Hot and Cold

Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sun 2 Oct 2016 11:09
It turns out that Trinidad is cold. Unexpectedly cold. This is how it came to pass: last Tuesday at eight in the morning we rounded the tip of Trinidad’s North coast, passed a number of idle ships then a big cable-laying mama, entered protected water where planks of wood, rotting foliage and floating fish were too abundant to be avoided and pulled into the second-to-last marina space in Chaguaramas, the main yachting area of Trinidad. An armada was sailing that morning into Trinidad, seeking shelter from the tropical depression due to hit between St. Vincent and St. Lucia in the next 24 hours and the last marina space, which was right next to us, was about to be filled by a lucky boat clearing through customs. We'd called three days before to book our space. 

It was at this point we discovered that we were in one of the hottest places we’ve been to so far. It was air you could choke on, rather than the breezy kind you get on anchor. Well, since Quest is American by nature, she has not one but three air conditioning units all tucked under beds and sofas and since we’ve set sail, they’ve only ever used for being cursed at for limiting our storage options. Let me be clear that I didn’t press the button. The girls didn’t press the button.The button was pressed by the person who’d been outside sweating, hooking up shore-power cables and re-tying lines while the rest of the crew was hiding inside. 'Doing maths homework, ok!’ we shouted to the outside. And after the button got pressed, in just ten minutes Quest got cold. So cold that besides going to check in at Customs and Immigration, buying internet data and grabbing some lunch, Quest was spouting water from her outlets like an oversized fountain while we were inside saying, ‘Feel my feet, go on, feel how cold they are!’ The Cap and Lu even had a session in the front cabin where they turned the air con as low as it would go and lay under the duvet, marvelling, ‘Look, it feels just like the bungalow!’ 

It didn’t take long before noses were stuffed and people started sneezing. The next morning I stumbled from the cabin to be greeted with windows covered in condensation and in instant flashback to home, I grabbed a cloth to wipe the windows dry. Wait a second, the windows weren’t wet…I struggled to understand it…now the condensation was on the other side… ohhhh! Duh!!

Love from Quest and her crew xx