Dalton W. Williams
Trinidad West Indies
September 2003 - March 2004
Divali
Festival,
Christmas
Concert,
Trinidad Carnival,
Boat
Projects,
Hard
Dodger/Bimini
I have been very remiss with my writing since leaving Grenada back in September 2003, and many, many people have written me asking; "Where are you?" The answer is Trinidad...
Trinidad's Hindu Divali Festival - Saturday, October 25th 2003
Divali (Diwali, Deepavali) is the Festival of Lights
that symbolizes the lifting of spiritual darkness in the Hindu faith. Divali
means an array of lamps and every year it is celebrated by Hindus around the
world with the lighting of Deyas.
Deyas
are small earthen (pottery) bowl filled with coconut oil or ghee to keep the
Deyas burning and a cotton wick that is lit. They are placed everywhere in
geometric patterns thorough yards, along fences, on Deyas Trees which are made
by splitting bamboo in fourth and bending each leg back to make an arch coming
from the center. The Deyas are placed along the curving bamboo to make circles
of light. Homes were illuminated with the Deyas as well as what we would call
Christmas Lights and the skies filled with firecrackers. The
explosions of the firecrackers symbolize expressions of obeisance to the heavens
for the attainment of health, knowledge, peace and prosperity.
A
group of over 150 cruisers went first to a Hindu temple where a Hindu priest
told us about the Hindu religion and its principals of the attainment of health,
knowledge, peace and prosperity. It was very interesting as he drew the
parallels to Christianity and the bible all acknowledging one God no matter by
what name he/she is called; God, Christ, Ala, Buda or one of the many Avatar's
or icons of the Hindu faith.
From
the church we drove to a village in the center of the island where had the
traditional Divali dinner served on a banana leaf symbolizing our relationship
to the earth. The meal was different but with the exception on one thing very
good. There were so many of us we ate dinner in shifts in the covered parking
area of a home and then walked through the streets of the small village where
people were dressed in their native Indian dress and were give everyone small
gifts of sweets and cake. Many of the homes had colored electric lights in
addition to the Deyas which made the celebration seam a mixture of Christmas and
July 4th with all of the fireworks.
Tonight was a beautiful and special evening. One of those once in a lifetime
opportunities that are the reason I am out here sailing to explore our world and
the wonderful people I meet along the way.
Christmas Concert
It
is not quite the same here listening to "Frosty the Snow Man" on the radio with
the cool summer breezes blowing and the AC on! But the island is really decked
out with decorations and with festivities. I attended a fantastic musical
concert two weeks before Christmas. The coral group was the Marionettes Choir
accompanied by what sounded like an organ is the background, but was actually a
Steel Orchestra - about 25 steel drums playing classical music. You can see what
it looked like in the picture I made during the concert. They released a CD made
at the concert and will try and attach one of the pieces of music from the
Christmas concert. This is a very large download but if you wish to hear a
selection from the concert, click here.
Trinidad Carnival - February 21st - 24th 2004
What
is the largest Carnival
celebration in the world? Trinidad Carnival!
It is Carnival Time. Lent starts on Wednesday and this weekend the people of Trinidad Party Hardy. It is quite the thing to do and lots of fun to participate in even if only as a spectator, and you can join in!
Carnival actually started back in November when the 60 + Pan or Steel Orchestra's started practicing for Pan'Orama where the one Steel Orchestra will be named the Carnival 2004 Champions. About the same time people started working on the drawings for the thousands of costumes that over 250,000 people will wear dancing through the streets of Port of Spain.
Over the past months, I along with friends John and Brenda from Willow have followed the progress at several of the Pan Camps where the Pan Orchestra's practice and the development of one of the King's Costumes watching it progress from a wire frame to taking 2nd place in the competition.
Saturday evening, the 21st of February 2004 was the
Pan'Orama Finals and was attended by over 150 cruisers along with over 100,000
Trinidadians. The music was absolutely incredible! There were two
divisions, one for Medium size Steel Orchestras and the second for Large Steel
Orchestras. The difference being not only size, but presence with over 100
steel drums being played. The winning Medium Steel Orchestra was Star
Light Steel Orchestra which we had not only followed, but had a cruiser as one
of the orchestra members.
