Chaguaramas, Trinidad (Drydocked)

We've arrived in Trinidad, which is Navigator's home for hurricane season.  Because Trinidad is south of 12 degrees north latitude, it is seldom hit by tropical systems.  Over a thousand boats haul out here each summer while their crew travel or return to their homes for the dangerous hurricane season.  Our plan is to dry-dock here at the shipyard until December.

Our trip south from Grenada was uneventful - it was a 90 mile trip, so we left at 2pm on Tuesday and arrived before lunch on Wednesday morning.  Along the way, we passed some of Venezuela's oil fields, with their associated drilling rigs - quite a sight.

Since then, we've spent the week on Navigator cleaning, organizing, and putting her to rest for the summer.  It's a bit of a challenge because the climate is so warm - like working in a sauna.  So we start work at 5am and then take a long lunch working inside.  However, we just finished our last bit of work and are now enjoying a tasty beverage and writing this blog post to end our first sailing season. We've also gotten a chance to hang out with our friend Rich, who is hauling out at the same yard.

You'd be surprised how much gear fits on a small sailboat - by the time we had everything out of it's locker and airing on deck, the entire boat was filled with detritus!  But, after dryi
ng it all out, it fit nicely back in it's home, and Navigator is ship shape again.

One of the coolest changes we made was that Kellee created a custom boat cover out of canvas using the mighty sewing machine.  Two days of work  and 22 yards of fabric later, Navigator is covered from the elements and bird poo for the season, which should hopefully keep her a bit dryer over the rainy season.

Now that Navigator is put to rights, it's time to focus on our next leg of the sabbatical - we'll be flying over to France and camping around Europe for the next 4 months.  So we've been stuffing as much junk in our packs as possible in an attempt to take as much of home with us as possible - including our folding bikes!

So...signing off from Trinidad for now.  We'll post periodic "hurricane season interlude" blog posts from Europe and beyond, but Navigator is going to take the summer off, and we'll resume our sailing in December...to an unknown destination!

Here's a video of our dry-docking yesterday: