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Diane's DiaryApril 14 Thursday Since we got the waterproofing 303 materials we ordered from the US, I can now clean the canvas and waterproof it. I would have cleaned it sooner as it's absolutely disgusting but I wanted to wait till I had the waterproofing material before I did it. Anyway, the material is so dirty it's taking a lot to get it clean. I have to let it soak for a while and than scrub it very hard to get out all the stains. Larry took down the dodger and bimini so I could clean it. The white bimini looks red it has so much dust on it. This comes from Africa - hard to believe it could come so far but it does. Anyway, we are dog-sitting Clem today as Mima is bombing their boat to get rid of cockroaches- once you get them it's really hard to get rid of them. I leave the roach traps out all the time as a precaution. Anyway, we got our price to haul at BR and permission to use Elias in the boatyard also. We would rather use him and give him the money, as he is an excellent worker, we know him and feel comfortable using him. We'll haul out next Wednesday, as Tuesday is another local holiday. April 15 Friday I am very sick! At 11:30pm last night I was awakened with severe stomach cramps and nauseous. Well, for the rest of the night I was in the bathroom getting sick from both ends. When I tried to drink a little water that came up. I was sick the entire night and slept on the settee so I could have quick access to the bathroom. I didn't leave the boat the entire day and was severely dehydrated, as I couldn't keep anything at all in my stomach. My medical book says I have gastroenteris with the symptoms I have. I think I got some type of bacteria. I did leave out some cucumber soup out of the refrigerator for a while so it's possible this is what happened but I'll never be sure. I stayed in bed for the entire day napping, reading and just taking it easy. I only ate a few spoonfuls of peanut butter the entire day. I had severe abdominal cramping all day long but didn't throw up any more. I hope I feel better tomorrow to go to the bullfight, but if not, I'll just rest and take it easy and Larry will go with Mima. April 16 Saturday I am still sick but feel much better after I finally took some Imodium last night. I still have severe stomach cramps so don't think it would be a good idea to go to the bullfight. I made some scrambled eggs for breakfast and was able to keep them down so I finally had something in my stomach. Larry went to the bullfight and I just rested on the boat. Actually, after hearing Larry's report on the bullfight I'm glad I didn't go- it sounds like it wasn't for me anyway. I hate to see animals killed and really can't understand the whole thrill of a bullfight anyway. We had gone to Spain on our honeymoon many years ago and I didn't want to go to a bullfight then and I haven't changed my mind on it at all. I mainly just read, napped and watched TV while Larry was gone. April 17 Sunday I'm still not feeling too well but I do feel much better than yesterday. I'll take it easy today just in case. We finished watching the first season of the TV show 24- it was a good diversion while I was sick and I'm glad we had it to watch. I generally just took it easy today and didn't do much. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll feel like my old self again. April 18 Monday I thought I was feeling well until I made dinner last night and got sick afterwards. I guess my stomach is still very delicate right now and is easily upset after not eating much for several days. Larry put in a new switch in the bilge pump as it had failed. Steph came over and we went to Catalano meat market. I still wasn't feeling great but wanted to get the meat ready for Wednesday when we go up on the hard. We were in the store for over 2 hours and I think I was getting sick from dehydration. After we got back to the boat I rested for a while, drank lots of fluids and started to feel much better. I defrosted the freezer later that day and also made a big bowl of Atkins chili. I used the meat I had just bought but wasn't happy as to how it came out. I have made this dish before and usually like it but I didn't this time. Next time I will use cubes of meat instead of chop meat. Anyway, the price of all the meat has gone up again. Lomito, fillet mignon, is now almost $7 kilo- nearly double from when we first arrived in Venezuela. I called the office and told them I wanted to delay our haul out on Wednesday. I'm still not feeling great and want to be sure I have a bathroom to use on board that is working- when we're on the hard we can't use the head. Tomorrow is a holiday so I said we would go to the office Wednesday to reschedule as I hope to be feeling much better by then. April 19 Tuesday Another holiday today- it is amazing this country gets any work done at all they have so many holidays! We need another survey of the boat for the insurance company so got Cris Robinson to do it and he arrived this morning. Larry borrowed Sylvester's scanner again this morning as Cris wanted a copy of our old survey, most everything was closed due to the holiday and the copier in the office was broken. After lunch, Steph and I went to Plaza Mayor so I could pick up a few last moment things before going up on the hard. We are going to take our dinghy out of the water while we are up on the hard. It would be nice to leave it in the water so I could run to Plaza Mayor if I need too. However, the water is just filthy and if we leave it in the water continuously for a few weeks it will have