Trinidad to Panama

On Jan 20th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Trinidad to Panama is about 1,100 nautical miles.  Conveniently, there are a few islands en route like Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (known as “The ABC’s) that are about halfway across and make for a convenient stopping place.  Inconveniently Venezuela and it’s territorial waters stick up rather in the way.

Venezuela has had some security concerns and cruisers are very wary about traveling there these days.  For a boat like us traveling alone that meant we really didn’t want to venture into Venezuelan waters so we needed to sail over 100 miles North before pointing at the ABC’s.  Splitting the trip up into two parts, with the first leg from Trinidad to Aruba just over 500 nautical miles, we sailed NNW away from Venezuela with brisk breezes and a fast reaching sail.

The trip across to Aruba was fast, with winds in excess of 20 knots behind us we made good speed.  Our first night out just before sunset we saw our first dolphins, something which would repeat every day of the trip.  It was fast and uneventful until the evening of Monday, November 12th, when just before midnight when we received a Mayday call.

Things get interesting…

We were about 20 miles Northeast of Bonaire, the wind was blowing 22-28 knots and we were screaming along at 8-10 knots with reefed sails when we heard the call.  I called back…no response.  Eventually we raised a scratchy signal and a frantic burst of Spanish.  My Spanish is nonexistent, but eventually cobbled together enough information to determine that they were on a boat we could see in the distance and had no fuel, water, or food.  So we turned the boat around and sailed back upwind into the chop until we reached them.

We suspected they were Venezuelan fishermen when we saw the 20-ish foot center console boat.  It did enter in our minds that this COULD be a problem, there have been some incidents off the Venezuelan coast.  But given the relatively rough conditions boarding would be something only someone pretty desperate would try.  We fetched the machete we bought for opening coconuts up and left it in the cockpit…

Conversation came to it that we couldn’t easily get him fuel, as we only had six gallons of gas on board in our dinghy and no good way to get any of it to him, if we could even pour or siphon some out without spilling it.  Given that they had what looked large twin outboards, the two gallons or so we might be able to get to them wouldn’t get them all that far even if we could figure a way to pour it, store it, and get it to them uncontaminated.  It was rough enough that there was no way the vessels were coming together intentionally, someone was going to get damaged if we got within six to eight feet of them.

So they asked us to “Give us food, give us water.”  Their vessel was sound and not sinking and clearly just out of fuel and they did not ask to abandon it or get rescued.   We scrounged up some fresh water and what food we could find that was in cans with pull tabs (there was no way we were going to be able to have a coherent discussion about can openers!) or in packages that might survive a dunking and put it in a water proof container.  We tied this whole mess to an orange PFD and an inflated white trash bag (for visibility and more floatation).  We then dropped it in the water upwind of them, at which point we very quickly figured out that their boat was drifting a heck of a lot faster than a little package of food and water…oops.  So we circled around a few times and fished it out then tried again from down wind which worked much better since they drifted down on it quickly.

At this point we felt there was little we could do beyond relay their position to someone else who might be able to get them.  They didn’t want off their boat, and no one else had heard their call in the area.  If we stayed all we could do was circle them and try to call someone with our higher VHF or SSB.  So we talked to them and they asked us to relay their position to someone, and we headed back to our regular course.  I spent the next two hours trying to raise some help on the VHF, SSB and via e-mail.  Eventually we reached a passing commercial vessel that was able to reach the Curaçao coast guard and set up a plan to recover these fellows.

On the whole it was an eye-opening, adrenalin pumping event which highlighted a few things we needed to work out.  Such as why our VHF couldn’t reach more than eight miles, and maybe we should consider a satellite phone for emergencies since the SSB raised no help.  Our adrenaline was up for the rest of the night after this though!

A Rest Stop on the NJ Turnpike

The following afternoon we pulled into Aruba.  I know I will take some grief for this, but our stay in Aruba reminded me of stopping at a rest stop on the turnpike.  From what I can see Aruba is a lovely place to fly to, stay in a resort, and have a great vacation.

As a place to sail to on your own boat it is distinctly lacking.  The facilities for clearing in to the country are inconvenient and force you to bring your boat to a scary concrete dock with old tires and rusty bits of metal all over it…twice!  The concept of a dinghy dock is non-existent.  Marine services and supplies are so far out of town as to be practically unreachable…in theory there are buses but we never saw one.  Anchoring is tightly controlled and the only spot you can anchor is  conveniently close to the airport…you hear every plane quite well.

Don’t get me wrong, the town was nice and we had a great dinner at one of the water front restaurants and it was very pretty.  But it’s not someplace to visit by boat.

