11 August 1995 Hog Island to Chaguaramas, Trinidad (Day 1)
We had to roll away the genoa at midnight because we were going too fast. We arrived at the Boca Del Dragon at seven o’clock in the morning and into the anchorage at Chagaramus at eight o’clock. It took us 4 attempts to anchor because the anchorage is very crowded.
I ran around clearing in, getting mail and arranging for Craig to go to the dentist. We had lunch with Ann and John from “Sandpiper”. “Drot”, “Moby Dick” and “Night Music” are here. Glenys took the boys to the toy shop in the afternoon while I looked through the mail and wandered aimlessly about. We went to the “Lifeline” bar for happy hour – they’re still serving greasy chips, burgers, chicken and fish.
We met Coby from “Cecelia” (Aus) who we met in St Lucia just before Christmas. He was telling us about being bitten by a vampire bat while he was in a boat yard near Cumana in Venezuela. He didn’t feel anything but woke up with his arm covered in blood. He went to the doctor who confirmed a vampire bat bite (2 small grooves) and prescribed a course of 5 anti rabies injections. He said it was one-a-day in the stomach and “made his toes curl”. We will have to be careful. We were joined by “Rose of Wight” and “Colleen” who didn’t seem particularly keen to see us – we don’t know what we’ve done!
12 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
School work in the morning. We’ve only got 10 lessons left for this year, so I’m starting to do 1½ lessons per day to get it over with – it’s hard on Craig but I’m sick of this Grade 1 now! Glenys tried to do some washing, but Power Boats didn’t have any water! I ran the engine which started to overheat – I didn’t have time to check it out, but I suspect that we’ve sucked up one of the cannonball jelly fishes which proliferate here. I went to a Mood Indigo Jazz night with Joe from “Night Music” which was good fun – I’m starting to think that I’ll have to play next Saturday.
13 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
I found out that our fresh water pump is leaking and removed it from the engine. There’s nothing that I can do until tomorrow, so we’re restricting electricity – no fridge and minimal lights. Glenys did school work and then took the boys to a children’s play day event at Peakes. I spent the afternoon sorting out our tax affairs. We went to Lifeline bar for dinner.
14 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Glenys did school work in the morning, while I ran around arranging for a company to pick up our water pump. I borrowed an outboard off “Night Music” and put ours in for a check up, since it seems to have lost power over the last month. I met Stewart and Wendy on “Jane Anne”, an Oyster 435 that was for sale next to “Glencora” in Fox’s Boat Yard three years ago. Glenys tried to go to the shops but the road was blocked by a landslide. We had a beer or two in the Lifeline bar and back to hurricane lamp lighting on “Glencora”.
15 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
I took our life raft into Power Boats and it was picked up by Marine Consultants. The water pump wasn’t picked up yesterday because of the landslide, so in a mad impetuous moment I hired a car for $30US to drive down to San Fernando, which is 30 miles away. It threw it down and we had a miserable 2 hour trip down. We got to Burmac Ltd who told us within 5 minutes that they didn’t carry the model of pump. Great! They pointed us down the road to another place where we could get a pump repair kit. We drove down and bought a Vauxhall kit for our Ford pump.
On the way back to Burmac, we found out that we had a puncture! I drove to Burmac on the flat and gave the pump and repair kit to Burmac’s engineering shop. Fortunately, Burmac also had a tyre repair shop and repaired the puncture for me. The engineering shop put the pump together but it still leaked. They said that the seal was different so at my suggestion they took it to bits and reassembled it with the old seal. They assured me that it was OK. I was amazed that they didn’t charge me anything for the puncture repair or the pump repair! We had a pleasant drive back, did some shopping and went to Pizza Boy for dinner.
16 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Glenys did school work while I refitted the water pump. It leaked! I went back to Power Boats with the leaking pump and saw one of the owners, Fran. He took the pump and said that he would try to get a new one for me. I went back to the boat, had lunch and then went to Port of Spain to a Mood Indigo rehearsal. Glenys and the boys spent the afternoon at the movies.
