Friday, May 21 1999 - Starship in Trinidad - out on
the hard
Morning folks,
We’ve had an interesting night threading our way between drilling rigs and oil platforms - at one point the radar was positively glowing with colour from the radar echo signals from the rigs. It meant that the people on watch and of course poor old Trevor did not get much sleep last night.
The route to Trinidad is packed with oil rigs
Now for today, it has so far been a ‘day of many things’
Firstly and most importantly we have arrived in northeast Trinidad, Chaguaramas Bay, and believe me I had to suppress the desire the leap out and kiss the beach!
The even better news is that tonight we will be sleeping on Terra-Firma because the STARSHIP has just been lifted out of the water - after six months at sea its time to scrape the hull, get off all the barnacles and have a new paint job. Work is in progress even as I write.
It looks as if we’ll be land-bound for a few days, but that will make a pleasant change.
Before the STARSHIP came out of the water, we had time to give her a good wash and brush up - where does all the red slimy algal-bloom come from ?
It isn't just sunshine and margaritas (crew during
washdown)
While we were engaged in the time honored nautical tradition of ‘swabbing the decks’ , Trevor went off to deal with the usual official mumbo-jumbo - which was accomplished far more easily than in Brazil or Cayenne.
I can honestly say that it is a real pleasure to be here. The locals are incredibly relaxed and friendly and you can hardly go a hundred yards without being asked ‘howya doin sister’ or ‘everythin ok ?' We had about 10 people helping us get the boat out of the water, first we had to bring her round into a slip, then a huge gantry crane was rolled over the top and thick nylon slings were positioned under the keel. Then up and out of the water she came.
We are now on dry land with the boat supported by chocks, while cleaning and painting goes on.
We have minimum electricity from land - enough to run fridges, freezers and this computer- but not enough for air conditioning. - so for the first time its really ‘welcome to the tropics’.
Just a little background info. for everyone - Trinidad together with Tobago forms a twin island state. Trinidad is ca. 10km off the coast of Venezuela and was discovered by Columbus in 1498. The Capital is Port of Spain and luckily for us (well for me anyway) the national language is English.
Chaguaramas Bay is surrounded by fairly steep cliffs that are completely smothered in lush green foliage - patches of colour are provided by bougainvillea and bird of paradise plants. There are an impressive number of luxury yachts here registered to places like Miami, Cayman Islands, Cocoa Beach etc. - however the STARSHIP is spick and span now and having her face lifted - so we certainly don’t look out of place. Circling lazily over the harbor are black kites and brown pelicans, which occasionally belly flop into the sea and come up with a fish.
The mouth of the harbor itself is full of small, rounded, steep-sided islands, so heavily vegetated - they look a little like green woolly sheep lying on a blue meadow.
We have taken the tender off the STARSHIP and are using it to zip around the bay, we shall soon pack in some over-night things and then across to our little hotel.
Stay posted, more tomorrow.
Janet