Archiv
CW 14 2002
31.03.2002 - 06.04.2002
Before anything new can be reported, a mistake needs to be corrected:
After changing to daylight saving time we can now be reached between 16.00
and 17.00 hours, via telephone or fax.
Today is Easter Sunday, march 31, and slowly but surely it's about time we
went sailing again, so we're going on a small tour. We invited someone to
come along, Yannik and his girlfriend Hazel who live here on Trinidad. Those
two arrive at 9.30am and we're ready to go. It's Hazels first time on a sailing
boat so we don't go to far, only a few miles, to Chacachacare.
So at 10.00am the lines are disconnected and we're on our way. As soon as
we're out of Chaguaramas Bay we set sail. It's only 10 miles. We cruise a
little and after 1.5 hours we're already at our destination and drop anchor
in Sanders Bay.
30 years ago Chacachacare used to be a leprosy colony but today it's the locals
favourite place for day-tours. They're all here, with their motorboats and
fishing boats.
Surely there're a lot of sailors here as well, people on day-trips, like we
are today. It's lunchtime and Yannik and Hazel were kind enough to bring lunch
for all of us.
So Hazel and I make sure we get food on the table and the men hop into the
water. Then we eat comfortably. Even though exploring the island is really
worth wile, we stay aboard today and chat and enjoy a great afternoon.
Which means, that we'll definitely have to come back here some time. After
all there are interesting, even mythical things to see here, but more about
those when we visit Chacachacare again. At 3.30pm we break camp and make our
way back. Again, we can sail nicely. The wind is turning all the time though,
but that doesn't really matter, we're not in a hurry, so we turn. While sailing
we notice, that, unfortunately, something's still not right with the mast
since there's too much movement in it. So we have to go to the rigger again.
At 5.30 we're alongside the Crews Inn again, having a last drink together.
Yannik and Hazel say good-bye and we explore the "economic life"
here.
Easter Monday is a holiday here as well. In other words, we won't get any
work done today, so we'll go on a little trip, on land. We want to take a
look at Marval Valley and check out the golf course there. It's actually worth
it, not heading towards Port of Spain, because everything looks a lot different
here: more quiet, cosier and even cleaner. There's a lot of traffic though,
since everybody is out and about.
Speaking about being out and about: the Horn 2000 has been on an around the
world tour for 2 years. Horn 2000 is the name of a Slovenian sailing boat
that arrived in Chaguraramas, Trinidad, yesterday. That's where we're also
returning to slowly, and we're really glad we're not going the opposite direction
since there's a seemingly endless traffic jam. Everyone who had been on a
picnic on the road or at the side of the road is on his way back home. They
don't call it a picnic here though, no, it's called liming. To lime means
that one takes ones car somewhere, parks it at the side of the road or on
the beach, bringing half of the entire household with, so to say everything
one might need when spending a day, and sometimes a night as well, out of
house. Sadly these crowds leave a lot behind, namely huge amounts of rubbish!
Apparently the people here have no relation to that topic and don't see it
as a problem. That's why they throw everything away, totally unconcerned.
To lime also means to buy oneself a beer or whatever and simply go out onto
the street. This is what many parts of the city look like in the evening:
standing on the street, having a drink and listening to loud music.
We're going to lime differently today though, aboard, making ourselves a home
movies. A bowl of popcorn and a video and our plans for the evening are set.
Tuesday and the holidays are (thankfully) over and hopefully our work will
progress; after all, we don't want to stay in the harbour forever.
Unfortunately time has a different pace here and it can easily happen that
one has to wait a whole day for someone who said he'd come in the morning.
Well, that can't be helped; we'll have to live with it, accept it, wait, and
find some work to do while waiting. After all, there's plenty to do.
Amongst other things we need to go to the immigration office since our visa
will expire soon. But having it extended isn't that easy. We get an appointment
until which they'll check up on us to see if we've been good and then we both
have to appear. Ok then!
We spent Tuesday and Wednesday working and waiting and waiting and working.
Thursday, and at 8am we're both in the immigration office. We fill out all
the forms nicely, get our passports checked and stamped, pay and with a visa
extension in our pocket we're allowed to leave.
Back aboard we continue our work on the freezer and then I take off to Port
of Spain to run a few errands.
Back aboard I'm told that the freezer needs to be turned off. Good joke! How
convenient that I bought tons of meat and vegetables on the weekend and the
freezer is pretty full.
Fortunately we can store our stuff at someone else's place temporarily and
keep it frozen.
So we pack everything into cooler-boxes and -bags, carry them over and unpack
everything again.
The temperature here always stays between 35°C and 38°C and even the
smallest movement gets you drenched in sweat. That makes activities of this
kind extremely enjoyable.
Today, Friday, working on the rig should finally come to an end. We've got
to wait again today, and the gentlemen only show up in the afternoon. The
important thing is, that they do appear and can do a thing or two, giving
us hope that we're getting a step closer to solving our problem.
