Yesterday we did some surgery on Trusty, something like a gastric bypass. Not finding a membrane for the pump or a new one we decided to bypass the tank and the pump instead. Good thing is that we lose the sell but bad thing is that if we don’t close the valve trough the hull we might get an unpleasant surprise when sitting on the toilet while sailing in choppy conditions. But hey one got to take chances here in life.

So far we have no problems or leaks caused by our amateur plumbing but we’ll see what happens after trying it out a bit.

We’ll as we were packing up Bequia for this trip (doing weather research and preparing checkout) we had a bit of a problem. We’ve been having a little stink problem that we guessed was related to the toilet plumbing (the piping and things like that) but as it turned out that it was related to the pump. A pump that is leaking poopwater out into the boat.

Sure people have sailed the world using a bucket as a toilet but that’s not the trip we’re doing. They can do that but we’re not doing a night sail without our toilet. Going to let you in on a secret, the toilet is the only place one can get some peace and quiet when out sailing, when sleeping you can be waked up by people if something happens but if someone see that the door for the toilet is closet they’re not going to pester you if it’s not that important.

So now we’re staying put until we can use the toilet without cleaning the bilge and losing our dinners.

Today we’re supposed to fool you but realized that by the time we would be in town and able to make a prank most of the day where our readers are would be over so why bother!! But I’ll give you the prank anyway! We were supposed to tell you that we’ve given up on sailing and that we were taking the plane home! Fun? Right? We’d give you a good story and a plausible explanation but hey who cares 🙂

We’re waiting on winds again but now we’re waiting for winds that are more or less perfect but if there is an easter regatta in the bay this weekend and the winds look just a little better on Sunday why rush?

Still some good islands left in the chain and we’ll have time to look at them while heading north. But a plan has started to form in our heads, a good plan, a plan to stay out.. But before that plan can be true we need to go home.

We left Grenada with their goat bingos and are now neatly tucked away from the wind back in Bequia. So why go back there? Well, I’ve completed my openwater so now I can bring tanks with air with me down.

We’re slowly heading north up on our way home. Yeah! We’re heading home, since we left Trinidad we’re actually heading home and that’s a bummer. Would like to be able to stay out longer but we’ll run out of money so that’s not possible. After Bequia we’ll be checking out the classics regatta in Antigua and that’ll be fun. Be back soon with some pictures and a bit more about what we’ve been up to.

Wednesday night is Bingo night in Prickly Bay here in Grenada. Todays prices were in game one: 400 $EC and a pig. Game two: 500$ EC and a goat and the final price today was!!!! Was 1000$EC and a sheep!

Well, if bingo was like that back in Scandinavia I’d play all the time! I mean a sheep or a pig! That’s way better then a gift card from Stadium or what generic sportstore.
Our main problem is that we have no space on Trusty for that kind of price right now.. Well maybe next time..

We are in Grenada!
Just to prove that it’s always good to stay on your toes when you sail around. After a night motorsailing north against wind and waves we turned of our diesel and heard the sound of our propeller turning. With the gear lever in reverse we shoudn’t hear that. Deciding that it’s better to be safe than sorry we altered our course and aimed for Grenada instead.

Entering the anchorage a squall decided to give us some TLC while we were approaching a spot where we could drop our anchor and check what was up. With the wind pushing I came in with a bit more speed than usually and made the turn up towards the wind and put the engine in reverse. Nothing happens! Luckily we sorted it out and managed to drop our anchor in a different spot and now we have some work to do! Grenada is supposed to be nice and now we can stock up on Nutmeg here on Spice Island!

Down here in paradise (Caribbean is supposedly that according to some people) paperwork is important. In a way that is good because it keeps the unemployment down a bit. One employee with a computer and a scanner could, with the help of some good software and some creativity, do the work of five here in paper-turning land. Checking in and out of countries down here is a bit similar the tests you took in school; write stuff in the right places and if you’ve written something wrong you’ll be corrected and sent home to learn what you did wrong until next time. Only the skipper or the ships agent can do this, which is bad for me because my writing is not the best. Too much time at my computer and not enough practise with pen have caused my handwriting to go a bit sloppy. That’s not a good thing when you’re supposed to write a four page novel about why you’re entering the country in four copies.