On to Panama

One of the reasons cruisers stop in the ABC’s en route to Panama is that the stretch of water off the coast of Columbia can be some of the nastiest in the world with the wrong weather.  Contrary currents, a continental shelf, and breeze from the wrong direction can create conditions with huge, steep waves.  We got lucky, the weather was predicted to settle down shortly after we arrived in Aruba.  Those 20-28 knot winds we flew in on were going to make a mess of the waters west of Aruba but they were slated to calm down.

After a couple of days of rest in Aruba with some shopping and a bit of R&R we set off for the slightly longer leg to Panama.  We expected the wind was going to completely die on us before we got in, and we were not wrong.

I’ve already posted a bit about this leg in another entry.  It was fast…until the wind died.  But we had our most spectacular encounter with dolphins while sailing yet.  I leave you with about two minutes of the more than an hour two pods of dolphins spent playing with us.

 

 

Posted in Aruba, dolphins, Panama, passages, Trinidad | 2 Comments

Well That Was Fast

On Jan 19th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Hmmm…seems we’re here on the new site already.

Without getting into gruesome technical detail…the hoops I had to jump through to get the old articles to link to the new site meant I need to install a “redirect” almost immediately.  Sort of before I was ready to, but here it is.

Look forward to a few changes over the next few days as I tweak the format and layout to make it look a little less…industrial…and get some things back that I used to have.

So far, I like it.

Posted in Housekeeping | Comments Off on Well That Was Fast

Movin’ on Up

On Jan 19th, 2014 Published By B.J.

First of all – many apologies for the lack of content.  Between our trip to the U.S., moving through the Panama Canal, visits from friends and dealing with some ongoing technical issues with the generator I’ve just been too busy (and somewhat devoid of interesting events) to get caught up.

But the BIG NEWS…I’m moving the blog.

Why?  Well…Blogger is a bit antiquated and I want to switch to WordPress.  Makes my life easier, makes your reader experience nicer.

So I’ve registered a new domain (to be announced…but if you are clever it shouldn’t be hard to deduce) and am in the process of moving the old content to the new site.

It should be operational shortly, assuming there are no heinous bugs or problems with the Importer tool.  So all the old posts should be there, even the pictures.

Posted in Housekeeping | Comments Off on Movin’ on Up

Home? For the Holidays

On Dec 16th, 2013 Published By B.J.

We’re making our first trip back the the United States tomorrow to join our families for the holidays this year.

It is cold there.

It is snowing there.

I have worn long pants twice in the last year – once to Divali and once to clear Panamanian Customs.  I own three pairs of socks and no snow boots.  My warmest item of outer wear is a fleece jacket.

I’m bringing a laptop with me and copying about 140 GB worth of pictures off, so hopefully I can get caught up with the blog updates.  We’ve seen some really cool things in Panama – monkeys, sloths, toucans, parrots…not to mention crossing THROUGH the Panama Canal with is an entry all by itself at least.

But I will probably spare you all the pictures of us shivering and freezing our tails off back in the Northeast!  Many of you can look out your windows for that.

Happy Holidays, just in case I fall into a snow bank before I get more updates done!

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Home? For the Holidays

Farewell to Trinidad

On Dec 10th, 2013 Published By B.J.

As much as we loved Trinidad, the time to leave came much more quickly than we wanted it to.

To a cruiser schedules are an anathema.  This is something that is hard to convey to the non-cruiser, after all they rarely commit themselves to the land-bound equivalent of a passage at sea – days out of reach of land, moving 24×7 off shore.  Most people on land view a full days driving as a long trip, and if you are driving from New York to California you stop for the night.  If the weather is bad you can pull off the road and find a hotel or stop for dinner.  We don’t have these options when we are out of sight of land.

One big advantage of the cruising lifestyle is you can pick your weather, or at least try to.  Back when we were living on land we’d head off someplace for a weekend or a week of vacation.  You had to get back Monday for work, or this was the week you took off so you had to deal with it.  The result?  Sailing in conditions that are less than ideal because you have to get home on Monday or avoid a hurricane that is coming up on your preselected week.  Stress, aggravation, and less choice lead to potentially more dangerous sailing conditions – not unlike having to make that drive from Ohio to Maine in a driving snow storm instead of sunny dry conditions.

We cruisers are tied to the weather, and being somewhere to meet someone or something at a specific date can throw a monkey wrench in the works.  So we need to leave enough time to make sure we don’t force ourselves to have to sail when we don’t like the weather or think it is dangerous.

