Trinidad

Once again we are back in Trini Land! Only two members are on board - my father and myself (Jessica) - to get Jangles seaworthy once again! Quite a bit of work to do. . .as much as you can expect when you leave a boat sitting on the hard for 18 months . . . but hopefully we will splash soon!

View from our hotel

We happened to arrive in Trinidad on a Friday. . . which means no one will work until Monday of course! Not to mention carnival was in a weeks time which means Trinidad shuts down for a week and nobody comes to work! Our first stop from the airport was to the doubles stand. . . we love doubles! Doubles is a local Trini dish (commonly had for breakfast) consisting of flat fried bread filled with curried chickpeas. . . super delicious. We arrived at the little Peakes Boat Yard hotel and proceeded to spend the weekend scrubbing the decks and turning Jangles from brown back to her normal self once again.

Enjoying a nice cold beer

We started checking things to see what worked and what didn’t. . . boaters know there is something that always won’t work! We tested out the starboard engine which ran beautifully but when we tried to start the port engine. . . uh-oh . . . white smoke was coming out of the intake! Needless to say, after taking the entire thing apart, we found the problem! Carbon and a stuck valve! We have our spare parts coming in and should hopefully have the engine back together and running in a week.

Next issue we found (the list goes on I tell ya) was a small water leak into the engine bay, naturally we thought it was coming from one of the water pipe valves put upon further inspection we found the source to be the hotwater geyser! After completely taking the geyser apart we eventually found the source of the leak which was fixed easily with a little welding.

Geyser being taken apart

Inside the engine bay

Covers being cleaned, generator poles being replaced, deck work to be done, polishing, viking 8 man life raft being rectified, fire bottles being inspected and electronics being tested, thru hull fittings, seacocks, engine services etc, along with the multitude of tick boxes to be ticked.  Once all these bits and bobs are completed we can hopefully splash with no more issues and start our cruising season up the islands.

Being from South Africa of course, where our exchange rate has recently crashed, everything in Trinidad has become a lot more expensive. Not to mention, just as we arrived here they began a compulsory 12.5% VAT on all work and products sold in the marine industry. . . Cha Ching! We have found, this time especially, that one of our major expenses is food. . . the cost of food is outrageous, especially at restaurants. So we got the gas working swiftly on the boat and did a bit of provisioning and needless to say as my mother is not here, I have now become chief chef, laundromat and bottle scrubber. Food is still extremely expensive to buy, but it’s a bit of a relief to eating in restaurants all the time. I mean for example the average price of dinner at a restaurant is between 80 - 200 TT, which in Rands would be between R190 - 490 for one restaurant meal!. 

We moved out of the hotel and onto the boat once I had 2 cabins cleaned thoroughly, what a job that was! It took me an entire day to unpack my suitcases, trying to find places to put everything! Needless to say. . . which is usually the case . . . I brought way more stuff than I will ever need! Anyway, we are finally unpacked and settled in nicely aboard Jangles. . . although I am sure we will sleep far better when we are floating. 

Luggage to be packed away

We haven’t been all work and no play, we’ve had a little fun in the evenings with our Canadian friends Krista and Bill from Secoudon! They were already on the water by the time we had arrived so I got a little break from being a chef every second or third night as we would have dinner on their boat. Dinner, however, would also be accompanied by copious amounts of fantastic caribbean rum! We had great fun with Secoudon who left Trinidad yesterday. . . so sad. . . but we are hoping to catch up to them up island when we finally get Jangles in the water. . . fingers crossed it will be soon! Thats all for now, it’s time for dinner duty, testing out the grill for the first time with some delicious hamburgers!

My dad and Bill

Krista and me

Mrs Captains Post: Jangles and Secoudon

 Hello everyone it is my turn to take a hand in writing the blog at the insistence of chief crew no 1 Jess.  So this is chief cook and bottle washer commonly called mom checking in.

We said a very sad goodbye to Travis in St Lucia. His company and energy and most importantly his sailing skills on the boat are missed. 

After consulting the weather the Captain decided that due to consideration for  his two crew member’s we would spend a few more days in St Lucia as the sailing conditions were not great. This enabled us to catch up with a lovely lady called Fiona who we met the last time in St Lucia her presence at Rodney Bay Marina was sorely missed. We did manage to get noodles for supper at Starfish restaurant as promised for Rebecca (her staple diet in St Lucia during our last visit).

