One year on.....

Today is the one year anniversary of our leaving Las Palmas and setting sail across the Caribbean ...where has the time gone? 

Highlights

Thinking about this there are quite a few but surely the most memorable must be making land in Antigua. The feeling when we finally tied up at the Customs Quay at Jolly Harbour was great after 19 days at sea. Everyone exhausted but very happy as we made land! We were so grateful to the bar owner opening up at 10.00 am to get us a celebratory drink!!

 The first trip South having been bobbing about in Antigua for four months ! The first sip of Leffe    beer at the bar in Deshaies ....delicious. Guadaloupe so very different to Antigua.

 A really good month in Grenada where I learnt to dive and we sold our dinghy and outboard to Darren for a prize in his Wednesday Bingo night! Bingo nights in Prickly Bay are a little different to the local Gala bingo in England ... Prizes have included a live pig and a goat ! We did buy a new outboard and dinghy by the way! 

 The trip down to the Guyanas was great despite the hard beat down to Guyana and beyond and the problems with water pump all the people we met and the places we saw and the experience of sailing down those Rivers was unforgettable. 

                                         It's BBQ time at Waterland Marina
 As the year has gone by John and I have got used to the laid back and friendly atmosphere of the place. Everyone always responds with 'morning, morning' when you say good morning and they mean it. The locals have always taken the time to explain the local food and menus and on that note The Taste of Trini was an experience I am so glad I undertook. Jesse is the irony of the friendly, happy Trini who just revels in sharing all that is good about Trinidad

We have also met and made so many new friends and yachties so willing to help at the drop of a hat. We have spent many sundowners sharing stories and laughs that lift your spirit no matter what sort of day you have had.

                            Grenadian Train Dominoes we are getting quite good at it now!
We have had some set backs too which is to be expected ....mainly around boat maintenance ....but that's boats for you ! But we are both looking forward to our next year and new experiences, happy times and challenges. Bring it on!

Back to the sunshine

We arrived back in Tobago and decided to stay one night in a B and B before hopping on the short flight back to Trini and the boat. We stayed in a lovely place not far from the airport called Native Abode. It was a very friendly place and the breakfast was great...fresh fruit, a choice of mains, John had smoked herring ...it was yummy and I went for the more conservative option bacon and eggs which was also delicious. We found a small bar at the end of the road where we got a beer to celebrate our return. The other thing about Native Abode...the Internet was great and you could ring back to the UK free of charge. It also had satellite tv so we chose a film off of Netflix and settled in for the night with a bottle of wine. A good relaxing end to a tiring journey!

Back in Chagauramas

The next day we were met by Ian our taxi driver at Trinidad airport and were soon back on the boat. Everything seemed fine except the guy who was supposed to have cleaned and polished our hull while we were away had either done a rubbish job or had not bothered at all! We needed to investigate that a little further! Everything was just as we remembered it hot, sweaty and dusty! 
We had already made a list of jobs to be done before we splashed back in the water. We had lost a prop from our bow thruster which we would need to replace and somehow the anode on the prop had disappeared....both were obviously casualties of sailing in South American rivers but could have been worse. We met two more Nerieds Rally sailors soon after arriving back...Fred and Claude off Magic Swan.....they had a much longer list than us and had had to sail back from French Guiana with no auto pilot and no engine....our little jobs paled into insignificance by comparison!  
It was good to see our friends and fellow cruisers again...many had left to sail either North or West but there are still many like us with just one or two jobs to be completed before Christmas!
We had a new fridge waiting for us at Budget Marine which John has installed without too much hassle and the prop and anode are now firmly back in place. We have cleaned and polished the hull ourselves ....though I have to admit that John did most of the hard work whilst I took on a more supervisory role. Our plan was to shame the guy who was supposed to have done the job ....he told us the the black,smeared dirty hull that we came back to was the best he could do.....Give us a break! We were not born yesterday !! So he did not get paid the money we had retained we had already given him way too much for the garbage job he had done and he knew it so he did not argue.

                    One of our many jobs ....putting the sails back on!
The dilemma
The big question now is which way do we go ....? We had an inkling to go up to Cuba but getting back down to the ABC Islands could be a bit tricky wind wise. We do not have a US visa so Puerto Rico and US BVIs are out unless we mess around in the BVIs but it might be worth it. I think that we are going to poodle around the Leeward and Windward islands and then start to head west next May spending the next years hurricane season in the San Blas and Panama. Who knows ?? It could all change ..... Watch this space.

