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Friends Marvin and Nancy on Good Company have decided to go to the Mediterranean this spring.  Marvin is taking their boat with some guys who will crew for him.  Nancy will take a 747 later after spending time with their new grandbaby.  We will follow Marvin's progress with great interest since this is ultimately what Bob and I want to do.  Along our dock are several people who  just returned from the Med.  BJ and Temple spent about ten years over there and we visited them one evening to hear of their experiences. Temple has recommended books and guides to use along the way.  They are still enchanted with their experiences. 

Phil of Agape de Mer returned on his boat with guy friends since Marina his wife preferred to return home by plane.  Phil made a video which he loaned us to watch.  The main activity besides keeping watch seemed to be eating and sleeping.  Mozart, Phil's white toy poodle, was unphased by the journey and, in one segment, was seen swaying back and forth as the boat rocked, reminding us of the dogs with bouncing heads in the back windows of cars.  We have been told that the main problem of such an ocean crossing is boredom since the seas at that time of year are not usually threatening.  Then I talked to other people who told of bad weather.  Realistically, the weather is never predictable and one must be ready for any eventuality.  The best time to go to the Med is in the spring and the best time to return is in December.  Last spring, we listened to Herb, a Canadian with an SSB who runs a net assisting cruisers with weather and routes.  He was suggesting alterations to courses in order to find wind rather than to avoid excessive wind and weather.  We won't be ready to go this year, but hopefully next year.

Bob has been busy working on the boat.  He varnished a lot of the teak while I was in the States last fall.  He took out the forward holding tank, thinking he could repair it.  After he cleaned it, there were so many pinprick holes that it looked like Swiss cheese.  He located a company that makes custom tanks to any dimensions.  They delivered the tank but it wasn't right.  He sent it back.  They worked on it and delivered it again.  Still not right so he sent it back.  The third time was a charm.  He installed it and it fit.  He has replaced two waste deckfills.  The new ones are stainless since the old aluminum ones corroded terribly.  The solenoids on the anchor chain windlass died and he has replaced them after many complications.  The wiring on the schematic was not the way ours is wired.  Nothing is ever easy. 

Hundreds of yachties come to Trinidad so there are many services available here.  Interior and exterior cushions, upholstery, anchor chain, woodworking, rigging, sails, canvas, you name it, they are all available.  However, you cannot rush the worker who is on "island time."  Dick on Arianna said last year, "You can go broke saving money in Trinidad."  Other people, particularly those with type A personalities, find it a very frustrating place to get work done. On top of that, there may be a long waiting list of people ahead of you.  Since we plan to come back next year, we are trying to decide what to do this year and what to have done next year.

To friends in Nashville, we were entertained recently by former assistant district attorney Roger Fish and his wife Lydia Cox, former principal of Hillsboro High School.  Dick and Kathy Oberle, former Nashvillians, were also there.  It was quite an unusual affair with all of us having lived in Nashville.  We enjoyed playing "Remember when…", "Do you know…?", and other such games.

We took our first trip to a beach on the north side of the island. Our group of twelve rented a van for the day.  The road went up steep mountainous terrain where you smelled the clutch going up and the breaks going down.  Fortunately, we had a modern van and a very good driver.  At one place, erosion had eaten away one lane of the road, leaving only one lane for both directions of traffic.  From the road, it was hundreds of feet down to a crashing sea.

Maracas Beach was a picturesque setting with pretty sand, palm trees, breaking waves and water clean enough to swim.  There were beach shacks serving "Shark and Bake," fried shark served in a fried bread pocket.  The dough was dropped into hot oil where it puffed up like a heavy sopapilla or a light pita bread.  The bread was slit open and the shark inserted.  Lettuce, tomato, and cucumber were available along with eight or nine different sauces, some extremely hot.  Bob used too much of the hot stuff and his lips burned long after he had finished his sandwich.

We took our Bocce game and another person had Boules, the French version of our Italian game.  You play on grass or sand, sort of a free-form game.  We're not up on the rules so made them up as we went along.  One of these days, we will read the directions and try to understand the game, but until then, we just had a good time.

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