Meet the parents

Deet - local style

From Scotland Bay we nipped back to Chaguaramas (a 1 hour(ish) motor) to clear out, buy supplies and set off to Tobago. How exciting! Well, the first couple of hours were, as we motored east across the north coast of Trinidad while waiting for wind to pick up…except it didn’t.  We had been warned that sailing to Tobago was tricky depending on the wind direction and we had a north easterly  25-30 knot  head wind, 3 metre north easterly swells along with a 3 knot current and an unfavourable tide to contend with. At least the scenery was lovely as we motored slowly along.

Sailing to Tobago

We anchored for an hour in Las Cuevas Bay to eat dinner and strap the tender to the deck and then continued our motor sail along the coast arriving at Grand Riviere Bay after midnight. We anchored and slept as best we could in the most rolling, uncomfortable anchorage we’d experienced until now.

A brief breakfast was eaten early on and we continued the motor sail over to Tobago. Crown Point was reached at lunch time and we finally arrived at Castara Bay at around 6pm. Two days to get to Tobago. Lessons learnt? Wait for a favourable wind unless you’re desperate! It was worth it as two friendly faces greeted us from a lovely beach. Jane and Ross wined and dined us with all the lovely food we’d missed, creamy Stilton and rich homemade fruity Christmas cake…what a treat. They even brought proper sausage with them, the ones here are repulsive, at least they look it, I’ve never been desperate enough to buy them.

Bathing beauties

A lovely relaxing week was spent sight seeing, eating and catching up. We hired a car for a couple of days and went walking in the rainforest then visited Argyle Falls where an unofficial tour guide  showed us cayman in the river pools and regaled us with a mixture of factual local knowledge and old wives tales. Jamie and I went for a swim in one of the pools (according to our guide this would heal any spiritual unrest in our souls…) and it was lovely. We drove to Charlotteville which was gorgeous stopping the car every few miles to gather the not too damaged mango windfalls. We drove to the south end of the island the following day which we all agreed wasn’t as lovely as the north. Here I tried the ‘crab and dumpling’ that the guide book tempted me to try. It was disappointing, the crab was too hard to get at and the dumpling consisted of three slabs of tasteless white goo…the sauce was really good though.

Englishman's Bay - Tobago

We set sail with our new crew and, after a bit of a hectic start, had a relaxed sail and anchored on Pigeon Point next to the beautiful Buccoo Reef late in the afternoon. The following morning we all got into the dingy and spent the day walking and swimming around the national park, unfortunately the strong wind made the snorkelling that we’d been so looking forward to impossible.

Clearing out of Tobago was a bit of a nightmare, we thought we’d be able to do it at the airport, but, when we got there, the most patronizing, unhelpful jobs-worth customs officer ever, informed us that we’d have to go back to Scarborough, a half hour taxi ride away. Here we were greeted with the most helpful, friendly and courteous customs officer ever, who had been called in especially to clear us out and she made up for the idiot at the airport.

Photoshop?

Trinidad was our next port of call and we set sail at about 4.30am to get a good start. A favourable wind got us to Maracas bay where we had a lovely late lunch BBQ on the beach. The next day we had a leisurely sail to Scotland Bay where we stopped for lunch and a swim, then back to Chaguaramas just in time to clear in to customs.

Jane and Ross went to stay in Port of Spain and we joined them after a couple of days and hired a car for a long awaited explore of Trinidad. We visited the pitch lake at La Brea in the south of the island. I’m ashamed to admit that I had always thought that asphalt was made by men mixing tar stuff into a goo, but no! It can occur naturally and this is the largest such instance in the world. 180 tonnes is taken for export every day and Jamie commented that this was the best time he’d had in a car park since Charnock Richard Services circa 1990. Sir. Walter Raleigh was recorded as having visited in the 16th century where he used the asphalt to re-tar his ship. We were informed by an extraordinarily unenthusiastic guide in a monotone pitch (boom boom!) that this was the 8th wonder of the modern world. As unbelievable as this may have been, it was certainly worth a visit and I  shall not look at roads quite the same again…

Barbi on the beach

The second day with car was spent visiting the Asa Wright bird sanctuary in the mountainous northern region. The drive was beautiful through lush rainforest on windy and at times, badly damaged roads. The sanctuary was a beautiful airy colonial house in tropical, wild, rainforest grounds. We all stood on a huge verandah and watched an exquisite array of tiny hummingbirds and gorgeous turquoise, blue and green birds feeding, then had a guided tour into the forest. I really wanted to see a toucan but they were too high up to see. We tried to drive back via Blanchisseuse, however, an avalanche had demolished the road so we drove back the way we’d come.

Admiral Jellicoe

The next day a sad farewell was made, Jane and Ross caught the fast ferry back to Tobago. We’ve had a lovely couple of weeks holiday respite and indulgence and now it’s back to the grindstone! Only a few more big jobs to complete now and we’ll be heading back to Grenada very soon, then it will be holiday mode again.

Lady of the (pitch) lake