October 16th
So what’s up here?  We have met a lot of people.  Nick has met the most — I think he even speaks a bit of Chinese now!  But besides sanding, painting, grinding, and the forever polishing and rearranging, not much!  We get up at 8 every morning to listen to the net (the vhf radio program that keeps all us yachty's informed).  There we hear about the weather and things people have to sell, etc.  After this exciting wake up we begin our day.  Nick goes off for breakfast, he is famous friends with the cook at the restaurant here and has French toast awaiting him each morning.  Chris lounges around because he has usually been up late watching movies.  Jim and I, stiff and sore from the previous day, we usually have one or two patients knocking on our hull awaiting service.  After adjusting them (quite a social thing, we usually have coffee with them after) we begin doing whatever the Captain Jim instructs us to do.  Then we do what we want to do!  All the same, the work is done.

At least, the work we have to do gets done.  The work we've hired others to do is always a chore.  We ask them everyday if they are done, to no avail.  Although we did get the main sail back today, and Jim and the boys are re-installing it right now.  Our woodworker is the only one who is reliable — hence he is getting a lot of work from us!  And is he good.

The typical day continues with a game of pool and beer break at five, work until 7ish and then dinner at the Bight — the (only) local restaurant!  They have a wide variety of food, which consists of eggs for breakfast and fried fish or hamburgers for lunch and dinner.  I live on the double side of salad, Chris on the hamburgers, and Jim and Nick on the battered fried fish!  After a month, nothing up there trips the old saliva glands into action!  I cook about once per week when I am not totally burnt out and exhausted and when we do not have sawdust everywhere!  It is quite the trip after living in a 3000 sq ft. home to live in an unorganized mess with lots of sawdust and fiberglass shavings, not to mention the huge Chinese fishing boat that is sandblasting it’s paint everyday!  Please do not come to visit until the dust settles.  Better yet, wait until we are in the water with an exotic setting.

Jim's cousin Barb came with her fiancé Jimmy.  Being people who do not have a hard time having fun, they fit in fine, but I know we would have had an even better time had we been able to relax on the boat.  We felt bad for them as it was their vacation and we were too tired to really entertain, not to mention that the kids and I had only been down here for 10 days.  Quite the adjustment.  Also, Trinidad is not the vacation spot of the world — fabulous people and fairly cheap do boat work and provisioning but definitely third world dirty - beaches included!  Therefore, it is slim pickings for entertainment.  But Barb and Jimmy have the “first guest titles” and the big Thank You for hauling a huge amount of stuff down for us!  We definitely owe them a good time when they visit next.

Somewhere in the day the kids always get their three hours of schooling done.  I was so proud of them after the last test as they scored an A- average.  The Calvert system we are using is self-explanatory and does not take much time on my part as long as the boys are self-motivated, which (luckily) they are for the most part.  Tomorrow begins the big review for the next test.  This takes lots of my time but after three days of studying, hopefully it will bring the same great results!

Time for that infamous salad!  Take care and love to you all -- Kelcey