I had spent most of the night trying to collect the vital weather and immigrations information that I had stored on my mobile all over again. I knew I would be missing other stuff too but didn’t want to think about it now. I was ready to go. Andi and Kudi and I were going to leave together. Of course their boat is faster so at some point I would stay behind. The tide turned at ten in the morning and I had been into town early one last time to see if my phone would show up or if I could buy a cheap replacement. No such luck.
We went downriver with the tide but it turned before we were out of the estuary. After about six hours the the sails came up and Kudi filmed and took a few pictures of Amy.
After that we sailed into the night with the Guiana current and good wind. We had 550 nautical miles to go and were making good progress.
The next day was full of squalls. Unfortunately the Guiana current died (or we had accidentally sailed out of it). It never came back. I just followed the rhumb line to Tobago and had expected to be moving with the current but maybe it had moved further inshore.
Not only that but now we had to beat into the wind. Something that hadn’t been happening for a very long time. Furtunately the wind wasn’t very strong (except in the squalls) and the waves were small so apart from my world being constantly tilted by 30 degrees everything went smoothly.
I passed by lots of impressive and a bit scary looking oil rigs and had soon lost the other boat. With the oil rigs and a few ships that passed I was now sure that my AIS receiver was not working at all. Something I would soon need to take care of. There was also another leak that I noticed now because there was so much water coming across the deck.
New Years Eve was another day full of squalls and the wind from the north. There was a rocket launch scheduled for midnight from Cape Canaveral in Florida and I was hoping to be able to see it fly towards the equator. Also a little New Year’s celebration was (without alcohol) was in order. The night was clear, no squalls and good visibility so who knows I night even be able to see fireworks on the shore….. One of my 20 min sleeps got out of hand again and I woke up at 0230 in the morning. OK so no happy new year and no rocket launch but I realised that even without the current we were progressing so fast that I would probably make it into Man O’ War bay in Tobago on Tuesday before darkness. For the rest of the time I dedicated myself to trimming the sails so I would get every tenth knot of speed possible to avoid arriving after dark and having to stay outside for an extra 12 hours.
I remembered having read that Trinidad and Tobago are pretty strict about entering their territorial waters. So after hoisting the Tobago flag and the yellow Q flag 12miles out I tried to raise the coast guard on the vhf. No success. Oh well. I tried. A few dolphins came by and accompanied us for a bit.
Just before reaching the island there were more squalls and bad visibility. But going into the bay was like watching “Pirates of the Caribbean”. The landscape was totally different from French Guyana and very beautiful. There were Fregatte birds and pelicans. I arrived at 1720. Darkness starts to fall at 1800.
Andi and Kudi were already there and they took me to the shore for a beer. This was illegal of course because I hadn’t immigrated yet.
I spent almost all of the next day for the immigration process. The lady from port health wasn’t there at first and I couldn’t start the immigration or the customs process without the health certificate. This was by far the most tedious arrival procedure that I had experienced so far but everybody was friendly.
In the early evening with a new stamp in my passport I went to eat some fish and chips ant Charles who also rents cars.
The next day I went to explore Charlotteville (which is not much more than a village). Music is coming out of every place. There are a few drunkards at the beach who apparently got thrown out by their wives. There are fishermen with beautifully painted boats. Going down the street everybody greets me. I feel welcome. I usually say “good morning” or the like. The answer is either “ok” or “yaa, mon” or “how are you?”
I am now a member of the Charlotteville public library so I can use their internet.
We organised a barbecue in pirates bay with all the sailors. We bought a big fish and Lion (a guy who is always hanging out on the main street) organised a grill for us. It was a very nice party.
Another day I was invited by the people from another German boat to come with them on a tour round the island. They had rented a car from Charles. We saw some nice waterfalls did a bit of hiking and came upon a birthday party in King’s Bay where the women were dancing with the presents on their heads. A DJ was playing music from a pickup truck so loud that it cancelled out the noise from the generator that was also mounted on the truck. We were immediately invited to have some birthday cake and smoke “something organic to make you relaxed, mon”.
It really is beautiful here. Unfortunately the anchorage is very rolly so I get thrown around a lot at night and can’t sleep very well. Also the buoys are banging against the hull when there is no wind which makes a terrible loud noise. Every morning I take a bath in the bay from the boat. There are sharks but they are very small and hurt nobody.
For the next few days there is a forecast for strong winds. I will probably continue to Grenada towards the end of the week.
