Our holiday with Susie and Billy our current position 10.40.83N 61.38.01W
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Sun 8 Jul 2007 23:11
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So Susie and Billy returned to UK after two weeks
with us in Tobago. We had a great time and it was good to see them both enjoying
the sights, beaches and snorkeling, some of which is the best we have seen
so far on our travels. Tobago is a quite laid back Island with a lovely people
and safe environment. We could all walk the streets in safety here and enjoy
many of the restaurants, shops and bars. Some of the restaurants are a little
dry but they don't mind you bringing your own coldies. Most of the photos shown
are self explanatory, one with the lady and big black dome in the background is
the local bakery, just behind the beach in Castara Bay, the dome is the
clay oven. Customers just turn up, order what they want and she has it baked for
you within an hour or so. The shot of the Bay is Castara with the Cascreole
Restaurant, with an amazing pool room (as in snooker type pool) four tables and
a table tennis table. The other restaurant, another local establishment
owned by Loris and Hazel with a supermarket under.
Time went very quickly though and although we
saw much of Tobago, its coast and interior it would have been nice to day
sail to Trinidad or somewhere else, but our time together didn't really allow
it. We'll do some sailing together I'm sure in other parts of the Caribbean
later in the year and next year too.
It was a tearful goodbye (it always is) after
what seemed like a couple of days, but we all have to get on with our lives so
we look forward to the next time they visit.
Yvonne and me are now in Trinidad and we have a
good internet connexion for a while (until a storm blew it yesterday).
Chaguaramas is a busy commercial bay and there are several marinas in it. All
the marinas have their own bars and restaurants and traveling by dinghy or by
the local shuttle is easy and only minutes away.
Friday night was Shark and Bake night at the
wheelhouse pub. For 30TT$ about 2pounds 50pence you get a plate of
beautifully fried battered fish and a large
bake (a kinda bready thing) salad, dressings and sauces. We met some friends
there Graham and Loraine from Lorigray ll, check Lorigray ll on the internet. We
had a good evening, we'll be back next week.
Today is Sunday, most shops are closed but we had a
few jobs to do on Chaser, and a guy came round to help me with a computer
problem this afternoon. Tomorrow we have to check out a freezer engineer, ours
has stopped working. We don't use it much because its power hungry, but we are
in a marina now and will be in Venezuela so we want to get it
fixed.
Also during this next week we'll check out the
shops in the Capital, Port of Spain. A bus stops right outside the marinas and
for 5TT$ we get a ride into town about an hour away I believe.We want to
arrange to see the interior of the Island and the rain forest. The rainforest in
Tobago was a little disappointing, it really consisted of, well, rain and
forest.
Now is the Hurricane season and whilst we are out
of the danger area we still keep a check on the weather each morning at 6.30 on
shortwave. There is an in depth forecast which will give us good notice of any
nasties. This time of year Tropical waves appear over the west coast of Africa
and make their way eastwards at about 15mph across the Atlantic, they often
bring showers, squals and a bit of wind (nothing much). These waves can turn
into a Tropical Disturbance, which means they could start revolving and have
lower pressure in the centre. If this happens they can then turn into a
Tropical Depression, a low pressure system with strong winds and rain. If the
conditions are right in Mid Atlantic, ie. upper atmosphere clear and sea
temperature warm, these depressions can move to a Tropical Storm, these you want
to be away from, with high winds and heavy rain. These are the storms that are
given names in this part of the world, like Hilda or Ivan. If the storm
strengthens further it becomes a Hurricane cat 1, of which there are I believe 5
class, category 5 being the most fiercesome. It was a storm of that
magnitude that damaged Tobago, destroyed Grenada and went on to take its
toll in Cuba 3 years ago. We don't want to be near any of that! That's one
reason why we are here and why we'll stay south of 11 degrees north, while
traveling during these next few summer
months. |