Travelling back to Trini

We left Suriname bound for Baganara back in Guyana and as we slipped our lines Ibegan to feel unwell. I could not keep my eyes open and rather ominously my right leg was starting to swell.By the time we had dropped the hook at the mouth of the Suriname River to wait for the right tide for enough water to get out I realised that I had been bitten and whatever it was my body did not like it! As a crew member I was as much use as a chocolate fire guard as all I wanted to do was sleep and in the meantime my leg was swelling up even more and turning a nice shade of purple. Dr.Fesel prescribed  amoxicillin , ibuprofen and anti histamine which we carry on board but I continued to burn up and once we arrived at Bartica and checked it it was off to find a doctor. We grabbed a cab only to find the driver was related to the doctor..it's a small world! After examining the leg and asking if I had bought what had bitten me with me ....I had no idea what it was but suspected a horse fly also known as cow flies in Guyana ...he asked what I had taken when John reeled off what he had prescribed he was very impressed and said 'just what I would have done' he gave me a prescription for stronger dosages and an injection and then the bill for sixty pounds which I could not begrudge him he was available,efficient and effective. When we finally got to Baganara John treated us to a couple of nights luxury as I had been told to stay off my feet and keep my right leg elevated. After a week chillin in Baganara it was time to leave and we travelled up the Essiquibo with Resolute fairly uneventfully until we came across a fishing boat that had laid his nets right across the river. As we slowly made our way towards him it became obvious if we were going to get around him at all we would have to follow the net to the boat and hope there was enough water to squeeze around him. We edged our way around and John shouted at him we needed10 feet (we only need seven feet but were erring on the side of caution ),he smiled said hello and told us 'there is more water over there', pointing at the bank. We did not take his advice and squeezed around him with a foot or so to spare!

                                  Eddie Grants house, two islands joined together by bridge and complete with gold dredging facility

Having travelled back from Guyana with a great sail til we reached the gap between Tobago and Trinidad when we lost the wind and had to turn Dorothy on...we still managed to return in two and a half days which we were pleased about. As we approached Trinidad we were stopped by the coastguard who seemed to have a lot of trainees on board. Firstly they asked us where we had come from....Guyana was our reply....'Where?' He asked puzzled.....he then asked John for his name trying to be helpful John started to spell out his surname ...'No' came the reply' just say it!'  Finally he sped off only to return to ask where we were from ignoring the red ensign flying serenely on the stern! 

                                                                      View from the Convent over the anchorage

We checked in without too much hassle and then left for some peace and quiet at anchor off Chacachacare our friends Colin and Gill joined us and though it can sometimes be a bit of a devil to get your anchor in we dropped the hook and after several attempts were satisfied we were going nowhere. We have a Manson Supreme anchor which we have been very happy this coupled with our anchor watch app has given us piece of mind that if we do drag we will know about it! We enjoyed three days peace and tranquility and when we came to leave our friends on Resolute were worried that they might have fouled their anchor so we told them we would wait until their anchor was up before we would leave. They lifted their anchor with no problems and were on their way ....we went to lift ours ......do you think we could get it up out the water ...no way. We drove forward, backwards, every technique in the book but only succeeded in bringing in the chain bit by bit and our Lofrans anchor winch was groaning under the strain. No matter what we tried the chain was straight and taught ...we were caught on something big! With 10metres of chain left we were resigning ourselves to the fact that we might have to get the hacksaw out, cut the chain and say goodbye to our expensive,but worth every penny, Manson Anchor! One last effort saw us bring the chain up so we could see the anchor in the water it had caught a chain and when I say chain I mean a huge mother of a chain! Lord knows how! The pointed end of the anchor had wedged itself into the chain and we had been dragging it around the Bay in our efforts to bring up the anchor! John put a rope through the anchor we dropped a bit of chain and with one almighty tug the huge chain was free and plummeting down to the sea bed from whence it came. It had taken us nearly an hour to get the chain up and we were now worried we were going to be late for our lift out. It was full speed ahead back to the pen at Powerboats for our lift. We need not have worried ....this is Trinidad and they were inevitably running late ... though in fairness this is also a very busy time for the travel lift with lots of boats splashing back into the water. We were coming out as we decided to go back to UK for three weeks, my mum was having her hip replaced and John was going to see his daughters and grandchildren. We feel the boat is safer out the water.

Vultures that hover ominously around Chacachcare