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Diane's DiaryMarch 5 Saturday Today is the first Saturday in the month, which means the minimarket has its monthly flea market. We didn't have anything to sell but later found someone needing a small outboard so we sold our old 5HP for $250. We had kept it as a backup in case our new one was stolen. Of course now that we have sold the old one our new one will probably be stolen! Anyway, I did some boat cleaning in the am along with putting the groceries away from yesterday. I wasn't feeling too well so I took a nap after lunch. We had a problem with one of our water tanks - naturally it was when we were completely out of water! Larry thinks there was just an air lock in the tank. Everything seems to be back to normal now but of course it had to happen when I needed water on the boat. March 6 Sunday I'm still not feeling well and think I must be coming down with some sort of virus. I left the boat only briefly for the entire day. I didn't even play my usual Sunday dominoes. We watched the DVD movie 'Hotel Rwanda' in the afternoon. It was an upsetting movie but absolutely excellent and we really liked it. Larry ordered DVD's from the US along with some other things but because of Easter week in a few weeks there may be a delay in getting them unless everything is received quickly. He ordered things from 5 different stores and Bob from Freestyle ordered something also. We will send everything by air so need to wait till all 6 packages arrive in Miami before we send it out all at once. It only takes 1-2 days by air from Caracas and another 1-2 days to get to PLC so it's fairly fast. However, it costs a lot more to ship by air than by boat. It's $5USD per pound by air and $80 minimum by boat, which takes 2-3 weeks. All the boat parts we ordered are coming by boat so we expect to receive them shortly after Easter. It was 150lbs and cost and $170USD to ship from Miami to Caracas. We don't know what the Caracas-PLC portion will be yet. Anyway, I made a big pot of beef bourguignon for dinner. Larry didn't like the dish or the meat so I had to throw the entire meal out, as he wouldn't eat it. I didn't think it was that bad though. March 7 Monday I'm still not feeling to well but did manage to hand wash a lot of laundry. There are a lot of 100% cotton clothes that need to be hand washed as if I give them to the laundry she uses so much heat in the dryer that she shrinks the clothes. So even though I still use the laundry, I still wind up hand washing lots of clothes. I made a big pot of chili; I didn't have any onions so I used garlic instead and I was not pleased with the results. From now on it's back to using the onions. I'm still not feeling well so I took it easy. I have a very bad cold, which I think may be a virus. We watched the DVD "Million Dollar Baby" which won best picture at the Academy Awards. It was very good and we both enjoyed it. Larry also went with Jeffrey from Panache to the Auto-Boat Center but I hate hardware or boat stores so never go. March 8 Tuesday I'm still not feeling well but we will go a meeting with the new US Ambassador tonight. He's coming to Barcelona to meet with US citizens here. I had a hard time finding a driver to take us and pick us up since it's at night but finally found the new driver Guillermo and was very satisfied with him. Our bottom paint actually came in to PLC today - just a month after we ordered it. We did find out that you could still order the paint directly from the factory in Caracas and still only pay $55 a gallon for it so there is no need to go through Xanadu Marine and pay $85 gallon. But, Xanadu delivered the paint to us in the pm. We put ours in the storage unit. At night we went to the town meeting with the new US Ambassador and had a wonderful time. Ambassador Brownfield has been to Venezuela before and speaks fluent Spanish. It's apparent that he will really try to work hard with the Venezuela government though it's doubtful whether the Venezuela government will try to work with him! We had a great time and were very glad we both went. Unfortunately since most of the other cruisers are not registered with the Embassy they didn't know about it and we were the only ones that came. We found out about it at the last minute and registered the last day of the deadline. I also negotiated our marina bill. I think I mentioned that Larry fell through the dock the other day! The wood just gave out under him! He told the office immediately and they offered to pay for a doctor's visit but it was really not necessary. Anyway, the marina gave us 2 weeks free for this but of course I had to ask for it! If this had happened in the US, they would have probably been so afraid of a lawsuit our entire marina bill would have been free! Anyway, our monthly marina rate went from $160 to $180 in 2004 to our current rate of $217, which