“I do not belong here….”

Dear friends,
This must be Onda Boa thinking… In a minute I will tell and show you why…
But first, we left Tobago a day later as planned… the immigration guy was helpful and easy going, however the custom guy wasn't around, he had to be somewhere else, no back up, so no checking out either… Chill man…
So, the next day went back and all was sorted out… About 5 other boats had plans to head for Trinidad.. After our last roti from our favourite roti guy/internet guy in Charlotteville, went back to the boat, and instead of mindless waiting, we decided to just weigh our anchor and depart from Charlotteville and the Pirate Bay… As soon as we were out of the bay, oops.. Piraja’s (squalls) heading our way… coming from the north east…


Ok, so, reefing the main and the genoa.. and all of a sudden we were doing 8-10 knots…That fun only lasted for 10 minutes and then we were back at a 3-4 knot pace… until the next squall… at sunset a group of dolphins cared to accompany us, surfing waves and jumping… great sights… so squall after squall, we were busy in fiddling around with the sails… This wasn't going to work… sails up, sails reefed, and again…The Capt. decided to lower the main sail and just go with the flow on the genoa only… This would set us back speed wise, but at least we had easy going shifts and consequently restful sleep. In the early morning, the squall’s were gone and we  raised the main again, but by now the winds were very weak and so we went slowly to the entrance of the Boca as it is called… We went to the mooring area in Chaguaramas, and at around 10 am under a blistering sun we lowered the dingy (fyi from Tobago (Pirate Bay) to Chaguaramas is aprox 80 nm). Customs and immigration was a breeze. Once again Soba, Guruça Cat, Bar a Vento, Baltic Sun, Melody, Mero, Zeemuis and others we knew from Tobago, where all together again..
Here in Chaguaramas it is a great place for boat maintenance.. there are several service marinas with the thinkable craftsmen one would need. We are at Peake Yacht Service (www.peakeyachts.com), great professional staff.
On Monday we were scheduled to be hauled out. Under a drizzle in no time Onda Boa was on the dry, after a power wash.. (basically stripping of the antifouling paint, slime and blubber of all sorts, they put here in this spot…Now, the fun really starts… messy, tool boxes all around, Berry (our sand paper guy), Ray (our watermaker installer guy) and our selves running around doing thousand things like removing the generator, removing the airco etc, and Lucky of course… she actually jumped 3 meters from the deck…all is strange, out of order and messy and dirty, and that is why Onda Boa must think: I don't belong  here, please get me back into the water…

That hopefully will happen by the end of next week… after: repair some osmosis spots, apply epoxy coating, followed by antifoul paint, apply a new fancy stripe all around, finalize the installation of the  watermaker, finalize the polishing, installing three through hulls, changing the halyards of the main and genaker, installing two new additional solar panels, and…. and … and…
Best regards