Friday 28th October 16.30 we arrive in Chaguaramas after 15 hours, fair wind with some heavy squalls, a safe passage, no pirates or suspicious vessels, we arrive in time to pay overtime to customs (4.00 knock off time on Fridays) but here we are on a mooring in Chaguaramas Bay.  First impression, the water is disgusting, definitely no swimming here!  It is a very busy bay, with service vessels for the oil and gas platforms, fishing vessels and yachts in various stages of work being done.  This is the place to come and have your boat works done, it is one of the cheapest island and the quality of work is high.  We have met up with Cheryl & Robin (Just Imagine),  Graham and Joanie (Karma) and many other people we have met briefly through the Islands.

As nearly everyone in Trinidad are doing work projects the social life is not as hectic, there are a couple of ‘pot luck dinners’ and we have learned the basics of Mexican train dominoes which is a favorite with cruisers, don’t think we will get too involved with this...... 

The interior of the Island is very lush with rainforest, two species of monkey and a huge variety of birds so we plan to take a couple of trips to the interior, we started on Monday with a “Taste of Trini” which took us from Chaguaramas to Port of Spain across to the Atlantic shore where we swam, and back again, a full days tour tasting local foods from Cow Heel Soup, BBq Pig Tail and Barfi.  We tried everything!

 

However, remember the main reason for coming to Trinidad was to apply for our US Visas, well Tuesday 8th November we got them, pages of forms filled, visits to post offices to pay fees, online bookings, 08.30 appointment meant we had to leave the boat at 06.30 take two busses and arrive at the embassy and join the outside queue in the hot sun (yes even at 08.00!) go through body search (well nearly!) submit our passports and wait in the next queue, at least inside by this time, to be summoned to a kiosk, (no seating) finger and thumb printed, asked why do you want a visa? Visa granted.  Join the next queue pay more money to have our visas returned and leave by 10.30, it was surreal.

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