includes our slip, water, electric, cable but not the extra $20 month we pay for the wireless Internet. So, even though our price has increased it's certainly a lot cheaper than the US for a marina! In some places in the US you pay $3 foot plus water and electric so that works out to around $150- what we pay for almost a month! March 9 Wednesday I am still sick so I had to go to the pharmacy to get some medicine. I took the dinghy and Steve from Nonsuch had to go also so I took him with me. Normally I take one of the ladies and we wander around the mall but I was sick and not feeling well so just wanted to get my stuff and leave. I left at 10:30 and returned at 12:30pm so it was a quick trip since that included the 15 minutes dinghy ride in each direction. Larry worked on hooking the 2 computers together so we can both be on the Internet at the same time. I didn't feel well so just rested the rest of the day. We watched David's DVD 'Sideways' as it was up for Best Picture also. I thought it was horrible and don't understand why it was up for best picture. I'm glad we didn't buy it. March 10 Thursday I'm still not feeling well so wanted to just take it easy. I made a big pot of my 'Just Delicious' soup mixes from the US. I had bought a lot when we left but now only have a few left. I did some finances from my notebook to see how much we were spending- it's definitely a lot more than last year I know for sure since we bought the new computer and the boat parts from the US. We also changed the propane tanks today. This was one we had gotten filled in Bonaire and it only lasted 2 months and 1 week and I wasn't even using the oven much that uses more propane. We can get about 3 months at the most on a tank but in Bonaire they charged us $20 to fill the tanks since it was 20lb. However, with the new overflow protection device on all new tanks they can only be filled a maximum of 16lbs so we were way overcharged. Anyway, we watched another one of Sylvester's DVDs called 'Lemon Snickety.' It was another awful movie and I hated it. I started another book Murder in the House by Margaret Truman. I always liked her books. March 11 Friday I'm still not feeling well and definitely think I have some sort of virus so I took it easy the entire day and didn't do much. We watched the DVD 'Hitch' but unfortunately we didn't have the second DVD so only saw half the movie. It was very good and we both liked it a lot. March 12 Saturday Well, I am starting to feel much better. I am finally getting rid of whatever is in my system though I am not 100% yet. I made bacon and eggs for breakfast, than made quiche and cucumber soup so I had lots of dishes to do. It's getting very warm out- almost 100 degrees. The sun is traveling toward the northern hemisphere and is almost directly overhead of us right now so the heat feels very intense. According to my local guidebooks, April and September are the 2 hottest months here in Venezuela. I was feeling a little better so I decided to input all my financials into my Excel spreadsheet. So far we have spent a lot more than last year since we bought a new computer at $2000 and spent almost $2000 between West Marine, shipping and various boat parts Larry has ordered. Oh, the temporary bridge to Caracas has finally reopened today after being closed for 3 weeks. How a big industrial country like Venezuela could let the country be cut off like that for 3 weeks with a bridge closure is unbelievable. The US Army Corp of Engineers could have built a temporary bridge in just one day as they did many times during WW2. But of course here in VE, bribery is commonplace and someone had to be paid off. The corruption here is just too much at times. March 13 Sunday I thought I was feeling much better yesterday but today I woke up and am still not feeling well again so I still must have that virus in my system. We had the wonderful quiche for breakfast. I got the weekend paper, started to read it, and just went back to bed. After lunch I worked on my logs, as I am about 3 weeks behind. It is just amazing how much time this actually takes and I hope lots of people are reading this to make it all worthwhile. I hope you all appreciate the hard work we have done in trying to maintain this website - our goal was to have others learn from our trip and understand what the cruising life is really like. It's not just fun and games as you all think it is! Before we left the US, I had no idea it would be so much work just in boat maintenance alone! Sometimes just shopping can take a whole day also since we don't have cars. Anyway, I didn't even play my Sunday afternoon dominoes as usual and only got off the boat the whole day to take as shower. Larry hooked up the both computers tonight so we got both view the Internet at the same time. March 14 Monday S/V Black Cat and Sirena came in today- we knew them both from Trinidad but