s/v Milly: A Visit From Our Boy!

We spent a restful week in Tobago in slo mo, snorkelling, hiking, and watching the depressions crawl across the Atlantic becoming “more organized” - sounds good, but it’s not for the likes of anything in it’s way - into tropical storms and then into hurricanes. For our first few days, we kept an eye on Hurricane Danny. This new threat had me logging onto NOAA hurricane centre about four times a day. At first Danny was pointed disconcertingly south toward Grenada. Over time he veered north. Great for us but not so much for islands in his path. About a week later, Dominica was badly damaged by Tropical Storm Erica, with mudslides leaving many homeless. Storms are ruthless and prove once again that Mother Nature deserves respect - complacence is not allowed.

Those little sails way off in the distance are the lasers - and I can hardly wait.

Our final destination of our first season was Chaguaramas, Trinidad. We had timed our arrival to coincide with our son, Tom’s, laser training session with Trini olympian, Andrew Lewis, and coach, Vaughn Harrison. As we neared the Boca or cut between two islands on our way toward the harbour, Peter spotted two laser sails about six NM away. As we got closer, we could see one had a CAN on it. There was Tom on the great blue sea meeting us. I was jumping-up-and-down excited on the bow, blowing kisses! Peter was too distracted to take pictures. Lots of shouting, laughter, smiles and a few tears. As we continued along, dolphins came to celebrate with us by dancing at the bow. They must have sensed our exuberance. Such a great way to put a big exclamation mark at the end of our first season!!

The dolphins were telepathic. They celebrated and accompanied us for at least ten minutes

Jumping for our joy!

We spent the next few days docked at Andrew’s family island house dock. Milly looked terrific in front of a lovely villa. The boys joined us for coffee before and drinks after training all day. Wonderful!

Looking pretty in front of the "island house"

This was Tom’s last laser training camp. He has decided to switch to the Finn class on a five year campaign for the Rio and Tokyo olympics. Earlier in August, a few days of training for the first time in Finn, he won the North American championships which convinced him that the move from laser to Finn was a good one. You can follow his journey on twitter @tomramshaw, on Facebook Tom Ramshaw Sailing or on his website tomramshaw.com. Donations can be made through his website. He has two irresponsible, non-employed parents so all donations to his much more costly campaign are very welcome. Please consider it.

Checking out the rigging

R & R

Dragging at 6-8 knots.

Cooking up a storm

We didn't catch anything but were presented with two fish by local fishermen as a gifts.

Bimini doubled as chin up bar

After his training camp, we had the pleasure of Tom’s company for a four day cruise on Trinidad’s north coast and islands - beautiful, mountainous and lush. We snorkelled with sea turtles, swam, hiked, flew the spinnaker, fished without luck, sailed and sailed some more. Tom climbed the mast twice, jumped off the bimini, did flips forwards and backwards over the lifeline, and expressed approval of our new home.

Approval! From a dinghy sailor who sails to go fast, this was appreciated praise.

Trinidad is known for it’s industry rather than for tourism like neighbouring Tobago. For the short time we cruised, we found a wild and undeveloped coastline. Although not all that protected, the few anchorages on the north shore, were peaceful and beautiful. The islands closer to Chaguaramas offered greater protection with easily accessible hikes. Unfortunately, the litter on shore - comprised mainly of plastic water bottles and many flip flops - from partiers on shore or garbage brought by ocean currents was sometimes knee deep on otherwise beautiful beaches with coconut palms.

A tiny section of an entire, otherwise beautiful, bay.

A little investment in clean up or, better yet, some care taken by humans with their debris would make Trinidad a lovely cruising destination - safe from hurricanes, English-speaking, fantastic boat repair facilities and very friendly people. Nothing has made us more avid followers of the three R's, then the plastics we have seen in the ocean.

After docking at Peake Marina where we were taking Milly out of the water for a few weeks, Andrew took us on a tour of Port of Spain. We ate jerk at a local eatery, saw Fort George and the Magnificent Seven mansions and were given advice on speargun purchases and fishing. Our fishing definitely needs fine tuning. The boys were kind and generous tour guides especially given that they had been out the night before. It was a new experience for us to be introduced to a country by someone who lived there and spoke English. We were grateful to Andrew, Trini celebrity who strangers stop to speak to because of his sailing success.