For this winter our deadline is self imposed, we are planning to visit the U.S. for the holiday season, and we wanted to get Evenstar through the Panama Canal before we caught our flight out of Panama City on December 17th.  Getting through the canal takes some time for the paperwork and we invited some friends down that had always wanted to do a canal passage to join us so we had a target week in mind.  Putting some “weather padding” into the schedule, and we wanted to be in Panama before Thanksgiving so in case the weather doesn’t cooperate we would have some wiggle room to still hit our dates.  This meant leaving around the end of October to early November.

Trinidad to Panama as the crow flies is a little over 1,000 Nautical Miles (1 NM = 1.15 Statute or ‘Land’ miles).  There is the small issue of South America sticking up in the way however.  Not only do you not want to smack into South America, but Venezuela has been issues with piracy like behavior and attacks on cruising boats so we were well advised to steer well clear of Venezuelan waters.  Roughly halfway along the roughly 1,150 NM route around South America lies the ‘ABC’ islands – Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.  These make a nice halfway point and someplace to catch your breath for the crossing from Aruba to Panama.

Because of the location of the continental shelf, ocean currents and prevailing winds the waters between Aruba and Panama can be some of the world’s worst if you catch the weather the wrong way.  I’ve talked to circumnavigators that described their most horrible passage in that stretch of water.  So the plan is usually to sail to one of the ABCs, usually Aruba, and wait for a good weather window for making the next leg of the trip.

Bocas del Dragón

So with all that in mind we began our preparations to leave.  Unfortunately some troubles with our
refrigeration held us up a week before we finally set out on the afternoon of Friday, November 8th.  Conditions were gorgeous, with good breeze expected though a little more down wind of what we prefer.  We motored across the couple of miles of the Western end of Trinidad towards the Bocas del Dragón (Mouths of the Dragon) where the wind was flat, the gaps between the islands between Trinidad and mainland Venzuela.  As we passed out of the Bocas del Dragón we got ready to set the sails as the island was no longer blocking the wind.  With the main out we started to trim it then BANG!  There was a loud noise and the main sail was flapping in the wind.  We quickly saw that we had ripped the clew off of the main sail.  This is the corner of the sail that attaches to the end of the boom and is a high stress part of the sail.

What broke was not the sail itself, but rather the hardware in the clew had separated from the sail.  Our clew is has a large block (like a pulley) and is attached to the sail by some high strength webbing, stitching, and glue.  Our best guess is that while the corner of the sail has good UV protection on it from the sun maybe the threads weren’t so resistant to sunlight and were weakened after a year in the Caribbean sun.  Sails are very susceptible to to degradation when left in the sun, I guess the thread is no different.  Without a main sail though the sail to Aruba would be slow, and we were not comfortable with our options to get it fixed properly heading someplace we’d never been so we had to return to Trinidad.  We furled the sail in (messily without being able to tension the clew) and turned around.

Now we had a problem though, as it was late Friday and we’d already cleared out of the country – in theory we were supposed to be gone within 24 hours of our checkout time.  It was late afternoon and we weren’t likely to get back in time to get the sail repaired.  As we motored back to Chaguaramas we called ahead to find a sailmaker and reached one that was open Saturday and would take our sail first thing in the morning and fix it that day.  When we arrived back in the anchorage there was too much wind to get the sail down so we left it for the early morning.

Getting up not much after the sun on Saturday we wrestled the sail down and off the boat.  The main sail weighs more than 100 pounds and is bulky, but Will and I got it to the sail makers.  I can not say enough good things about Soca Sails, not only did they fix our sail before noon they also checked the head of the sail and made some repairs – all for a very reasonable price.

This all took some time, and by the time we got back to the boat were were pushing the 24 hours window pretty thin and we still had to get the sail back on.  But we did get out that afternoon and tried again.  This time the mainsail stayed together, and we were off again.  But that’s the next post, where we have dolphins and a Mayday at sea…

Posted in Aruba, broken things, passages, Trinidad | Comments Off on Farewell to Trinidad

A Taste of Trinidad

On Nov 24th, 2013 Published By B.J.

We finally arrived in Trinidad a few weeks ago, and we like it a lot!  More on that later…by the time this huge post gets put up we will have been gone for a few weeks already.

When Kathy’s brother Alan joined us in Trinidad with his son we took some time to be tourists, and one of the more special days we spent was with Jesse James from Members Only Maxi Taxi service doing his internationally renowned “Taste of Trinidad Tour”.  It is a lot of fun, though a lot of driving you see much of the island.  Jesse is a great tour guide, clearly he loves his country and is proud of his heritage here – and he knows all the places to go!