haven't corresponded much and had not heard from them in a long time. Black Cat bought us some peanut butter and cereal from Trinidad. We can't get either here so it was very nice of them and we appreciated it. Oh, S/V Lady Diane came in yesterday finally from Puerto Cabello. They again had major problems with the boat- their alternator went in one spot and they had to be towed in a second time in another spot. They are very nice people but unfortunately the boat is a disaster and is really not sea worthy. There is definitely something the matter when a boat has to be towed 3 times within a short time period. At 10:30am Larry and I left for Plaza Mayor. We took the dinghy and then walked the 10 minutes or so over to Ferka and Catalano. Unfortunately, Catalano had no lomito so I had to get other meat instead. Anyway, we had lunch in Plaza Mayor and got back to the boat around 2:30pm. March 15 Tuesday Larry and I both joined Jaime's free shopping tour this morning. First we went to downtown PLC but at that early hour many of the stores weren't even opened yet. After that, we went to EPA hardware store, which I hate. I don't like any hardware stores for that matter as I find them boring. Finally we continued on to CM supermarket. They have a very cheap DVD store there, which usually has very good copies and is 1000B cheaper than the video store in Plaza Mayor. We both got our haircuts for $5 for both of us! Of course I don't even get them to blow dry my hair as that would double the price of my haircut. They tend to blow-dry hair straight here so I would rather just let it dry naturally. Anyway, there was no good place to have lunch since the one restaurant there was rated very bad. We got back to the boat around 1:30pm, had lunch, and put all the groceries away. We got a list via email from our shipper in Miami of all the items they received. Larry had to compare it item by item of the things ordered to make sure West Marine correctly sent everything. March 16 Wednesday I made a Ceasar salad dressing, string bean dish and a chocolate cake this morning that took all morning to do between cooking and doing the dishes. I went to the office around 2pm to give out my cake to people around the marina and spent so much time talking, I didn't get back to the boat until 4pm! I did my usual walk around the marina and took a shower. We spent another quiet evening on the boat. March 17 Thursday St. Patrick's Day The restaurant is having a small party tonight but as usual Larry didn't feel like going so we didn't. He is content at staying home every night but I like to get out once in a while. Anyway, at 9am, I went with Jeannie and Diane from Lady Diane to the small market near here to buy some shrimp. We got OK stuff but Jeannie said it couldn't be frozen and needed to be used today or tomorrow. We also took a taxi to Catalano as they got lomito in. The price has now gone up to 16,000B kilo or $3lb - up from the less than $2lb we used to pay when we first got to Venezuela 4 years ago. I was not happy with the guy who cut my meat though- Jean Carlos who I used the other day, was much better but he was not in today. Anyway, I helped Black Cat by finding Daniel as they said they needed a worker on their boat. It took me 1.5 hours this afternoon to clean all the shrimp. We had some of them for dinner tonight and they were very good. I paid $7 for about 3 lbs of medium- large size shrimp and was able to get 2 meals out of it so it wasn't to bad. Larry finally finished reviewing the list of West Marine boat parts that came in. Unfortunately, West Marine stupidly shipped the depth sounder instrument but not the transducer - we can't use one part without the other! We spent several hours on the Internet researching where to get the other part. West Marine actually told us maybe we could find the transducer down here- yeah right! We can't find many boat parts here that's why we placed such a big order from the US in the first place! Anyway, we called West Marine customer service and found a number of West Marine stores that had the part. Coincidently, one was in Melbourne, FL where our old friends on Kristali live and Michael happens to work in that store. We called them, ordered the part and had it shipped to Miami. It should arrive early next week so it can join the rest of the order we are doing by air. I think it would have been faster just going to Miami and picking up all the boat parts ourselves. However, a lot of the items are "hazardous material" so were not eligible to come by plane. Also American Airlines has decreased the weight of checked baggage - from 70lbs to 50lbs. If you want to bring 70lbs you have to pay $25 for any weight over 50lbs! So, I guess it was cheaper to bring the items down. I know if we had gone home we probably would have spent a lot more money just between meals and hotels even if we had just gone to Miami. |