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Diane's DiaryApril 25 Friday We left Scotland Bay at 6pm last night. It was a very dark night with only a ¼ moon. I prefer transiting with a full moon but we don't specifically wait for a full moon just to leave. We had a good weather window to leave in- winds around 10 knots from the E-SE. Unfortunately, since the wind was so light, we rolled even more just under sail alone so we decided to motor sail. We also wanted to get there during the daylight and it's almost 90 miles. I felt nauseous but I didn't get seasick. There were hardly any boats around. We arrived in Los Testigos around 8:30 am and went directly to the north anchorage. We had anchored in the south one before but felt it was too rolly. We decided to just anchor for 1 night and continue on to Margarita. Last year we visited customs but decided not to even bother if it was just for one night. It's a real hassle taking the dinghy down and putting the engine, gas tank, and oars on just for 1 day. Our new dinghy is a lot heavier than our old one. I do wish we had dinghy davits as this would make things easier. Anyway, I made breakfast and put some canvas up. I was so tired I slept from 11-2. Two other boats left the anchorage today so now it's just 2 of us. The anchorage here is just gorgeous but unfortunately it's way too rolly. I think the only way to be comfortable in any of the anchorages in LT, you need to take a stern line to shore. We were not willing to do that as we will leave at daybreak on Sunday. April 26 Saturday The anchorage is extremely rolly and very windy so I'm not to happy here although it's a beautiful spot. Since we are only going to stay 2 nights we decided not to launch the dinghy or check in with the Guardia Costa. Since we have the new heavier dinghy, it really is much more difficult to launch. We had a very positive experience with some local fisherman. They wanted to give us a fresh red snapper! No money, just give it to us. But since we know how poor they are we asked them if they wanted beer or rum - no. But when we said coke, the lady looked at her teenager onboard and said yes. We only had 2 small cokes but it was a good trade for both of us. It really was very nice of them and they didn't give it to us to get anything from us. Nice to have such a wonderful encounter. I did some emails and logs in the AM but the boat was rolling so much I started to get nauseous and had to stop. I did some reading and we generally took it easy. I also made eggplant for Larry's 50th birthday tomorrow. I thought we would have been in VZ already so I didn't get him a present yet and also was going to make him a special birthday meal but this will have to wait. We will be transiting to Margarita and will leave in the early am. April 27 Sunday- Larry's 50th birthday Well, even though I only had a card for him, Larry is doing today the thing he loves most in the whole world- sailing! We left the anchorage with the sails up around 6:30am. We motored for around 1.5 hours to run the watermaker. We had a E-SE wind about 10-15 knots seas about 5-6 feet- a little rolly but not too bad. There were hardly any fisherman out- maybe because it was Sunday. This is as good as sailing gets down here! I think Larry was glad he had such a nice sailing day. However, when tacking into Porlamar harbor doing about 4 knots, the boom bail- a piece of stainless steel- just burst and disintegrated! Larry was extremely shocked as this was a piece of stainless steel that just exploded and this should not have happened. He was also very upset, as he didn't know if he would be able to fix it. Boat parts are very hard to get in VE after the strike so I hope he can fix it. We saw Spice Island Lady- we had spoken to them on the SSB this morning as we had a boat part for them. They came over for a drink around 5pm to celebrate Larry's birthday. They gave Larry a nice bottle of Chilean wine for his birthday. They stayed around 2 hours and then we had a nice dinner of chicken Alf redo and eggplant. We went to bed fairly early, as we were both tired from the long day. April 28 Monday Larry needs to fix a problem with the dinghy- a line chafed on the hull so he wanted to patch it before it got any bigger. It's not a real hole yet- just some chafing where we tied the dinghy down as we had deflated it some. We'll never deflate it again! The chafe came from the lines we used to tie the dinghy down on deck while we are under way. Anyway, this meant we couldn't use the dinghy for several days while the patch dried. Spice Island Lady was kind enough to lend us their dinghy- Larry drove us both to the dock and picked each of us up when we were ready. He wanted to look at the problem with the boom and see if he could fix it. I, of course, wanted to go shopping. But first I needed to get more B's. Other cruisers told us to bring USD with us as we got a better exchange rate- at least 2000= 1USD compared to the official exchange rate of 1600. I knew to change it at the cambios would not be good as they wouldn't give me a better rate. Also, exchanging it on the street is NOT good- they rip you off. So, I tried some stores. Surprisingly, most didn't want to do it or didn't want to give a good exchange rate. I finally went to the Atomica store where we bought the Teva's last year for such a good price. They exchanged my USD at 2000=1USD. I had to wait about 15 minutes while they got the money but it still was not a bad deal for me. We heard in PLC, we can get 2100 and in Caracas, almost 2500 at the most. Anyway, I bought a pair of flip-flop Teva's for 10USD- a great buy I'm pretty sure, as Teva's are very expensive in the US. I also went to Rattan supermarket and bought a bunch of things. Prices have gone up since last year but mostly you do better on almost everything except for Pampero rum (increased from 1.20USD to 2.20) Laundry was $5 for 6Kg last year; this year it's $3. Club soda was about .33 can last year, it's .40 this year. Our famous cheap Gato Blanco wine last year was $3 and now it's $3.20. Last year lomito was $5USD per kilo, this year it's $3.65 kilo. Red snapper was 5.30 last year, now it's $6. These prices are all adjusted for the B and estimating it around 1300 last year (we got a high of 1450 in October and a low of 1225 in December.) This year we get 2000B with US cash. But, all in all, it's still a lot cheaper to eat and drink here than anywhere else in the entire Caribbean. A