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Diane's DiaryApril 1 Friday Today was a very busy day for me. I walked to the fish market near here with Jeannie- the shrimp wasn't very good so we didn't buy any. He promised he was getting in better shrimp tomorrow so we told him we would be back then. Within a half hour after we got back, we left to go to CM by taxi. I had to exchange 5 DVD's that were horrible- we can exchange them for others but can't get our money back. Anyway, we got back around 1pm, had lunch and left at 1:45pm by dinghy to meet Janice at Plaza Mayor. She is the American oil worker's wife we met at the reception for the US Ambassador here in PLC. She was going to the US and was nice enough to bring us back vitamins. Vitamins are very expensive here and a whole lot cheaper in the US. It was extremely nice of her and I treated her to a batido as a small thank you. It was nice talking to another American who is not a boater. We get very caught up with other boaters just speaking about boat things it was nice to speak about something else. She lives with her family off a canal here so I know we will see her again as I pass by her house every time I go through the canal. I decided to get a pedicure, as I had not had one in the mall for a long time. I had been getting them done in the marina but the girl only does a fair job. The mall charges about 12,000B more than the marina so it's about $5 more however the mall does a far better job- I won't go back to the marina to get it done anymore- it's worth the extra price to get it done in the mall. I stopped quickly in the supermarket and got back to the boat around 5pm. It was a long busy day and I was tired from all that shopping. April 2 Saturday Very sad news - Pope John Paul died today and throughout the world there is a large outpouring of grief. It is the only thing CNN has had on TV the entire day. As a Catholic myself, I am sad he has died though I am glad his long suffering with numerous health problems is over. However, many people in the world seem to be extremely upset over his death and are making the pilgrimage to Rome to attend his funeral. We went to the monthly flea in the marina this morning. We sold our old printer for $10USD- it didn't work anymore but the guy who bought it had the exact same one and just wanted it for parts so it worked out well. We walked to the fish market afterwards and got some new fresh shrimp although they were more expensive at 20,000B or about $7USD per kilo. I cleaned all the shrimp when I got back and it took me about 1.5 hours to clean them. I made a big pot of gazpacho soup in the pm. It did not come out that great, as it's not the normal recipe I usually use when at home. I got a migraine headache in the morning and had it all day. We had some Sambuca last night on the boat and I think it wasn't a great quality so I think it triggered a migraine. I am convinced I get some migraines from the chemicals they put in cheap booze. Anyway, we met Allaban in the restaurant for dinner, as they will be leaving PLC tomorrow. Unfortunately, the have to be in Bonaire on 4/13 to meet some company so are going to go very quickly thru the Aves and Roques. That's too bad as it's some of our favorite cruising grounds and I wouldn't want to go through there so quickly. One thing we have learned from cruising is not to have company come into a port until we have arrived in it. If the weather gets bad, we get screwed just trying to go fast to meet them. I tried dealing with the migraine by not taking anything but in the middle of the night I was so nauseous and felt so sick I had to get up and take the Imitrex. I felt much better after it took effect. Imitrex works great but unfortunately it's expensive even down here- I can only get 100mg which I divide in 2 but it still costs $10USD for 2 pills- 4 when I cut them in half. I can't even imagine what it costs in the US! April 3 Sunday I woke up at 3am with a horrible migraine, took the Imitrex, stayed up for a few hours and finally got to bed around 5am. I didn't wake up until 9:30am, which is very late for me. I still had my migraine, although I felt much better, so decided to skip dominoes today. I made cheese omelets, got the paper and generally just took it easy. We found several other cruisers that have DVD's we can borrow. Everyone seems to be very generous with lending his or her DVD's. I guess that's because we can't get them down here and everyone wants to swap whatever they have. Anyway, we found someone who has DVD's of the West Wing - it's our favorite TV show. It's amazing how good the colors are in the DVD's compared with the TV and when we record them on the VCR. Also, the quality we get on the VCD's we buy down here is garbage compared to the original DVD quality. I also reviewed the taxes and Larry will print them out. We owe the Fed $475 and we were only even in the US 3 weeks last year. Seems to me we shouldn't have to pay anything at all since we didn't even live there. April 4 Monday I made a big tray of cheese