A Yachtie's View of Trinidad - Blackwattle

by Nancy Knudsen, Yacht Blackwattle on 11 Feb 2007 30th January, 2007

All of the night hours have been ablaze with a glaring ball of a moon, indifferent to our troubles. We have struggled against currents up to three knots – the weather forecast was ridiculously wrong, the wind is on the nose, and it has taken hours to get past the wildly flaring lights of a malevolent looking oil rig in our path. Now at dawn the faint looming shape of Trinidad can be seen in the mist.

31st January, 2007:

The morning has arrived bleakly. The water is kaki coloured and swirling with counter-currents. Venezuela is also there - a misty shape to our right. The air is thick and doughy; we’re clammy-skinned before we have reached the great cut in the mountains through which we must pass.

Cliffs of dense rainforest watch us go through the channel between them, hovering black in the morning light. . Now we find a vast inland sea between Trinidad’s mainland and its northern islands. The water here is chocolate brown and torpid. There are long sprawling houses up high above us, cool looking verandahs, devoid of people.

By the time the main is down, Ted’s brown skin is shiny and trickling droplets of sweat, and it’s only 10.30am. There’s a long gulf ahead of us that narrows as we go – there are dredges and oil rigs, old barges and rusty cargo ships in this waterway. Beyond there are smaller fishing vessels moored and yachts, thicker and thicker as we pass. We can hardly see a way through, but we follow our chart which says ‘further, further’, until we pass tightly crowded marinas on both sides, and then, the customs wharf, where we must go before we can anchor or find a berth. ‘Dat’s de Law’ had said the marina clerk when we telephoned the day before from Grenada.
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However, there are two old motorboats tied up at the short wharf, and a yacht rafted beside them. We can hardly turn as the waterway all around is so crammed with vessels - old vessels, new, decrepit, rusty – sailing vessels, fishing boats, ancient motor boats – the boat population is amazing. We raft up beside the yacht already at the wharf, though the yacht owner is not too happy about it. Next arrives yet another yacht, and they must raft too. Dat is de law.

But it is 12.10pm and Immigration and Customs have both gone to lunch until 1.00pm – anyway we’ve been told if you insist on checking in between 12 and 1.00pm you will be charged an extortionate extra fee. As we wait in the sweltering windless air I am already ready to leave Trinidad.

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1st February, 2007

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed] Yesterday we finally settled in a decrepit but expensive marina – the wharf doesn’t float and the finger pontoons are only about two metres long with a sharp 90 degree corner without protection. We bumble around with multiple fenders to protect precious Blackwattle’s hull. The whole affair has a half finished look, with old building materials lying around. There’s a bare concrete pagoda with some dreary plastic tables and chairs beside the water, and a square ‘pool’ which is just a plunge bath – one stroke takes you to the other side. Some straggled palms fail to divide the hard stand from the marina. We are boxed in, like sardines or a bad caravan park, on all sides, and above hangs the oppressive rainforest cliffs. Then we discover that the fee that we paid AFTER the lunch break is the overtime rate – we’ve been HAD by a wily Customs clerk.


However, this morning I am woken to the most extraordinary music and leap out of bed to the sound – thousands of birds – chirping, singing songs, calling long high notes – it’s a marvellous natural orchestra in the air all around us. The rainforest which loomed oppressively yesterday has is blossomlng today with sweet melodies.

We have work to do – maintenance, provisioning, washing the salt from the boat, but I can’t wait to go exploring Trinidad’s jungles.

5th February, 2007

Carnival – in the air:

Old cruising friends arrive, some expected, some not, and Carnival is the constant conversation. The story is an exciting one.

Every couple of days there are events – concerts, steel pan band competitions, parties galore. Carnival fever is already on the island of Trinidad, the capital of Carnival, world-wide. We hear of the factories, occupied days and night for many frenetic weeks, making costumes. The world is now divided into followers of the particular steel pan bands.
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You can buy costumes to follow your favourite band, and join their ‘mas camp’. Some of the more popular mas camps have up to 10,000 people each who march behind the band. The costumes are expensive – they start at about US$300, but you can spend much more. You can buy all-inclusive tickets to the Carnival parties – they can cost up to US$100 per person for a ticket. Or you can just cruise around and watch the scene.







Exploring the Coasts and Rainforests:

Finally, most chores done, it’s time to go exploring the rainforest and whatever else Trinidad has to offer – and it is a true delight.

We spend time touring the northern beaches, then drive through the highlands, where the natural rainforest blooms gorgeously the year round. There are so many flowering trees the forest is like a tended garden – wild croton, flame trees, trees of Mauve and white and blue and pink.

Palm trees flourish along with a myriad of tropical plants – breadfruit, passion fruit, cocoa plants, calabash, wild and tangled everywhere. We drive with a rich wet smell of soil and leaves and flowers and rotting vegetation in our noses. The rainforest is an explosion of rich greens and leaves of every size, greenest moss and lichen, bold teak trees growing straight and tall, curling vines covered with flowers, bamboo stands galore.

Often road becomes a tunnel, wild trees and vines completely blocking the sun. There are tiny villages, with sleepy villagers watching us languidly as we pass, but not many.

We visit a sanctuary, where the birds are protected and flourish profusely. Here they put out natural food for them daily, and bird watchers congregate from all over the world to see the dozens of different wildly coloured varieties.

We also see an armadillo (armat to the locals), and later a sleeping boa constrictor.

The Scarlet Ibis Colony:

But the highlight of the day is when we take a tourist boat to see the gathering at sunset of the Scarlet Ibis. We skim for miles through tunnelled watery pathways in mangrove swamp, stopping to catch sight of blue herons and white egrets and other obscure species. Finally, we stop in sight of one of the several islands where the scarlet ibis return in the evening. We are told, but it’s hard to believe, that no less than 1500 birds will soon arrive, nor can we anticipate the brightness of their colour.

After almost half and hour of waiting, a shout goes round the party – in the distance the first two birds are arriving. Their colour is extraordinary – the red is so bright that they seem to be glowing in the afternoon sunlight. All eyes are trained on the two birds.

Suddenly there is a swooping black flash, a splash in the water, and one of the scarlet ibis flies to cover in a nearby island.

After the shock is over we realise t