And now we need a solution; creating shade is the problem.
Now only the bimeni gives us a little shade and that isn't enough by far.
In order to give us protection from the burning sun in future someone's coming
round today to take a few measurements and make an appropriate awning, which
isn't easy for catamarans since their so broad. But they're professionals
and definitely come up with something.
By the time they all left again it's after 6pm already and high time for us
to get ready since there's a BBQ at the Tropical Marine tonight.
We're a little later after all, but there's still food and at the table of
our mooring neighbours we find a place to sit and that's all we need.
Saturday, April 6: and Saturday is market day so we need to get up early.
At 20 to 7am I'm picking Ute and her daughter Julia up. Candia is also joining
us. Candia comes from the S.Y. Moonshadow and has been travelling on that
ship with her husband David and her children Justin and Lana for 15 years
now. Amazing!
We drive to Port of Spain to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and meat at the market.
But first we have to find a parking place, apparently not an easy task today
and even a policeman makes us move on. Hm!
Two minutes later that same policeman signals us to drive into a fenced in
parking lot. We're surprised, but gladly accept the offer. While leaving the
parking lot the policeman tells us, that he'll be off duty by the time we
get back and that he'll inform his colleague and ask him to make sure that
the four of us return unharmed. Now isn't that nice?!
Having done most of our shopping the butcher is the last stop, and that's
where it happened: another customer accidentally takes my meat and walks away
with it. As we notice, the butcher and I are equally distraught. Me because
it was such a good peace of meat, which really annoyed me, and the butcher
because it was a real loss for him since the other customer only paid for
2 cutlets but took 2kg beef.
I take off to find that man which seems hopeless with so many people around.
But, I did find him. The man was pretty surprised and immediately came back
to the butcher with me.
It's worth taking a close look at the people next to you!
Having sorted out this misunderstanding we walk back to our car.
Only as a police patrol car full of police officers comes towards us with
the policemen honking their horn and waving their hands at us, do we realize
where we are: we're on the parking lot of the Port of Spain police station,
under best protection. On out way back we quickly stop at a supermarket and
then we get back aboard. Once again it's preparing for and putting away the
shopping. After all, this is the second time this week that we've prepared
for leaving and then, unfortunately, couldn't go. Hopefully we'll make it
this time!
| The good thing about our delay is that now we can go
to a great event tonight: Pan of the 21 Century; a competition between
13 steel bands. Actually this event was supposed to take place one week after carnival, but apparently there were some problems and therefore it's only taking place today. Good for us. Once again Jesse James is driving us. He picks us up at a quarter to 6 in the evening and takes us to Port of Spain, Queens Park Savannah, where the competition starts at 7pm. Steel pans are simply called pans here and actually they're nothing but the bottom of an oil barrel. This is what these instruments are made from. |
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Supposedly the origin of these instruments lies in an
old, dent biscuit box on which someone is said to have drummed during
a party in the thirties. Today this instrument really has tradition here and the people tuning them, pan tuners, are highly respected in Tobago and Trinidad. With a hammer, good hearing and great sensitivity the bottom of the barrel is worked until 32 different tones can be heard. The pitch depends on the size of the barrel, that is, from its length. The short ones produce high tones, the long ones deep tones. A lot of tuners were definitely needed to tune the instruments for tonight's performance. |
The first band plays "Phantom of the Opera", then "I just called to say I love you" by Stevie Wonder, or, "Angel", by Shaggy. Well-known titles, sounding so different, yet so good. Bands containing 30-40 people enter the stage, bringing their pans with them. The pans stand there, or rather hang there, supported by constructions or on wagons. One band had 12 drums on one wagon, and just one person playing all of them. Partly the musician really get going and some young men even play their pans over their heads. What a trick! They all came up with something special, putting in a lot of effort, but there'll only be one fist price, and a good one: the winner gets 50,000 $TT, approx. 10,000 €. Not bad! |
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We see and listen to all 13 bands, but the presentation of the winner, that we only hear on the radio, because at shortly after midnight we're already on our way back to Chaguaramas and that'll be it for today and this week. If we leave tomorrow and …
… what the next week brought us
… here, in one week:
same time, same place!
so long
Diana + Thomas
From the culinary side we're having something quick and sweet:
Cherry-Gratin with yoghurt dressing.
(Ingredients as per person)
Put 250g cherries (without the pips) into a broad baking dish. Mix 1 egg
yolk with 1 tablespoonful sugar (5g) until bubbly. Add 30g yoghurt. Pour dressing
over the cherries.
Bake gratin in preheated oven (220°C) for 10 minutes.
Beat egg white with 1 tablespoonful sugar and distribute evenly over gratin
and bake for another 5 minutes.
Enjoy!
And a little announcement: From May 1 onwards, for 2 months, you can only contact us via our "old" email-address Katsilverblue@aol.com
