were only going about 4 knots so I asked Diane if she felt better. She said yes and so I unfurled the jib and we started sailing much better. We started doing about 6.5 knots and the boat's motion was still OK. The wind and seas continued to stay light all the way to Trinidad. We arrived at the Boca de Monos at around 8am and the wind died altogether or was so flukey that it wasn't worth trying to sail to I turned on the engine and furled the jib. We furled the main as we turned the corner toward Chaguaramas. I got to try my new lazy jacks arrangement for the first time and it seemed to work well. We debated about going into Scotland Bay after clearing in but finally decided to just go into the marina since we were tired and just wanted to relax. We called the marina and they said we could have a slip right away (our reservation was for the next day). It turned out to be the same slip we had when we were there the first time so it was easy to find. The dockhand was there to catch our lines and we got into the slip with just some minor "raised voices", although a stanchion did get bent slightly when we touched one of the pilings. Oh well, it would be easy to bend it back. We tied up, got everything in somewhat orderly shape, got the ships' papers and went to Immigration. Trinidad is the only Caribbean island that wants all the crew to go to Immigration, although when we got there, we saw just the captain of some boats doing the whole process for the entire crew. Unfortunately, there was a line already and we had to wait about 45 minutes before we finally cleared Immigration. We went to Customs and there was no problem. We asked about our package of mail though, and they had not received it yet. Diane's father had sent about 30 pounds of mail (some 8 months worth) to us via the post office about 3 weeks prior. We had hoped that it would be here waiting for us. Hopefully we would get it eventually. While I was in Customs, Diane checked in with the marina and called about renting an air conditioner. Just as I was finishing with Customs, it started to rain. Not just rain, but a downpour like it had never rained before. Of course, we had left some of the ports and hatches open since it was so hot. Welcome to Trinidad (again). |