Pretty Mas!

Farewell to Flekkefjord friends who have to leave in the middle of "Pretty Mas", the real carneval, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. We'll miss them!
Oernulf and I have tickets to the Queen's Park, Savannah Stadium today, too. Here the whole parade passes buy, from early morning, 8am, til 8pm at night: 12 hours of costume parade. Each "band", that is group of about 3-5000 members, has their own theme. A lot of classical themes march by: Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, and ,of course, Amer-indians, with a great deal of plumage. The guys are usually sporting battle-gear, breastplates and shields. The gals are dressed(?)in sequined, dingle-dangly bikinis. In front of the judges their marching becomes hip-gyrating dance, and bottoms and bellies are turned towards the eager long-lensed photographers. Of which I'm one.

We wander a bit in and out of the arena, trying out the street-view under the hot, hot sun, too. But the arena lures: Shark'n'bake (a sharkfish-in-a-bun) and an ice-cold carib, breezy seats in the shade. No complaints!
This is a huge national effort. And superior quality. From calypso, Pan bands and amazing creations of sculptural costumes. We're impressed!

While CNN, NBC, NBC are all focused exclusivly on the Mardi Gras of new hope in New Orleans, we witness this fabulous, living folk-festival carneval, here in Trinidad. What a priviledge to be invited along! Thank you, Trinidad!!

Mud and body-paint: J'ouvert!

We have a little over an hour to grab a wink and change before joining J'ouvert. An underworld, mad dance through the black night-time streets of Port-of-Spain. It's a topsy-turvy world where street urchins, school kids, mega-yacht sailors, and "Babette" with her new crew mingel in the body-paint and mud-splashed soca rythmns, greased with a can of Carib or a rum punch.
We must be mad! Are we really going through with this?

1am: We change into our, for the time being, white shorts and t-shirt sailor suit. With blue "Donald Duck" cap and sailor collar. Cute. Soon we're bus-loads of red, blue, yellow and black capped "sailors" at the Trevor Wallace Band headquarters.
3am: Breakfast is served. Body-paint, white, yellow, and red follows. We home-decorate each other. Soon no pristine white targets for mud are left! There is an enormous boom-blaster truck with bone-ratteling, eardrum-shattering soca songs repeated ad nauseum. There's a drinks truck, too. We are all equipped with "markers" to buy with, so no money about. Behind the drinks-truck is a special little trailer attached. With a huge oildrum full of muddy "porridge". When one man totally covers himself in mud we start wondering: a mud-hug? Do we really want to be exactly right here?
Any maxi-taxis to Chaguaramas around?!

Into the night off we dance. Soca-trucks booming, Drink-wagon, mud-trailer and a flock of dancing "Donald Ducks". (I'm starting to appreciate the dark.) Off into the black streets of St. James, and along Ariapita St., lined with chained and pad-locked restaurants and into Port-of-Spain. The city is alive! The streets are getting crowded. It's not the participants that are bombarded with mud, its the by-standers! As we meander down into town the sky grows light. The horison is now a black sillouhette against a lighter, greenish-yellow glow. Daybreak! This scary? Not a problem, mon. We dance on. Talking above the soca noise. A halfway break, just enough to stiffen up leg muscles, and then, all the way back to St. James. The bright morning light says: where are my sunglasses? And it grows hot, hotter in the sunshine.

Four hours of rythmic marching to soca! Back at Peake's we occupy a few showers for quite a bit, shedding layers of red, yellow and white body-paint, and lots of mud and road-dirt. A big breakfast at "Bight's" afterwards.
We all have a big day of carneval to digest! From the fabulous King's and Queen's costumes, sosial-commentary calypso, and our silly troupe of body-painted "Donald Duck" sailors!

And now a good day's sleep!

Kings and Queens!

With the marathon events ahead of us we should be resting. But there's never any lack of errands or fix-it projects on a boat. And we have six overnighters coming after the "Kings and Queens" finals downtown. There are bunks and midnight-snacks to fix!