Second was a group from Tobago, the Tobago Carib Steel
Orchestra. I made a picture of them practicing in the assembly area just
before the competition and another of them on stage. The orchestra members by in
large do not read music, but learn the pieces by memorization and practice,
practice, practice.
Sunday evening, February 22nd was the Calypso Finals as well as the Kings and Queens Finals. Like the evening before Jesse James and his group of busses and drivers picked everyone up at 5:30. For anyone who cruises to Trinidad, you will most certainly meet Jessie. He is the most marvelous young man in his early 30's who operates Members Only Maxi Taxi Service and is generally regarded at the cruiser's best friend in Trinidad. If you want to do anything in Trinidad he can arrange it for you with a smile and a warm hand shake.
I was not quiet ready for Calypso which I learned is
political stories told in song. It was really a lot of fun but understanding the
local dialect made understand a lot of what was being sung difficult. But most
of the singers had other actors on stage acting out the story so I got a good
idea if not all of the meaning. Yes they do speak English, but the dialect is
strange. For instance “I coming to go” means I am leaving but will be back. Go
figure that one out!
The songs were fun though
and often included dancers along with the Calypso. One of the Calypso's was a parity of George Bush and Weapons of Mass
Destructions. Another was about the destruction of the National Library to build
a New Mall. Then there was one on how following physiologist who say not to
discipline kids is the cause of today's wild kids and drug problems, and if you
want good children you must “cut there buts” (give them a spanking). No these
gentle and kind people would not cut their children, it is just one of the
unusual ways they say things here. Another of their unusual sayings is
"I'm coming to go away" which means that they are leaving and will be right
back. I have yet to figure that one out! The last song of the
competition about the local fishing authorities who are not protecting Trinidad
& Tobago’s fishing grounds which is a hot political issue and got lots of
applause..
Then
came the King and Queen Costume competition. To say costumes were fantastic is
not adequate. I know of no word to describe them. Incredible comes to mind, but
it is not enough of a description. Friends John and Brenda and I have watched
one of the King costume’s being built over the past few months and came in
second place. The score difference was only three points 428 points vs. 431
points for the winning entry.The picture to the left is the 1st place costume
and the one to the right is the 2nd place costume. Be sure to Click on the
pictures to see a larger image.
These
pictures are of the two of the Queen's Costumes. The winning entries were
awarded $250,000 and second place won $100,000 which for crass Americans may
tell you how much time and effort went into them. I know having watched the
second place Kings being put together from a wicker frame to the fantastic Genie
above for over two months makes me realize the amount of love and local pride
that are put into them.
We returned from the competition a little after 2:00 AM and while I was headed
off to bed, John and Brenda just returned to Willow long enough to change
clothes and get picked up again at 3:30 AM for "Dirty Mas" which started way
before sunrise. They came by Quietly at 10 this morning to borrow my key
to the wash room here as they did not want to get in their dinghy as covered in
paint and chocolate as they were. Brenda who is naturally quiet and sometimes
not adventurous in many ways was beaming! She had a wonderful time. Her
description was that everyone was so painted up and dirty that you could not
tell a white from a black form an Indian, from a… Thus everyone no matter who
they were, were equal and having a blast marching through the streets to the
beet of drums, screaming, dancing, singing, and of course drinking… Even Brenda
who does not drink had two rum and cola’s. She and John were headed for Willow
and to bed at 11:00 AM
With the winding down of "Dirty Mas" this morning,
Monday, February 23rd "Pretty Mas" and the Parade of Bands started with the Mas
Camps gathering and marching through the streets of Port Of Prince. This
will continue through out Monday with the crowds, band and their followers
growing to over 250,000 by the time the bands come marching across the Carnival
Stage before Carnival closed at midnight on Tuesday with the beginning of Lent.
"Fat
Tuesday" started early for the members of the bands and Mas Camps arriving in
the streets at 7:00 . As I was not a member of a Mas Camp, I arrived at
the Parade Of Bands at 9:30 and by that time the parade was well under
way. I walked along the parade route
with the Band Poison for a while then cut through the side streets to walk along
with the Band Legends for a while. But mostly I just walked along the
parade route going opposite the flow of the parade to see as much as I could.
It is TRULY AMAZING to be in the crowd surrounded by all of that energy and jibe
music! I can still here it ringing in my ears and feel the music in my
chest three hours after getting back from the parade.
