Getting the boat ready after Hurricaine Season in Trinidad

Sea Cycle Log #12

September to November 2007 10.41-61.40 to 10.40-61.54


There’s an old adage that the cruising life is basically fixing your boat in exotic ports. Whoever thought this one up must have dreamt it up in Trinidad during hurricane season. Having spent our first hurricane season in the water in Trinidad this season we decided to haul out and head back to Toronto for 11 weeks. Coming back to Trinidad we spent three weeks on the hard and one month at the dock doing projects, ranging from hull strengthening to new boom gallows and adding a whisker pole with a mast storage track. We could have kept going but would have gone bankrupt in the process. So the decision was made to get the season underway. In the mean time we did manage to get a few more trips in around Trinidad. I managed to go on a gorge trip where we climbed to a high spot up the river and then floated
down through the gorge and rainforest. We also managed to visit the Asa Wright bird sanctuary up in the northern range up in the rainforest looking out over a valley
and into the waters of the Gulf of Paria. The sanctuary was a donation to the nation by a Scandinavian family and has guest rooms and a lovely dining room. We also managed a trip up the Caroni Swamp in a flat bottom boat checking out the flora and fauna. Last season we missed going up the Orinoco River Delta in Venezuela because we couldn’t get the boat ready. We were determined to try this year and when fellow cruising vessel Audrey Paige expressed a desire the plans were firmed up. The Orinoco is one of the largest Deltas in the world. We were going to do the Manamo River branch a sparsely populated area with Wareo Indians. We would cross the Gulf
of Paria from Chagauramas Trinidad and enter the river at the town of Perdenales. The branch is navigable up to the main river but power lines rumoured at the 60 mile mark prevent sailboats from going any higher on this branch. We layed in supplies including mosquito nets, trading goods and bug spray and moved out from Chaguaramas to Scotland Bay to finish staging for the trip. Scotland Bay is the western most bay on the island, very lush with steep cliffs, no roads and well protected laying on the first Boca sheltered by the Mono’s Island. Old masonry ruins from WWII of
the American Officer recreational quarters line the shore with strange like lion roars providing a soundtrack. The lion roars are Howler monkeys which you would never associate with their body size. You can only imagine what the first explorers must have imagined when listening. No wonder old charts are maked “There Be Dragons”.

Well as usual a problem arose a few days before with Trinidad customs officers clamping down on departures and kicking boats out of Trinidad that had already checked out. Normally you have 24 hours to leave but a number of boats had been flaunting the law and hanging around for days. In the end on the Friday night before our departure several boats got the boot from Scotland Bay. They were given one hour to leave and did leaving a wake of radio comments about never coming back with their dollars and a lot of how this was aimed at Americans only. Unfortunate, but I doubt the Trini’s cared. The simple skinny was that it was American boats breaking the rules and expecting special treatment. Basically a few boats ruined it for everyone else since the rule was now that you had to leave one hour after Customs check out. This made it very difficult for late night or early departures. Our problem was a 48 mile journey south across the Gulf of Paria with variable currents from the Delta’s watershed and a tide entering both from the Caribbean through the Bocas on the north along with a different one from the south Atlantic entering the Serpents Mouth at the southern tip. Entry into the river is at Perdenales through a turning channel sided by shoals all in muddy water not something you want to do in the dark. We were also told to ignore all buoyage as it marked shoal edges and didn’t sign the normal channel route. We were using waypoints from our fellow Canadian cruisers Watermark’s trip the year before. We also figured even with an early morning departure we would be coming in late afternoon with the usual piping afternoon shore breeze. Normally we would have checked out in the late afternoon, staged at Scotland or Chacachacare Island and left at first light. We didn’t want to risk having the Custom cutter visiting at dusk and giving us the boot or worse, so we had to come up with a plan B.

