Christmas at the colony

Lady pirate exploring ruins on Chacachacare

Two days before Christmas and  the forward cabin is complete, the white faux leather headliner has been stuck to the wall nearly killing us with the glue fumes in the process and the varnishing in there completed. The aft head (bathroom) has been smartened, the floorboards varnished and the stack pack sewn and installed. It was time to leave Chaguaramas (not forever unfortunately) for some Christmas festivity. However, not before we had attended the obligatory Christmas ‘works do’. We basically gatecrashed the Christmas ‘do’ of an electrical shop which we have been patronising recently and with whose staff we have built up a rapport. Too much rum was drunk (I fell flat on my face whilst trying to run in the car park in front of everyone…) and a wild night of partying culminated in a dawn bed time and ridiculously bad heads for Christmas Eve. Luckily, we’d had the foresight to do our food shopping the day before and had only to get ice and diesel before heading off to Chacachacare, our festive destination, an island that was a leper colony and had been abandoned as recently as 1984.

Abandoned leper colony

We sailed (the first test of our new rigging) to the island, the furthest north-west part of Trinidad, and anchored in a beautiful and large bay in the late afternoon of Christmas Eve. It was utterly peaceful and there was only one other yacht moored on the other side of the bay. We could see a couple of houses on the shore and decided to go and explore before it got too late. The shore was totally overgrown and we stepped through ruins choked with weeds (and a depressing amount of dumped trash) while bats flapped around our heads. It was spookily eerie and the sight of a rusted, wheeled hospital bed sat in the dark, dank corner of a roofless wooden house was too much for me to bear. Even Jamie was spooked. We headed (quickly) back to the safety of the Magic Badger.

After a sirloin sizzled on the BBQ and several glasses of red wine followed by some star gazing, confidence was restored, faltering only briefly until we realised that the shiny sparks of light flickering in the trees on the shore were fireflies.

Bucks Fizz – Christmas morning

Christmas morning, ah, how different from usual, no hangover, instant warmth and not a single present in sight : ( We had the traditional bucks fizz with breakfast, dinghied ashore and trekked up the only up-kept road (dirt track) on the island to the lighthouse. It was quite a slog in the heat but worth the climb. We passed a tiny hummingbird, saw hundreds of vultures cirlcing the thermals above the lighthouse and looked across to Venezuela, nearer to us than Trinidad now was. After a phone call apiece to our families, we walked down to have a snorkel, more bucks fizz and a fish. We both caught one, Jamie’s was edible and mine looked like some kind of alien so we put him back.

Venezuela from Bocas Lighthouse

Later on, the coast guard’s big grey boat whizzed over, we both hastily dressed, there had been little point in clothes until now, and answered his questions. “Had we seen anything suspicious?” No. “Where were we from” etc Their presence was a comfort after reading that a yacht on the northern shore had been boarded by Venezuelan pirates a few years earlier.

Boxing Day was spent in a similar sunny alcohol fused haze, except we used the opportunity of clean water to clean the propeller and the underneath of the tender which was covered in green slime and barnacles. Dolphins showed up to swim with our boat on the crossing of the bay, do

Lunch?

they think we’ll feed them or are they simply curious? They made our day either way. The next day we headed back reluctantly to Chaguaramas. It was more depressing than ever after the lovely peaceful time we’d just spent in Chacachacare. Luckily, we managed to escape again on New Years Eve.

This time we sailed to somewhere even closer, Scotland Bay, a popular place for locals and yachties alike to escape the confines of Chaguaramas. We arrived close to dusk, anchored and ate (though I say so myself) the best rib eye I’ve ever eaten. Again, despite the presence this time of several other yachts and gin palaces, the place was beautifully tranquil. Fireflies sparkled in the trees on the shore and, to our amazement, fruit bats flew into the salon several times, presumably on the scrounge for food. We couldn’t even stay awake to bring in the new year and went to bed at 11.30!

Squirrel spotted – Scotland Bay

We woke early the next morning to be greeted by a strange but beautiful phenomena. The water around us appeared to have huge golden leaves flashing through just below the surface, which, on closer inspection were these strange long fish that looked almost eel like, doing synchronised swimming. They’d swim like regular fish, then, all together, they turned on their tails (looking a bit like giant sea horses) and swam upright very slowly, then they’d all start to swim normally again. There were thousands glinting around the bay and I tried to photograph them but just couldn’t capture the spectacle at all.

Mysterious Mysterion

After breakfast, we dinghied ashore to look for a walking track that apparently existed all the way to Macqueripe Bay. Disappointingly there was a ridiculous amount of rubbish on shore, plastic bags filled with bottles and plates and cigarette cartons strewn around and tied to trees. Clearly, a nationwide litter awareness campaign is desperately needed in Trinidad. We didn’t find the trail but, after finding the shed skin of a large snake, (several poisonous ones live here) and seeing ants as big as grapes we suddenly felt less inclined to cut through the jungle with our machete and returned to the Badger to clean her topsides. We peered at a yacht anchored next to us on the way back. She looked like a ghost ship with decks piled with rubbish and a rotting sail cover in tatters. Strangely, there was a deflated dinghy tied next to her that gave the impression that someone had gone aboard and hadn’t left. Spooky. Was their a body on board? Should we check? Who was there to check in circumstances like this? Neighbourhood Watch wasn’t around to clock the milk bottles piling up on the doorstep… Whats more she was called ‘Mysterion’ and registered in Southampton. We didn’t dare to check, just glanced at her all day long wondering what had happened to her owner(s).