Our brief visit in Trinidad, Part II — November 7, 2022 through November 18, 2022 (subtitle: Back in the saddle again!)

It was another, regrettably, short visit to Trinidad! As we mentioned in our last blog entry, we had planned to enjoy Trinidad for 3 – 4 weeks after our return to the twin islands in early November. With our return delayed, we no longer had the luxury of time to explore. It was work every day, all day, to get ready for our departure to Grenada on November 18. At the risk of spiraling down into tedium, to give you an idea of how monumental our “to do” list was, here’s a small sampling of the work to complete [most of you will want to skip forward to the next paragraph]: follow up on the remaining boat work (including electrical work to give us the ability to plug into European power which is critical for our circumnavigation) — even with great vendors serving as our own general contractors to coordinate work can be a full time job; continue the odyssey of ordering replacement parts and spares; unpack and find places for the contents of 9 (yes 9!) pieces of luggage; creating an inventory of where we placed said items in the bowels of our boat so we can find them when we need them; clean the boat (think re-opening a summer home after a long winter closure); prepare for our virtual safety inspection with the good people of the World Cruising Club (a requirement of participation in the World ARC — we passed with flying colors); add our boat name to required safety equipment (another WCC requirements which Jill executed with great panache); add attachment points to our companionway doors so we can secure them to pad eyes on our boat in case the worst happens — use your imagination (yet another WCC requirement for which Zack devised an elegant solution); get a paid receipt for the application of our anti-fouling paint showing the date of application (a requirement to enter the Galapagos); get our mainsail, staysail and genoa back up; furl our gennaker (our new sail — on display in our feature photo for this entry — for the anticipated downwind sailing is truly a beast!), test all of our systems to ensure they are in working order; trouble shoot our watermaker which was, unfortunately, not in working order (more on that later); install our new wind speed indicator to replace the malfunctioning unit (it’s more than nice to know wind speed and direction when you are sailing!); clear space for Mark (our World ARC crew member) in our forward cabin; create and file a float plan with the Trinidad coast guard (so they could monitor us as we sailed by Venezuela which we did without incident); settle our account with the good people of Power Boat marina; and clear out with Trinidad customs & immigration. It felt like deja vu: when we departed Trinidad on June 21 we finished the required tasks with just a few hours to spare before we left for the airport. Likewise, we checked off the last items on our departure for Grenada to do list just before dinner the night before our planned 4 AM departure. [We should add here that the work we got done in Trinidad, with some limited exceptions, lived up to the hype and Jill wrote a wonderful review, with shout outs to some of the particularly exceptional people and organizations, on the Trinidad Cruisers FaceBook group. You will need to join that group to read it.]

In short, the 10 days we had in Trinidad before our departure was all work and no play. Or stated another way, it was all of the worst parts of living on a boat full time and none of the good parts. After having spent 4 months on land (albeit living out of suitcases and moving from place to place, staying as long as our hosts could tolerate us), we got a little spoiled by the ease of living (trust us: you take these things for granted) and things that were just part of our daily living on a boat now seemed like a supreme hassle. We were both snarly (at times competing for the crabbiest crew member award) and definitely needed attitude adjustments. Fortunately, just when we were about to really question why we do this, we left for Grenada and enjoyed a 10 hour sail on a close beam reach getting up to a speed of 9+ knots and more with a little help from a current assist. It was nearly perfect. The only detractor was that it was a rather “sporty” sail with big waves hitting Che Figata straight on. Some so large that we got water over the dodger and into the cockpit. This wave action caused both of us to get a bit queasy (again, we are soft and out of practice) and allowed us to get a nice jump start on the collection of bruises we always wear with pride while living on our Che Figata. Just so many opportunities to bounce off hard surfaces when you ambulate around a boat being tossed about in the ocean. We definitely look the part of full time cruisers now! 😀

But, despite the discomfort, it was a glorious sail and we arrived excited for our planned month long visit in Grenada. So much will happen this month. First, as you already know, we will have a nice visit from our younger son, our daughter and their partners. We cannot wait! We probably won’t see them again for nearly a year after this visit. We have lots planned for their visit including some diving with our friends at Aquanauts. We are also looking forward to all the “deliveries” they are doing for us. Even with 9 pieces of luggage filled with a year’s worth of anticipated needs, there were things we needed for a year at sea. Second, we will get to meet our new crew member, Mark, in person. He’s sailing over from Cape Verde to Grenada as we type this and we plan to do a crew exchange with Blue Pearl shortly after his arrival. (We think he got the short end of that straw!)

And, with a full month to enjoy Grenada, our plan is to go back to some of our favorite spots while exploring new locations and taking a few land based tours to really see the country. We will also have time to get repair work done on our inoperable water maker. We will spare you the tedium we provided above and will not detail the failure which is highly technical. Suffice it to say we can’t make water. As you can imagine, that is one of the more critical capabilities we need to cross the Pacific. The good news is that there is a highly regarded Spectra (the manufacturer of our watermaker) dealer on Grenada so we’ve already been in touch about the repair work. One of the deliveries our daughter is making is a replacement part for the part we “suspect” is failing. (It’s a guess.). As we like to say (and have said in this blog many times), on a boat some things work some of the time. So after leaving our boat on the hard for 4 1/2 months, we are grateful that most of the systems seem to be working (even after our “shake down” cruise from Grenada). Having now shaken our doldrums, we remain optimistic that we are in the right place for water maker repairs and it will be up and running in no time! We assure you that you will hear all about it in our next blog entry.

That’s it for now. We will spend the next month enjoying our family and Grenada and will publish our next blog entry just before or after we leave Grenada for the Grenadines, one of our favorite spots in the Caribbean. In the meantime, we again wish all of you a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday filled with family, friends, laughter and good food.

P.S. For those who have forgotten and wonder “what’s up with the Bee logo” that adorns our caps and sails, Hummel means “bumblebee” in German. We are quite partial to our stylized Bee!