I’ve been talked into playing “East of the Sun” and “Stranger on the Shore” in the bar in three days time. Don’t Panic ! I got back to Power Boats and saw Frank who had a new water pump for me - I took it back to the boat and tried to fit it, but no joy because the hose outlet is in a different angle and interferes with the fan belt – back to square one! I gave the new pump back to Frank and he said he would try to get another. I turned to drink.
17 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
I took the water pump to an engineering shed in Power Boats who said they could repair it. I went back to the boat and found out that one of the 4 batteries that I bought in St Martin in March had failed. It was dragging the other 3 down. I went out and spent £100 on a new one.
Glenys took the boys to see Linda, Steve and Dale (8) from “Maccabee” who we saw a year ago in Tobago. The pump was ready at four o’clock, I took it back to Glencora and fitted it. No leaks. I ran the engine – no leaks. I was euphoric. I went up to check the engine gauges – oh my god, the alternator isn’t charging. Life is a bitch sometimes! I went and got drunk.
18 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Richard from “Kaelia”, who runs Dockyard Electrics in Antigua, came over and checked my alternator. He eventually determined that it was the Adverc regulator at fault. Yesterday, I had forgotten to switch off the wind generator when I disconnected the batteries to fit the new one. With no load, the voltage output from the wind generator went up to about 70 volts and killed the regulator.
Once we found out that it was just the regulator, we went into town to watch the life raft being inflated prior to having a service. The life raft is in good condition and I persuaded him to put the old flares back in, which expire Dec ’95. That saved us a lot of money. We then walked up to the dentist where Craig had two fillings and his front tooth extracted. His mouth was badly swollen but we walked to the zoo. It threw it down, but we all had a pleasant time (apart from Craig whose mouth hurt!)
19 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Craig’s mouth was still swollen, so Glenys took him back to the dentist, who said that Craig had been chewing the inside and corner of his mouth while it was numb from the injection. The dentist gave Craig a course of antibiotics to help reduce the swelling.
Today is the Mood Indigo Concert, so I spent the day practising my tunes in between running about. I ran the engine and bypassed the regulator to put some charge into the batteries. I did this by connecting the field terminal on the alternator to ground – this causes the alternator to run at full output which is only 25 amps. I must get a 75 amp alternator.
Brett has been asking us to buy him a bike for the last 3 days because all his friends ashore have bikes. I managed to borrow one from “Night Music” – Brett was so excited! Brett’s personality is changing – he’s acquired my teasing sense of humour – “Oh look, Dad, the propeller’s fallen off the outboard”. It’s a bit wearing. He’s also getting a lot more stubborn and doesn’t listen when we tell him off. I suppose we’ll all have to adjust.
I became more and more nervous as the evening approached, and my practising became worse so at three o’clock I gave up. The jazz session started at five o’clock and I didn’t play until about half past six – I wasn’t very communicative before I played. I wasn’t very good. I squeaked a bit and missed a few notes, but worst of all I couldn’t get a consistent sound from the microphone. The sound from a clarinet apparently doesn’t come out of the bell but comes out of the highest hole! The music stand was in a very awkward place to my left so I was forced to strain to look out of the corner of my eyes. I wasn’t very comfortable and combined with my terror caused me to play worse than I should have. I’ve decided that I’m not good enough yet for public performance!
There’s a 17 year old Trinidadian called Alwyn who plays the clarinet – he’s brilliant. I’m going to try to get a lesson with him as soon as I can.
20 August 1995 Chaguaramas, Trinidad
Couldn’t bring ourselves to do school work. I took Brett and Craig ashore, and then went to see Al and Joy on “Nightingale”. Al is a music teacher (retired) who plays a mean cornet, and also plays flute, sax and clarinet. We chatted for an hour then after lunch I took my clarinet back to him with a list of a hundred questions. I spent another couple of hours with him; he gave me a lot of pointers on playing the clarinet but said I was doing OK and had good tone, which pleased me. We chatted for a while about playing jazz, which he has played for 50 years! It was so rolly at lunchtime that we went and sat under the trees at Peake’s and had a picnic!