Boat Work and a new Hard Dodger/Bimini - November 2003 through February 2004
I have been here in Trinidad now for almost four months working on Quietly 14
hours a day, seven days a week. It sort of reminds me of the pressures of
working back in the “real world.” But at least all of this work in preparation
for spending the next many years enjoying exploring the world!
Trinidad is the place everyone comes to work on their boats is there are good
workers and it is inexpensive compared to the US. I did take 10 days off during
Christmas and flew to Naples, Florida to take a break but that is about it.
Dalton has been a very dull boy recently.
When my good friends Brenda and John, whom you know from all of the sailing we
have done together, arrived here three weeks ago, thankfully Brenda started
calling me on the radio and saying she had made reservations for me to accompany
she and John on tours of the pre-carnival activities. It was the first time I
had done anything away from the marina and I really needed to break my focus on
the work on Quietly. Over the past three month of worrying and working on that,
my hair has turned 50% grey! Not a good sign!!
The primary project has been the hard dodger/bimini which I have been designing for the past two years. But I have been very busy working on all of the boat's systems as well.
There has to be a place to start, so why not start with the simple things.
{smile} I have completely reworked the bilge pumps changing out the pumps
and changing the way they discharge overboard which meant new hoses and fittings
as well and finally found the problem causing a smell in the head for the
past two years.
The head plumbing that was all hidden in a tiny
space you could not even get your head into behind the sink. The hoses
were a rats nest and routed in such a way that it was impossible to keep stuff
out of the bottom of the holding tank and from collecting in the lower sections
of the plumbing. The only thing to do was to completely remove the entire
system and then to replace some water soaked and smelly wood from tiny
leaks. Since I am not planning on taking the boat back to the states for several
years, the head is now plumbed directly to the sea with all new hoses. Where all
of the old plumbing was under the sink is now good clean wood, freshly painted,
and a cabinet with shelves for storing bathroom things. A new holding tank
will be constructed at some time in the future and will be much simpler.
But for now, I have another use for the space!
The old batteries died and I am replacing the two AGM batteries with ten Golf
Cart Trojan T-105 batteries. A new battery box has been constructed under the front bunk
where the holding tank used to be. I also moved the inverter to be close to the
new batteries which is where it should have been all along. It used to be behind
the wet locker so now there is more room there as well.
In preparation for sailing across the Pacific, I have also added a very modular
water maker to have a reliable source of excellent quality water for sailing
across the pacific. This has also made a huge amount of additional storage
space by removing three water tanks still leaving Quietly with 130 gallons of
water tanks. The space under the all of the seats in the main cabin are now
wonderful large storage spaces that are easy to get to.
One of the old copper fuel lines cracked under the small back bunk. It had
probably been leaking a little for some time, but I finally found it. I replaced
all of the old copper fuel lines and made a new fuel manifold with a small pump
to prime the engine rather than having to pump with your finger for five minutes
every time you changed the filter. This pump can also circulate the fuel through
the Racor filter and back into the tank to clean the fuel if I get bad fuel. It
can also transfer fuel from one tank to the other. When I did this, I moved the
Racor filter to where it is easier and cleaner to get to when changing the
filter. Moving it also make it easier to reach the oil filter on the main engine
so that is also now a little easier, though still a messy job.
In Grenada over the summer I was determined to keep the frozen food frozen. I
started out running the generator two hours a day to keep the freezer cold.
Slowly the amount of time the generator had to run got longer and longer. The
heat from the generator was heating the water in the tank next to it which
extended under the freezer and thus the generator was heating the freezer. It
got to the point that the generator was running five to six hours a day! When I
got to Trinidad, I got some quotations on putting new insulation around the
refrigerator/freezer. The lowest estimate was $4,600! A new 12 volt very
efficient refrigeration system that I had seen on that Norway trip cost only
$1,600. It is now installed on the boat and I added 4” of additional insulation
doing the work myself to the bottom and hull sides of the freezer. The freezer
now stays at -10 F and you do not even know the compressor is running. It uses
only 4.2 Amps when it is running which is about 50% percent of the time.