The Jesse James Maxi-taxi arrives at 5:30pm and off we head for the Queen's Park, Savannah. We're supposed to meet up with the Flekkefjord crew at the entrance to the Grand Stand. Will we find them in the crowds?
Not a problem! There they are. We are all ushered in to "Box O, Special Reserved"! Cushioned seats. Looks promising, this is a six hour event.
Part 1 is a look at the winners of the Junior Queen and Junior King winners. Soca sounds blaring the "under16" winners come dancing onto the stage with their huge sculptural costumes in tow. And this is just a miniature of the seniors to come.
Part two is The Calypso Monarch Finals. There are 12 contestants with each his rather long-winded political/sosial message to a calypso beat. The audience is all ears, cheering for their favorites. This is popular political satire and serious sosial comment. For us, from abroad, there are very many verses, as a lot of the points pass us by.

Finally, the Queen's finals. Beautiful butterflies, suns, fairytale princesses and green woodland-fantasies pass before us. They are humongous, towed on wheeled platforms, a towering structure of silk, paper, plumage, colorful and sequined' They shoot long wings and tails and rays far overhead.
And a dimute bikini-lady prancing her way across the stage in and under it all.
And even Bigger: the Kings! And fiercer! Lightning bolts, rumbling bass-tones, drum rolls, towing wheeled carts of towering costume-sculpture. They strut across the long Grand-stand stage. The themes are power, war, death. Enormous skulls and skeletons,war-machines, towed by a tiny He-man with his pecs,six-pack, bi- and triceps painted on. Strobe-lights flash, fireworks accompanied by Space Odyssey music at high decibel levels and bone-shaking bouble bass follow the structures across the stage.
There's no way you could confuse a Queen with a King in this carneval(country!)

When the second round of Calypso Monarch finals start we leave. For a tiny bit of shut-eye before the underworld night-parade: J'ouvert!

From Sweet Lime to Green Dragonflies

We eat our way through Port-of-Spain. Yesterday we had a pit-stop at a local caf'e/bar that seemed far off the beaten tourist path. Except for us, in the traditional tourist garb, shorts and cameras. We got a typically Caribbean response:Friendly! "Watch your wallets! First time here? First carneval? How do you like it?" We do like it! Especially the friendly, caring strangers we meet, all the time.
Today The Children's Carneval snaked it's way slowly through town. Brightly costumed kiddies, competing with the tropical birds with their crayon-colored clothing, feathers and paint. Lots of mini indians, birds and animals. Their little queens and kings had a lot of costume to carry. And the smallest got carried themselves. Some were high above us on impossibly lonnnnng stilts.

After a morning in down-town we take a hike over to Ariapita, the restaurant street. A lot of places are closed during carneval. But "Sweet Lime" is open, though with a slightly reduced menu. The blaring radio has the same Soca songs we hear each ride into town in the white-and-yellow maxi-taxi. Chicken and chips and pilau give us energy to carry on.
And, later, the Crown's pool gives us a relaxing rest. The guys have a pow-wow mid-pool, the gals sun themselves under the now overcast skies. The pool's bar isn't open, but no worry. We've shopped at the ("Drink and Drive"?) gas station: rum!
After a rum punch we're off to "Battimamzelle. This "art nouveau' decorated restaurant is part of the Coblenz Inn, up past the big Queen's Park Savannah, in a nice residential area. That's not far from the big plantation owner houses, the "Magnificent Seven". "Battimamzelle" is the local name for the bright, irredescent dragonfly.

Bright birdies and blue Devils

At 8:30am we're bright(bleary?)-eyed and bushy-tailed, awaiting transport to Asa Wright Nature Center.
The front of the bus is the now six-crew "Babette", babbling away in Norwegian. The back is the Belgian "Stormy Monday" and friends saying about the same in French. We drive East and North, up into the rain forests, nestled under a white layer of clouds.
The road narrows. Steepens, gravely with the occational pothole. As we distract our new, partly nervous crew with interesting herbivourous rainforest facts. The Hindu prayer flags flying in the wind and the nets of Christophene vines all down the wide valley are a sight to see.
We all arrive without a scratch at the Asa Wright Nature Center in Arima Valley. A grand old home, from 1908, high-ceilinged rooms, large open verandas. And a view out to the rain forests and the feeding station where all the brightly-colored tropical birds whiz in and out. Honey creepers and tanagers the bananaquit, royal blue, turquise green, yellow and red. The hummingbirds all irredescent. Even more carneval-colored than in Tobago. And a tropic feast for "fresh" Norwegian eyes!

