Paria Springs Trinidad and Tobago Adventures

Otoire River

On Saturday 9th August, Phill Fung, Ray Chin Lee, Richard Changur, Robert, Jenny and Richard Tang and I paddled part of the Otoire River.  Phill and Ray in their singles, Jenny and Rick did one of my Quads and Robert, Richard and I did the other quad.  This paddle was something I wanted to do for a very long time and it turned out to be different than I thought it was going to be.   I knew it would be longer and tougher than anticipated, which of course it was.  It took us over 2 hours to reach Mafekin and the bridge by Mayaro.  I was hoping the water colour would improve and we would get into more natural areas.  As you can see the water never improved and we never got out out of human impacted areas, so in that way it was dissapointing.  We did see many birds but no Manatee and only one possible caiman.  While it was a fun paddle and is something I would do again, its not something I would do as a tour.  Maybe an explore further along the river will be a better paddle.  What I really want to do next is to explore up the Nariva River and to see if we can connect to Plum Mittan, though this would probably be a 6 to 8 hour paddle.  The water looks much better and I think the possibility of of Manatee, Caiman, Macaws and lots of birds will be much higher.

Macajuel

This afternoon I was riding Archery Trail in Tucker Valley, Chaguaramas when rounding a corner I cam upon this beauty.  I think she measures in between 7 and 8 feet, I will check tomorrow, and it a Boa Constrictor, locally called Macajuel.  I tried to hold her and all I managed was her tail as she was faster than I expected and was in no mood for a fondle or a casual tryst with me.  I played with her taking mostly crappy photographs and she kept an eye on my ensuring I was not up to mischief.  After a bit I decided that the literally 1000 mosquitoes had sucked enough blood out of me and I left her to continue hunting smaller meals than me.

Gabby's Birthday

So my diet has not gone well in the last week.  I have done great in that I have trained hard but having a very sociable and delightful daughter turn 8 has been hard - she scored no less than three birthday cakes, and I mean full size cakes and all the remainders have ended up in my fridge tempting me to the n'th degree, and unfortunately I have succumbed.  The training has been going well with many 1 to 4 hour rides and 1 to 2 hour walk/jog/runs and 1 to 2 hour kayaks usually around the 5 Islands which is always fun.  I am training for the coast to coast, http://www.trinidadcoast2coast.com/ which is a very tough multisport race that I have wanted to do for years.  I will be doing it with Louise Smart, who will run while to do the riding and kayaking bits.

Restart

Hi All,

After a long layoff I am restarting my blog!!  It will be as informative and quirky as always.  Also I am trying my best to launch an international TV career.  So go to www.yeagoproductions.com and click on Go Wild Trailer, or go to projects and click on Go Wild with Courtenay Rooks and you will see what I am up to.

For now; we are clearly into the rainy season and it keeping with the current climate change trend it started with a bang and there have been severe November type floods already, and very sadly they have resulted in avoidable drownings.  Without a doubt the trend has been extreme rainy season followed by drought; no inbetweens.