6/12/12

Well it’s all work work work here. I’m up early, and doing all sorts of manly tasks like scraping barnacles off my propellers. It’s also very hot, and sweaty.

The boatyard is called Power Boats, and its run very efficiently by Don Stollmeier and his team. When I first enquired about coming here I had a long email from Don telling me how he would personally supervise the lifting out of the water. And he was as good as his word. He showed me lots of photos of catamarans, including two he had built himself.

Well now he has launched his third (and allegedly his last). It’s taken him over 6 years to build, and we were all invited to the launch.

I walked over straight from Salila in my working clothes, and felt a little under- dressed. I hadn’t realised what an occasion it was going to be – tents up, chairs out, bar, food, local dignitaries by the dozen.

Don and his family:

I also met a lovely local man in his 70’s called Michael Camp, who had gone to Ireland to medical school and become a paediatrician here. One very smart local came over to thank him for treating his children years previously. He’d married an Irish girl and brought her back here. Unusual for those days, but even more unusual was that his father was a doctor too.

And what is the SAS doing in Trini? Another very smart “chap” I met was from the British High Commission. Short hair, military bearing, got to be SAS I thought, certainly not bookish enough to be a diplomat.