We go on a short guided walk into the rain forest. It's raining. A hard tropical rain filtered by all the leaves above us. The trees don't mind, but the birds do. We don't get a look at the males' dance along the logs to impress a female of two.
But the ants are hard at work. Leaf-cutter ants march along their wide, cleaned and well-kept path. (I can recommend them for hire for Trinidad and Tobago road work!) They are carrying large, for an ant, triangular pieces of leaves. Another ant is being caries with the leaf, busy licking in clean and preparing it for the burrow. When they arrive guards at the door send them back for more if the leaf doesn't pass inspection. A hard life. Wouldn't you rather be a hummingbird flying from big red flower to red sugar feeder. Now that's the life of a Riley!

Back at the Nature Center we're served a buffet lunch in the spacious dining room, coffee on the large, open veranda. That's where the bird experts/lovers stand with their huge lenses. Binoculars and cameras ready to catch the tiny creepers and hummingbirds in flight. Asa Wright was Icelandic, hence her Nordic name. She turned over the estate she loved and developed to an institute (from 1967) that continues her nature conserving work. The center has a small hotel which is where you'ld want to stay to catch the early bird. The best bird-watching times being dusk and dawn.

Blue Devils: A taste of J'ouvert's night creatures!
Back in Port-of-Spain we take a walk in the "Las Ramblas"-like avenue, Independence Square. The city is gearing up for carneval. Soca is blaring out of sidewalk boom-blasters. And, then, just in front of us, a wave of blue jumping somethings approaches. One is red-painted, red foam frothing from its mouth. We zig-zag slightly around the creatures. Are they following? Not quite ready for this yet.

Christmas comes to Chaguaramas

In the form of four Santa's elves from Flekkefjord. Two via Luxembourg!

We are ready and waiting at the Crown Plaza Hotel. A couple boat bums amongst the busy businesmen in the cool lobby. At 19:30pm we have them: Åse and Ludvig Egeland! And a couple of hours behind, Inger Johanne and Gjermund Røynestad. Great to see good friends here for the carneval!!
We "lime" and have a bite in the bar. There's a lot to catch up on: the snowy winter in Norway, the goings on in Flekkefjord City, and Ørnulf's now ex-workplace, Tinfos.
Does anybody back home miss us? Or have they actually noticed we're gone!?

Then an elevator ride up to the 9th floor. And, WOW!, Christmas has arrived in Trinidad! Plastic shopping bags full of Norwegian goodies! For Ørnulf, a big, brown goat cheese. Oh, goody! For Shannon, tubes of Mill's caviar! And for all the good boys and girls aboard "Babette" (all two of them) there are bags of soups, sauces,the ones from Luxembourg with exotic sounding names, mackerel tins, crackers, disolvable powdered milk and the world's best milk chocolate:
yummmmmmmmmmm.

Jonas up the mast, and...

Besides socialising with "Christina" we do manage to get some boat repairs done. And we have almost daily visits to Jesse James at "Members' Only" to fix the details of the various Carneval events we're arranging for the six of us.

Jonas, the Swedish rigging man at Peake's, is up both Christina's mast and ours. We have just a minor thingy for him to replace. Major enough for us, it steers the genoa halyard. Jippee! Now we can roll in the foresail again.
And we hack-saw off a bolt that holds the bruce anchor. Along with hack-sawing 10m of chain into two 5m lengths. At the welding place at Tardieu Marina the bolt gets welded into a customized new bolt. While we check mail at "Ankh cyber caf'e" nearby. A good relatively fast i-net caf'e, the best we've found around here.
And we get a new zipper sewn in the sail cover with the Alpha Canvas people at Coral Cove, next marina along.

And, and, and,,

knitting needles and autopilots

A morning trip to "Christina" where nurse, Christina, helps me out with a minor medical problem. Don't ask me exactly how I managed it. But I got a little knitting needle stuck about half-way through my left ring finger. Sort of like a spear. Now I know what el toro feels like at the bull-fight when they start sticking him with a lot of pretty, short spears. Ow.
The medical advice: No rings on!