My biggest problem is that there is not enough space for what they want me to scratch down on the paper, like the passport-number, try fitting that in a box that is not big enough for my initials. On the other hand, the space for the number of crewmembers is about a whole page wide. The pro charter-skippers have crew-lists printed out from Excel and just put them in the pile of paper but with a crew of three including me, it seems a bit too much paper use (they’re cutting down a whole forest right now without me helping them). When you’ve written the whole works of Shakespeare in twelve copies and got everything right, it’s stamping time! The local bureaucrat brings out his/hers favourite stamp set and goes to work, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, next paper, thump, thump, thump, thump. With all that done, they smile and send you to the next office for a repetition. Trinidad was amazing in that way. Usually, customs is the big one and immigration is just a breeze where you present your passport and get it stamped after they compare notes with the customs copies you have and the stamps you have in your passport. At tops, that is usually a five minute thing and then you’re good to go but in Trinidad you start in immigration and if you’re lucky half an hour later you can go next door to customs.
I saw a woman be sent back to her boat, inconveniently located at the other side of the harbour, three times before they were happy with her paperwork (and clothing: the dress-code was a twenty points long list containing things like: no tight clothes, no baggy clothes, no slippers, no sleeveless clothes, no hooded clothes, no camouflage, and so on for quite a bit…). Instead of looking through her pile of paper and tell her all that was needed the first time, they sent her away as soon as they found the first error in her paperwork and told her to fix that, and when she got back they leafed further into the paper pile only to find something else they didn’t like.

Well, after spending time in that nice office in Chaguaramas we set off out north! Up towards the grenadines again, before customs we had about 30 hours of preferable winds to cross about 100 nautical miles before the wind turned back to northeast and we’d get pushed west towards Colombia. An hour out from the coast, waves pounding us and wind not being where we wanted it, we did about 3 knots towards our destination (motor sailing that is) and had 99 miles to go. Doing the math one soon realize that it would be a bit too slow for what we were doing. That said, we hadn’t even reached the part of the crossing where you have 2.5 knots of side current. I’m ok accepting defeat so we headed back towards land and anchored up in a small bay called Scotland Bay, basically a jungle with a bay in it. The anchor bit fine and the sun started to set as we made dinner and called it a day.

Now we just chill waiting for the winds to be in our favour and look at monkeys jumping around in the foliage while we listen to a myriad of birdcalls and insects chirping away.
Life’s good sometimes, but this piece of jungle might be cut down for the paperwork needed to be done if we go back into port…

Carnival in Trinidad have a way of getting in to your head, it’s the road march competition that really make sure your head gets filled with the Carnival spirit. The winner this year was Marcel Montano with the song “Like ah Boss” (not related to the other Like a Boss song) and he sure won it like ah boss, the runner up (Marcel himself) had 30 plays at the judges stand. 360 times the winning song was played. That was at the judges stand just imagine how many times it was played during the whole day in all the carnival bands. You kind of learn that song during the day…

Listen to this song a couple of hundred times and then let me ask you: Are you more than me?

Well carnival is over for this year and now we’re just waiting for better weather to go back north up the island chain. Of course our direction finder up in the mast won’t let us go hassle free so now we have a 20-36 noreasterly right now. Got to love that. But it’s easing up after the weekend and we’ll give it a try then.

Here comes a bunch of pictures from our time here in Trinidad!

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Yup, blue blue blue blue?

Tobago Cays is better from the air!
Yeah, now it’s out in the open, you google Tobago Cays and you get a nice picture taken from about 2000 feet. Trying to capture the awesomeness of that place is not a fun thing when standing on a yacht and getting the camera lens just two meters above the surface.

The small island there is where they were stranded with the rhum in that Pirates of the someplace over here flick..

As we’re in Trinidad we’re or rather I have to catch up with the blogging, meaning we’ll post a bit more about our trip down here. After leaving Bequia we headed south and after a night in Canouan we ended up in the Cays! Being there you’re anchored behind a reef with the whole might of the Atlantic ocean on the other side, it’s a windy anchorage, windy and a bit crowded. Because the Cays are one of the most popular anchorages in the area you tend to get at least 20 catamarans that’s been chartered for a week or two, a dozen boatboys trying to get all their money and a couple of superyachts that linger around ferrying their passengers around in nice big new rhib dingies.

Out on the reef you’re snorkeling and freediving out on the outside in quite big waves and if you’re experienced you might think it’s a bit rough, it’s worth the trouble but be sure to check your knot before leaving the dingy out on the dive moorings.

Leaving the Cays and heading down towards Trinidad we did a small stop on Happy Island, a man-made island made from concrete and conch shells sitting on the reef in Clifton, Union Island. We’ll be covering that place when we’re heading back up north.