Life Lately

so, if you follow us on instagram or twitter, you know that we have finally left Trinidad and returned to Grenada! 

we spent a total of 3 months in Chaguaramas and we got a lot of great work done on Melody. we arrived back in Grenada almost 2 weeks ago and immediately started work on our first job in the yacht charter industry. we are preparing a fleet of sail boats for the upcoming Caribbean charter season, for Sail Grenadines. this will keep us busy till end October.

after we finish up in Grenada we have another amazing opportunity that will take us to Central America until end August 2015 - more on that a little later ;)

here are a few iPhone photos of life lately... my camera is till busted :/

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last bit of Trinidad's headland as we left the island to sail North to Grenada

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St. David's Harbour with Melody riiiiight in the back

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the beach bar where we set up our office for the first week

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every lunch break we swim off the boat  - this day we had turtles visiting Melody :) Rufus only managed to capture my "kiss face" though...

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no South African boat is complete with a proper CHARCOAL BRAAI (gas does NOT count). we got this awesome "vintage" Force 10 barbeque in Trinidad from a wonderful New Zealand couple. we are ready for National Braai Day tomorrow, also know as Heritage Day in South Africa ;)

Best Birthday

Rufus made it back from the UK just in time for my birthday. we took the day off boat work, he spoiled me rotten, we ate good food (chocolates count as food as far as we are concerned) and we didn't talk boat for the entire day!

we ended off the celebrations with a braai - lots of red meat, beer and most importantly good friends. you can take us out of South Africa but you can never take our will to braai. 

just when I thought the festivities were winding down our boatyard family suprised me with the BEST chocolate cake I have ever tasted. if I am honest I will admit that I'm more of a choc brownie kinda girl but this cake... No words!

its made by the owner of an excellent Italian restaurant in Port of Spain and just one slice of this heavenly creation is close to R100/$10. I think it's called "death by chocolate", layers of moist cake, mousse and ganache, topped with dark chocolate flakes and drizzled with rich chocolate sauce. I am officially converted from brownies.

Paola, Natali, Joao and Luigi thank you for my special cake! Celine, Tony, Marco and Jacomo, thank you for the food. Graeme, Suzie, Sacha and Julia, we missed you. And thank you to everyone for a great celebration, especially my main man Rufus x

Natali bringing the cake out

me in shock

joy

Paola, Luigi, Celine, Tony, Marco and Joao laughing at me 

time to blow out the candles and make a wish that had already come true :)

Joao helping with the candles (he is also a choc-o-holic). the faster they go out the faster we can feast!

birthday girl had to dish up for everyone

left overs for breakfast

Natali made a mini Melody - the perfect personal touch :)

Trinidad

I've been getting a lot of "where are you now" questions and this is the answer: Chaguaramas, Trinidad!

Trinidad is the southern most island in the the Caribbean string, very close to the Venezuelan coast of South America. We've been here for almost 2 months now and 99% of that time has been on the hard in Power Boats. For those of you that don't speak 'boat', the 'hard' is means 'land'. The boat gets lifted out of the water with a travel lift and plonked on the ground in, in a boat yard, with supports to keep it upright. 

The reason we're on the hard is to work on Melody - upgrades, repairs and add-ons (can you say "water maker"!!). We have worked almost every single day (with the occasional half day rest if we are too stiff to move/lift things) from 8am till after dark sometimes. We don't want to do this again till we reach New Zealand, hopefully in a year or two, so we are making sure to do as much as we can now.

Unfortunately my camera battery got fried a day after we arrived here so I only have the photos from my iPhone. A new battery is on it's way from the UK, where Rufus has been for the past 2.5 weeks - more on that trip a little later. These are a few shots from my Instagram account, of what's it's like here.

the travel lift that transports the boats out of and back into the water.

view of the yard, looking at the slip where the boats get lifted in and out of the water.

our first project, the day we arrived, open up the two back cabins to make one huge master!

Rufus designed and built a new frame for the solar panels - not an easy job...

dry fitting the new toe rail

new friends: Luuck (met him and his wife in Grenada) and Andy from Brazil

Melody on the move: after Rufus left to the UK Melody moved from te back corner of the yard to a prime spot at the front water's edge.

but I had to wait an extra wee because we were 'parked in' by this old fishing boat. the owner kept giving me mangos and fish - sweet deal!

the view from our new spot, right on the water's edge.

just because we live in a boat yard doesn't mean we have to suffer - we have made friends from all over the world, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Switzerland, Canada etc and they have spoilt us with the most delicious food and treats.

every morning we are up at 6am and we make our fresh espresso to start the day. Brought espresso maker from SA to Zambia to NYC and now to Melody. 

late nights on top of te doghouse roof trying to catch a wifi signal.

Welcome Party

the last time we were in Trinidad we had an exceptionally bad experience. I won't go into details but when we finally were able to leave we swore we would never NEVER go back. 

never say never... because here we are again, 17 months later. thankfully this visit has been much better and it is mostly because of the friendly Power Boats team (the yard we are currently working in, on Melody) and most especially the great friends we have made with our fellow yachties.

we did a 16hr overnight passage from Grenada to Trinidad and as the sun rose we got our first glimpse of the island. to start the day off on the best note possible we also had a welcoming party, a large pod of dolphins, that escorted us into Scotland Bay, just before our final destination of Chaguaramas.

these guys were huge, some of the biggest and oldest I've seen, and very playful. they stayed with us for almost an hour and when I eventually dared to leave the bow seat and get my camera, that's when they really started having fun - spraying me almost every time I tried to take a picture. they jumped up to touch my outstretched feet and a few acrobatic performances for us off the starboard beam. it was a good start.

Night Lights

This post is a bit out of sequence (have a few more posts to do before we get to Trinidad) but I felt like putting these up now.

We did a night sail from Grenada (Prickly Bay) to Chaguaramas in Trinidad last week. We're here to do some maintenance and upgrades on the boat, in preparation for the Pacific leg of our trip. 

Night sailing can be quite boring, not much to see, and if you have an autopilot doing the work for you, not much to do other than look out for the odd boat/ship on the horizon.  

Just off of Trinidad's northern coast however, there is an oil field populated by huge oil rigs and at night they are quite spectacular with all their lights. We sailed quite close to this one and in my sleepy haze (it was 2am after all) I battled with the night settings on my camera. I obviously tried to get a clear focused shot but in the end, with all the rolling and heeling of the boat, most were out of focus. Ultimately my favorites are the more fuzzy ones, not the one I managed to get "right". This is the result...