The format was pretty simple.  We’d drive a bit, Jesse would get out and get some sort of local food and bring it back to the van and we’d all share it out.  Our kids were troopers and tried most everything.  It is a bit of a marathon, starting at 9:00 in the morning with breakfast and finishing at 7:00 at night with dessert, catching all the major meals.  It is combined with a drive across the island, stops along the way, lunch on the beach, and a LOT of new tastes.


Something we learned about Trinidad when we got here, is that the ethnic makeup of this island is a bit different than most of the Northern islands.   Much of the Caribbean is peopled with descendants of slaves that were imported from Africa, and also with descendents of colonists and planters.  But slave descended folk make up most of the majority populations on the independent islands and are what is considered to be “West Indians” – from the West Indies.

But Trinidad is different.  After the end of slavery large numbers of “East” Indians, as in from the
country of India, were brought to Trinidad to pick up much of the work done by the former slaves.  Many came as indentured servants and got land when their servitude was done.  A large percentage of the Trinidad population is therefore “East Indian”, and it is reflected in much of the culture.  The foods have a strong Indian influence, and the religious impact of a large Hindu population (and smaller Muslim group) are added to the otherwise Christian influenced island.

Oh no you didn’t!

But the important part of that ethnic breakdown is that it deeply influences the foods you can find on this lovely island.

So here is the master list, with my tasting notes and commentary where appropriate, or where I remember it.  If I don’t say anything, we probably liked it but can’t remember anything particularly amusing to say about it.  With this many things to try some items became a bit of a blur!

1.    Roast bake – a baked bread, tasty.
2.     Salted fish – spicy and salty, the adults liked it served on the Bake.  Will thought it might have been the most revolting thing he’s ever put in his mouth. 
3.     Smoked herring – also on the bake.  Still in trauma from the Salted Fish, Will took a pass on this.
4.    Potato pie – absolutely delicious, with a nice peppery spiciness and a warm friend crust.
5.    Beef pie – Similar to the potato pie, but with a beef filling.  Surprisingly not as spicy as the potato.
6.    Fry bake – this is a fried version of the dough used in the roast bake.
7.     Bygam (egg plant) choka – blended roast eggplant and garlic, very tasty.  A choka is a blend of roasted vegetables mashed up together, a strong East Indian influence.
8.    Fried plantain – Caribbean standard, quite good.
9.    Bodi beans – really long beans akin to green beans or pole beans.
10.    Pak choi
11.    Tomato choka – similar concept to the Bygam, but tomato as the base instead of eggplant.
12.    Curried pumpkin – good, but no a favorite of the kids.
13.    White sada roti- a roti is conceptually similar to a burrito, there is an outer skin wrapping an inner food, usually a curry based meat dish.  Both of these rotis were good.
14.     Black sada roti
15.    Cow Heel Soup – the soup stock, vegetables, and the sticky little dumplings were absolutely delicious.  The  actual cow heel…was a squishy little blob of collagen that left a nasty bitter after taste.  Recommended for hangovers.
16.    Spinach – chopped and stewed; adults liked it and children did not.
17.    Carilie – This is a small odd looking vegetable that was very tasty, for about four seconds.  Then it unloaded one of the nastiest bitter after tastes I’ve ever experienced.
18.    Green fig – a “fig” in much the Caribbean
19.    Okra
20.    Coconut bake- surprisingly you could barely taste the coconut.
21.    Scrambled egg Trini style – I’m a big fan of spicy things in eggs.
22.    Chicken gizzards – surprisingly good.  50% of our children were brave enough for these.

We’re all over it next time!

