Being at anchor is amazing – peaceful, relaxing and for the most part calm. But being on the dock has one huge plus – air conditioning. I hate to keep talking about this, especially when Toronto is looking at a possible first snow, but it’s really hot and humid here. Even at anchor we had little relief from the climate (except when swimming!), so being able to run our air conditioning has been wonderful!!
Wednesday morning (Nov. 11) started slowly – I was trying to arrange a rental car from a recommended cheap guy (you get what you pay for rings in my ear!!) and that was a bit of a hassle. We did end up with a car late morning so we headed out on our first driving trip in Trinidad – exciting!! Trinidad, being a former British colony, drives on the opposite side from us. Mark took the wheel (first rental since the ill fated Antigua driving episode – we lost a side mirror!!) and we took off from Crew’s Inn around 11am.
First impressions – Trinidad roads were in fairly good shape – some pot holes but not too bad. The road in Chaguaramas was windy and narrow but as we got closer to Port of Spain, the road improved. Driving was fairly easy and traffic moved along. We were driving on the main route – 2 lanes each way and travelling at good speed (not sure what the speed limit was) but there were lights (so not a true highway). When we came to the lights, all these people (mostly men) came out selling food!! I saw apples, cotton candy, water, some kind of green vegetable and doubles! What are Doubles – well according to google AI, they are “famous street food made with two soft, pillowy fried flatbreads called bara and a savory filling of curried chickpeas known as channa.”We haven’t tried one yet and didn’t buy anything from the street vendors!
Our first stop was an aluminum warehouse (Mark needed to buy some stuff for the new solar panel installation) out near the airport (about an hour and a half drive). It was in a very industrial area (go figure) and we got there at lunch (not great)! Mark did manage to convince them to help him out and after what seemed like forever (I waited in the car – it rained and the area seemed sketchy), out Mark came with a 12 foot aluminum 90° angle bar – a bit too long for our little car. Ok next stop – a hardware store to buy a saw to cut the length of aluminum in half. We got lucky and found a little (very little) hardware store that worked out perfectly!! We cut the aluminum right in the parking lot.
Next stop was grocery shopping – first at the Massy Super Store (it was ok in some areas but lacking in the fresh produce area) and lastly at PriceSmart. By the time we were all done shopping and getting gas for the car and our dinghy gerry can, it was almost 6pm. A very long and successful trip!
Today Nov 13 – Friday the 13th (yikes) was launch day for our friend John (Sundog)! Mark had promised to help John with his launch so we needed to walk over to Peake from Crew’s Inn. We had to walk because Mark took our dinghy to be repaired on Thursday (it was supposed to be ready by the weekend). It was hot but the 1.5 km walk seemed short!! We got to John’s boat early but found out his 11 am launch was moved to 1:30pm. Mark went back after lunch but I stayed onboard our boat and did some organizing in the v-berth. After John’s boat was secured on a mooring ball and his dinghy was in the water, Mark returned to our boat on our dinghy – repair job was done early!
I’d love to say the day ended with all these great success stories, but unfortunately Mark spent that last part of the late afternoon (4pm ish) trying to fix our propane issue. It looked like an easy repair but it didn’t work so the propane tank is still beside the stove! Tomorrow is another day (Scarlet knew what she was talking about!!)
peacock flower or dwarf poinciana)