To provide power for the water maker and the refrigeration system I have added
more solar panels. Two more on the back arch and two on top of the new hard
bimini. A very conservative estimate of their contribution on a sunny day is 240
amps, and if I use the kind of numbers we were getting with just the two, it may
well be up to 300 amps on sunny days. That will make Quietly completely energy
independent. Here is hoping it does!
Another
large and very unexpected project was the hull. There were literally a thousand
small blisters on the hull! A large number of those were there during the survey
before I purchase Quietly and I was told that these were cosmetic only as they
were between the bottom paint and an epoxy barrier coat. That was technically
correct. The surveyor and I were assured that
it was a simple paint problem and just stripping the paint and repainting would
be all that was required.
Not so!
When we stripped
the paint we were right down to the fiberglass hull. There was no gel coat
under the epoxy barrier coat! What the previous
owner did not did not tell me during the survey or perhaps did not know was that the bottom gel coat had
been stripped off the boat at some point. To keep from damaging the
fiberglass hull, it took two men a week to carefully hand strip and then
lightly sand the hull to get it absolutely clean. We then found only 23 very
small small osmosis
blisters about the size you your fingernail on your little finger. Those we
carefully cleaned out and dried as they were very superficial and did
not penetrate even the most outer layer of the fiberglass. These were then
properly filled and we started back with two coats of Epiglass to fully wet and
seal the entire fiberglass hull. Then we applied seven coats of Interprotect
2000 Epoxy barrier coat, two more than the minimum recommended, and then three
coats of black bottom paint followed by two coats of blue bottom paint. The
reason for the two colors of bottom paint is that I never want to have to touch
the Interprotect 2000 Epoxy barrier coat. As the outer layers of the blue
ablative bottom paint wear away, the black will be exposed signaling it is time
to apply more blue bottom paint.
The new hard dodger/bimini was of course the large project. And one that took six months rather than six weeks to complete. This was a giant fiasco by the fiberglass crew at Crews Inn's Caribbean Yacht Works. I being a novice boat owner was trusting in their stated abilities to do large projects such as this, and certainly they had a wonderful facility to do the work in. But the project proved to be totally beyond their ability. But by the time I realized that, the project was well underway and there was no turning back.
The process started with removing the old
canvas dodger and bimini and constructing a plywood mold on Quietly. The
mold was then lifted off the boat and taken into a fiberglass shop where the
mold was further shaped to get the rounded corners which would make it match the
look of Quietly.
Then
the initial fiberglass lay up was done on the mold in the fiberglass shop.
This is when the problems started... The first problem was a discussion of
how to incorporate the windows into the mold. I was of the opinion that
plywood should be cut into the shape of the windows and attached to the mold
such that during the initial lay ups the windows would be fully formed.
The fiberglass shop said that was not necessary that they would do the initial
lay up and then cut out the windows. The initial lay up was to be 3/16ths
of fiberglass across the mold from left to right and then 3/16ths of fiberglass
across the mold from front to back. The side to side (left to right)
fiberglass must be continuous to carry the structural load and side loading of
the traveler and the front to back must be continuous from the front of the
dodger to be able to withstand a wave hitting the front of the dodger.
Thus the first lay up was to be a total of 3/8th, consisting of several
continuous layers of various fiberglass mat with no breaks in the mat and would
form the the back seal for the windows. Thus it had to be very accurate
and flat for the windows to seat properly.
What happened was that the first lay up wound up being between 1/2 inch and 3/4ths of an inch thick and very inconsistent as various pieces of fiberglass mat were overlapped to form joins. This was a huge problem as when the windows were cut , the frames were not uniform and the fiberglass did not match the shape of the mold. I should have stopped the project here, but I believed them when they said this was normal and all they had to do was to grind the fiberglass back to get the proper shape.
During this time one evening I came back from a music concert to find them putting on yet additional fiberglass to cover mistakes in the Bimini. This was about 10:30 at night and they had squared the rounded corners on the top! I was livid. Thank goodness that with the cool night air they had mixed in the wrong amount of hardner and did not set up. When the project manager came in the following morning they were pulled the still wet fiberglass off in a huge pile on the floor.
After this, I never left when work was being done. I had confirmed that I could not trust them.
