The Ghost Dolphins and land of the humming bird

Having survived hurricane Tomas we left the lush Grenada on Tuesday the 1st. and arrived in Trinidad, just after sunrise the following day. The last thing we did at the anchorage in St. George was to jump to the sea, as we know from past experience that the water in Charguaramas is everything else than clean and clear. At times we refer to it as the minefield due to all the trash (such as, cans, dead fish and dogs) floating around which easily can f….up the outboard on a dinghy.


On the way down to Trinidad we experienced a remarkable phenomenon – the ghost dolphins. Basically it is dolphins swimming at night time in a sea full of Pelagia noctiluca. Noctiluca is a jellyfish with an ability to glow in the night. Light is given off in the form of flashes when it is stimulated by turbulence created by a ship’s motion, by waves or in our case dolphins. The flashing is only of relatively short duration and gradually fades. Anyway it gives you the illusion that the dolphins is decorated with tiny golden diodes all over its body.


The first thing we did upon arriving back in Trinidad Wednesday morning was heading into Port of Spain for a roti (most Trinis favourite dish). Being out of roti-shape the roti got me good. I had to give up after haven eaten just 75 percent and leave the rest for Julian to finish.

Leaving roti heaven and walking on a pavement hotter than a match head, looking at a half dead Julian and feeling likewise myself, I asked him what he wanted, and he replied and I quote ‘air-condition, a sofa and a big TV’. So I came up with the ‘brilliant’ idea that we could pay a visit to a local phone operator, to have Julian’s sim-card fixed. After having spent around 45 minutes in the line we finally got to talk with the custom service, who after a short look on the phone handed it back and told us the card had been fixed…………guess what….. IT HADN’T …he still can’t receive and send international text. But Julian did get what he asked for during this fruitless visit, air-condition, a sofa and a big TV (think he was hoping for a nice movie, instead of the strange commercials with dancing Hindus …..well next time specify!)

Jumping to Friday afternoon where Mike (the Captain) after spotting a shrimp boat coming in, jumped into the dinghy and shortly after came back with several of kilos of shrimps ready to be peeled. After working through the small mountain of shrimps in need of peeling, we were all well awarded with a smaller shrimp party, consisting of….. yes shrimps and beer. Already there the just started weekend seemed promising.
And the goodness continued Saturday, where we packed Tracey’s (a local Trinidadian)car and went to a must go destination when in Trinidad – Maracas Bay.

The popularity of this place is not so much to do with the beautiful beach as to - yet another ‘famous’ Trini dish – Shark and Bake( shark burger).

To gather a bit of appetite we all jumped to the water. As we were coming up of the water - to dry in the sun - someone above opened for the water and made sure to obstruct this plan. After having fooled around in the rain and doing a desperate attempted to play with a Frisbee, we headed for one of the numerous food stalls opposite the beach.

One thing I always wonder about when visiting Maracas bay, is the density of footstalls selling the exactly same dish. I am not sure how it makes sense financially – 15 stalls or more, who all offer the exactly same product (shark and bake), to the almost the same price ………I guess the demand for shark and bake must extraordinary high. ….Anyway as long as it is tasty, cheap and isn’t rat I don’t care.

Sunday, I went to the cinema for the first time since March to see a movie from the annual local European Movie festival. The movie we saw was an amazing French movie called ‘Qui m’aime me suive’ that had some remarkable lines ( fx. ‘You are scaring me, I feel like I am in a horror movie.’) One thing I found really interesting during our visit was the local cinema menu, which among other things included fried chick breast, fries, and hotdogs.................

Where did the Hurricane Thomas go??

Friday morning we woke up to discover that the anchorage at St. George suddenly had emptied as by magic. Just the night before you could count around 25 boats and the day after 3............ We got word that some bad weather was heading this way. Earlier in the morning the tropical storm Tomas had been born (who later on developed into a hurricane), and it was predicted to hit here around midnight, and accordingly the whole island started closing down early afternoon. By late afternoon everybody except us had left the anchorage, as we went by the assumption that it would take more than a tropical storm to shake the tug apart. Despite the weather gurus forecast the storm did not arrive at midnight.

Saturday morning, even though the forecasts were now predicting landfall further north in the Caribbean, the town was still bringing out the sandbags and nailing up the storm shutters. After the devastation of the Island by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 the nerves were running high here.

And Saturday afternoon the weather came! Or more correctly it didn’t! Sure, St. Vincent got smashed. Here, well it went all grey, and there were several showers during the day, but where was the wind? All weather reports had predicted 40+ knots, gusting to 60, but reality was that we had no wind AT ALL! The same pattern repeated itself during the night. Once again the weather gurus convinced us of winds of 20 - 40 knots and again they were wrong. Instead we had a strange calm night if you count out the big waves that was rocking the boat hard from side to side.
It is a weird feeling, to be so close to a such a weather monster, who a short distance away is tearing another country apart, while we go unharmed by. I have to say it was bit of an anti-climax, here we were all prepared for mother nature and then nothing.....NOTHING! In fact the wind was dead flat, even more than on a normal day here.

I have to admit that I was sort of looking forward, upon returning home, to tell my nieces and nephew how I tackled and survived the Hurricane Thomas......oh well, perhaps it was for the better that Thomas never came knocking on our door.