If you look at the charts you will see Venezuela is only 7 miles from the west tip of Chacachacare Island the former leper colony. This stretch is known as the Paria Peninsula. The Boca channels were a strategic waypoint during WWII, in fact so much allied shipping was sunk by Nazi U boats here that the Yanks finally drew a sub net across attempting to stop the carnage. Local folklore has a story here how some German submariners wrote a letter to the local Trinidad paper during the war bragging about which movies they enjoyed while visiting Port of Spain under the allied noses. We considered the pros and cons of crossing to Paria Peninsula. The pros were a more direct crossing cutting the trip to 37 miles and some big beautiful empty bays unpopulated by other yachts. The cons, well, this Peninsula is the most pirated coast in south America, indeed maybe the entire western hemisphere. Mostly boardings by armed fishing pirogues and the usual rumour that the coast guard were just as bad with night boardings and demands for cash payments. We know of one Canadian shot in the throat here several years back but along the north shore not the Gulf side. Some boats heading for Los Testigos the intermediate stop on the way to Venezuela will actually make it look like they are heading for Grenada till well off and then switch course. This is one of the things about cruising; you just don’t know what to believe. Most information comes filtered or magnified third or fourth hand with the slightest problems turning into a nautical version of an urban myth. If we listened to everything we heard I doubt we would have cast off from Toronto. Researching recent reports on the Caribbean Safety Net page we couldn’t find any reports on the southern Paria Gulf side. Also according to Doyle’s guide he claimed the south side was good to the Port of Guiria an oil rig town. Also recent articles in Compass newspaper highlighted a boats recent safe voyage along this shore. This and the fact that we haven’t heard any first hand reports from any of the cruisers we know kind of made us want to have a look. We talked it over with our buddy boat
Audrey Paige and decided to risk it with a late morning checkout and an afternoon run to Ensenada Carriaquita. Where hopefully nobody would notice us slip into the bay which was supposedly deserted except for two weekend fishing camps. This is the first big deep open bay offering protection from the easterly swells. We hoped to arrive late afternoon with a first light departure. Should be safe, right?
Well the day before was the usual hurry up and wait. Buy, store, check, buy more, re store, check again over and over. Finally a quick dip and rinse off. We usually raise our dinghy at night with the main halyard and then the mizzen halyard to take up some of the weight of the dinghy motor. Cruisers motto, lock it or lose it. Doesn’t happen too often but I got lazy that night and did not use the mizzen halyard allowing the motor shaft to drag in the water. Oh yeah, also forgot to lift the swim ladder. Sun went down; howlers stopped, watched a DVD and read ourselves to sleep all by the late hour for us of 9pm. Woke up in the morning took the weather at 6:30 on the little Grundig SSB in the cockpit while having breakfast. Nothing unusual spent two hours on this while sitting on one of our big cushion chairs which lean up against the cabin one of each side of the companionway. Dropped the dinghy, went to port. Checked out, telling the Custom officer when questioned I was lifting the hook and departing within the hour after a quick top off at the duty free. This and a last minute grocery run back to the boat load the goods and prepare to sail. Now Deb as is her habit after packing the last of the groceries reached out and dragged the two folding cushion chairs in to store while sailing. She then reached out and put a spray can of BOT (industrial grade insect killer) where the port side cushion sits for me to store. I was loading the stern lazerattes, turned around facing forward, saw the BOT to put away and said to Deb “Where did you get the plastic snake?” thinking it was something she had bought. Of course the reply was “What plastic snake?” then very emphatically “I didn’t buy any plastic snake.” Well it was very shiny and all coiled up in a very snake like coil. Still in my usual state of denial I pondered now how I had disturbed some Trini’s karma and this was a joke but deep down I just knew this mother was the real McCoy and a little too big and of unknown species to be picked up like a common garter snake. De
b not daring to stick her head out the companion way and not having a mechanics extendable mirror to safely observe from a distance was going from the my oh my stage on hearing my brief description and when finally venturing a peek warp speeded to the “Oh my god” stage. Realizing as Captain that I had to maintain a measure of calm on board amongst the crew I issued an order to block the companionway with the biggest cushion available in case our stowaway decided to head into the boat and down to the bilges. With all the noise of the call to arms Kaa (newly named snake) had not shown the slightest movement or interest. Not knowing what kind of snake Kaa was I had Deb call over to Audrey Paige to confer with Dennis who on top of formerly being one of Detroit’s finest was also bent to the outdoorsman type a little more than myself. Also I knew he had done two gorge trips and had exhibited
an interest in these things, so the call was placed to see if he could identify Kaa as viper or constrictor. At this point I am arming myself for buddies eviction but am also in touch with my inner cowardly side like in it may be a Viper and capable of springing twenty feet on a beam reach jaws open on a nano seconds notice. Dennis tells us to see if 1) it has a diamond shape head 2) are its nostrils on top of its snout. All this was great except Kaa had not decided to show his face let alone his head which were buried inside his coil. Deciding to put an end to the drama I puffed up my chest before my knees totally gave way, and armed myself with boat hook in one hand and beach towel in the other and approached the beast like a net and trident gladiator. I gave it a slight prod with the boat hook which started the slinky coil movement and the opening of the reptile’s eye looking at me with disgust for disturbing his sleep. At this point I am thinking well definitely triangle but whats the definition of diamond and for head nostrils on top, I can’t tell, but I don’t hear any rattle and he looks slower than a shift worker on a Sunday night, so in I go supported by Deb’s Greek chorus in the back ground. Well contrary to public myth snakes don’t naturally wrap themselves around sticks. Several deft twists of the wrist like wrapping spaghetti on a fork and Kaa was on the hook but then didn’t want to let go till getting several good shakes. I might add this was one time having a yawl with all the extra rigging was not a benefit not allowing a good shovel like heave. At this point Deb came running up to see the snake in the water. As quick as she came up she went right back down because Kaa was trying to get back on board. We have low free board and I swear without any turbaned piper he was three quarters of the way back up with no grab. It took three or four attempts with me flinging him away before he or she decided enough and slithered off to shore. In the end we were not sure how he got on board. Could have been the dinghy motor which was hanging into the water, the swim ladder which was left down or even the anchor rode, who knows. Same with when he got on. Could have been while we were checking out but more likely was during the night which meant while I was eating cheerio’s he was comfortably coiled next to me under the back of the chair. If you zoom the picture in you will see a definite lump in its length against the hull so I figure he was well fed and probably sleeping it off when we discovered him.