The good news: Today the electrician is onboard. Between him and Ørnulf our fourth crew, the new autohelm 4000 gets installed. Super! Look, ma, no hands!

In the evening we help motor "Christina" over to a berth at "Power Boats". They have work to be done there. Meanwhile we go over to Joe's Pizza where the always cheerful waitor puts the whole place in a good mood, whatever frustrations boats and repairs may have dished up during the day. We managed to devour two pizzas washed down with an Italian red wine. Another great farewell with "Christina" before she ges devoured. And disappears into the "looking glass' of the Panama Canal. Fair winds!!

Teaching the phone Basic Norwegian

The last, sixth, layer of varnish. A hard, shiny cockpit rail, done.
To errands today: the easy one, buying the new autopilot (autohelm 4000). Just a small cord length adjustment. Pay. And hand it over to the electrician.

The other errand is to the "Bmobile" people to try and get the new cell phone to function. First, for sms-messaging there's no funny Norwegian "On Beyond Zebra" letters: the oe, ae and aa, here translated into two regular letters. So I can't write Oernulf on my new phone. And, naturally, no t-9, auto-spelling in Norwegian.
But no problem. Because it won't message at all to Norway. Sweden, yes, Norway, no!
This is Sony Eriksen's newest, but I've already got a camera. And a calendar, computer, a watch, even a black marbled "Composition" notebook. I need a phone!
Solution: a compromise. The helpful Bmobile man calls around and does what he can but we end up with my old Norwegian simcard (more expensive)but the sms messages get sent. And I'm teaching it Norwegian. Lesson 1: basic Norwegian vocabulary. "Tusen takk". Insert. Add to my words.

Work Done!

No buffer. Some boat here at Peake's hasn't returned it, we are told. Okay. We attack the red stripe, just over the waterline; we rub (as in scrub) the circumference by hand. That is,by shoulder and elbow. Then polish; more arm exercise. Just a wash on all the white freeboard. It's shiny enough.
And one more coat of varnish around the cockpit. And we're done!

Sort of. The rest of our landlubber life "on the hard" will be mostly coordinating electricians, rigging help, the canvas-man.


Wait.

Wait.

As the carneval approaches the work-tempo decreases.

All work, no play?

More teak varnishing (Shannon); More water-line re-painting(Oernulf). It's Saturday and there's not much action at the boatyard today.It's both weekend and carneval wind-up time.
"The Kiddie's Carneval" is on at noon in Port-of-Spain, but we're on day two painting. Soon we'll be joining the fun. But first we need to find the buffer we signed up to rent from Friday morning.

That was yesterday.

Paint Day

I do the teak rail, up in the cock-pit. Oernulf primes and re-paints the new waterline below. The teak gets six coats, three with half and half thinner and three full strength. The first three, every three hours, I do today. Between the tropic rain showers.
The heat is now steaming up from the white gravel as the sun's 25 degrees burn through the clouds again. The bimini's up and shading, but the sweat is pouring as the showers dry up.

Six tickets for Gooey fun!

For TT$360 Abdul will scrape off all the old varnish on the cockpit rail and sand it clean. It's a deal!
With the extra time we dinghy over to "Member's Only" where Jessie James and co. sell us six tickets to "J'ouvert". We order six white t-shirts and shorts with "What de Sailors Like" printed on it. And blue sailor caps and scarves (think Pop-Eye!) The white won't stay white for long...

"J'ouvert, the opening parade, starts at 4am in Port-of-Spain. And at 2am from here, in Chaguaramas. That's about one hour after we've returned from the "Kings and Queens Finals, "Dimanche Gras"!
"J'ouvert" is an all-night dance in the streets with huge "bands" (groups). They follow each their steel-band drumming out calypso rythmns. Bring ear plugs! And "throw-away" cameras.
Then there's the mud. And paint, and other stuff you can get smeared with. Gooey! Oh, make those cameras the under-water type.

Now,what have we got our (used to be?) friends into!?

On the hard at Peake's

Swinging in the huge straps as the mega-lift slowly rolls forward; he straps on the snorkeling mask and tube. Jumps off and dives under "Babette" to place the straps securly. For the crew, the line-men, lift operator, this is routine. We're holding our breath. While home-sweet-home is being torn out of its proper element and put on the hard. But it's all well-greased. And quickly, painlessly done. Very professional. The scaffolding provided. The electrician there fixing the power supply on board. We're in business.