Jess with the kite

We were introduced to Beth a kite boarding instructor by a wonderful couple on the boat called Pocohantas who convinced us that if they could learn and master this at nearly sixty years of age there was hope for us. We spent three fun filled and scary afternoons at Cas en Bas beach/bay being taught the fundamental kite flying and dragging in the water. It is with great pride that I can announce that between the three of us we managed to avoid killing any of the locals that were on the beach with diving and crashing kites controlled with little or no skill.

Me with the kite

Dad up on the kite

Ian managed amidst roars of encouragement from the cheerleading team to get up on the board for a brief few seconds before a spectacular submarine entrance back into the water.  Jess and I were very excited on the morning of day four as this was the day that two blondes were going to attempt to put kite skills and board skills together unfortunately for us the weather wasn’t playing along and the beach was full of locals enjoying the Easter holidays so it was a not advisable for us to attempt controlling kite and board. This will be something that we will continue with, as it was great fun. It is definitely not as easy as it looks. We bumped into our “neighbour” David while having lesson’s, whose parents were anchored next to us in the bay. They were from Zimbabwe and we were invited aboard for drinks and snacks on the lovely boat Ngoma which means “the beat of the big drum.”

Ngoma

We lifted the anchor and set sail for St Lucia with a planned sleep over stop in Dominica. I can report that with two rusty crew member’s and winds that refused to play along the mantra that we had learnt from the lovely Zimbabwean couple came in hand to avert a mutiny or some forced plank walking “ what happens on deck stays on deck”

We were once again blessed with sightings of turtles, dophins swimming alongside our boat and humpback whales.

It was the end of classic race week in Antigua when we arrived late on the Wednesday evening, fortunately with barely enough light to avoid all the boats anchored off Pigeon Beach in Falmouth Harbour.

Thursday was time to check in at customs and once all done we headed off to Hamiltons restaurant for Jess favourite house salad for lunch. We managed to catch up with Lauren Everett a wonderful young lady who we knew back in South Africa and whose family were close friends of ours. Lauren has been working on super yachts as a chef for quiet a few years but we have always managed to miss her by a few days. We were given a tour of “Athos” the boat she is currently working on. “Spectacular” is all I can say.

Friday was the famous “red hat” rum party; which heralded the start of race week.  Our friends on s/v Secoudon, Bill and Krista, arrived in Falmouth from Barbuda with friends of theirs from back home Grant and Bev. We had managed to scrounge entry tickets for the party (without having to drink copious amounts of rum), which allowed us each a red hat. So armed with our tickets off we went.

A great time was had by all and we managed to collect 9 red champagne glasses 5 for Jangles as we don’t have any on board and 4 for Secoundon. Unfortunately I was not able to get an even 6 as the lady serving the champagne would only serve us the champagne in plastic cups after a while. Thank you friends for helping in adding to my glasses collection for Jangles.  After some dancing and a few rum punches we headed off to dinner where Lauren joined us as well.  It was decided after dinner that we needed to pay a visit to the yellow hat party in English harbour to see whether we could procure ourselves a yellow hat. I can report that this goal was achieved without the required rum drinking.

Champagne glasses 

Saturday saw Bev and Grant depart for home. Saturday was a quiet day with some time relaxing on the beach and dinner of fresh Wahoo on Jangles compliments of Lauren. Sunday was a truly awesome day with fabulous snorkeling, hiring of paddle-boards, lunch at Katherines restaurant chilling on the beach some more with Bill, Krista and Lauren. Loads of fun was had by all especially with attempting yoga classes on a paddle -board after an expresso martini or two. 

Lauren doing a back bend

Jess doing downward facing dog

Monday we hired a van and we were off to our favourite place in Antigua C C wine bar. Cutie made us so welcome as always as we introduced our Canadian friends to some yummy food and good South African wines. In the evening we got to hear and see Lauren sing and play the ukulele at the little Lime bar, so truly talented. The local reggae band that followed was also excellent. We said a very sad goodbye to Lauren who’s boat was leaving for a charter. She is a very precious young lady and we hope to catch up again sometime soon.