23.    Barbeque pig tail – Considered by some to be one of the best things we tried.  Really, a bit boney but not dissimilar in taste to ribs.
24.    Macaroni pie – like baked Mac & Cheese
25.    Coconut roll
26.    Macaroni strudel- macaroni in a crust.
27.    Fried beef pie – nice spicing; these pies seem a staple in a lot of the foot stands.
28.    Spinach rice – grownups liked it, kids maintained their disdain for cooked spinache
29.    Chinese noodles
30.    Fried salmon
31.    Stewed chicken – lots of things are “stewed” in the island; cooked in with a gravy/sauce with vegetables
32.    Pomme ceylete- if I recall correctly this was an odd pickled fruit.
33.    Dhal- Indian style blended vegetables, tasty.
34.    Callaloo soup- very widespread throughout the Caribbean.
35.    Curried duck – local specialty; I thought ours was kid of fatty and bony.  Not a favorite.
36.    Cassava
37.    Sorrel drink – Sorrel flavored drinks became a popular choice for the kids the rest of our time in Trinidad.
38.    Brazil nuts- this came in what Jesse called a UFO Nut, a huge brown thing that was vaguely acorn shaped.  Inside this were some other nuts in their own case which were the Brazil nuts.  Who knew?  Our kids spent some time picking out all the nuts and saving them.
39.    Silk fig – banana
40.    Sugar apple – Caribbean fruit, a lumpy green thing that is quite tasty.
41.    Doubles – Trinidad national food, it there is one.  Messy, spicy sort of sandwich of a chick pea based filling inside two flat breads.  Pepper sauce level optional. Very good.
42.    Sahina- roasted eggplant with spices, also pepper sauce level optional.
43.    Chacourie
44.    Stewed beef
45.    Curried chicken – all the the curries and stews we tried for lunch (44-49) where quite tasty.
46.    Curried chickpeas
47.    Curried potatoes
48.    Curried mango
49.    Curried goat
50.    Dahl  pourie
51.    Parata roti- served as a flat bread to eat with various curries.
52.    Peanut punch – quite good creamy peanut flavored drink.
53.    Soursop milk – made from the Soursop fruit, one of the Caribbean fruits we failed at.
54.    Mauby drink – made from the bark of a tree, has a nice flavor with a sharp aftertaste some disliked.
55.    Bust up roti- Roti skin and fillings seperate from each other.
56.    Pineapple chow- Jessie makes this himself, it’s pineapple soaked in a blend of spices and pepper.  However, he made a small mistake with this one.  He knew a few of us like things hot, so he thought to leave the seeds in the pepper to remove later.  He forgot to remove the seeds, making this pineapple the absolutely spiciest thing we tried all day.  But it was also shocking as it was pineapple, which is supposed to be sweet, not head-melting hot.  We thought we were going to lose poor Alan, he turned almost purple and couldn’t breath…he declined a second piece.
57.    Water melon – from a road side vendor, just off the vine
58.    Philourie
59.    Mango sauce
The next few items  were part of “Tea Time/Snack Time”, some were snacks from a road side vendor who made them in her home, others from a bakery.
60.    Paw paw balls – good, made from Papaya
61.    Pickled plums – look like olives but taste sweeter
62.    Tamarind
63.    Chalta
64.    Red mango – mango soaked in a red dyed sugar sauce
65.    Sugar cake
66.    Ballerina cake – like crusty pastry cake with coconut
67.    Rock cake – small dense cake, quite tasty
68.    Bread pudding
69.    Sweet bread – more like a fruit cake, has nothing to do with calf parts
70.    Kurma
71.    Barfi- better than it sounds
72.    Trillium
73.    Cerries
74.    Green plums- fresh plums, which are sized more like grapes and green that you eat whole
75.    Guava- Fresh fruit
76.    Cocoa beans- from a cocoa bean pod, you suck on them and discard the bean
77.    Portugal- a type of fruit
78.    Star fruit
79.    Passion fruit
80.    Green fig salad- again, fig = small banana

Dinner from a great BBQ place outside Spanish Harbor
81.    Spanish rice
82.    Barbeque pork
83.    Barbeque lamb
84.    Jerk pork
85.    Pastille – a Pastille is conceptually similar to a pie, except the shell is very light and delicate and the fillings are a but smaller, quite tasty.
86.    Passion fruit juice
87.    Grapefruit juice
88.    Portugal juice
89.    Homemade ice cream – from a stand off the road, flavors were Peanut, Coconut and Caramel.  All good…

For this post I do wish we’d made more detailed tasting notes and of course that I did it more quickly.  But this list was such a daunting task it took me a lot of attempts to get through it all and I still couldn’t remember everything.  But there were very few things I didn’t like, though others reactions varied.

If you do get to Trinidad, I can not recommend highly enough that you spend a day with Jesse doing this tour!

Posted in Good Food, Trinidad | Comments Off on A Taste of Trinidad

Somewhere off the Coast of Colombia…

On Nov 22nd, 2013 Published By B.J.

This was originally sent from the boat during our passage from Aruba to Trinidad.  However Blogger.com’s “Post by e-mail” never seems to work for me unless I am just posting “This is a Test Post” in which case it works fine.  At least I get a chance to (mostly) fix my misspellings and add a few pictures. 

Greetings from the Southwestern Caribbean.  At least I think so, I have know way of knowing if this remote “en route” blog post will even make it in.  It’s about a 50/50 proposition from the times I’ve tested it.



We left yesterday from Aruba after a four day layover waiting for better weather, and are headed for Panama.  We anticipate arrival sometime on the 20th of November.