Tomorrow. Right now we're moving into nr.7 at "Bight's". The little Peake's restaurant/hotel has 9 rooms on the first floor, under the restaurant. A big dobbel bed on a perfectly horizontal floor. No tipping and rocking. Or checking the gps position of nr.7 to see if we're sliding into the next room. And an endless supply of hot and cold running water. gosh. TV (Winter Olympics!) and an air-conditioning to put us in a proper winter sports mode. Outside, a wide bougainvillea-vined veranda framing the sailboat-filled bay. "Our" veranda has green wooden chairs, tables right on the water's edge. And mosquitos. I knew there was a "snake" in this paradise.

Valentine's Day: Friends in town!

Valentine's Day brings "Christina" (Swedish) to Trinidad. We meet them at the Custom's dock where Tina dishes up a great pasta salad lunch for us all. After a long hard night's sail. Cheerfully!
Come evening we get to return the hospitality. We're gathered again, eating dinner on "Babette" now, and exchanging sailing yarns. Seems we haven't compared notes since the Atlantic crossing. "Christina" has Pacific plans and will soon be funneled into the Panama Canal waters on their way to new adventures. We wish them fair winds and moderate waves. And hope to keep in touch til they return two years hence. Via Hidra!

At "Member's Only": Jessie James!

Errand day. We zip around the bay, from shipyard to shipyard, chandleries, electronics, whatever, in the dinghy. A sort of industrial-Venice feeling.

An important stop is at "Member's Only". That's where Jessie James hangs out. Besides running the fast and frequent maxi-taxi transportation here, he has a 24 event list of carneval activities to choose from. We let him organize us. We'll be a group of six and we're happy to have security, transportation and tickets taken care of. No problem for Jessie, wife and co. Surprisingly, we haven't found any carneval coordination for the guests at some of the big centrally located hotels here.

Good-by hand steering while motoring! We've ordered a replacement for our now worn-out and retired autopilot. (that event was mid-atlantic!) A new autohelm,4000 is now on its way from the usa.
Right down the walkway I found a hairdressers. New corn-rows! This time the plaiting just to hairband height. And a haircut. No more hair-in-the-eyes just as I'm steering clear of a fishing bouy.

And this hairwash and our shower later today at Peake's were our first real, indoor, non-boat shower since the Canaries. To be exact, S.Sebastian, La Gomera, the day we left, 13th of November. Three months ago!

Pans Galore

Today we celebrate my birthday (and Norwegian Mother's Day!) with a parade of pans, steel-bands, at the "Panorama" semifinals. It's at the Queen's Park, Savannah stadium, in Port-of-Spain. This time we take "Ian Taxi" to town. He gives us a good, instructional route in, good advice, and a good price.

In the Grandstand (cost: $TT100 or Norw. krone,100!) we get a good view of the bands, truck-loads of oildrums, now converted to colorful, well-tuned percussion instruments. The players, young and old, have been composing, learning-by-ear, and practicing hard for this yearly competition and parade concert.

The rythmns are made for movement. You can't sit still. The decibel level with 12 to 20 tinny tenor pans and twice as many huge bass oil-drums is deafening. No sound systems necessary. And I get the point with all the ear-plugged people walking about. We don't really appreciate the finer distinctons between the different melodies or bands. How do the judges tell them apart?

Well, I guess Hardanger fiddling all sounds the same to a Trini Pan-man!

Back in civilsation: a Mall visit

As "Sisse" leaves the bay we can only see "Anna" flying a Norwegian flag in the anchorage. Any more "on the hard"?
We take one of Chaguarama's yellow-white maxi-taxis (a Jesse James service) to West Mall. We've started to look a bit rag-tag after a half years' sailing. Time to buy a few new rags!

The Hi-Lo supermarket is really SUPER! Just about everything edible. Wow, Grapenuts! The contrast to the tiny grocery shops in Charlotteville is a sort of Flekkefjord contra New York equivalent! Sliced ham and Jarlsberg cheese are in our shopping cart!

Chaguaramas: Skipper's Paradise!