lot of cruisers are just afraid to come to VE because of security problems but we have not had any problems at all. Anyway, after shopping it was back to the boat. We both wanted to go to Jak's for dinner but didn't want to ask Spice Island Lady to borrow their dinghy so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Anyway, we did have lomito tonight and it was great. How can you go wrong with fillet mignon at around $4 for 2.2lbs? Sure is great to be back here! We were spending way too much money in Trinidad. April 29 Tuesday Well, it took us over an hour this morning to reinflate the dinghy and put everything together for it. It would be a whole lot easier if we had davits. For anyone thinking about a trip like ours, we highly recommend getting davits! I wrote an email to YSATT asking for a refund of our $445 that we spent to get the bottom paint problem fixed. We had a late breakfast after we got the dinghy together. We wanted to do this before the wind came up and it was difficult to do. Anyway, I went shopping in the afternoon to Vemasca (the local boat store) and CM supermaket. The taxis all wait for you if you want to make a stop and do NOT charge you anything extra for this. Can you imagine this happening in NY? But there are certain areas that are not good here so it's better just to take a taxi for security purposes. BTW, taxis are cheap- you can go approximately 10-15minutes for around $1.25. They charge per taxi so you can load it as many people as possible but they usually fit 5 people at most. Anyway, after shopping, we went to Jak's restaurant for dinner. The cruisers are all annoyed with her because she hasn't put happy hour back since after the strike and her beers are more expensive than elsewhere. They were 500 B last year so around .33/can, now they are 800 and around .40can. Sounds like the cruisers are complaining about very little right? Yet other restaurants only charge 300-400 B per beer so hers are much more expensive. Anyway, Larry went off the diet but I stayed on it. He loved her calamari! Last year it was 5000B (almost $3.84) and now it's 7000 (3.50) so it's a little cheaper. Anyway, we still have to hoist the dinghy here in Porlamar every night same as last year for security purposes. If you do NOT, your dinghy will be gone in the morning. You will get the dinghy back, but the outboard will be gone as it's the motor they want not the dinghy. April 30 Wednesday We are not going to check in here in PLC as you have to check in and out in each port and they charge for this- about $75USD for national and international clearance so it's not cheap. You can only get 3 months and then you have to pay someone to "Stamp" your passport in and out- of course this costs about $25USD per passport. We have been to Porlamar several times and no one has ever questioned us, so we didn't bother. We know there will be no problems in the out islands. Anyway, I took the free Marina Juan bus to Sigo today. Larry offered to come but he hates shopping and it's easier for me to do it myself so I can concentrate on getting everything on my list. The bus normally stays until 1pm but today they left at 12:30. Since this was my first time back, I wanted to look at all the stores and stuff so it took me a while to shop. I didn't even get to have lunch I was so busy shopping! Anyway, after we got back and had lunch, Larry and I went to Vemasca by taxi and also to a dive shop to get this stuff called Aqua Seal, which is supposed to be great for dinghy leaks. The taxi took us to 2 dive shops at no extra charge but we couldn't find it. By the time we got back to the boat, I was exhausted from all that shopping! We had our friends on S/V Sojourner over for drinks and enjoyed catching up with them again. But I was definitely worn out from the day! May 1- Labor Day holiday Well, today is a holiday here in VE with everything closed. I had hoped to get all my provisioning done and than get out of here quickly but the holiday throws everything off for us. So, we just took it easy the whole day. We were able to give the mineral spirits we brought from Trinidad for S/V Plenum to a Norwegian boat named Norwegian Moon going to PLC as we don't know when we will arrive and we know Plenum needs it. We brought the garbage in but otherwise didn't leave the boat. We were supposed to go over to Spice Island Lady for drinks but they called to cancel. It was nice to have a quiet day on the boat. I did manage to but away all the stuff I bought- I bought another 3 cases of rum so we probably have around 6 cases on the boat. This needs to last us until we get back to Margarita around November! Hope we can make it that long! May 2 Friday Disaster! Just as we were leaving the boat to go shopping for Larry's birthday present- the lever arm on the head (toilet) broke while I was using it. For you landlubbers, that means the head is not working. This is NOT good! We have another head but the water maker is over it so we can't get to it. Larry said he would look at it after we get back from shopping and hopefully he will be able to fix it. We went to the Rattan Depo, which is just like a Home Depo so Larry wanted to go. Otherwise, he hates to go shopping unless it's a hardware or boat store! We found some movies at Sambil mall. We also went out to lunch. Larry had a pizza but I stayed on the diet. McDonalds' was charging $2.50 USD for a Big Mac, FF and Coke - what a deal. A soda at home costs almost $2USD! So, we can definitely live a lot cheaper here! Larry thinks he found a watch he wants but we will look around some more before we buy it. We got back at 3pm and Larry immediately went to work on the broken head. He has some stuff he thinks might fix it but we will have to see. We were supposed to go to Spice Island Lady but Larry was still working on the head so we cancelled. Also, Larry had put a bridle out about a day or so ago because we were rolling so much in the anchorage. Well, I noticed we were dragging and told Larry. Sure enough we were. When we picked up the anchor we found it caught on a line. Larry said if we didn't have the bridle up we probably wouldn't have dragged. However, I was really glad he put the bridle out- it was a lot less rolly with the bridle on and it was much more comfortable motion. I'm glad he did it. So, we moved the boat further out in the anchorage - thank goodness it wasn't dark out yet! Now if we can get the head fixed, we'll be on our way to Blanquilla! |