Getting
the fiberglass back into shape took three weeks as they ground and measured and
sanded and measured. But it was still 3/4 inch rather than 3/8th inch
thick. They did not want to and would not get it all the way back to the
proper thickness. They said it needed to be that thickness to be strong and finally the shape was close to being
correct. Not knowing any better I trusted their judgment and it was time
to take it from the mold. The next three days were spent beating on the mold and drilling holds
to insert high pressure air into the mold to get it to release. When it
came out of the mold, it had ripples through out the gel coat and the gel coat
was discolored over approximately 20% of the underside. I was assured that
was normal and would easily polish out and they needed to move it out of the
fiberglass shop to do a test fitting to see how it married up to the boat.
By this time it was mid February and the project had supposed to have been
finished in mid December.
The fit was far from perfect. The front was off 3/4ths of an inch front to back and 1/2 inch left to right. The mold had been exactly on before it was removed from Quietly to the fiberglass shop, so something had moved either in transit or when it was set on the floor in the fiberglass shop. I was assured that it was just a matter of some adjustments, grinding and fiberglass during the final lay-ups.
It was then removed from the boat and set on the floor next to Quietly while the windows were further worked on. The project manager specifically told the fiberglass worker not to use a router to try to trim the window openings back to the proper shape and thickness. I was standing there when he did. When I returned from going to Budget Marine to get some bolts for the project, there the fiberglass worker was with the router looking a what he had done. There were huge router dips and cuts in the fiberglass window openings from where he had tried to freehand the router. This stopped things for several days while he mixed fiberglass powder and resin and built the windows openings back and then had to spend two days sanding to get them smooth. During this time we installed a stainless steal bar around the back edge of the bimini to strengthen it to carry the downward sheeting loads from the mainsheet that would come over the top of the bimini and drop to a wench just behind the helm. Then the final lay up of fiberglass was put on the bimini and then sanded. It was not ready to go back on the boat for the final attachment to Quietly. It was now the first of March and the specified 3/8th thickness was now up to one inch of fiberglass. No one had any idea of how much it weighed, but it took a crane to lift it into place..
The dodger was first bolted to Quietly by making aluminum mounting brackets which then thru bolted to the dodger and then to Quietly with 46 stainless steel bolts. This was then to be fiberglass to Quietly's coach roof with two 3/16th layups of continuous fiberglass mat which tied the sides of Quietly's coach roof up over the dodger and down to the other side of the coach roof with continuous fiberglass. The fiberglass workers started their work and I watched as they cut the continuous fiberglass in several places! That was it. I told them to get off the boat! I went to the boat yard manager and drug him out to the boat to see what they were doing and told him I did not want those people to touch the boat again. I must say that Michael Smith (the CEO of the boat yard) was as concerned as I was and then helped me find an outside contractor to come in and finish the fiberglass work.
This was now mid March and it was Carnival. But the contractor came in and worked through Carnival as I wanted to at least get the fiberglass work completed as a friend Penny was coming out to spend a week with me. Her trip had been postponed twice and could not be changed again.
The new contractor was ... well horrified would not be too strong a word, at the quality of work that had been done up to that point and the length of time it had taken. He and his crew spent two days working to correct the dodger to where they at least had a chance to get it come out right and then did the final lay ups. I must say, that his work was of the highest quality. Rather than pouring hardner in a bucket of resin like the Caribbean Yacht Works fiberglass workers had done, his people carefully measured the chemicals. Rather than just slopping the resin on the fiberglass, his workers carefully applied it and rolled the fiberglass perfectly flat as they went. So this is how it should have been done!
In my discussions with him, he estimated that having been given the mold back in November, he would have finished the fiberglass work before Christmas and it would have been done properly with none of the voids he had found or the problems with the windows and certainly with much less weight and that the Caribbean Yacht Works people had added. He was very concerned about the weight and that it just did not "fit" the boat well. He did the best he could to tie the dodger/bimini to the boat, fair it and get a primer coat on the project.
Penny came and we stayed in the Crews Inn Hotel which was
provided at no cost by the boat yard as Quietly when Penny arrived as the boat
was full of fiberglass dust. Penny was a great sport about it all and help
me clean the boat to where we were able to spend the last several days of her
visit on Quietly on the hard in the big building. Not exactly what she and
I had wanted to be doing... I had really been hoping to get Quietly in the water
before she left, but that did not happen for another three weeks after she left.