A bay lined with boat-yards, chandleries, boat-motor shops, boat electronics workshops, rigging specialists, sailmakers and huge lifts and cranes to move boats swiftly and easily from sea to land and back. Brightly lit and noisy with welding and hammering, smelly with oil and dark diesel smoke: a picture postcard of a sailor's paradise!

Actually it's surprisingly pretty. Well organized, no litter or mess. All the rusty oil drums have become musical instruments! There is a narrow strip of boat industry along the bay and dense green jungley hillsides rising up from the forest of white boat masts.

We find our new "home", Peake's Boat Yard. The office is in the cosy, red-tiled, green-trimmed restaurant and 8-room hotel, "The Bight". That's where we'll stay when "Babette" goes up on the hard. Palms and purple flowered vines lead to the tiled patio along the shore. And to our room, nr.7! Right upstairs is the restaurant veranda, the bar indoors.

Check-in at customs/immigrations is easy, coming from Tobago. After leaving the Customs quai at the "Crew's Inn" area we anchor sort of mid-bay. The holding is said to be poor, but we seem to have set the anchor as well as possible, in about 9m of water. With 35m of chain out it's time for a snoozzzzzzze.

Bring the machete, cut the vines, we're setting sail!

Almost a month of laid-back lazy days in Pirates' Bay, at the edge of Tobago jungle. We feel attached now. The boat is green at the waterline, tiny, bright colored fish feed on the mussels attached. We feel pretty moldy and vine-encased ourselves.
Time to move on. We have to clean up the boat and see something moving. Trinidad has the action, I hear. They're gearing up for the carneval in all the "pan yards" where the steel bands are practicing for the huge nation-wide contests and for the Carneval parades. Costumes are being fitted, the last sequins attached.
Trinidad will be different from our daily dilemma here in Tobago: "Fish or chicken?"

At 5:30pm we draw anchor and sail into the setting sun. Our rolly Pirates' Bay anchorage has let us keep our sea-legs so that the lumpy seas me meet off shore don't cause any queasynes. So I'm down in the galley sauteing mushrooms for the mushroom soup. With thick slices of Jane's good bread that should keep us going through the night.
The wind dies completly and we have a motor sail to Trinidad. Hand-steering all night, and dreaming of our new anto-pilot we plan to buy in Chaguaramas. The allmost full moon is lighting the way as Tobago slips by, portside. Crown Point behind us, we cross "Galeon Passage" to Trinidad. A six hour passage. On the other side the dark hills of Trinidad take shape in the moonlit night.

Come daylight we'll meet the larger, lively half of Trinbago.

Canned Norwegian Nostalgia

At 6pm Ann and Helge from "Snorre" climb on board "Babette", where rum-punch is waiting, the ice miraculously still frozen. We've dived deep into the lockers and come up with our last cans of Norwegian "Joika" (reindeer meetballs!) and "fishkakes",(seikaker) in brown sauce. Spiffed up with onion, mushrooms, garlic and red wine, but don't tell! From a bag, mashed kohlrabi and (real) boiled potatos, a little pepper and that's it. Not a Caribbean hot spice within a mile!

It's our last Tobago evening; we're sailing to Trinidad tomorrow. A great Norwegian-nostalgic meal with good "Snorre" friends!

A bus ride...

...to Scarborough. "Snorre", "Felicie" and "Babette", eight crew altogether.. We hop on a bus and bump along the winding coast-and -hilltop Windward Road. We've done it before but not with such a nice bunch of sailors. We eat at "The Blue Crab". Again, good food (flying fish) and ever cheerful Alison Sardinha teasing, laughing and serving us.

It's a hot walk up to Fort King George. Reward: great view of the bay under the giant spreading Saman trees. We discuss what the big sword-leaf plants with the long red flowers growing on the Saman tree branches are. Wild tobacco, orchids, lichens , ivy, ferns, there's a whole nursery of plants on the huge horizontal limbs.

