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Diane's DiarySept 30 Mon I spent the entire day washing clothes. It's amazing how long it takes to wash them when you don't have a machine. Wringing out the water, especially the towels, is especially difficult. However, the laundry is about $15-$20 US for them to do it & they wash, dry & fold it. But, ever since I got the laundry done in Antigua almost 2 years ago & they shrunk the clothes, I have been reluctant to let a laundry service do it & have been doing it myself. Since we will be at the out islands for a while with no access to fresh water, I want to get all the clothes washing done here. I probably won't do any wash since we won't want to waste the fresh water until we return to PLC sometime at the end of November or early December so that's quite a while. Fortunately, we will probably be in bathing suits most of the time so we shouldn't have too much wash. We also went to the weekly bar-b-queue & potluck. This is the only time we can grill so we always enjoy going. We get to meet all the other cruisers in the anchorage. Oct 1 Tuesday Well, I finished the rest of the laundry today. I let the white clothes soak in a bucket of bleach & detergent overnight to get them clean. I started waxing some of the topsides. I last did it in Martinique over the winter so it was quite a while ago. I went swimming at 5pm. At 6pm, we treated S/V Plenum to a shrimp dinner at one of the local restaurants here for watching our boat while we were gone. We had 8 giant langoustinas (large shrimp) for about $8USD with French fries & Cole slaw. Beers were about .25USD! When was the last time you had a beer for that price in a restaurant! That same meal in the US would cost around $20USD per person! The bill for the 4 of us including tip & lots of drinks was about $38! Cheap! But the food was very good & we all had a good time. Actually, just before we were about ready to go for dinner, Larry broke his glasses. Fortunately, he was able to fix them. He is thinking about getting the laser eye surgery in Caracas. It is only $250US per eye; in PLC it's $500 an eye. In the US, it's not covered by insurance & costs over $1000 per eye. Many cruisers don't want to go to Caracas to get it done, as they have to pay for transportation, hotels & meals. Fortunately, for us we can stay in Guilio's rental apartment for free so it would really pay for us to do it. It is up to Larry as to if he wants to do the surgery or not but at these prices, I really think he should consider it. Anyway, we had after dinner drinks on Plenum after we left the restaurant. Needless to say, we were sloshed when we got home. Oct 2 Wed We are both not feeling so well - we seem to have a bit of tourista. Don't know whether it's from the food, water, or heat but we both took it fairly easy today. I was able to wax more of the boat & Larry spent some time remarking the anchor chain since it was just galvanized. But basically, we didn't do much. We are both really glad to have the AC. I wish we had bought this in Trinidad. It does take up a lot of space but it's well worth having. We would have saved a lot of money if we had just bought one in Trinidad. Oh, well... We know we will definitely need it immediately when we get back to the US. It will be very hot in FL in the summer. Oct 3 Thurs We are both still not feeling well & still have tourista. However, we both feel better than yesterday. I had to go up to the office this morning to give them a copy of our paperwork. They can't find their copy of it. I also defrosted the freezer & starting inventorying the food. In this hot climate, the freezer needs to be defrosted more frequently. I want to provision before we leave for the out islands. There is no phone, electricity, water or stores on these islands so you need to be fully provisioned. It is definitely cheaper to buy food in Margarita since it's duty free but we have to get there first! I definitely still have some sort of bug as when I lay down to take a nap I got the chills. I made a delicious dinner of beef with sun-dried tomatoes, Lipton onion soup mix, carrots & red wine. It was definitely a winner & I will definitely make it again. Oct 4 Fri Larry is still sick but I am feeling much better. I made some chocolate peanut butter bars for dessert since Guilio & family are coming to PLC tomorrow. It will be nice to see them all again. GianCarla is back from Italy with Luca. Larry was up & down all night long so I didn't get a good night's sleep. We got some more chain galvanized today. Oct 5 Sat Well, we had a swap meet in the marina today but we didn't find anything we wanted. I did manage to swap some videos. We don't have cable TV here so the only TV we watch is videos. I also started updating my Excel food inventory spreadsheet. Guilio & family came & we went sailing with them on their boat in the afternoon around 3pm. They usually come to PLC on a Friday but didn't get here until today. They drive 5 hours to get here also. They have joined a yacht club closer to Caracas where they live. When the marina is finished (it was destroyed in the mud slides that devastated VZ in '99) they will move the boat there as it will only be an hour or so from their house. They wanted to go sailing but Guilio wanted to wait until the wind came up before we went. We were only out for about an hour when a big storm came up. There was lots of thunder, rain & lightening. We had to sit down below as we were all getting soaked sitting in the cockpit. I brought appetizers & drinks for everyone. After the storm passed, we grilled dinner. With the price of meat so cheap here, it's a pleasure to have meat. Chicken does not seem to be very good here - I don't know why. Meat is definitely more popular than chicken or fish. Anyway, Guilio had invited another cruising couple & we wound up talking until midnight. We never stay up this late & were tired the next day. Oct 6 Sunday We slept until 9:30 this morning - really late for us. But then, we usually go to bed before 10pm & we were up until midnight last night. We were tired the entire day. Guilio came over to say goodbye to us around 10:30am. We were not too sad as we know we will definitely see them again. We have decided to winter over in VZ. We really want to go up to Merida & maybe to Caracas & Tovar. Also, Larry may get the eye surgery. We have seen most of the Caribbean except for St. Thomas & area. We will head back to Trinidad sometime in Feb or March - depending on the winds & if we want to go to Carnival. Then we will make our way quickly up the island chain until we get to the USVI & BVI where we would like to spend some time. We would like to get back to FL around July or August - no rush but it will be hurricane season so we will have to be careful. Anyway, I did some emails this afternoon & worked on my Excel food inventory worksheet. Oct 7 Monday Larry worked on putting the new dinghy together. He has to put a new gas filter on. We have had dirty gas around three times down here & it caused the engine to stop. So, we are very careful about filtering the gas from now on. He also needed to make new lifting bridles. We have decided to keep the old dinghy & try to sell it when we get back to the US. We will probably get more money for it in the US, as everyone here wants RIB's- that's a rigid inflatable boat. The wind & seas are stronger here than the US so a RIB is very helpful down here. At home, they are nice but not really necessary. In the morning, I made a shopping list, filled the water tanks, threw out the garbage and waited for Orient Canvas to come. Anyway, I took a taxi shopping to the Exito supermarket in the afternoon. I came back at the wrong time as Larry was trying to help another boater. The lady on S/V Sundowner had fallen down the steps & broke her ankle. She was coming home from the hospital & needed help getting onboard. It took 5 guys to help her get on the boat. I managed to come home from the supermarket right when they were all helping her so Larry couldn't help me with the groceries. Unfortunately, shopping by taxi is a lot harder than by dinghy. They have some very bad dock carts & it's a long walk along an uneven sidewalk back to the boat. Plus, I had more stuff than 1 cart & didn't want to leave my groceries in the sun where someone could steal them. Orient Canvas came & took 3 of the worst cushions and we had them replace the foam. Not too bad- $75USD. I priced the job in the US & was quoted around $500USD at the Newport boat show for the entire boat. We got a price from Orient Canvas of $200 for the entire boat. I thought we would only do the 3 worst cushions. Since we sit on these every day they take a lot more abuse than when we only lived on the boat on weekends & for vacations. I made some beer bread to bring to our potluck today. It came out really good & everyone said they liked it. |