It's amazing how time flies
Oriole
Sun 19 Dec 2010 19:46
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Clifton Harbour, Union Island.
12:35.66N 61:24.66W
It is now a month since we left home and our feet have hardly touched the ground. Oriole has had a major makeover, as at the grand old age of fifteen, although we work hard keeping her up to date, various systems were creaking slightly and were needing attention. The most notable being a new set of sails and a new stackpack mainsail cover resplendant with our name printed on it. The sails were expertly made by Peter Sanders in Lymington cheaper and much better than we could get sails closer to "home", and the stackpack made in Trinidad allows us just to drop the main which miraculously falls into its gutter and needs no wrestling and folding and time consuming putting on and off the conventional sail cover. Why have a sail cover? you might ask - it is to protect the sail from the damaging effects of UV. The engine no longer overheats at full power thanks to John's overhaul of the cooling system and a new upgraded alternator is pouring amps into our battery bank. Our previous alternators were needing serious attention every six months from chronic over use. This abbreviated list just covers the major items and we will not bore you with the rest. Meanwhile we have been enjoying the generous hospitality of the Kelshall and Pantin clan, now including new arrival Alix (6 weeks old), who conspire to liberate us from the rigours of the boatyard. Don very generously lends us his little old yellow car alias the Yellow Peril and all the yard staff know we are back when it appears. It is wonderful to have four wheels (which usually go round!). "Hi Skip, are you sellin?" is the constant refrain from the locals - referring to the car - and on one day we had four offers by ten o'clock!  Relaxing after lunch with Don and
Cathryn at their weekend retreat with RCC friends Mike and
Hilde.
Sadly, as we have said before, there is an ever
present crime risk in Trinidad and one needs to take sensible precautions.
We had probably been getting a bit careless and we were mugged while walking in
a quiet residential area of Port of Spain. This was a really stupid
attack, as the guy got nothing of any value (Chris's rather flashy pseudo
gold arthritis bracelet and a gold neck chain. We also had on us
watches, sun glasses, mobile phones, money and credit cards of much greater
value. John was smacked around the face a bit, but no harm was done to
anything but our jitters. We were threatened with a gun which we never
saw, so probably did not exist, but we did not aim to find out and kept
walking! The whole thing was recorded on CCTV at a nearby house but the
images were not good enough for any facial recognition. The police
attended rapidly but with little chance of success. On passage from
Trinidad there has been a very small incidence of piracy from Venezuela which is
of course a very close neighbour and we have tried to do this passage in close
company with another boat or two. Considering the hundreds of boats that
transit this area during the
year the risks are extremely low, but do exist. However the Trinidad Coast Guard have become very much more active of late. The conditions from Trinidad to Grenada with light
headwinds successfully tested our engine cooling system and the pirates were
having a day off. The sail up to Carriacou yesterday gave our lovely new
sails a good airing and we are so far delighted with their performance.
 Oriole at anchor in the crystal clear
water of Clifton Harbour
Sunday morning finds us in Clifton Harbour, Union Island where it is very quiet and we can see across the protective reef to the Tobago Cays and thence to Africa! We are unlikely to be lonely in Bequia for Christmas and have been conversing this morning on the radio with friends on boats heading that way. We wish everyone who takes the trouble to read about our gentle meanderings a very happy Christmas. |