tons of barnacles. It will be really tough to clean like that so we don't want it in the water at all. We didn't get back to the boat till nearly 4:30pm. I cleaned the stainless steel on the transom. After we had taken down the bimini we had noticed it was really rusty again. It's amazing how damaging salt water or air is for boats and really does a number on the boat. Just as I was finishing the stainless Tom and Steph came by and we all wound up sitting in the cockpit and had a few drinks. Anyway, I'm feeling much better so I will go to the office and reschedule the haul out tomorrow morning. We had the leftover chili for dinner after they left- certainly it was not up to my usual standards but we ate it anyway. April 20 Wednesday I went into the boatyard this morning to return some DVD's to a boat and see Freestyle who is also on the hard. I saw Enrique and asked him when we could reschedule the haul out. Pierre the yard manager called him over while I was talking to one of the yard workers asking them where they would put Destiny in the yard. Anyway, Pierre told Enrique we were not welcome in the yard! I specifically asked him why and he said it was because of the dog incident! This was an altercation we had a few years ago when I was helping a homeless dog in the yard that had just had 6 puppies and was sick. I told Pierre to do something about the sick dog and get it help. He said it was just a stray, which it was, but it obviously was there now and needed medical attention and food. He wouldn't do anything about it so I started feeding the dog every night. I waited till 6pm very evening so the yard workers had already left for the day so the dog would be less scared and started feeding the dog and puppies myself. One day I went to feed the dog and security told me I had to leave. When I asked why he said Pierre said I might steal something. I couldn't believe his audacity. He didn't think I would actually steal anything I am sure but just didn't want me showing him up by feeding the dog. I was absolutely furious. Anyway, the next day I went into the office, and the yard owner Nicokali Grenadini happened to be there. I explained the situation to him and he said of course I could go into the yard and feed the dog! After that time, I think Pierre was angry I had gone over his head but too bad! He picked the wrong gringo to fight with, as I will tell everyone what happened and encourage people not to use the yard! Anyway, I told Enrique I wanted to speak with Nickoli. We went up to the office and told Carlos- he said he would get in touch with the owners and get back to us. Carlos felt very bad about the whole incident I know. I went to tell Larry what happened. We spoke about it and decided even if they reconsidered we wouldn't haul there - you could never tell what Pierre may do to the boat including dropping it! We debated over going back to Trinidad as we had had 2 excellent haul outs in Power Boats plus we had a 30% credit on our haul. We sent them an email about it. We also went to talk with AquaVi as we had heard excellent things about them. We went to talk with Victor later that day and were impressed with the facility. Also, they have been in business a lot longer than Bahia Redonda's yard. April 21 Thursday I went to speak with Carlos this morning- I know he feels very bad over what happened. He offered us 2 free weeks in the marina as compensation, which was extremely nice- they didn't have to do that at all! I would certainly recommend the marina to anyone but not the boatyard and fortunately they are separate businesses. Carlos did speak to the owner who didn't want to say anything to Pierre since Pierre is a partner in the yard. I wish he had taken our side as in business like Stew Leonard said "the customer is never wrong". Customer service is extremely important but is something that is not recognized much here in the Caribbean. They have no clue how to keep and retain customers. Anyway, I will make it a point to tell everyone about how badly we were treated and recommend them not to haul there. I took the canvas I had already washed to the pool as it has a huge space I could spray the waterproofing on. After lunch I washed some more canvas. Unfortunately, it rained in the pm so it washed off the waterproofing I had just applied and now it has to be redone. The bottle does say it takes 24 hours to dry- I didn't know it was going to rain though! Next time I'll take it all inside the boat if it looks like rain. I took a break from washing, made a baked ziti, and washed some more canvas until 6pm. After taking a late shower, we didn't eat until almost 7:30 as the ziti was so big it took almost an hour to cook. Later, we talked and I think we have decided to haul out at Aqua-Vi; we really don't want to travel the nearly 300 miles due East into the wind and currents to get back to Trinidad just to do a haul out. We have heard very good things about the yard manager Victor at Aqua Vi from everyone so we hope it's all true. April 22 Friday I left at 8am to go to the fresh fish, meat and vegetable market with Terri from Sylvester and S/V Kismet. After I got back, I went with Steph to Makro to get more food. With all the food I just bought, we should have enough to last us on the hard for a while. I invited Tom and Steph over for dinner this evening so after I put all the groceries away; I made some chicken Italiano for dinner, cut up some mushrooms and made a salad. I did lie down to rest for an hour before they came, as I was tired from all that work. The 4 of us had a nice pleasant evening together and it