We have the bus to ourselves on the way back at 4pm. Now it's a "private maxi-taxi"! We drive down the other side of the island, stopping at overlooks of the various bays: "Castara", "Englishman's" and "Bloody Bay". Just like on the other side, the road winds down to the bays, and climbs up each headland between. The hillsides are bright with orange flowered "Immortelles", trees originally planted to shade the cocoa trees. The bays are all azure blue with a solid surf breaking on the beaches. Most with no place else to land a dinghy.
The Tobago circuit route not being completed, we take the Ridge Road over the rain forest. Then further along, at Speyside, back over the Ridge and down to Charlotteville. We're in the water, dinghy-ing home by sunset, good timing!

At 8pm we're all gathered at "Snorre" for a drink and a chat. And we all agree it's been a great day!

Flagstaff Hill, revisited

No beach trips today. The dinghies safely tied up, and even pulled out of the water, at the pier. We're off on a hike: "Snorre", the "Felicie"-four, and "Babette".
The Windward Road climbs up, up, up "The Ridge", switchbacking steeply. The entertainment along the way is excellent: Vine and airplant covered trees. Fabulous red-flowered succulants perched mid-tree. And birds! Lots of cheery,chirping bananaquits, flocks of black, parrot-beaked Anis, bright blue Tanangers, called "Blue Jeans"! And Tobago's turkey-like brown bird, the Chachalaca.

About mid-hill Oernulf and I find a rickety bamboo bench with a view of the bay and the village, postcard pretty. And wait.
We have a telephone appointment with Kevin, now living in Bergen. It's visiting hours at Haukeland Hospital and Kevin will give us a chance to speak a few words with Sondre, operated on after his diving accident. Just a few minutes to hear how things are going after the operation. And to tell him we are thinking of him. It's good to hear Sondres cheerful voice!

Then we are on our way up again. Up towards Flagstaff Hill. Another stop at "The Rastafari Man"'s house. He has a taxi service, and a beautiful house and garden with a spectacular ocean view. And lots of sugar-water feeders for the tiny busy hummingbirds whizzing suddenly into sight.

The panorama view from Flagstaff Hill is not bad either. This time without rain. "London Bridge" island, with its hole right through, "St. Giles" Island beside it, lying frothy on restless seas.
And "Man of War Bay, with our own little turquiose cove,"Pirates' Bay". And Charlotteville village, all leafy green and laid-back with palm-strand beaches.

A Beach Landing

A pleasant, warm morning, not much of a breeze. A good day to visit Pirates' Bay Beach. "Felicie's" got their dinghy in the water and are heading over. "Snorre" and "Babette" have their binoculars focused and are crossing their fingers. The surf seems rather benign today.

No!! A powerful wave flips the dinghy up and over. Four crew and the various contents of the dinghy are tossed about in the foam and pounding waters. No injuries. That's good.

But the recovered dinghy, with new motor, needs attending. The various items spilt out, where are they now? Ann from "Snorre" swims over, as her husband, Helge, and I get a partial lift from Oernulf in our dinghy. We jump out well before the surf can pull our little rubber raft in! We're all goggeled into snorkeling gear, peering down into the murky water. Is that the seat, the oars down there?
Eventually we head for shore where a kind rastafari coconut-artist has fetched water to rinse the engine. After a bit they've got it running again. Nigel, a fisherman, has found the dinghy seat (yippee!) and helped get the motor running again.

He helps in an attempt to launch the dinghy. Out into the surf, with help from all hands. Pull the cord. And pull it again. Again! The waves are pushing the dinghy towards the shore, again. Then the big wave is back. A wall of water suddenly right behind Asbjoern and Nigel in the dinghy. Up, up, the bow is standing, vertical, now. And over again, the upsidedown dinghy, minus seat again, in the swirling foam and pounding surf. The motor did not land on their heads. No injuries. Luckily.
The rastafari beach man fetches more water. Another round of engine rinsing , and flotsam collecting.

Meanwhile Oernulf and Helge have the big "Snorre" dinghy out, ready with a rope to pull out the double-rinsed "Felicie" dinghy. With Ann's on-shore help. And they do just that. But without the motor. Fisherman, Nigel, takes it out on his wooden fishing-boat.
And soon all three Norwegian sailboats have each their functioning dinghy again. All's well that ends well!

It's been a salt-soaked, topsy-turvy Sunday. We all meet up at Jane's (Quality Kitchen) for fish and chips and a re-cap.
We're the table where they're all laughing.

