Trinidad

Oct 2025 Update:

There has been a significant increase in US Military presence in the area around Venezuela and Trinidad, with multiple Venezuelan vessels suspected of drug smuggling being targeted and destroyed. A voluntary reporting scheme has been initiated to prevent possible misidentification of civilian vessels by the military. Details can be found here.

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They say that when Columbus discovered Trinidad he stumbled into a big party. Today, Trinidadians remain fun-loving, hospitable people who do indeed love partying. Steel pan music was invented here, a by-product of the oil industry and its discarded oil drums. Calypso, too, had its birth in Trinidad. These musical forms combine to help make Trinidad’s carnival the world’s finest celebration.

Trinidad seems to reach out and almost touch Venezuela. The two were linked together only 11,000 years ago when the last ice age lowered the sea by 300 feet. It shares a rich diversity of plants, birds, and insects with the South American continent, and because it is an island, the rich wildlife is more condensed and easily accessible than it is on the continent.

South American Indians inhabited Trinidad when Columbus arrived in 1498. The early Spanish colonization in 1776 was not successful, as the Spanish were too busy plundering South America to settle in Trinidad. Governor Chacon then offered free land to all newcomers, and the colonization of Trinidad got under way with help from many French settlers. Port of Spain became the main town.

The British captured Trinidad and Tobago in 1797 and held the two islands until independence. In the early days Trinidad had a flourishing plantation economy based on sugar. The plantocracy found itself short of labor after the abolition of slavery, when former slaves quite naturally wanted no part of working on the plantations. The landowners’ solution to the problem was to import some 150,000 indentured servants from India. Today, Trinidad’s population is a blend of Indians, Africans, and Europeans, a mix that has generated some exceptionally good-looking people. Trinidad has a population of 1.2 million, about 350,000 of whom live in Port of Spain. Trinidad and Tobago became an independent twin-island state in 1962, a democracy in the British tradition. It was led by Dr. Eric Williams for 20 years until his death.

​During the last world war the United States established major naval and air bases in Trinidad. They served to protect oil shipments to England, which were prime targets for German U-boats.

Trinidad has the good fortune to have large deposits of oil and natural gas, and a pitch lake. As a result it is more industrialized than the rest of the Caribbean and produces, among other things, steel and ammonia, which are exported. They build ships and undertake major construction.

Trinidad is modern. It has large shopping malls, similar to those in the USA, good roads and excellent repair and service facilities for yachts and super-yachts. Many yachtspeople enjoy spending part or all of the hurricane season here. The sightseeing is good, the hospitality great, and Port of Spain is a thriving, bustling town where something is always happening. In the north, Chaguaramas is a great place to overhaul your yacht and enjoy yourself at the same time, and a very secure place to leave your boat in dry storage.

There are a good number of Trinidadian yachtspeople and they have an active yacht club, the Trinidad and Tobago Sailing Association (TTSA). They are particularly welcoming and friendly to visiting yachtspeople and members love to see everyone have a good time. There is also the Trinidad and Tobago Yacht Club (TTYC), though these days it is more motor-yacht focused.

Trinidad also has several out-of-the-way anchorages. These make perfect getaways for a few days of peace and quiet. Many of these offer great hiking for the adventurous.