Return to Trinidad
Mystic of Holyhead (successor to Lynn Rival)
Rachel and Paul Chandler
Tue 18 Jun 2019 18:15
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10:40.73N
061:37.96W We crept out of Stonehaven Bay in the early hours, avoiding the Buccoo Reef and then sailing directly, with the wind abeam, to the north coast of Trinidad. As we closed the coast we passed just one yacht and a few small ships. It can be a busy area, partly because of traffic between the two islands but also workboats servicing the oil fields. By mid-morning, we'd reached the stage where the wind shadow from the Northern Range brought us to a halt so we motored the final stretch to the Boca del Monos, our cut-through to reach Chaguaramas Bay. The tidal streams are strong here and we had missed the slack tide so our progress was quite slow. Once through the narrow passage we turned east, passing the Coastguard base - no photos allowed but lots of activity there these days due to the problems in Venezuela - and a big ship dock, to get to the yacht anchorage. As we hoped, we were able to pick up a mooring - anchoring is reportedly dodgy here; there's a lot of junk on the bottom - and were soon ashore to report to Customs and Immigration. (Although we had already cleared into T&T in Tobago we still had to register our move between the islands.) We'd already decided to use Power Boats again and were greeted as long lost friends. We were keen to arrange our haul out. The following day was a public holiday - "Arrival Day" (not us, but comemorating the arrival of the Indians) - but they could fit us in 2 days later. The anchorage is dirty and not at all comfortable, with small boats charging around creating a lot of wash, rocking the boat and splashing topsides with oily water. Ignoring these irritants we got on with taking down the sails and having a general clear out, including re-assembling our bicycles (brought all the way from Lagos).  A snug fit  Manoevring into place The haul out was straight-forward and although we have plenty of small improvements we want to make to Mystic as well as the usual maintenance items, hopefully we don't have any major issues to resolve - not like when we arrived here in 2015 with Lynn Rival's Coppercoat bubbling! Now Mystic is safely ashore we'll be spending the summer in the UK and elsewhere. |