Lauren singing at the Lime

At CC wine bar with Cutie

Congrats to Josh and Rebs on great reports for Uni and school. We are so proud of you but wish you were here.

We were heading out on Tuesday with s/v Secoudon who were told that their new hob that was ordered in January was finally arriving in Antigua later on in the week so we went off to Hermitage bay for a few days. Not bad sailing with photo opportunities of each other boats.  Jangles looked fantastic with her Spinnaker flying.

Krista introduced us to noodling at sea, water aerobics so lessons were held behind our boat.

Noodling

We motored around to Jolly harbour and hired a car to drive back to Falmouth to collect the infamous hob (replaced three times) the package was collected all safe and in one piece.

remora

Off to Barbuda with some reasonable sailing. We had some more turtles and dolphins on our trip This is truly an incredible and beautiful un-spoilt little island with miles and miles of white sandy beaches.

More noodling lessons, snorkeling, walk  and sundowners on the beach.  Truly a chilled few days. Jess was laughing at us oldies with our version of YMCA

Secoudon & Jangles

YMCA

As the two boats were having such fun together we decided to head off to Montserrat for a few days. Jess took some great photos of Secoudon in full sail with Captain Bill doing his famous pose…..

Captain pose

Secoudon

Jangles with the screecher up

Jess has done a video of our tour of Monseratt. We ended off a wonderful week of sailing  with Bill and Krista by having a delicious Bobotie  dinner with good South African wine on their boat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSRNpT-AJJM

We had a very interesting experience later on in the evening. A high level low pressure system moved in with some extremely rough and rolly seas. We were up from midnight till just before six. We had to close our emergency hatches to prevent waves from coming into the boat.  All the people on the boats around us were up and keeping an eye on each others boats. The one mono hull in front of us was eventually only 10 meteres away from Jangles. We experience the worst sailing conditions to date and we were under anchor.

An early departure was made and we headed off back to Antigua. Jangles ever fluid decision making process. Good sailing friends of ours Robert and Jodie were in Antigua for the evening so it was back to Antigua for dinner with them before they flew back to Canada. We got to cuddle the new addition to their family baby Genoa  It has been a wonderful few weeks catching up with old friends and making new ones…

Robert, Jodie, Jarret and Genoa

As we had no internet for a few days we want to wish our beautiful niece Shannie a happy happy birthday for the 9^th of May. We hope you had a amazing holiday in Thailand.

To my mom who always reads our blog we wish you a wonderful and blessed mothers day. We love and miss you heaps…

To nana we also wish you a wonderful and blessed mothers day and a huge thank you for taking such wonderful care of Rebecca for us. We love and miss you too…

Tobago Cays - St. Lucia

Tobago Cays was spectacular as usual; even with a few more knots of wind than what we usually have experienced here. We spent two nights in Tobago Cays, which is never long enough, but we had a great time nonetheless. The morning we arrived, Travis and I put our snorkel gear on and didn’t return for two hours. We were swimming with turtles and looking at all the different and beautiful fish on the reef. Some of the turtles were friendly enough to let us touch them, that was a highlight for us, something special. The next morning Travis and I took my mom snorkeling with us and got a few pictures of her touching the turtles as well. Travis and I kayaked to the one of the few beach and walked the little island, seeing a few huge iguanas. The stingrays come out later in the afternoon so we took another snorkel out and saw a few Southern Stingrays’. We also saw a strange looking fish called a balloon fish. The next morning, we were set to leave but were determined to have one last snorkel, even though the wind had picked up even more. We took the dinghy out to the big reef and dropped the anchor. The current was too strong so we didn’t stay long. Travis and I swam back to the boat from the reef. On the way we saw a spotted moray eel and I found a pretty shell that looks like a butterfly. 

