2010-07-11 Caribbean time

Disalagraptus lied quietly in the dock, and we were good to go. Anders arrived, our ambition to be ready fullfilled, so we sent out Gregory and Rebecca to shop for two weeks, and fixed the last things on the boat.

The starter motor was very corroded on one terminal, so we changed that and cured the periodic cutouts. Anders has a wonderful attitude to the boats problems, and I enjoy getting that vibration with me. There's no more mystery about it. He has been repairing on the boat since he bought it with his three friends in Australia more that ten years ago, and especially electricity is a field he is expert in, which i something I could need.

Impatiently, I regretted that departure was stretched like a rubberband, and the move out of the harbour consumed 3 days. Still, in those days, I was left by Anders to maneuver under his supervision, and did everything to his satisfaction. I put the boat at a mooring in the outer harbour, and

was satisfied that everybody, including my friend Alan who arrived from Denmark, was at ease with leaving dryland, and seemed ready for the sea.

The rubberband streched us to Scotland bay, where Port of Spain'ers come to picnic. We enjoyed along with them and swung ouselfes into the seawater from the halyards. Uwe, a german solo on his 11th year, was anchored next to us and we invited him for dinner, so he could tell us all about how he managed his beautiful Esmeralda alone. "That is a 30 hours a week job, and she's only 28 feet," he said.

Finally after 2 days of waiting (for me - the others were having a good time) we left for a test sail with all canvas out in the Caribbean Ocean. My first concern was Gregory, Alan and especially Rebecca, but they all cheered at the experience of high swells and heeling. Rebecca was given the wheel to make sure she didn't fall victim to fear or seasickness, and I put on a makeshift preventer to make sure she didn't get in boom trouble.

The fresh wind and the trimmings got us up on eight and a half knot sailing straight north on a half wind from the west. 'You'll never see this again on Disalagraptus' Anders said. I found that very hard to believe, but thought that maybe i'd have to live with that. Not my idea of a superb sailboat though.

We were all encouraged, and turned with a controlled gybe to go further up the north coast of Trinidad. I had wanted to go to La Vache Bay for days now, and finally I could sell the idea to my supervisor. I started to plan the anchoring and checked position on gps and chart. Winds are normally from the East, but around a corner like the one we'd just left at Dragons Strait, the air can turn. Leaving the corner, the wind turned gradually back towards the east, but we didn't need the motor until abeam La Vache.

I took her into the bay with Gregory steering us past the bearing line inside the two little islands, and the beauty of a truly onspoiled tropical cove unveiled. Caves and cliffs, a small beach and a trickeling waterfall that dropped into the sea. Two circles left of the beach and we had spotted a tree to tie the stern to. I dropped the anchor once, reversed the engine to test holding, and had to do it again a little further out. But then we were perfectly parked between the tree and our hook, a nice distance from the cliffs and barely enough to dinghy the line off

the stern spool, so i used the dinghy line for Gregory to tie us around the tree.

As soon as we pulled us along our line back to the boat, we set the outboard and dinghied around the bay. No snorkelling in these orinoco-green waters, but the bat-filled caves were great with a passage through to the jungle above. The lonely beach was full of firewood and old slippers. We erected a bonfire and fetched the others and food and drink. That night we had a magic stage for a fireshow, and two in the audience, Alan and Anders. Gregory was mostly focused on the pictures so they didnt get to see him in his full virtuosity, but the pics were great.

Everybody seemed ready to go the next morning, and we agreed to go as soon as we checked the steering, that had started feeling heavy. That was another day gone. The steering turned out to be fine, but the breaking mechanism was screwed, and we had used a whole day on checking before we got to the break. Well that's just good to know that all wires and chains, the rudder quadrant and rudder stem; even the emergency tiller is in order, and the wheel turns fine now that the break is dismounted.

That day 'wasted' made me settle for a very early departure. Next mornig at 4 i woke up Gregory and took him back to the tree ashore to reverse the process of mooring. We got the outboard back on deck and steered out at a quarter to 5. This fitted with the literature, that told that you can sometimes get good or at

least less adverse air, going eastwards at night.

This brought us to Grande Riviere with one cuttersail and engine support, and the wind turning more and more East. Off the bay of the blue turtles we decided to go directly for Tobago. It took much calculating and reckoning, but turned out to be fine. Winds picked up with the showers standing in line to hit us. We had zigzagged them up the coast, but holding the line across the passage ment that they'd hit us with all their rough air.

10 knots and more with 40 degrees of bank was the result. Anders had to eat his discouraging words from the first day at sea, and the three other crew howled with rollercoaster thrill at the forces that threw us around. This was my greatest pleasure - that no one got sick or anxious, but all were on their posts more than ready to go.