was nice to be with them again. Once we go up on hard the fun and games are over so we won't be seeing them very much. Plus, they will be leaving soon- their company will be arriving and off they will go. We hope to catch up with them in the out islands in July. April 23 Saturday At 8:30am, I went with Jeannie and Steph to the local seafood market just down the street. We did manage to get some shrimp but Jeannie said they could not be frozen and we needed to use them today or tomorrow. That's OK with me- I love shrimp! After we got back, I started to clean the dodger, which took a lot longer than I thought it would- 1.5 hours! My hands really hurt from all that scrubbing also. I also cleaned all the shrimp I had bought. I was going to go into town later that day to get Larry a birthday gift but unfortunately the stores don't reopen after lunch until 3pm and it started to rain out. It continued to rain very hard for the rest of the evening so I was glad I didn't go into town and get caught out in all that rain. Rainy season usually doesn't start till mid to late May so I hope this doesn't mean the season is going to start sooner now. We need to get the boat hauled and all jobs completed before rainy season starts in earnest! Painting the boat and other boat work can't be done in the rain though so that may slow us down if it does. We borrowed the DVD's of the Godfather we got from Sylvester to watch. It's a great old movie and something I would like to keep. Unfortunately, their copy of Godfather 2 was incomplete but we did see the 1 and 3 movie. We also watched a DVD Hide and Seek that Sylvester lent us at night but I didn't like it at all- too scary. April 24 Sunday I made some phone calls to the US this morning when Larry was off the boat. Mima had invited us over for a late brunch so I made some calls while Larry was helping Tom with something. Anyway, I spoke to my friend Linda, my parents and brother Kenny. My niece Melanie's communion is next week. Mom's 70th birthday is May 10. I actually thought her 70th was next year so I was sorry I didn't know about it sooner or I would have considered going home. If I had bought the ticket sooner the flight probably would have been cheaper. I am still thinking about it but think it will be expensive to get a flight last minute but I'll do some searches on the Internet to see what I can find. We had a delightful brunch over on Mima and it was a pleasure not to cook and do the dishes for once. We went to the pool with them in the pm and it was just nice to get off the boat into a new environment. Larry never wants to go to the pool but I enjoy the water and usually go without him. Anyway, I researched going home on the Internet tonight but it looks like it will cost almost $700 to fly home - way too much for us as last year I flew home for $425. I know airfares have gone up and the US dollar down so we don't do as well as we used to on the black market so that accounts for some of the increase. However, it's a lot more than I wanted to pay especially since I will be spending a lot of other money on various things also. I will call American Airlines here tomorrow to see what they can come up with. Anyway, we spent a nice quiet relaxing day which is good - as soon as we go on the hard I know things will be a lot more crazy. April 25 Monday Well, today was a very busy day. I brought the laundry in here at BR. AquaVi marina has machines but it cost 3000B to wash and 3000 more to dry. Plus, everyone told me you sometimes need to run the dryer twice to get everything dry. Also, you need your own soap and have to do it yourself. So, it actually cost more than the 4000B per load it does here in BR for a wash, dry and fold. I asked her to have it all done tomorrow so I can have all the clothes clean before we leave here. I washed the exterior of the boat, and hand washed some rags and shirts. We got Alexis to clean the boat bottom. The pressure washer at AquaVi is broken so it can't be done. Freestyle told me when BR pulled their boat their large pressure washer wasn't working either and the small one they used didn't get all the crud off the bottom. When the stuff dried, they had a hard time removing it because the sun baked it on. So, we thought if we got it off now, it would be better. I also called AA to get airfares- buying B's on the black market I would still have to pay well over $600 for my ticket so I'm still debating about going home but at this price I don't know if I will. We also took the dinghy out of the water- there is no sense in leaving it in the water while we are on the hard as the bottom will get filthy. It will be difficult to do without our "car" for several weeks but we can just manage by using taxis. Anyway, we had just cleaned the bottom not long ago but because there are so many oil and diesel spills in the water here, the bottom had to be cleaned all over again so we did that also. We used the Internet while we still had access to send Mother's Day presents and order something for Mom for her birthday. Hope she likes the gifts! We sent flowers to her and Aunt Mary to be delivered for Mother's Day. We went out to dinner with Tom and Steph at the El Morocco restaurant downtown to celebrate Larry's birthday. It is an expensive restaurant by the local standards but for us it was not that bad-$25 for both of us including drinks, Ceasar salad made at the table, and lomito. Plus, they took a picture of Larry for his birthday, gave him a piece of cake and sang Happy Birthday to him. The meal and service were excellent and we'll have to return before we leave here. |