Travis touching a turtle

Mom touching a turtle

Balloonfish

butterfly shell

Basils beach bar

When we left Tobago Cays, we had a pretty rough sail to Mustique. A few of us were feeling a little queasy on board. We arrived in Mustique around 3pm and attached to a buoy. The master of buoys came to collect our fee and told us that the island was on lockdown. Mustique is a private island and is made famous due to the fact that a few celebrities /famous people have holiday houses on the island. The previous week, some yachties took pictures of a famous person when they were instructed not to, which put the island on lockdown. As a result of this we were only allowed on a small section of the island called the “ green zone”. We were told that at the time we were there, Bryan Adams and Mick Jagger were on the island. That evening we went to the famous Basils beach bar for their Wednesday night jump up. It is the place to be as the occasional celebrity makes an appearance on a Wednesday or Sunday evening. We, however, weren’t so lucky to see any celebrities. The next day we came to the island, did a bit of grocery shopping and walked around the few shops they had. That evening we were booked to go to the very exclusive Cotton House boutique hotel for dinner. We were fetched by a driver at 6:45pm and taken out of the green zone to the hotel. The hotel was spectacular! It was an old sugar mill that had been converted. We had the most delicious dinner, and I had without a doubt the best mojito I have ever had, a lemongrass mojito. After a superb evening, we all headed back to the boat to bed as we were set to sail early the next morning.

Ready to go to the Cotton house

Infront of the cotton house restaurant

Travis with his yellowfin tuna

Travis filleting his fish

The sail to St. Lucia I would hazard a guess to say was the roughest we have ever had. The wind ranged between 20-33 knots, the swell height 3-4 meters hitting our starboard bow. Our maximum speed reached was 11 knots! As we were approaching St. Lucia the sea died down a bit so we could put our rods out. Travis caught a decent size yellow-fin tuna, the second one we have ever caught. He was so excited, he even filleted his own fish. We were all looking forward to dinner. As we got closer to St. Lucia we saw this huge creature in the water, we thought it might have been a whale, but then this turtle popped its head out. It is the first leatherback turtle we have ever seen. Leatherback turtle fins can measure up to 2 meters in-length and can exceed the weight of 900 kilograms. They are the largest turtle and are endangered. As we reached St. Lucia and were sailing up the south of the island we were approached and stopped by the coastguard. They were all well armed and seemed very serious. They asked us what our last port of call was, where we were from and what was in the jerry cans we had on deck. After about five scary minutes they let us carry on. We sailed another hour and a half before attaching to a buoy in Marigot Bay. We were all so tired when we got to Marigot Bay but we had to go onshore to clear customs and immigration. After that it was so hot we all went to the Hurricane hotel. This is were we meet our dear friend Robert Hayhurst and celebrated Rebecca’s 16^th birthday in 2012.  We went to the swimming pool and had a drink at the pool bar while taking a nice cool dip. It was an early night for everyone to get some rest.

About the size of the leatherback turtle we saw

Travis and I had planned to do an island tour the next morning but there were no cars available for hire. So it was a relaxed day at Marigot Bay. We took the dinghy and went snorkeling, and finished the day at Doolittles, a restaurant that is in the area where the first Dr. Doolittle movie was filmed. 

Hanging out in the dinghy

Humpback whale

We did an early sail up to Rodney Bay the next day as Travis and I had hired a car. Once again mother- nature was kind to us and we got to see some humpback whales. We followed them for about an hour but had to cut our time with them short as we had to fetch our hire car. When we eventually got our little red car we set of for the famous volcanic Pitons. Mrs Navigator (me) definitely needs to go for lessons as we got lost and ended up on the wrong side of the island. Needless to say this added an hour and a half more to our trip. When we got to he Pitons it was already 12:30pm so we had lost a lot of time. Travis and I began to climb Gros Piton but I was going too slowly so I only made it half way and then walked down again. Travis basically ran the last half of the mountain. It was just after three when we left the Pitons and we decided to go for lunch. We drove to the Jalouise plantation and had a quick bite before heading to the Sulphur Springs. We only arrived there after five so we changed into our swimming costumes and got covered in mud. We dried and then rinsed off again in the warm sulphur spring. We left it a little late to drive back to Rodney Bay along all of St. Lucias windy roads, so we only made it back after 8pm.

Humpback whale

At the bottom of the piton

Travis at the top of the piton

Travis and me covered in mud at the sulphur springs

Tuesday was a very sad and tearful day as I had to say goodbye to Travis again. We drove him to the airport and said our farewells. I only hope to see him again, sooner than later.