Carol hopped the big white metal bird in the sky and came back to Florida 9-20-09 for three weeks. Actually her main objective was to bring back more boat parts that John had ordered and were sitting at one of our son’s houses. Can you think of any other reason John would let her go back! Before Carol departed she scavenged three suitcases, two check-in suitcases and one carry on from local boaters and friends to fill and take home some items not needed off the boat. She carried on the ham radio in a small hard rolling suitcase with wheels which she was going to get checked out in Orlando when she was there. Both in Trinidad when she left going through security and in Miami she had to take the ham radio out so they could hand scan it. When she got to customs in Miami she whizzed through and they didn’t open any of her bags. John stayed behind and worked on the chain plates which were a major undertaking but one that had to be done. The chain plates hold the shrouds to the boat which holds the mast up. He had to get back in the “Brain Surgeon” mode; design; metal cut; holes drilled; round the ends and polish. To get at the chain plates he had to tear apart half the boat which was another reason for Carol to leave the boat. He had a master German machinist Klaus build the replacements.
While Carol was in Florida she attended the local United States Power & Sail Squadron meeting and gave a little talk about the trip and some of problems that have happened along the way. While there she visited back and forth between both sons’s (John & Steve) and got to see all the grandchildren which are all growing up fast. Also while there her daughter, Renee and Grandson Michael whom she hadn’t seen in about three years came down from Alabama for a few days visit. Grandson Michael while there bowed a 300 game (perfect score) on the WII (interactive game played over the TV).
The three weeks went by fast and now it was time to pack and leave to go back to the sailboat in Trinidad. To get back into Trinidad she had to make a list of every boat part, noting the description, manufacture number and manufacture price. On the boxes she had to mark “Parts for Boat in Transit”. She got through security in Florida and didn’t have to pay any extra fees even though one suitcase weighed in at fifty three pounds. When she arrived in Trinidad and went through Immigration she was told she needed some letter from Immigration that she was suppose to get before she ever left Trinidad. After about 45 minutes they decided to let her in the country and gave her two days to report to the Immigration Office in Chaguaramas. Luck was on her side again when she went through customs for they never opened up any suitcases and just waived her through. She gave a great sign of relief for she was dreading unloading all the suitcases and then have to repack again. As she came out she John waiting for her in the airport waiting area. He had rented a car for two days and it sure looked like it came from “Rent a Wreck” for everything looked like it was falling apart. When he had picked up the car it had no gas and had to stop at the boat and get some dinghy fuel to put in. After five hours, due to a broken water pipe on the only road that goes through Port of Spain and out to Chaguaramas, we finally made it back to the boat and it was too late that day to go to Immigration. The next day when she went to the Immigration Office in Chaguaramas they again gave her a big hassle. It seemed they don’t want any yachties in their county. You almost wished you could just go back to your boat and leave. We spent the next few days putting away parts, etc. and “Brain Surgeon” was now in high gear to finish the last two chain plates.
A week later some Trini friend’s, Joy & David, picked us up for a trip to the Caroni Swamp where we were to see the snowy egrets and scarlet ibis which is the Trinidad & Tobago national bird. When we got there we boarded a 30 ft. open wood boat and went through a maze of mangroves and along the way we saw four boa constrictor snakes in the trees overhead. What a scary site to see them coiled up in the branches and it’s a good thing they didn’t decide to drop down into our boat because I’m sure everyone would have screamed? We found a place in the mangroves to await the birds to come and nest across from us in one of the mangrove bushes. We saw herons, egrets and ibis birds which were the three predominant among the swamps 150 bird species. The snowy egrets were brilliant as was the scarlet Ibis flying in this one mangrove bush and the scarlet ibis glowed fluorescent red in the final rays of the evening sun. We were told later in the year more birds come and the mangroves bushes glow red with the beautiful scarlet ibis. On the way back from the swamp we were sideswiped by a car carrying three black locals who got behind us and kept blinking their lights for us to pull over. We were on a major six lane expressway headed back to Port of Spain and there was no way we were going to stop as it was already dark out. They kept trying to run us off the road and changing lanes when we did. They finally got ahead of us and cut us off blocking our path because cars were coming fast in the other two lanes. It’s a wonder we didn’t get rear ended from the back. A big black local got out and started walking back to our car shouting that the accident was our fault. We were in our lane when we were hit and it was the other car that came over into our lane. It got a little scary for a minute and our adrenalin was really pumping but we then saw a cop car blinking his lights coming up fast behind us. The other car took off real fast when he saw the cops and I really think we were being set up for a car robbery. The cops took off after the car and that was the last we saw of either of them. We did get the license number off the car and David was going to report it the next day at the police station. . When we got back to our boat we looked at the side of the car where we got hit and the damaged was minimal. We decided that was enough excitement for one day.
We are now back again working full blast to get the boat ready for our target date of departure from Trinidad, Wednesday 10-28-09 and head north to Grenada providing we had cooperating sea and fair winds. Our visa expires from Trinidad 10-31-09 and we didn’t want to get an extension even if we could.

Stay tuned for more adventures from John & Carol aboard the S/V Sweet Caroline