Staying in a treehouse

We are fortunate in many ways but I would say that we are most so because of the vast number of people that we can call friends, many of whom became so through my writing on this blog. While we met Harry and Pip, our friends here in Trinidad, through hashing and not from this site, they tell us that they do keep up with our exploits on the water, mostly because they aspire to a similar life of their own down the road.

Like our friends in Grenada who took us into their home, since our arrival here in Trinidad, Harry and Pip welcomed us into theirs. When the choice needs to be made about where to stay, on a boat in a yard or in a beautiful house, it’s not all that tough to decide, especially when it’s with people you enjoy spending time with. We had a great week with them, and shared a lot of fun events. We’re back on the boat now though, with last night being our first in the yard. It may be difficult for many of the readers to understand how different things are when staying on a boat on the hard as compared to when it in the water.

Thank you so much, Harry and Pip, for welcoming us into your home!

To begin, the boat is much like a treehouse, high in the air, and must be accessed by climbing a large ladder. If falling off the boat when it’s in the water is bad, doing so when it’s on the hard is equally dangerous, if not more so. It’s a long way down!

Additionally, with the exception of being able to fill a glass of water from the tap, none of the plumbing systems work on the boat when it is stored on land. This means that the late night call to use the toilet must be dealt with by a long walk to the public toilet, including a trip down and then back up the ladder that I just mentioned.

Typically boats get their best ventilation when they are at anchor, pointed into the wind. This often means that a stay in a boat yard is extremely warm, and sometimes buggy. We were lucky in that the boat yard workers decided to place Frost stern to the water. We not only enjoyed the sound of waves lapping at the beach, we also were treated to a nice cooling breeze that made its way into our cabin. If we closed our eyes, we could almost imagine that we were floating in a calm anchorage instead of perched high in the air in a dusty boat yard.

How much longer will we be here? That kind of depends on what happens this morning. We still have a couple of projects to finish up. After that, we just have to pay our bill(s) and we’ll get to splash. Fingers are crossed that it happens quickly!