Part 5- The last leg !



Watching dolphins

The sail from Salvador to Fernando de Noronha was horrendous! It was so rough and the wind kept changing so we had to continuously change and trim sails, it was a real test and i wished I was back home in a coffee shop chatting to my girlfriends. The last day however was wonderful and mild and we were escorted into the bay by a school of friendly dolphins.

Mount Pica



A Turtle I spotted

Fernando de Noronha was like nothing I had ever seen. it was an eco-friendly island that generated their own electricity and recycled almost everything. Most of it was a nature reserve so we couldnt dive without a qualified guide. The sealife was amazing and in one snorkeling session I saw a baby shark, a sting ray, a turtle and a squid, not to mention schools of colourful reef fish. We were now very close to the equator and the water was really warm. We also snorkled on a lovely old wreck where the boys swam in old tubes and through holes in the wreck. Everyone drove beach buggies and we rented one too, on the side of the road there were beautiful horses that I couldn't resist petting. The island was safe, lush, and filled with friendly locals and eco-tourists. It was 5 months since I had been home and I started getting homesick espescially being surrounded by boys all day everyday.


Beautiful Horse in Fernando

The only problem with the island was that the internet was down the entire 4 days we were there, and the boys needed to upload some schoolwork. Instead of staying there for our anticipated week long stay, we decided to head North to the Carribean.

Every night after we left Fernando was very stressful as the shipping lanes were really busy and saw a few ships every night. Everything else was going fine on our journey to the Carribean, when we encountered a major problem, we were still about a week away from Trinidad when we started running out of food and water. We were going to head to the closest country, French Guyana.

French Guyana. What a different place. We spent our first night in Cayenne, the capital. We went ashore to sign in, only to find that there wern't such procedures in French Guyana. The official at customs told us to be very careful and do a rotating night watch. That we did, armed with flairs, 2 tasers and 3 cans of pepper spray we each took a turn waiting for the pirates who never came.
The next morning we stocked up with food and fresh fruit and vegetables from the huge colourful market, there was a variety of strange exotic fruits as well as beautiful displays of fish. The population seemed to be mostly Chinese, the French speaking asians seemed a little out of place to me. Cayenne reminded me of Grahamstown a bit in the way it looked.

Isle de Salut

After we had stocked up, we did a 5 hour sail to Isle de Salut. It was really stunning and unhinhabited, we saw a child graveyard, huge spiders and the ruins of an old jail. It was quite an eerie place. We met a French man (who had a striking resemblance to Jack Sparrow ) on a little monohull. We invited him for supper. I cooked a chicken pie which was pretty stressful but turned out okay and it was a lovely evening.

It was back on the ocean and because of the doldrums it took another week to get to Trinidad. At one stage we were going so slowly we could jump off and easily out swim the boat, I think we were even going backwards for a while! One really spectacular thing happened one night. Daniel called us on deck and pointed at the water, there were dolphins that were glowing like ocean angels, dozens of them swimming around the boat like ghosts. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Movies! what a treat

We didnt have enough fuel to motor and again were running out of food and water, fish biltong(which I had previously hated) was now a treat. On the last day, we had a tin of baked beans for lunch and were using the emergency water. Its hard being a girl out on the ocean, I felt so dirty and ugly the day we finaly arrived in Chagaramus Bay, Trinidad.

Our Home for 6 months

There were plenty of Marinas to choose from but we chose Coral Cove because it was moderately priced and had a pool. We made friends with a lovely European couple, Tonya and Pascal, who had so many stories. We also saw Chad, who we had met in St Helena. Many yachties had heard about our robbery in Brazil and were all sympathetic. I loved Coral Cove mostly because of the dogs, everyone had a dog onboard and I missed my dogs so much. There were even puppies! I also enjoyed watching the pretty pelicans. We went to the mall and the movie house which was a real treat. The heat in Trinidad was unbearable and we made trips to the pool  very often. Daniel left a few days after we arrived and me and Rich left a week after, but first the yacht needed to be dry docked.

The dry docking was extremely stressfull because of the strong current. We got pushed into a huge wooden pillar and me and Rich were desperately trying to fend off as best we could. Luckily officials at Peak Marine hopped on and helped us out. We made sure everything was closed up and went ashore while a huge crane picked up the light 6 tonne, Grazia. She got a high pressure hose spray down and then got driven to our new home, in the dry docks. We got given ladder to climb up and I felt like I was living in a flat. We had a bit of a problem as we had forgotten to ask for a bathroom key and the office had closed. I dont think you want to know how we managed that night.The next day, we got the key, showered profusely, packed our bags, dressed nicely, showered again( as we had sweated so much already) and said our goodbyes. It was time to fly back to South Africa!

Very Happy Couple