Around The World On Hokule'a

Trinidad

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 – Chaguaramas, Trinidad

After nearly 5 months of being on the hard  Hokule’a is finally back in the water and looking the best that she ever has (at least since we have owned her). Needless to say we have worked our butts off, but it has been worth it. I won’t even try to tell you everything that we have done, but here are a couple of the big items.

The Bottom. We had 30 + years of old bottom paint ground off of the hull as well as removing the old gelcoat. This left us with a bare fiberglass bottom on to which Jackie and I applied 6 full coats of West System Epoxy, 2 full coats of Pettit Epoxy Barrier Coat, and 2 full coats of Trinidad Antifouling Paint with an additional coat on the waterline and leading edges.

The Mystery Leak. Over the past 2 years, we started getting this annoying little drop of brownish colored fluid that would randomly appear on our white engine pan liners. The fluid didn’t look or smell like either oil or transmission fluid so we dubbed it the mystery leak. Finally traced it to an empty bolt hole on the side of the flywheel housing, which meant that it had to be either oil from the rear main seal or transmission fluid from the front seal on the transmission. Both of which are a royal pain to change out so I ignored it as long as I could. Finally decided to address it while we had the boat on the hard since I needed the boat on a stable surface while I lifted and supported the engine. (We won’t even talk about the earthquake that we had while we were on the hard…who knew that Trinidad has earthquakes.) So I rigged up some supports, lifted the engine, removed the transmission, pulled the starter, the oil cooler, the flywheel housing and the flywheel in order to change out the rear main seal. While the transmission was in the main saloon I changed out the front seal on it. Then the fun began of reinstalling everything.

Indian Ocean damage. We had a few things get damaged back in the Indian Ocean that we had postponed repairing until we got to Trinidad. We replaced a broken deck prism, had a welder straighten and weld additional supports onto the bracket that supports our hydraulic steering pump, and we had to replace a failed bearing in our roller furler unit.

Maintenance. Besides the normal maintenance of cleaning and varnishing,  we needed to have our life raft serviced and the battery in our EPIRB replaced. Fortunately Trinidad is a good place to get these done.

Again these are just a few of the items that have consumed our time in Trinidad. Sorry for the extremely photo heavy entry, but I figured the pictures could tell the story better than I could.  Can’t tell you how happy we are to be back in the water and we are really looking forward to heading north to Grenada in a week or so…..

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Thursday, August 27, 2015 – Chaguaramas, Trinidad

We’re back. Our flight landed at Piarco International Airport here in Trinidad around 10 pm and we finally made it back to Peakes Boat Yard around 2 am. Not the most efficient airport in terms of processing inbound international passengers, especially for yachties like us where we each had 2 carry-on bags and 2 checked bags, all of which were stuffed to capacity with boat parts.

We had a wonderful time on our visit back to the States. When we were planning the trip we thought that 2 months might be a little too long for a visit, but as usual the time flew by and we still didn’t get to see half of the people that we wanted to see. One of the main reasons for the timing of our visit was to celebrate my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary.  We had a fabulous party for them at the Tides Inn in Urbana, Virginia with about 40 close friends and relatives. It was kinda like a family reunion and I got to see people that I had not seen in a very, very long time.

We got to spend a lot of time with Jackie’s mom in her beautiful home and she took us to a few places in Richmond that we had never been to such as its amazing botanical gardens. I got to spend a lot time with my niece and nephew which is always a lot of fun and we also spent quite a bit of time at my parents place on the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake is where I first got salt water in my veins and it will always be a very special place to me. Just can’t get enough of messing around with boats, swimming, fishing, catching crabs, and more importantly eating crabs.

We had short visit to California where we got to see a few friends and spend some time with my Aunt and Uncle. We did manage to invite ourselves on a trip to the Island with our good friends Dana and Peggy. We had a blast and even after all of the islands we have visited over the past few years, we still refer to Catalina as “the Island”. One of our last nights in California we went to small concert on the cliffs in Palos Verdes where our friend Maroon was celebrating his birthday. What a great way to close out our California trip with good friends, watching the sunset over the Pacific, and listening to reggae.

