Here we still are, ‘on the hard’ in Chaguaramas, still working on the boat. We do have this family of iguanas as neighbours though. Anything you don’t eat at the roti hut soon disappears when they are around!

The one piece of good news is that our masts are back in place, having had a fresh coat of paint and rewired with a new anemometer and replacement anchor and tricolour nav light. Mind, the LED light deserves a page of it’s own! Mike installed the new light and everything seemed to be working well but when darkness fell the anchor light didn’t come on (it has a light sensor which switches the unit on at dusk and off again at daylight)! On checking the unit Mike couldn’t find the sensor and we thought we’d bought the wrong model. Back to the chandlers (after removing all of the masthead fittings) and when tested in the store everything was found to be OK. Back to the boat, everything put back together, same thing! Everything dismantled again, light brought onto the boat, wired to the batteries, everything worked! Back outside, put back together again and nothing! Must be the cable inside the mast? All the fittings off again, all the cables stripped out, new cable attached then the first attempt to replace all the wires failed. The mousing line came loose halfway along the mast and we had forgotten to add a spare as we pulled everything through! What to do? Pat suggested we caught an iguana and attach the line to it then put it inside the mast and block the end off! Hopefully, it would then scuttle along towards the light at the other end and ‘Voila’ we would have a new mousing wire inside! Mike didn’t think much of this idea and came up with an equally ludicrous sounding solution. He would fire an arrow through the mast with the line attached! Strangely enough, even though he had trouble in drawing the bow with his injured wrist, on the third attempt this worked. Pat made sure she wasn’t standing too close to the end! Anyway, after putting everything back together yet again, we finally had a snazzy new anchor light in place (Pat still thinks her idea would have worked just as well)!

Mike will tell you about the rest of the maintenance on his page.

We have had two trips in the last month. (We can’t be working all the time!) We had a wonderful trip to the Asa Wright Nature Centre in the Arima Valley in the mountains. This is a marvellous place to stay in Trinidad. It used to be a cocoa plantation and is now a non profit making study centre. You can stay in the lodges surrounding the main house and there are many trails in the area. We only spent the morning there and had a guided tour from a knowledgeable ranger who showed us many birds (including the rare Bellbird with it’s call like a hammer striking an anvil) and colonies of Leaf Cutter and Army ants. We then had a sumptuous lunch and spent the next hour wandering around and watching the amazing variety of birds coming to the feeders on the veranda.

We then moved on to another location, the Caroni Bird Sanctuary in the Caroni Swamp just south of Port of Spain, where we took a boat ride to see the famous Scarlet Ibises returning to their roosts at dusk. These are a really spectacular sight, their bright red plumage flashing in the rays of the sun.

We also finally went into Port of Spain itself. It isn’t the prettiest city we have visited and when we got there one Saturday afternoon, we found everything was closed. We will have to go back one day during the week!

We also had another surprise visit. Remember Doug, the South African we met in Palmeira in Sal in the Cape Verdes? He was on his way to Brazil where he now lives. Well, he reached Brazil OK but when he asked about procedures to import his boat he was told that it is illegal to import second-hand boats into Brazil! He was willing to pay import duty and all other fees but the authorities were adamant. Remove your boat from Brazilian waters or we will impound it! Ergo he had to leave and has decided to take it to Panama where he can change the registration papers somehow, then return to Brazil with his boat. Sounds dodgy but this is the only way he can get his boat there! Anyway, he called into Trinidad on his way to Panama and we spent a nice few days catching up.

Our second excursion of the month was to another wetlands area, the Nariva Swamp (no link) on the east coast. We had an early start at 0500 hours last Saturday and travelled to the swamp by maxi taxi, stopping en route near the airport for morning ‘doubles’, a local delicacy. Deep-fried patty’s filled with spicy chickpeas - delicious!

The Nariva swamp covers 6 square miles and is Trinidad’s largest freshwater swamp. We again took a boat but this time we merely used it to reach the Bush Bush Island Sanctuary where we walked for a couple of hours through the forest. We saw the Red Howler and White Fronted Capuchin monkeys, also a large porcupine asleep at the top of a tree (couldn’t get a decent photo of it unfortunately). We were also lucky to spot several of the large Blue & Yellow Macaws. They are now a protected species and were almost extinct in Trinidad but they are being slowly reintroduced.

Mike managed to get some decent photos with his Nikon, especially of the Capuchins, but wasn’t very happy when he was ‘pooped’ on by one of them as he was aiming with his camera at the baby below!

That’s all for this month folks. See you next month when we might be back in the water!

Photos below.

Cheers.