Hello – it’s that time of the year again and we’ve arrived in Trinidad ready to get to work. We had a wonderful summer season in Kingston and Toronto but we’re always excited to get back onboard Crimson Kathryn.
Our journey began on Oct. 30th. We headed to Toronto to spend a night with Mark’s Dad, Ted and have a nice dinner with Ted, John and Sadhana. On Saturday we had a great lunch with Evelyn, Liam and Caroline plus another great dinner with Ted. We spent that night in a hotel (with a free shuttle) near the airport so we could get to the airport at 6 am for our 9 am flight on Caribbean Airlines. I can highly recommend Caribbean Airlines. We left right on time. They served us a little meal (for free). They arrived 10 minutes early and best of all, all our luggage (3 bags – almost 150 lbs!!) arrived with us! A beautiful experience!
Trinidad and Tobago is known for its paperwork and strict procedures for visitors. We had an online immigration form to fill out in advance and because we are a “boat in transit” and were bringing in some boat parts, we had to make a declaration in person at customs. Both immigration and customs went smoothly and thanks to great information from John H (Sundog), who arrived in Trinidad on Oct. 5th, we were able to find the little customs office and get through quickly. Our only delay came after we were out of the airport. Our boatyard, Peake Yacht Centre, has a free shuttle that will pick you up at the airport. Another couple from Ottawa, Dan and Susan, were supposed to arrive just before us but their flight was delayed 2 hours so the shuttle didn’t arrive until they were through immigration and customs. It wasn’t a huge delay (a little over an hour) but when you’re hot and tired, it felt much longer. The shuttle headed to Chaguaramas around 6 pm. We made a stop at Customs near the marina and they wanted to see our 3 heavy bags. Thankfully they only wanted to check 2 items on our boat parts list and we were on the move again by 6:50pm. We had a fun dinner at the restaurant on-site called Patches – joined by John H (Sundog), Dan and Susan (Moose House), Chris (Tiago) and a new sailor named Chris (can’t remember the name of his boat but he’s from Scotland).
Today, Nov 2nd, was our first day of launch prep. The boat looked amazing. Our caretaker G, did a great job this summer season. The interior was dry and mold free!! The cover was removed and neatly stored in the main cabin. The deck and cockpit were washed and all ready for the enclosure. My first job was setting up the cockpit enclosure. Mark started with lowering the dinghy from the bow to the ground. Our dinghy needed some repairs done and that happened today around noon. The cockpit floor was washed and all cockpit cushions and seats were moved from inside the boat to the cockpit. It was tough going – hot, humid and raining! It was nice when raining but after – Oh Boy – sauna time!! We retreated to our hotel room (on-site) around 11:30am to cool off and drink lots of water!! It’s a really good thing that we don’t have a lot of pre-launch jobs to do.