On
the 19th March Quietly finally made it in the water. The traveler is now located on top of the hard dodger with the
control lines for the main sail coming across the top of the bimini and droping
down right behind the helm next to the back stay. But when installing the
traveler, they found that they had sealed up the passages for the traveler
control lines and to re-bore them would allow water into the foam core.
Yet another mistake!
The picture of me on the
dodger was when I was installing the traveler blocks and running the main sheet
back to the winch. The sheeting for the main had to behind the helm so it will no longer be difficult to trim the main sail or to ease it
quickly in a strong gust of wind. This I think will be a great improvement in
the ease of sailing Quietly single handed. All of the lines are now within easy reach
of the helm.
There is still the final painting to be done and much cleaning to be completed.
But at least seven months she is back in the water. I am exhausted and
looking forward to spending a few months sailing her and letting her settle in
before I finish the final painting. That will take an additional three
weeks and I am think that I will get that done this summer in Port A La Cruiz after the top has had a chance to wiggle and
settle in for a while. I have been told that the best painting is done in Porta La Cruze.
During the six months I was having the Hard Dodger/Bimini work done by Caribbean Yacht Works, several boats came and went with different projects done by Caribbean Yacht Works, NOT A SINGLE BOAT LEFT HAPPY with the quality of work done by Crews Inn Caribbean Yacht Works.
While their painting department seems to have a good reputation and the carpentry department did reasonably good work, their metal work on my solar panel mountings is of extremely poor quality and they damaged my existing stainless steel work. Their fiberglass shop is just plain horrible. After sailing Quietly for six months, the Hard Dodger/Bimini was cut off in March of 2005. Read more here.
Do not take my project as an indication of all of the work done in Trinidad. I saw beautiful work being done in Peaks, Power Boats, and by numerous individual contractors. My engine needed work and Gittens Engine Service did wonderful work at reasonable rates. Mr. Gittens even was able to get my windless motor repaired when that was damaged by a worker from Caribbean Electrical while upgrading the wiring. The technician from Caribbean Electrical had twisted the stud to the point that the internal wires were torn from the terminal.
A word about Caribbean Electrical. Brian and David own the business and they have a young man from Trinidad who does excellent work, but he is very slow and methodical. I could have done the work in 1/2 the time, but I was trying to manage the other projects on the boat. My only caution is that their rates are extremely high and you should not rely on an estimated time of the work as they will bill you the full rate for what ever time it takes and in my case the original estimate was for slightly less than 4,000TT and the bill came to over 16,000TT. When I complained about the bill, David threatened to have my boat held unless I paid the bill in full. When I left, they said they would look over the bill and would decide on a credit to be applied to my credit card. But three weeks later, there has been no credit and they did not even offer to cover the cost of repairing the windless motor that their technician damaged.
Caribbean Marine Electrical - Update November 2004: I started having numerous intermittent electrical problems and pulled the electrical panel face to find most of the ground wires of the AC system not connected. Also there was a huge wad of wire balled up behind the panel. It appears that when I complained about the bill the day before the work was completed, that the technician was instructed to finish quickly. I spent two weeks cleaning up this wiring including finding where the Engine Generator was hot wired directly to the Batteries with no fuse protection. There was fuse protection for the 00 wire to the electrical panel, but there was also a separate #6 wire from the alternator which completed a triangle to the electrical panel. If their had been a short, the #6 wire would have certainly started a fire and it was wire tied to the fuel line for the generator. That sort of a mistake should never happen and could have resulted in the loss of the boat!
I
think you can see where I have been keeping my self occupied while here in
Trinidad. I have been to a couple of music concerts, been to the movies twice
and enjoyed some of Carnival as you have read and enjoyed evenings with friends
like Jen and Tom from Annie'B. Being Brittish, they did not know was a
baseball bat looked like so one of the other cruisers brought one. One fun
evening was when a German Dixie-Land Band, yes a German Dixie Land Band played a
concert at Sails Restaurant at Peaks yard.. They were wonderful and every
one was having a great time.
I really am amazed and glad so many people regularly read this web site and I appreciate the hundreds of people who have written asking when I would be writing more. It is a pleasure writing knowing that so many people are enjoying my adventures.
Well I am off to Grenada for a day and then on north to the Grenadines. The next update will be from the Tobago Cays and Union Island.
Dalton