Cool Currency

One of the (many) tasks we did this week was to clean out our "nav station"...that is area on the boat usually set aside for "navigating", but on Rasmus it's become a something of a junk drawer containing all sorts of goodies: spare locks, motor keys, head-lamps, "every day" tools (much easier to keep these close rather than have to get out the tool bag every time you need a flathead screwdriver), quick reference guides, boat cards, index cards, sharpies, pens, pencils...you get the idea.  We clean it out every couple of months, but it always gets messy again in no time.

Anyway - also in this nav station, we had a little container full of change that we have been accumulating since the beginning of this trip.  Scott gave me the task of sorting it.  Oh joy!  While picking through it all, I realized I that I was really looking at the coins for the first time.  Caribbean coins depict everything from tall ships to starfish, from sailboats to porpoises and even pineapples.  Making note of all the unique pictures stamped in silver and bronze made sorting them a little less boring.  We had coins from approximately six different countries in that little bin!  Pretty neat.

Ironically, later on in the day when Scott and I were enjoying a cup of coffe at our favorite local cafe - he mentioned how interesting the Trini money was.  So we investigated our bills a little further and splayed them out on the table (yeah.  we're SUPER savvy travelers. laying all our money out on a table and all).  Sure enough - they tell a little story about Trinidad.  Each bill features a significant part of the culture or economy here; an oil rig on the $100, steel pan drums on the $20, a ship yard on the $10, market vendors on the $5 and an oil refinery on the $1.  It's a story, it's art and it can buy you a latte.  Not too shabby.

Love,
Brittany & Scott