The ar­rival of the USS Grave­ly in Port-of-Spain just af­ter 9 am yes­ter­day cre­at­ed a stir among cu­ri­ous on­look­ers, who still be­lieved it was not too late for the Gov­ern­ment to adopt a neu­tral po­si­tion in the ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

Ex­press­ing ap­pre­hen­sion and con­cern as he watched the naval ves­sel be­ing es­cort­ed in­to the har­bour by two tug­boats— one man who had been wait­ing from as ear­ly as 7 am—point­ed to it and re­marked, “That’s it? It not look­ing any big­ger than our Coast Guard boat.”

De­spite this, those gath­ered along the Hy­att Wa­ter­front, ex­cit­ed­ly snapped pic­tures of the ves­sel as it was guid­ed to its moor­ings near the Cruise Ship Com­plex at Dock Road, un­der the watch­ful eyes of the T&T Coast Guard (TTCG) —as well as a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty blan­ket of plain clothes and uni­formed of­fi­cers.