Well, nothing much has been happening here in paradise during December. Work slowly continues on El Lobo and we look forward to eventually moving north. We had intended to be well up the island chain by now but, like most of our friends who have non-plastic boats, there is always plenty of maintenance and repairs to do. At least we don’t have major welding to do as have Karma, Modestine and Ventoso, all steel boats.

Earlier in the month we took a day off and went with Jesse on his new ‘Taste of Trini’ trip. He has just started doing this tour this summer and Mike went on the first one. They managed to try about 18 different Trinidad delicacies that time and it has been the object to find more on each successive trip. The one before ours found 45 but we managed to find the grand total of 56! We returned to Chaguaramus very late and very stuffed after a day-long tour to the east coast, returning via the verdant Middle Range hills. We tried a little bit of everything from our favourite ‘doubles’ and ‘roti’ to more exotic fare such as cow heel soup, pig tails and chicken feet - an acquired taste! Many of the little sweet treats were delicious too. As the day wore on and we stopped at roadside vendors to taste their wares, Jesse came out with a Trini saying, “better man belly bust than good food go waste.” We thought our bellies were going to bust by the end of the day!

The only other thing of note we did was to go into Port of Spain to the Queen’s Hall one evening to see the Lydian Singers perform their Christmas concert. The Lydians are an amateur choral society who are rightly held in high regard in Trinidad and we finally got to go to see them this year. Another ‘must do’ in the country. They were excellent, performing traditional Christmas favourites and the Trinidadian ‘parang’ music, also the beautiful 6 part ‘Navidad Nuestra’ a folk drama of the Nativity by the Argentine composer Ariel Ramirez. We must say you haven’t heard Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus until you have heard the Lydians belt it out, accompanied by a steel band, African drummers, Indian ‘tassa’ drummers, a parang band and various other instruments! Their well loved Director of Music, Pat Bishop, died suddenly this year and in spite of their great loss (or maybe because of it) they certainly put on a show to remember.

Christmas Day was quieter than the last couple of years. We decided to just have lunch on the boat with Ian from yacht Leila and to meet up with Karma, Modestine and Freya in the roti hut beforehand to partake of mulled wine and nibbles. Joanie was going to provide the mulled wine but that plan went out of the window when she came down with Dengue Fever a few days beforehand. The rest of us still all met up while Joanie and Graham travelled down to the 7th Day Adventist Hospital for daily treatment. She is recovering well and we had the mulled wine on New Years Eve instead.

So there we are for the start of 2012. Just three short movies below and a few photos. See you next month.