To date the weather has been lovely – the breezes fresh and the skies clear.  Yesterday we spent over an hour in the company of two different pods of dolphins.  A pod of smaller Spotted Dolphins initially caught up with us.  They enjoy sporting and cavorting in the bow wake and the stern wake of the boat, I supposed it is sort of like a water slide or roller coaster for them.  A quick gush of current and spray that they cab surf and ride and jump in.  The dolphins chase each other around, or travel in formations while leaping, splashing and racing around with seemingly little effort.

After a while the Spotted Dolphins were joined by another pod, this one of Bottlenose Dolphins.  The Spotteds are smaller, with a typical size of 6-8’ in length.  The Atlantic Bottlenose, which people are most familiar with from aquarium shows and Flipper, is considerably larger with an average size larger than the largest of the Spotteds.   With the second pod of dolphins joining the play it became even more hyper, with more leaps and splashes as some of the dolphins were jumping so close it
seemed part of the game was to get the people watching from the boats wet!

We flew the spinnaker for a while today, but that Did Not End Well, as we put an hourglass in it. It then wrapped around the headstay.  We learned some valuable lessons about untangling a fouled spinnaker, but when we got it clear we decided we’d had enough for the day and pulled it down and took it below decks.  It needs to be untwisted and repacked anyway.

As we were setting the spinnaker another pod of dolphins/porpoises that we couldn’t quite identify came up and swam around us.  We believe they were Grampuses, Also called Risso’s Dolphin.  They

were much more shy than the other dolphins and cavorted a ways from the boat rather than playing chicken with our bow like the others.

We’re currently about 50 nautical miles off the coast of Columbia, with around 390 miles to sail before we arrive.  I do hope this post makes it to the blog for you all!

—–
At 11/17/2013 20:02 (utc) our position was 12°14.51’N 073°25.11’W

Posted in dolphins, passages | Comments Off on Somewhere off the Coast of Colombia…

Our First Divali

On Nov 15th, 2013 Published By B.J.

Up front I must confess that I’d never heard of Divali (or Diwali or Duvali or Duwali – why do words from Hindi have so many spellings in English??) before I heard it was a holiday coming up in Trinidad.  Not being Hindu and not having spent much time in areas with lots of Hindus we tend to be woefully ignorant of the religion, and I find the large array of gods with unusual names and inappropriate numbers of limbs to be rather confusing.   But of course there is a huge cultural heritage as with any of the major religions, with their own creation myths, heroes, villains, and holidays.

Trinidad is about 15% Hindu.  We were surprised when we learned this, but we had also just learned that a large portion of Trinidad’s population was of Indian descent which we had no idea of until we arrived here.  When you learn a few things all of a sudden the prayer flags in yards and all the curry make sense.   Trinidad has made very good accommodation with its mixed groups of Christians, Muslims and Hindus.  While the Christmas season seems to start in early October (or maybe earlier, it had started when we got here!), other holidays such as Divali get national holiday treatment as well, though this year the final night was on a Saturday so not everyone got a day off of work!

Divali is the Hindu festival of lights.  There is a full back story – it involves gods and demons and a few battles and dramatic escapes.   All of the unfamiliar names and places baffle me, so I will send you to Wikipedia or you may of course rely on your own Google-fu.  The end of it is the celebration of lights which is held by all three of the major sects of Hinduism although for somewhat different reasons in each sect.  I told you it was confusing.

We decided see the celebration with a tour arranged by Jesse James through his Member Only Maxi Taxi Service.  Jesse arranges some great tours for cruisers at very reasonable prices; we’d spent a couple of days with Jesse and knew he did things up right.  For Divali we were traveling to a town called Felicity near where Jesse grew up.  While the nearby larger town of Chaguanas had a larger Divali display, the town of Felicity is predominantly Hindu and are known for doing it up for the holiday.  Since this was people’s genuine holiday expression rather than a larger more organized production it felt like a better way to see it though we did have a small show of our own.

These guys could make a STUNNING amount
of noise with those drums.

We started out at a Hindu temple on the main road in town.  Jesse had gotten together with the temple to  show us some of the authentic dancing, singing and costumes for the holiday.  We also were shown the temple shrine, where various statues of the Hindu pantheon were decorated for the holiday and on display.  The temple had numerous statues of different sizes out, festooned with flowers, garlands, lights and what appeared to be offering dishes.

One of the the temple leaders gave us an overview of the holiday and the legends behind it; unfortunately between his strong accent and the array of confusing place, person and divinity names I became completely confused.  So I sat back and enjoyed the music and the dancing.

After the presentation at the temple we were turned loose to check out the town.  We were having a group dinner of traditional Indian/Trini foods back at the temple but the serving area was too small for our group so we were going in shifts.  We connected with some of our boat friends and took a stroll.

