Ellie's Blog

Well where do I begin? For one, I have never blogged before, so I don’t exactly know what I am supposed to do, but I will try my best.

I have really enjoyed my stay here in Trinidad, and as much as my own bed sounds amazing right now, I would love to stay for another week or so. I have taken a few trips within the U.S., and being from Bellingham, WA, Canada is merely a 20 minute drive away, but this vacation to Trinidad has been my first out of the continent.

When people first found out that this is where I chose to vacation, they were skeptical. After driving through the northern part of Trinidad, I have to say that it is one of the most beautiful places I could ever imagine. The people here may work at tiny run-down fruit shops on the side of the street, but they are so welcoming, they have something about them that is so friendly. The whole country is beautiful, some places better than others, but all of it is great.

The whole trip has been amazing. I have visited a mall here, been swimming in the ocean, seen it rain a lot harder than it ever does back home, eaten local food, ridden in one of the most unsafe modes of public transportation, and experienced a whole lot of life that I wouldn’t have been able to experience anywhere else. Just yesterday my mother Amy, my Aunt Becky, and my cousins Jimmy, Emily, Kanyon, Kaleb and Ben went to the very popular Maracas beach and spent almost the entire day there. Our taxi driver’s name was Sterling and he showed us cashew trees, Cayman, which are a very small breed of alligators, he bought us local food, candy, and coconuts on our way up to the beach. Sterling was an amazing example of the people here.

If I have learned anything on my trip it is that life as a sailor is much, much, harder than I imagined. I have never considered myself high-maintenance at all, but I do enjoy a nice hot shower and a bedroom all to myself once in a while. When you are docked at a marina, like we are now, a hot shower is not hard to come by. Although the water pressure might be a little wishy-washy, it is indoors, and it’s good enough to get clean. When you are out in the middle of the ocean, much like we were previously this week, a shower means standing under a bag of hot water and trying to spray the salt water off your back and the shampoo out of your hair.

I guess for me life as a sailor is much more difficult than what I thought it was going to be because I didn’t really know what to expect, and because I had never had to live that way before. For my youngest cousin Benny, he remembers the farm as his old home, but has practically been raised on the boat and knows every in and out of his home, and the same goes for the rest of the family.

I know that this trip has been big for me, and that living on a boat for over a week with eight other people, and a dog, has been tough for me. But I also know that it has been an amazing experience that I will never forget. Also that I am not ready to go home tomorrow.

Roti and Doubles For Dinner, (ask me later)
Ellie