When we returned after the weekend, we were told that large waves had built in the bay and that the only boat on our dock at the time was instructed to leave because it was getting too dangerous to be tided up along side of it. Unfortunately for them, it was 11:30 at night when all this happened. Bummer.
It can get rough even on a clear day.
We enjoyed our weekend away from the dock and spent it relaxing, hiking and watching the kids play.
When we returned back to the dock on Monday, it was back to finishing up the last few boat projects before we leave for Venezuela and our Orinoco river trip.
After the weekend, Phillip built a transom for his dinghy and took the maiden voyage.
All was going smoothly until the engine died. Looks like the Captain has a new item to add to the project list!
The projects were coming along just fine, when mid-week the fuel crisis began. The Trinidadians, in their infinite wisdom, have decided not to sell fuel to foreign flagged vessels, neither diesel nor gas. As you can imagine, people here are in a total uproar because they do not have fuel for there dinghies or for running there generators. The reason the Trinis quit selling fuel, is that it is subsidized by the government, hence the $1 per gallon fuel price. When foreign vessels fuel up, the Trini government is paying the cost.
There is a law in place that prevents the sale of subsidized fuel to foreigners, but it has been ignored for the past 17 years. But in the last couple of weeks, a few super yachts came in and purchased 40,000 gallons of fuel, then left the country. So now the Trinis are clamping down.
The problem is, no one has figured out a way to sell fuel to the yachties at non-subsidized prices. Everyone is fuming and wondering how the 3000 boats on the hard are going to get out of here.
Well, I’m not one to be held against my will, so we managed to purchase fuel using a rental car and jerry cans. We are topped off and ready to go. While we had the rental car we also topped off the freezer with meat from the weekly farmers market. The market opens early before it gets to hot out. Susan was a little perturbed that we had to leave the boat at 6:00am mumbling: “dammed farmers” as she swigged down a diet coke to get her motor running.
The market was quite large with hundreds of vendors selling meat, fish, live chickens and ducks, live land crabs, fruits, veggies, clothes, cd’s and spices.
There was a bustle in the air as people shuffled up and down the aisles picking and choosing from the huge selection.
What we really liked about the market was finding food we have never seen before, asking the vendors for cooking instructions and then trying it out back on the Adamo. We fixed a callaloo, a local specialty of spicy mixed vegetables, a leafy aquatic plant and salted pig tails.
