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Diane's DiaryAugust 31 Sunday I made some bacon and eggs for breakfast and homemade brownies. I cleaned the boat up and vacuumed also. I played dominoes from 1 to 4:30- I try to play every Sunday but some weeks it's not possible. Anyway, Mima came over for a chili dinner and brownies. After they left, we watched some more episodes of MASH. All in all, a very nice relaxing Sunday. September 1 Monday Steph was nice enough to bring our laundry back from CMO this morning. We gave some of our chrome hinges back to Irma La Douche Marine (George) to be redone. Larry had gotten all the hinges chromed while I was gone. He originally wanted $3 per hinge but since we had over 80 hinges it would have been too expensive. But when George spoke with the plating place he got the price down to $1 each so Larry got them redone. They really look super nice. We can't get them done in the US at this price and they don't make the hinges for our boat anyway. After almost 20 years, many of them were very rusty and something needed to be done about them. We went to the mall, as Larry had to call his brother Eric, stayed for lunch and did a little shopping. September 2 Tuesday We are going to leave for the out islands soon so I wanted to do a complete food inventory to see exactly what we have and what I need to buy. Food in Bonaire is supposed to be a lot more expensive than here so I am trying to minimize what I have to buy in Bonaire. I know we will have to buy fresh vegetables and fruit but I want to minimize buying meat and chicken if we can. Hopefully, we'll catch some fish or buy it from a fisherman so this will help. Anyway, I spent most of the day going through all the food lockers and writing down the locations of everything. I hand washed some clothes and soaked some others that had lots of stains. We seem to get a lot of stains on our clothes down here and they don't come out very easily so I have to soak a lot of them. We watched a couple of "Fast and Furious" movies that Elias brought for us to watch- lots of action, which Larry likes, but stupid plots. Anyway, sv Imajica invited us over for dinner with another boat "Twelfth Night". We all had a good time and it was nice getting to meet some other cruisers. September 3 Wednesday I did some emails this morning and than went to Makro, the warehouse supermarket, with Imajica and Twelfth Night at 10am. I was started to provision for the trip. We need a lot of things and obviously it can't be done all in one trip, as there is too much to buy. I made a list of all the food we have and put it in my Excel spreadsheet. I also made a list of what we need. When I start buying the food, I'll indicate which locker I put it in and update my spreadsheet. I'm sure I'll run out of some things and I'll probably forget some more but I'm trying to get everything I can. I hope Destiny won't sink with all the food I'm going to buy! I came back from shopping around 1pm and started putting all the food away. Later that night we watched another video Elias got us, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days". It was actually very funny and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. September 4 Thursday I vacuumed again this morning- we seem to be getting a lot of dust on the rugs so I have to vacuum about every two days. I looked for the Cetol as we are going to have Elias put another coat on the handrails and companionway. Well, I had to take everything out of the locker so it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. At 1:30pm, I went to La Cava meat market with Imajica and Twelfth Night. I am going to vacuum seal a whole bunch of food as this will take up less space in the small freezer. Also, the food lasts longer when it's vacuumed sealed. September 5 Friday I went to Plaza Mayor shopping mall with Twelfth Night and Imajica this morning by taxi. We shopped for about 3 hours. We would have taken the dinghy except we can't get the dinghy on plane with 3 people in it so the trip back would have been very slow. Plus, with a lot of groceries the dinghy would be very weighed down so would not go very fast. Since the 3 of us split the taxi, it only cost about .80USD each so it was definitely worth it. The advantage to going by dinghy is you can go directly back to your boat with the groceries. If you have a lot of groceries, you have to go to the marina entrance, get the cart and wheel it back to the boat. So, this is actually a lot harder. But sometimes, like on weekends, we don't like to take the dinghy into the canals because of all the local powerboats. Anyway, after lunch, I put away all the food and write it all on my inventory list. Steph and Tom had rented an apartment in our marina complex for 2 months- $200 month including electric (the