The clay lights are the Diyas. You see a lot of those.

Almost every house and business had lights.  Two primary types of lighting were mostly in evidence – electric lights not unlike what we’d think of as “Christmas” lights except without limitation to Christmas colors.  And small clay lanterns called Diya (or “Deeya”…must be another Hindi word).  These little pots numbered in the thousands, with hundreds lit in some yards and thousands in rows upon rows lining streets and sidewalks.

Lighting more Diya

We were told all of the Diya are made in Trinidad, and they are mostly hand made.  Each one is filled with oil – usually coconut oil – and a wick and lit.  Keeping all of your Diya lit seems to be a large part of how some people spent their evening.  As evening wears on though the Diya and the energy to keep them lit starts to peter out so earlier in the evening is the best time for the lights.  There were also additional displays of

The main street lights behind Kathy

shrines with lights in many yards.

Each side street off the main road was also lit and the yards decorated often with more lights, enthusiasm, and pride than the main road.  Colorful patterns were painted on the road, and many people chose to walk around in cultural garb that was sometimes quite stunning.  I am still kicking myself for not stopping a few of the more stunning young women and asking for photos because my meager prose can not convey what they’d accomplished with silk, sequins, scarves and makeup.

A large part of Divali is also the food.  In the middle of walking around we stopped back by the temple for dinner.  Served in traditional Trini fashion on banana leaves instead of plates the various curry dishes offered us were delightful.  Surprisingly, or not so really given the prevalence of vegetarianism tied with Hinduism, the meal was meatless.  But if I could eat like that every night I might be persuaded to give up meat for quite a time.  On the other hand Divali is an alcohol free holiday – but it is good clean family fun without the stumbling drunks you see on some holidays.

A family in traditional dress on a brightly lit side street

The other aspect of the food is the street food.  As the peak night of Divali approaches many people who are planning light displays are also busy making up packages of foods.  Mixes of pieces of cakes and dessert treats with fruit and other delights are made up and handed out to passing strangers.  Our dinner at the temple included no dessert, and we quickly figured out why.  The women and children seemed to fare the best in terms of being stopped and given treats but fortunately they were willing to share and we men were not neglected.

Another side street.

It was a lovely night, and very interesting to be welcomed at the participation of a holiday that was heretofore completely unknown to me.  But next year, if I am near some place with a Divali celebration I think we’re going to go and see the lights again.

Street designs painted for Divali, I believe called a Rangoli

Details from a Rangoli, they can be done in sand designs.
Posted in Divali, Trinidad | 1 Comment

The Caroni Swamp or Dancing with Ibises

On Nov 14th, 2013 Published By B.J.

The National Bird of Trinidad is the Scarlet Ibis.  Picking a national bird for Trinidad seems a challenge, since apparently they have around twenty different species of Hummingbirds alone.  But the Scarlet Ibis does stand out since it is bright red enough to make the College of Cardinals feel a bit envious.  The island of Tobago has it’s own National Bird as well even though it is the same country as Trinidad, however they have a lot of birds here so I can get my head around that.

Much like how the Flamingo gets its pink coloration from a diet of shrimp, the Scarlet Ibis lives on a diet of primarily swamp crabs.  From this comes it’s stunning color.  When they are born they are a somewhat drab greyish/black color, and it is only as they mature and eat a lot of crabs that the red plumage fills in.

I have no idea what bird this is but it’s a cool picture.

The Caroni Swamp is one of the roosting and nesting areas of the Scarlet Ibis.  It is also home to many other sorts of birds, caimans, snakes, fish, anteaters and other wildlife.  While the Swamp Tours focus on the Scarlet Ibis you get a good look at a lot of other wildlife that the swamp teems with.  The tours are conducted from a boat, leaving an hour or more before sunset to view the swamp.

Several sorts of snakes, including some species of Boa Constrictor, like to rest in the trees over the swamp where they presumably are positioned to drop onto unsuspecting prey or particularly irritating tourists in boats.  We had no snakes drop into our boat, much to the relief of some of our

Tree snake!!

party.

The swamp is a quiet place, though some parts are close enough to civilization to hear traffic noise.  Some attempts have clearly been made to control the waters a bit with the ruins of some dams and flood control hardware in evidence.  But mostly it is whisper quiet with the sounds of birds being most of what you hear when the boat’s engine is off.

Lots of channels like this in the swamp with trees over head and lots of growth and vegetation.