And just like that we are back in Trinidad and it feels like the past 2 months went by in the blink of an eye. We now have about 2 months to do an unfathomable amount of work on Hokule’a before we can set sail from Trinidad. Something tells me that the next 2 months won’t go by as quickly as they did on our trip home…

 

Monday, June 22, 2015 – Chaguaramas, Trinidad

In between all of our boat work we have taken a little bit of time off to see and experience some of Trinidad. There is this great guy here named Jesse James who is a local Trinny who has been helping out cruisers in Trinidad for years. He provides transportation to anywhere you need to go, conducts a number of different tours and is a wealth of information about anything and everything in Trinidad.  We recently went with him on his “Taste of Trinny” tour where he drives you around the island and you get to sample all types of local foods. During the 10 hour trip we sampled just over 80 different food items. The strangest thing I tried is called Cow Heel Soup, which as you can probably guess is made from cow heels. It was actually pretty good but the heel itself was a little chewy. In addition to all the yummy food, it was also a great way to see Trinidad. Unfortunately all of the beautiful beaches along the north and west shores of the island were covered with tons of Sargasso seaweed that has washed ashore.

Trinidad is apparently where steel drum (also called steel pan) music originated. So Jesse arranged for us to go to a pan lime (a lime is basically a party) one night where we got to watch dozens of steel pan bands practicing for Carnival. Trinidadians love to party and one of the more popular venues for partying originates right next to where Hokule’a is hauled out. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of people would pack themselves onto large powerboats for a 3 to 4 hour cruise around the Port of Chaguaramas. The boats were literally standing room only and they would play incredibly loud music.  From Hokule’a’s cockpit Jackie and I could watch everyone coming and going from the party boats and it was fascinating people watching. Especially when it came to what the ladies were wearing.

Tomorrow we fly back to the States for a visit and to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We will be gone for just over 2 months which is the longest time that we have ever been away from Hokule’a. So we have her all prepared for long term storage and she will be moved to the high security area here at Peakes. Unfortunately Trinidad has had a bit of a crime problem in the past, so it is recommended to put your boat in the high security area if you are going to be away for a long period of time. The selling points for the high security area as told to us by Peakes were that the boat would be in a well-lit, fenced, locked, and patrolled area. In addition, guard dogs were placed in the high security area at night. Well last night as we were walking home from dinner, I was nearly licked to death by the vicious guard dogs in the high security area. Oh well, I am sure that Hokule’a will be just fine….  

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Monday, June 1, 2015 – Chaguaramas, Trinidad

We made it to Trinidad! 3,313 nautical miles in 21 days and 3 hours. It’s our longest and one of our nicest passages ever. Our unconventional route worked out really well with only minor squall activity and about 40 hours of motoring to get through the doldrums. The rest of the trip was really nice sailing in winds anywhere from 8-25 knots with sunny days and moon lit nights. The variable winds required us to make lots of sail changes but it kept us busy and gave us a little bit of exercise. We had a really nice equator party and celebrated our 4th equator crossing since leaving California. The only minor challenge we faced was dealing with the tremendous amount of Sargasso seaweed that we encountered starting just north of the equator and lasting all the way to Trinidad. Sargasso seaweed or sargassum is a free floating seaweed (technically a brown algae) that grows in the middle of the Atlantic. Unlike most seaweed it never attaches itself to the bottom of the sea.

We encountered patches of it from the size of a dinner plate to the size of a football field. Regardless ofhow big the patch was, some of it would get attached to our propeller forming an afro-like ball that would slow Hokule’a’s speed down by almost a knot. Occasionally, we would start the engine for a moment to clear it off of the propeller, but an hour later another clump would start collecting again.Finally we gave up and just accepted our slower speed.

We arrived in Trinidad at the Port of Chaguaramas on May 7th and spent a few weeks getting the boat ready to be hauled out. Every single line, sail and piece of canvas had to be washed, dried, and stowed down below. It was a lot of hard work in this heat and humidity, but today we got hauled out at the Peakes boat yard and we have a beautiful spot that overlooks the harbor. We also have a few large and beautiful iguanas living next to us. We are going to rest up for a few days and then we get back to work. There even more to do now that we are out of the water. Who said this cruising life was easy…..

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