Now i saw that the Grap' is truly a great boat. Such joy and safety at the same time, thanks to her strong heavy rugged design. The canvas was full which we wouldn't have had, had we known the powers that would hit us, but luckily everything stayed just calm enough for us to keep the reefs off, and just fall a bit off the wind and slack out when it gusted too much. The famous current of the passage seemed only a third of its strength, and we easily held our bearing.

Tobago was risen out of the clouds more than of the horizon; rose again a few times, but stayed a misty rim of blue on the grey showery day. Only 5 miles out, it was time to motor, and after 5 minutes Alan remarked that the sound was funny. I jumped down into a cloud and opened the engine room with breath held, to find the coolant sp

raying out from a broken hosetightener. I cut the engine at the fuel line and breathed the vapours. Anders came down through the fog and we replaced the tightener; started again while we checked that sea water would run through with the exhaust. But it didn't. Also real smoke was coming out in the engine room, and I found a thumbsize hole in the waterlock. Oh my God! Well that was patched with pieces of old diving suits and luggage straps. Meanwhile Alan and Anders dismanteled the seawater pump to find the rubber impeller broken in pieces. Ok, that was replaced with a new one. Started again; still no water. Started again and ran engine for two minutes, but no water came out.

That was it. Our drift while operating and leaving Gregory and Rebecca in the cockpit with sails down had taken us northwest for a couple of hours. It took us one minute to settle for Chaguaramas, our departure port in Trinidad. Winds are known to get you there from our cross on the chart, Northwest of Tobago, so no worries.

Worry came back with the night and the death of the winds. The current had decided to pick up just as they waned off, and the bearing said Venezuela instead of Trinidad. Especially Anders was pretty anxious about it all. Having no engine we were now at the mercy of the current that seemed so harmless the afternoon before. I had used the

last of my energy on the repairs, and took a cockpit nap while Anders bit his lips through the windless night at the wheel. We both cheered at every shower or thunderstorm brushing us, though they didnt help much.

Relief didnt come until early morning, after Gregory had been the wheel protagonist of both dead calms and rough showers. Just as Alan relieved him, our wind came and we held a bearing that was more than enough to take us down the dragons throat. We still had the entering of the Boca and the harbour to face, and tried again and again to call 'all ships' on the VHF, to find someone who would tug us in.

I was the lucky one, with the T&T fast ferry responding my direct adress as they passed us at a distance. Relaying to the North Post radio station, and them linking us with Coast Guard, we were thus monitored all the morning as winds stayed on our side, and took us back to La Vache.

Coast Guard came up and interviewed us from alongside. 600 hp was 'not' enough to haul us in, they maintained, so we had to wait for Lolita and her single 150 hp outboard. Lolita's two men demanded 4000 TTD; we haggled it down to 3500, and thus we came back in total disgrace, but with a big smile on our faces.

Now the Grap is back at pier 1 in the marina we started out from. Nombuso woke me up the next morning with a big hug even before i awoke. They had spend a week couchsurfing, and i w

as extremely happy both to see her again, and that she had gotten out of dreadful Chaguaramas. We hung out like before, together with Jessica. Couchsurfing took us by Sita from Port of Spain, and she took us up to Michael's place, where the Girls had found a true safe haven the week i was sailing.

We came back to the boat and met with the new crew. And they met with their destiny: An engine in bad need of repair. What saved it was Alans laziness when the thrashed impeller was changed, and the pieces weren't retrieved. That operation took the mechanic 5 minutes, and a test run with water pumping through the exhaust, showed something much worse, but something we would have ignored, had Alan found the culprit pieces and enabled the waterflow.

Now our engine top is in specialist care, and the intake valve that we would have bent if we had motored further, is being renovated together with the other five, and all six fuel nozzles are getting replaced. The valve had set in a open position, and would have continued opening until hit by the piston. A real awful strike.

So Christian and the new crew had their cruise cut, but the engine was saved. Everybody is ok and we get time to explore Trinidad, which it deserves. I am now at Michaels place up in the

hills. I just filled sugar water on the hummingbird feeder, and they seem to be able to empty it before same time tomorrow. We'll plant another hundred seedlings on his hillside and go meet his friends that also do permaculture and environmental work here in Trinidad.

Nombuso and Jessica really deserve a tale of their own, but in short, their limitless faith in providence led them a little astray from conventions. It had them on the verge of being involuntarily deported to the US, but in the last minute God and Immigration allowed them a single trip on a ferry to Venezuela. Something that moves me, but i guess i'll hear from them soon.

My flight is in 6 days, but in two months i'll be back here, getting on with another 3 months of Trini adventures.

Love mik