December 10, 2012
Pirates Bay - Tobago
Children enjoying the TOPtoTOP activities in Tobago
From Surinam we sailed to Tobago. The first 2 days we were so fast, that the prop started to spin. We hived by and stopped the boat so Dario was able to dive and check the prop. But the reason for the spinning prop was the speed. The wind was dropping soon after and the last days were slow.
After 4 days sailing we anchored in the Pirates Bay, near Charlottesville. This is the eastern tip of Tobago. Already on the first day we got in touch with the Rasta culture: cooooool!
During our clean up games with the local school we hardly could find any trash, - so clean is Charlottesville. Congratulation to the people of Tobago!
Tobago is a wonderful, relaxed island with jungle and mountains to go for a hike, waterfalls to do canyoning, beautiful shore for sea-kayaking, sandy beaches to surf and reefs to dive. Charlottesville has a lot of fish.
Our friend Per on SY Arctic, we met last time in St. Helena Island, got a big fish and shared it with all the sailors in the bay. He was in the water trying to kill the fish with a knife. When he finally won the fight, it attracted a shark. But luckily Per saved the fish into his dinghy in time.
End November we had to say goodbye to Christina: In these more than 3 months she was an excellent teacher to Salina and Andri and a perfect deckhand. She was very flexible: Besides the night watches, she was teaching the children constantly for 4 hours a day. With her charming nature and big heart she was integrated in the family in no time. Beside her function as teacher and deckhand, she was always busy and saw the work. - Free diving on open Ocean she cleared once the keel from a big fishing net. - Even on long passages and worse conditions she contributed to a nice atmosphere on board and became on this journey part of the family. Many thanks to Christina for your great effort! We will miss her as a good friend and hope to see her back on the TOPtoTOP Expedition very soon. - Salina joined Christina for a month to Switzerland, so that she was able to join her school and see the extended family. She will be back at Xmas together with Meret.
On the 6th of December we had Santa thanks to SY Shady Lady. The pirates from all boats climbed the hill and find Santa coming out of the jungle. Every child had to promise to do better from now on and got a present.
Our last school invitation before Xmas will be on Thursday. We already started with preparing the boat for the leg to Alaska. Turtle Pack in Australia ship us some flexible tanks we use in the very North. Bucher&Walt replaced our damaged GPS and thanks to Tracker also in Switzerland you will go to see our position.
Good News: Peaks Yacht Services will haul us out for free so that we can do the underwater paint for Pachamama and all the maintenance work starting on the 2nd of January 2013. Budget Marine Trinidad goes to support our project as well. Our partner ICOM Australia goes to support us with a ICOM M-500TR Transponder. This will be another great device to improve the safety on board. Thanks to ICOM Australia big ships will see the AIS signal of the TOPtoTOP Expedition sailboat also in the worst conditions.
Insider note: We had to postpone the installation of the LI-batteries from the NTU University, because they will not arrive in Trinidad in time.
Thanks to Swiss Honorary Consul Michele Khan in Trinidad we got in contact with Swiss hotelier Jörg Wickihalder who invited us into the Magdelena Grand Beach Resort where we will probably do a presentation begin of January:
Jörg Wickihalder - Merry Xmas and a happy New Year 2013!
Darian-Karsha-Andri-Noe. Thanks to Workshop Sea Tours in Charlotteville we are able to do internet and to wash our laundry! Karsha is the daughter of Lenore and Curtis.
Noe 1st swimming alone on the 12.12.2012 at 12 h!!