Tag Archives: Trinidad

Oui, what a day.

Long long day, then just when we thought it was just about over, the island of Trinidad disappeared right in front of our eyes. One moment we could see it, then it was gone, completely gone. This wasn’t the Bermuda triangle strangeness but a torrential down pour. Of course we had chosen the narrow passage as it was closer to the customs and immigrations office that we were running out of time on. Basically fought through the rain to find the island silhouette and motored through soaking wet.

Found the basic area where boats were but took a while to spot mooring balls, it seems all of our guides stop at Grenada, the only thing we had was some PDFs that I had downloaded while researching this place. No comparison to a Chris Doyle guide. Anyway, we spotted one ball inside the marina area, but it was a bite to tight so choose another one and used the happy hooker and quickly 1/2 way secured the boat, dropped the dingy and speed off to find customs/immigration. Here everyone has to be present to check in, again we were not really sure where to go, but we found immigrations with 30mins to spare. Filled out the paperwork and we are here! We have to come back on Saturday to really check out and off the boat with the paper work from the storage yard, so we’ll be traveling fools between Port of Spain and Chagaramas – seems like something out of Austin Powers movie when you say it.

Quick bite to eat and a beer after customs and we are about to zonk out, for tomorrows early morning call to haul the boat. The email from the yard gave us instructions to expect another email tomorrow, uh? @ 6:30am is our haul out time, this should be interesting.

Chagaramas, or at least the 2hrs we have been here is a commercial port. Lots of big ships, docks and boat yards, not what you would call picturesque, but we’ll see when we motor over around to the otherside where we’ll be hauled out in the AM.

Trinidad is beautiful

We have been here 12 hours and its been dark the entire time. 6:30 flight means 4:30 at the airport according to both the ticket agent and the hotel clerk, so that’s what we did.

Holiday inn had a free breakfast in the morning that started at 6:00am. Well after our 4am wakeup call and shuttle ride to the airport.

Little hassle at check in, had to check the carry ons as they were either over weight and each person was allowed only one on the island hopper. They made an exception for my back pack with the computer weighing in at 20 lbs.

No problem. Checked out the spots for some breakfast before clearing security and nothing really stood out at 4:30am. We had asked if there was food inside and the ticket agent said there was but it was more expensive. We had hours to burn so we cleared the first security guard and found lots of duty free shops but no food. The couple of places were not open yet. Before doing the fullbody xerox clearing we asked if there was any food beyond the real screening and there wasn’t. Turning around to go past the first security point we now would have to go back through customs and immigration. So we sit here with a beverage from the tourist trinket shop near the gate.

Sounds of carnival and island reggae coming from the trinket shop brighten up the morning as the sun rises and we get our first view of the island.

Fun fact: visiting the liat website and pressing the check-in link clearly states that the check-in counter closes 45 minutes before the flight. Doh! As I said best laid plans…

We are boarding…….

Oops spoke too soon, Liat lives up to the moniker. Leave Island Any Time.

They gave our perfectly good airplane away to another flight. With any luck they will find us a way there. After what seemed like forever when you get up at 4 am they said we’d be leaving around 8am. I sure hope so.