Haul Out Preparation Continues

Monday, June 27, 2011

We are having another drizzly day. the weather was supposed to be very hot and the marina docks were going to be making repairs to the electrical power. We did not have power most of the day.

We visited Power Boats boatyard to give them our boat papers and customs check in document. We located where the apartments are and checked out their small grocery. It is not a great one but has essentials. They also have a restaurant called "Sails" which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. We also went to Peake's boatyard to visit "Just Imagine" , now on the hard; but they were not on their boat. We looked at Peake's restaurant called Zanzibar. It had a great menu and Charlie was hungry for lunch so we ate there.

.

We made it back to our boat before deluge of rain. I also visited Customs and Immigration to see if we could check out on Friday instead of Saturday. They said we could. This will allow us to check out in regular hours not overtime hours and we will be less rushed on Saturday when we will leave to go to the Holiday Inn near the airport. I also asked exactly what documents we would have

to have to try to speed up the process.

Charlie helped the French captain on a catamaran docked next to us set up his wifi. They asked us over for a drink. They are Lilly and Franciose (sp) and now live on their boat. We also visited with another newly arrived boat docked on the other side of us. It had been so hot that they had already added a portable AC to the boat using the bow hatch. I think they are from the Chesapeake. We ate on the boat trying to deplete our food stores.

I started packing the purple duffle bag we already had on the boat to try to see how big our second bag needs to be. The colder weather clothing we needed in February almost filled the entire bag. Though we will leave most of our clothing on the boat, we will need to bring some of it home.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The sailmaker was supposed to pick up the sails to check them for repairs and give us an estimate. We waited all morning and they did not show up. Since our cell phones don't work

here it is difficult to contact people. We were also waiting for another business to pick up our salon cushions to steam clean. I did finally use the phone in the hotel lobby to call them. They showed up at 1p.m. to pick them up. We asked the boat next to us to let the sails people pick up our sails if they showed up. As we were leaving to go to the mall, Cheryl from "just Imagine" arrived to borrow our computer to get their flight information for checking out of Immigration. I volunteered to print it out, but she not necessary.

We needed to go to the shopping mall to buy another bag for items we wanted to take back to the states. We walked out to the main road where we could catch a bus. A gypsy taxi stopped and

asked where we needed to go. He told us it

would cost 5 TT (less than $1 US) so hopped in. He picked up another young lady along the way. Then he picked up a rather large older man further along. The man got in back with us, making it a tight squeeze. It was quite a long trip and I was be

ginning to worry, but he let us out across the street from the mall and we climbed up to use the walkway over the highway. We were on the outskirts of Port of Spain one of the major cities. It was a very modern and beautiful mall. It could have been in any US city. We quickly found a store where we could buy luggage. We set aside a bag and went browsing throughout the mall. It had a large food court and many really nice shops for clothing, shoes, jewelry, hallmark, etc. We found a nice bookstore where we bought 3 paperback

books for the trip home. We also browsed in a Crafts store which had art and crafts by local artisans. After picking up our luggage, we exited the mall back to the highway where we caught a "bus" back to the Marina. This "bus" was a yellow and white van. It was almost totally full. It had the prices listed on the window. It was 5TT

unless we wanted it to take us all the way into the Marina for another couple of TT. I felt we were almost like native Trinidad/Tobagans. The US cities should use this system instead of the big smelly inefficient busses. These busses travel back and forth but I don't thinkthey have a set schedule. You go to a bus stop and just wave the bus down.

Back to the boat, I began to pack more items in the new bag.

We took the dinghy to Peake's Boatyard where we had drinks on "Just Imagine" . It took them 2 1/2 hours to check out because Immigration wanted a copy of their itinerary. Cheryl should have let me print a copy as they ended going back and forth across the harbor to get it done. Another couple from "Alberta Crewed" also joined us. We proceeded to Zanzibar where we had a delicious dinner together. "Just Imagine" leave for the States early Wednesday.

Wednesday, June 28, 2011

The metal fabricator came by in the morning and discussed a motor davit for the outboard engine. We were to meet him at his shop at 1:30 to view one he had in the shop. We ate our last lunch on the boat using up some more food. We visited the metal fabricator's shop via dinghy. Charlie was impressed with his workmanship. While there we tried to find the dinghy craftsman in the same yard, but we missed him. We went back to Power Boats to give them some more documents. The rain came often during the day. We had hoped to deflate the dinghy and fold it up, but now we are waiting for the dinghy guy to see it before deflating it. We ate left overs from Zanzibar on the boat for dinner. Tomorrow we haul out.