enchiladas after lunch. I also met with Joan on Mainly to discuss Las Aves and Roques with her. I met with her in the restaurant and I'll never give a talk there again as everyone kept trying to interrupt us. I left directly from there and went to Plaza Mayor to get som DVD's. But after I had returned home with it, Larry had done some investigating on the net and found that we could have some problems with the boot leg no brand DVD's we receive down here. So we may just make another order from the US to buy some more. S/V Allaban left today- they hardly spent any time here in Venezuela at all and it's a shame. April 5 Tuesday I made some Ceasar salad and Italian dressing from scratch. I've made them both before and they are excellent recipes. We ordered a bunch of DVD's this morning from the US. We asked 3 other cruisers to go in on it so it will reduce the shipping costs. April 6 Wednesday We still haven't gotten our boat parts shipment that's coming in by boat. We spoke to Rolando in Miami yesterday and he said we should get it Wednesday or Thursday of next week at the latest. In the meantime, Larry using a scanner he borrowed to copy a bunch of articles. This way we can get a whole bunch of magazines off the boat. That should get a bunch of weight off the boat as e had a huge stack of magazines. Our dock neighbors, Key Lara, left this morning and we helped them leave. We changed all the slipcovers this morning so I could wash all the other ones. I want to do all the washing now so we can get out of here ASAP after we complete the haul out. Anyway, I hand washed the slipcovers along with a bunch of other things. In the pm, I worked on entering all the DVD's we have into a spreadsheet. It actually took quite a while to enter into the PC but at least I'll have a complete list of all the DVD's we have. I did it cause lots of people ask to borrow DVD's and everyone wants to know what we have. April 7 Thursday I went to Janice's house this morning by dinghy to give her USD so she can trade for us. Her husband works for a US oil company here so there is always someone who wants to trade USD. They seem to be getting a slightly higher rate than what we are getting right now. She'll give us the money tomorrow. After I left her, I took a quick trip down to Plaza Mayor, had lunch and bumped into another American oil worker I just happened to meet in the food court. It was nice meeting another American that wasn't a cruiser and I just knew right away from seeing him that he was also American. After, I went to the supermarket and by the time I got back to the boat it was too late to do anything so I just went to the pool around 4pm with a book and did a quick swim. I lost my Polar baseball cap when it wasn't clipped on, that was my last clip and one of my favorite caps so I was really upset. All the baseball caps seem to fly off my head when I'm in the dinghy- I can't get them to stay on tight enough. April 8 Friday I dinghied over to Janice's house at 9:30am so she could give me the B's she got for the USD. She had only been in the canals once so I gave her a tour around. I also brought her over to our marina, as she had never been here before. After lunch I washed all the throw rugs again. I washed them when we got back here in December but they were absolutely filthy. We get a lot of dust in the air from Africa so the boat gets a lot of dust everywhere. I am constantly vacuuming the rugs and cleaning up the dust. I made the wonderful string bean dish we both really like also. Arnaldo, our dockmaster, had a big problem with the marina and quit. I really can't blame him for quitting- he called the port captain on a cruiser not from BR that kept speeding in his dinghy in the marina waters. The marina was upset that he called the port captain and didn't speak to them first. Arnaldo was trying to solve things on his own. Anyway, I think the marina was just using this whole thing to get rid of him. Karen, from Karen's Weigh, and I happened to be on the dock when Arnaldo passed by, he was very upset we could tell and told us the entire story. Later that night a lot of rumors were going around the marina as to what happened so I will call for a cruisers meeting tomorrow morning so we can all talk about it. We went to the restaurant for dinner tonight- they had a good band playing but we didn't hear them much as we were talking with others. April 9 Saturday I organized a cruisers meeting for 9am in the restaurant this morning so we could talk about Arnaldo. We all decided to give the marina a letter of support signed by as many cruisers as possible. We got about 40 boats to sign the letter but don't know if it will do any good. We hope so. We like Arnaldo and have never had a problem with him. Many of the cruisers were pretty upset about what happened to him and how he was treated. Arnaldo was off today but he stopped by and we gave him the letter as we had it in Spanish and English. He asked me to give it to the marina office on Monday, which I will. April 10 Sunday We spoke to Mima this