Still on dry land in Trinidad

Alia Vita
Rob & Frances Lythgoe
Sun 1 Feb 2015 19:33
Another week older and still in the same place which isn't great, but the finish line is now in sight. 

We attended the US Embassy in Port of Spain on Monday and after a bit of scare that we might need to start the whole painful process again because Frances's ears weren't showing on the very carefully taken photo that we took especially to attach to the online form, they offered us a 30 minute pass to leave the Embassy and get one taken and come straight back.

It took us a while to take the photos we submitted because your head had to be in a certain central percentage of the whole photo, which couldn't be too large or too small and had to have a plain white background, no spectacles, no head ware...yada yada yada. No where in the extensive list of instructions for the ID photo did it say your ears had to be showing. They acknowledged this as they gave us the pass to go out and come back in. Having to start again on-line would have been a major problem.

Anyway, we did that, were interviewed for about 2 minutes and deemed suitable people to go and spend money in their economy. Quite why the security people that let you in and out have to be so rude I have no idea, but I think its something to do with the uniform. The Embassy staff themselves couldn't have been nicer. We have to go back to Port of Spain tomorrow to collect our passports and visas and then we are free to leave, except that the boat is still on dry land.

Alia Vita is 'splashed' (as they say in yachting circles) on Friday. We then have to re-stock the fridge and freezer as they had to be turned off whilst we are on land (because they are cooled by heat exchangers on the hull beneath the water line), fill the water tanks back up, top up the fuel (why wouldn't you at 1980's prices?) and hopefully head off back to Grenada in our shiny gleaming yacht.

Rod and Jane of Bouzouki fame fly into Grenada on Tuesday and we drop them off in St Lucia 10 days later. Carolyn and Jonathan (Frances's sister and husband) arrive the day Rod and Jane depart in St Lucia for two weeks. We drop them off in Antigua and Rebecca, Sarah, Dan and Phil arrive that very same day for two weeks. So, 6 solid weeks of visitors, I'm really glad we went to all this trouble to get Alia Vita nice for everyone!!! I might even get a haircut before we leave.