apartment has central air- most of them do) and water, which I found extremely reasonable. It's a small 1-bedroom apartment but great for cruisers although it's sparsely furnished. No view though as it overlooks the boat yard. Anyway, their boat is going to be repainted again as there was a problem with the paint and has to go up on the hard, so with having the dog, it's much easier for them to be in an apartment. Anyway, we went out to dinner in the marina tonight with Mima, Twelfth Night and Imajica. Imajica is leaving to head back to Trinidad tomorrow and we will definitely miss them as we have enjoyed their company. Anyway, there is a new restaurant manager and the food was better than before although we did have some complaints. The food was just fair and we waited a long time for dinner. The price was right though- we paid less than $10 for both of us including drinks and tip so it was very reasonable. We found the food at Jak's (Porlamar) to be much better though. September 6 Saturday Elias brought us arepas for breakfast- we have them periodically as a change. This is a Venezuelan national dish so it's very popular- it's like a small fried pancake- very good and can be stuffed with all kinds of things. I prefer it with the shredded beef and Larry likes the cheese ones. The cost for 2 is about $1USD so it's very reasonable and a very filling breakfast. Anyway, I vacuumed again and than vacuum-sealed some meat. The vacuum sealer is very good and I'm glad I have it but it does use a lot of amps- 8 per bag so we usually do not have enough electric for me to use unless we are in a marina. The food is supposed to stay much longer even if it's only in the refrigerator also. I would like to go as long as possible with the food we have on board without having to buy much in Bonaire since everything is so expensive. Larry worked on putting together the new wood plank he got to put the jerry jugs next too. We met Tom and Steph by the pool for drinks at 5:30pm. Larry rarely goes into the pool. September 7 Sunday We stayed up late watching some movies last night that we didn't wake up until 9:30am, which is very late for us. I made some bacon and eggs for breakfast and we split the last bagel I brought back from NY. Guess we won't be having bagels for a long time! I played dominoes from 1- 4pm. When I came back, I made my delicious steal marinade. I'll bring this on the trip with us to marinate the meat we have. When I came back from the showers, Mima had called and invited us for drinks so Larry could see their apartment. We went about 6:30 and came back at 8pm. Steph had made some appetizers so when we got back to the boat, we only had a light dinner. We watched some more episodes of MASH when we got back to the boat. September 8 Monday Larry went to the hardware store with Tom this morning. I waterproofed the canvas on the dock. I did several pieces until I discovered the dock was so dirty it actually made the underside of the white canvas filthy so I had to wash it. Well, I certainly won't finish the waterproofing on the dock! I'll take it all up by the pool where it's concrete and waterproof it there. I found a container had leaked under the sink so I had to take everything out from under the sink and clean it all up. What a mess! We went to the potluck tonight but it was extremely crowded with too many cruisers. The marina is very crowded right now- they offered a special to cruisers in Trinidad to get them to come to the marina- .16 per foot plus .03 ft for electric and water. This is cheaper than the .19 ft per day plus electric we are paying. Anyway, the potluck was so crowded people were standing so we didn't enjoy it very much. Today was the Feast of the La Virgen de Valle- the patron saint for the fisherman. The little fishing village was very crowded with a huge party and there were lots of fireworks. You could see the street party from the overlook where the potluck was. September 9 Tuesday I made a huge grocery list this morning for everything I still need to buy before we leave. The list is definitely quite long! Anyway, I went with Chris from Twelfth Night to Exito supermarket at 10:30. We returned at 1pm and I needed to put all the food away. However, Larry had all the stuff in the aft cabin out in the main cabin so I couldn't put anything except the refrigerated items away so I decided to take the dinghy to Plaza Mayor and get some more food. I had not been very successful at Exito, as they seemed to be out of a lot of products. Jim from Twelfth Night came with me, as he wanted to get a haircut so off we went. We were only gone for around 2 hours or so but it gave Larry a chance to put everything away while I was gone. When I came back, I put all the groceries away and recorded on my food inventory list where I put everything. |