"Hello" to Arne Skage

In the morning Ann from "Snorre" and I explore the "Pirates' Bay" path, following it along the hillside overlooking the bay. It narrows to a dirt, and soon, mud path, with tree-trunks to climb over and green leafy tunnels to go under. Blue-green Mot-mots, Yellow-tails and black, parrot-beaksed, Anis and a good supply of yellow, black and white Bananaquits chirping in the tall trees and tangled vine greenery.

Back at the boat I try an ink drawing from the bow. Interesting, with the boat swinging on its anchor, the view ever changing. I twist and crane to keep Charlotteville in sight.

Then, who should peek over the horizon, growing a mast, and sailing into the bay? The Norwegian sailboat, "Felicie". We haven't met them before but the skipper tells us to say "hello" to Arne Skage in Flekkefjord. From Asbjørn Meldgren from Sokndal!
The "welcoming committee, "Babette" and "Snorre"' join the newcomers in an "anchor-dram" and we all invade "Sharon's" for a good Caribbean meal later. It turns out it's not only Arne Skage (and half of Flekkefjord) we know in common But they and their Swedish crew also know all of Ørnulf's ex-colleagues in the North of Norway (Mo-i-Rana) from the "good ol' days".,

Charlotteville, Tobago is the place to meet friends of Norwegian friends.

Charlotteville in ink

I have my sketchbook into Charlotteville today. And do some ink drawings of the town: The tiny "Internet-shack" on the beach, the "cockroaches", wooden fishing boats with two long bamboo fishing poles sticking out on each side, with pelicans on the bow, large outboards astern...

At 5pm "Bonanza" draws anchor and departs "Pirates' Bay". Hope to meet again further down the line. So it's just "Babette" and "Snorre" at "Gail's" this evening for more spicy corn soup and kingfish and shrimp. Then a stop at "Babette" for banana cake on the way home.

The swell is down now, moon going into it's half phase. No wind, the boats bobbing and rocking, the occational anchor-light swaying. Stars above and fireflies twinkling in the black hillside. It's quiet, just a gentle surf's muffled roll up the strand.

"Charlotteville Norwegian Sosial Club"

Our first guest, Arild from "Bonanza", is here about 8:30 am. He and Oernulf fiddle with their ham-radio recievers. And we all have breakfast. The next two "Bonanza" visiters swim over: time for a cup o' coffee. Then, who should show up on the horizon: "Snorre"! Soon we have a cosy group of Norwegian boats all anchored in a ring. Not long after we have Ann and Helge from "Snorre" swimming over, after a night's sail from Trinidad. Now we are seven in the cockpit. More coffee!

But a real boat-made cake isn't out of the oven til 2pm. The Canadians, Dennis and Stepnanie, are guinea pigs for a new variation on "Carrot cake without carrots". A sort of spice cake with banana, dates, chocolate (real healthy). Well, there are sunflower and pumpkin seeds on top. We're about mid-cake when who should swim over but ever-hungry David ("Bonanza"). Cake gets top scoring: Just like mom's!

At 7pm all 9 Norwegians are sitting at Jane's (Quality Kitchen). It's Thursday and barbecue night . If you want beer you buy it down the road and bring it along. "Fish or chicken?" And a dozen other dishes. Even "Bonanza"-David doesn't leave the table still hungry.

Back in civilisation: Charlotteville

First we re-anchor, again. The first time it was just a meter or two, to get away from the boat which anchored rather near us. This time we need to get more distance from the coral reef zone and the partially rocky bottom. We now have two anchors out having tried out the new Denforth in the heavy swell we've been having. From "Bonanza" we had Arild (from Eiken) on board to assist. It all went well, and we're happy to be in a better place, with more elbow room.

We brave the surf today and take the dinghy to town. All the dinghies are pulled up on the pier, so no more up-down outboards.
A day at Curtis' Cyber-shack, and dinner in town.
Both "Bonanza" and "Babette" decide to eat at "Gail's" this evening. We meet Bail's mother outside the caf'e/ Dhe tells us they make good soups. And they do! the spicy corn soup is super! After a good "fish, chicken or shrimp?" dinner we walk over to Charlotteville Beach Bar and order seven gin and tonics. One each. Then back along the starlit beach...Good night!