Running on adrenaline now we hoisted the hook and started the run to Ensenada Carriaquita. Our hopes of an unnoticed arrival were dashed as soon as we entered the bay with several fishing pirogues entering the supposedly empty fishing camp on the western side. Audrey Paige having arrived first anchored well in tucked up off the fishing camp on the eastern shore to avoid any swell. We tucked up in between Audrey Paige and shore still running high on the day’s earlier adventure and looking forward to dinner, books and a quiet evening. On shore things looked good as I could see the camp was in fact not empty but seemed to have a family of father, mother, daughter and son. This was augmented by a pig and goats, quite pastoral and positively a South American gothic. Around dusk the tranquility was broken with the arrival of two fishing pirogues, one with four and one with two men who motored up to the fishing camp on our side. Beyond being aware of our surroundings I didn’t give it much thought as I was busy with the boat. As with most local conversations this one was loud and I did notice the fisherman did not leave their boats. I figured it was a negotiation but since my small understanding of Spanish had been inactive the last year having slid from Spanish for Dummies to Spanish for Idiots I could not form the basic understanding of what they were negotiating. One thing for certain though that universal one word that forms noun, adjective, verb and adverb was being interjected with alarming frequency and volume and being picked up by my ever extending antenna. All of a sudden the Doyle guide’s description of the bay feeling like “Heart of Darkness” was getting a little two vivid. Things came to a head with three gunshots in the sequence of what was that, was that a shot, one boat taking off, then the other boat taking off and finally god dam it’s a boat chase shoot-out. Well what’s a law abiding citizen who usually gets his gun battles at a safe distance on the screen suppose to do. I immediately told Deb to go below and assumed my best defensive position of garden gnome in the cockpit thinking I should have bagged the damn snake, for a surprise weapon. Well the two boats disappeared around the eastern point and the darkness filled in. Audrey Paige called over and said “Welcome to New Years Eve in Detroit” and Dennis said he wasn’t sure what they were shooting with because he didn’t see any muzzle fire. By now somebody on shore was searching the water’s edge with a flashlight. Supper was quick, and then I decided to get out the flare gun with a pack of cartridges and actually looked at how it works for the first time in years and being the closest thing to a weapon besides my slingshot and rusty bolt collection that we carry on board. Meanwhile Deb dug out her mace that I had bought in St. Marten two years earlier (where I narrowly avoided arrest by the local gendarme for asking for directions to the local gun shop) not being sure if it was still good or going to go impotent when needed.
Just when everything looked like it had settled one of the boats came back with one person who slowly motored up to the shore. Next thing they start arguing again and then boom, boom two more shots. This time the boat roars out but in turning comes straight for us turning within a few boat lengths rocking Seacycle with its wake. Off again he goes around the eastern point. In the end that turned out to be his exit for the night. I have to add at no time were we personally threatened or even gestured at. I debated about sleeping in the cockpit that night but the Doyle’s guide warned of bat bites with the nasties performing incisions between your toes, and to put up netting as a safety precaution. Our netting will only cover our dodger s
o rather than risk it I went below locking us in for the night. I found out the next day that Dennis had slept in his cockpit, so I kept one eye cocked on him for the next few days making sure he didn’t turn into a B movie Bella Lugosi. Up at the crack of dawn we headed out pretty well due south for Perdnales and the entrance to the Manamo River home of the Wareo Indians.
To be continued