For the first hour in the swamp we ghosted among the channels as our guide pointed out creatures we likely would have missed.  A pair of owls sleeping the day away in a tree, the tiny crabs that give the Scarlet Ibis its spectacular plumage, hawks, snakes, red headed cardinals, herons and later bats darting through the darkening foliage in search of insect prey.  Sadly we did not see any Caiman, the the small anteaters that live in swamp are particularly elusive and hard to see.

A pair of owls resting in a tree.
An exclusive diet of these crabs may turn you scarlet.
A juvenile Black Hawk, according to the birders on our boat.

Trinidad swamp version of the Cardinal.

But the highlight of the our was of course the roosting of the Scarlet Ibis. 

Flocks of Scarlet Ibis returning to the roost

Throughout the day the Ibises fan out across the swamp to forage and feed singly or in small groups.  But in the evening they start to return to their roosts.  The Scarlet Ibis roosts in large, close communities.  They pick an island and all of them come there to sleep for the night.  There may be another island a few hundred yards away, it doesn’t matter – you won’t see a speck of scarlet on it anywhere if it’s not THE island.

Singly or in increasingly larger flocks as dusk approaches so do the Ibises.  They come high over the trees or skimming over the water.  As they start to gather on their island the place gets more and more raucous with bird calls and shrieks.  There are a few non-Ibis visitors there, though why they’d put up with the racket is beyond me.  And other birds – young Ibis that have not yet gotten their full color so they don’t quite match.


The overall effect as thousands of these brightly colored birds gather in the sunset is breathtaking.  In the gloaming the trees gradually gain more and more color and motion as the flock gathers to roost for the night.

At some point one can assume all the birds quiet down and get some sleep.  But maybe not; we had to head back out of the swamp before it became too dark to navigate safely and left them to their refuge.

Posted in Trinidad, wildlife | 1 Comment

Pleasant Surprise in Trinidad

On Nov 14th, 2013 Published By B.J.
IMG_0550
Approaching Trinidad through the rain.

So we lingered in Grenada a long time.  Perhaps a little too long as it turned out.  Why?  Several reasons, friends and other kids being at the top of the list.  The other reasons had more to do with what we’d heard about Trinidad.  They main cruising harbor wasn’t so great…there is crime…you have to report your boat movements every time to customs…customs & immigration are officious and difficult.  And so on.

In hindsight, a mistake.  We absolutely loved Trinidad and wish we’d come earlier.

True, Chaguaramas harbor has a lot to be desired as a harbor.   The anchorage is deep, with a a lot of junk on the bottom to foul your anchor.  The currents are strong and weird, it is not uncommon for boats to be pointing every which way but into the wind (pointing into the wind is normal…) which make for a few eyebrow and hair raising incidents in the anchorage.  The water…it isn’t filthy so much as murky; there are a lot of outflows into it and that also means a lot of stuff floating in the water, some natural, some human garbage like plastic bottles and the like.  Much of the water color though is from the surrounding geography, with rivers and the current flows up from South America – there actually is a lot of life in the water.

But the harbor aside, the rest of the island is fantastic.  Chaguaramas has just about everything the cruising sailor could ever need, from chandleries and supplies to sail makers and technical specialists all of whom seem to be a lot more reasonable on labor costs than much of the Caribbean.  If it’s not imported you can usually get a good price on it.  Gas and diesel are cheap.  There is easy access to public buses and “Maxi Taxis” which are like the Van-Bus systems you see on other islands.  For $5 TT (about $.90 USD) you can hop on a Maxi which can take you to large grocery stores, warehouse shopping, movie theaters, and the city of Port of Spain.

Trinidad is considerably more culturally diverse that we thought, much more so than many of the other Caribbean islands.  While there was slavery in Trinidad just like the rest of the Caribbean the economic impact of it was far less than on other islands where hundreds of thousands of slaves made up the backbone of the island economy.  Trinidad the slaver numbers were fewer, and when slavery was made illegal many immigrants can from India (called “East India” here in the West Indies) came as indentured servants and many stayed.  the closeness to mainland South America and the survival of some of the Amerindian population also combines to the mix.  What you end up with is a mélange of cultures that manifests itself in a multitude of colorful holidays that every seems to share a little and a lot of really good spicy food.

Given it’s proximity to South America the flora and fauna on island are more diverse with larger mammals such as howler monkeys and capuchins haunting the forest, flocks of Scarlet Ibis – the national bird – in the swamps with snakes and caimans, dozens of other species of bird in all habitats, and even Manatees on the Narivi swamp.

Hindsight is of course 20/20, and we wished we’d come to Trinidad earlier.  Not to knock Grenada – it is lovely in its own right, but Trinidad has a lot more to offer than we’d realized.  We were very sad to leave after only five weeks.

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