We’ve been here 5 days and it is easy to see why so many cruisers come here for a couple of months and stay for years (we continue to plan on being exceptions to that rule). It’s not the beaches or the water that’s the attraction; the water looks very much like Galveston Bay and the beaches are not nearby. But the people are the friendliest in the world, the boating services and facilities are many and the living costs for us are very inexpensive. It is amazing to sail into another country so far from home and know so many people when you arrive. Our friends Al and Runa who have been down here for about 6 years aren’t here (they are still in Sweden due to the illness of Runa’s mother) but other friends that we met when we were here 4 years ago are here in addition to almost everyone we’ve met on the way down.

Every Friday morning, one of the large grocery stores in Port Of Spain arranges for free transportation to and from their store for the “yachties”. We were picked up by the “Maxi Taxi” at 8:30 and returned by 11:00 with our 12 bags of groceries. We found everything we were looking for except tortillas, so we’ll be making use of the tortilla press we brought back from the US.

Tonight we’re going to the “Mood Indigo” concert. This is a well-known jazz band made up of cruisers that have been playing together for several years. We’ve heard of them but have not yet heard them. Everyone has mentioned the concert to us so I’m sure there’s going to be a big crowd.

One of the reason’s so many boat projects get done here is that the teak wood is so CHEAP. It actually grows on trees here. We’re going to have the cabin sole in the galley redone. I removed the rotten floor in there a few years ago and we’ve been living with the plywood look for too long. Everything is so inexpensive here that the running joke is that you’ll go broke saving money. We’re well on our way.

Well, that’s the update for now. Keep in touch.

David and Claudia
11/13/99

Update 11/16/99:
The Mood Indigo concert was unbelievably GREAT! We’re sure staying busy here. Today is laundry day for us so I sneaked off to the internet cafe to get these emails out. Radio propagation hasn’t been real good down here but this works very well. Continue to send emails to the sailmail account, though, because we can get them via the internet and hotmail also.