morning- they are coming in tomorrow so it will be great to see them. We didn't expect them to come so this is an unexpected surprise. I made some omelets for breakfast and did some logs in the am. I played dominoes this morning and got a 305 so it was the best score I have had in a long time. We are both looking forward to seeing Mima tomorrow- we haven't seen them since September so we have a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately, they are coming at a bad time for us as we are expecting to go on the hard and have a lot of work to get done before we do. I want to get a lot of dinners prepared and food bought before we go on the hard so I can just work on the boat. It's better to have as many dinners made as possible so I don't have to do it than. Also, it's hard carrying food up the ladder so I would rather just stock up now. April 11 Monday Mima arrived at 9am this morning so it was great to see them again. We talked for a while and I invited them over for dinner tonight. After lunch I made cucumber soup, English matrimonials, (a dessert and one of my favorites), and fried some chicken cutlets for tonight. Unfortunately, this all took several hours to prepare. Tom and Steph came over around 7pm and stayed till 9am. It is great seeing them again and catching up on everything. Someone lent us the TV show "24". We had never seen this before so started getting addicted. Unfortunately, they only have the first season and I think they are up to season #4 now. We are enjoying the series and it's nice to watch a few at a time to see what happens- each episode leaves you with a cliffhanger- naturally- so you'll come back for more! April 12 Tuesday I went on Jaime's weekly free shopping bus- this time we went to Sigo. I had been to the Sigo in Margarita but never to the one here in PLC so I wanted to go. Anyway, the store was just OK- it's a long way from the marina so I don't think it would be worth an expensive taxi ride out there. Anyway, Giulio called- our package coming via ship had arrived finally! I went to the office to leave them the money and it arrived later that day! Yea! Now we can arrange to go on the hard! It came in 6 big boxes. We brought it to the storage unit and Larry sorted through it to ensure everything was there and came intact. We did have one cracked light bulb but other than that everything was OK and the entire shipment was here. It cost us about $300 between the shipping to Miami, to Caracas and then onto PLC- that includes the West Marine stuff as well as other orders. It weighed about 125lbs! It may have been cheaper to go to Miami to get it but a lot of stuff nowadays is labeled "hazardous" material so can't be shipped by plane- like wax, simple green, etc! Sometimes I think this Homeland Security thing has gone a little too far. How can these things be considered "hazardous"? Anyway, I went to the office to schedule our haul out- we'll go next Wednesday, April 20. Tuesday is a holiday so we couldn't go than and we wanted a few days to get everything together, see Mima and do our shopping. Anyway, we watched a few more episodes of the "24" TV show. The cruiser who lent them to us is going home in about a week so we need to finish them all by than so we can return them before they leave. April 13 Wednesday I didn't get anything concrete done all morning- sometimes things just go that way. I made some phone calls for Steph to find out about the exchange rate- the USD is going down again and is now around 2500. Good thing I exchanged money a week or so ago and got 2700 at the time. The prices have been going up again also so Venezuela is definitely not as cheap as it once was. It is probably around 40% more expensive than when we first came here. For example, a 2 ltr bottle of coke was about .50 and now it's almost $1. Arnaldo told us he is definitely leaving the marina and his last day will be May 6. The marina said they had gotten several complaints against him but I think they were just using this last incident as an excuse to get rid of him. We will really miss him but he is going to be a taxi driver here at the marina so since many cruisers like him I think he will do really well. I hope so for his sake. Actually, the marina didn't have to allow him access into the marina or to keep watching boats as he has done. Usually when you leave a job that's it- there's no going back in anymore. At least that's how it's done in the US so I imagine it should be the same here. In the pm, Steph and I went to Plaza Mayor by dinghy so I could stock up to go on the hard. We went to dinner with Tom and Steph to the El Amir Palace in downtown PLC for dinner. It's an Arab restaurant that they really like and we have been to several times. I didn't think the chawarmas were nearly as good as the other place we went to and you pay more here as you have to pay for table service, tax (26% total!) and a small tip so it winds up costing a lot more. The other store only has bar stools to eat at but that's OK with me as I think the food is much better there. |