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Diane's DiaryOct 8 Tuesday S/V Sweet Lou came into PLC today. They are from our yacht club on City Island although we didn't really know each other then. We have seen them a number of times on this trip though. They are very nice people. Mima called us by SSB - they were on their way to Margarita from Tortuga- a rough trip against the winds & seas. I took Janice from Plenum & we went by dinghy to Plaza Major. The mall is huge with lots of shops, restaurants, supermarkets, movie theatres, & permanent Carnival rides. In the morning it's very quiet, as most people don't come till later in the day when it gets cooler. Anyway, it was my first time with the new dinghy so I was pretty nervous, but I did well. We went to the pharmacy, bank, bakery, and another pharmacy about a 10-minute walk away that had better prices, Wendy's for lunch, & the supermarket. Needless to say, we were gone for several hours. Oh, it only takes about 10 minutes to get there by dinghy. With our old dinghy, it would have taken us about 30 minutes. The new dinghy gets up on plane really well. This is something we could never do with our old dinghy. We are both glad we bought it & wish we had done this 2 years ago. But then, if we had bought it up island we would have paid at least $500 more for it so I guess it's best we waited. We had made reservations to go out to the cheap local restaurant for dinner. We have to tell them 1 day in advance we are coming & then they buy the shrimp especially for us. Shrimp is too expensive for most of the locals. Just as we were going to leave, a huge thunderstorm came. We all didn't want to go but yet felt committed to go since we had ordered the shrimp. So, we walked to the restaurant in the pouring rain. There were 10 people so we had to take 2 tables. After a while, the storm passed through & the rain stopped. Oct 9 Wed I made a big breakfast of cheese & fresh mushroom omelets. I can't remember when we last had fresh mushrooms. S/V Sweet Lou took me to the gas dock with him to buy fresh gas for our dinghy engine. There is going to be a big demonstration in Caracas tomorrow & we want to have enough gas in case we need to suddenly leave if a major coup takes place. Orient Canvas took our dinghy today to make a cover for it. They need it for 2 days to complete it. It's a really big job. We had plans to go to the free weekly cocktail party at Maremares but now don't have any way to get there. Fortunately, Sweet Lou has said we could come with them. We had an excellent time at the party. We should definitely do this every week. Free booze & really nice appetizers however, it's only for 1 hour. It's a really nice 5 star marina & much nicer than where we are staying at Bahia Redonda. Before we got our price reduced at BR, Maremares was only about $10 more expensive for the month. Now that BR reduced it's price, it's still only about $90 month more expensive. A far superior marina, it has a beautiful gym, tennis courts, handball courts, spa, sauna, and steam, Jacuzzi, free towels, cable TV, phones & Internet service on board. Plus the marina has a gorgeous big wave pool. In all, well worth the $90 extra. I asked about any openings & they said they would see what they could do. Anyway, I finally finished my food inventory list & Larry has promised to print it out for me. Since we are in a marina, we don't need to watch our electrical usage but when we are at anchor we monitor it very carefully. Oct 10 Thursday I made lots of phone calls to the US this morning. Our boat insurance is ending in 2 weeks & we are having trouble getting new coverage. Seems like all the insurance companies do NOT want to insure American vessels in Caribbean waters. Insurance companies took a beating paying out from 9/11 & now they are discontinuing coverage on anything they see as risky. Anyway, I think we finally have a policy but it's about $1000 more expensive & with less coverage than our previous policy. We still have a boat loan, which requires us to have the coverage. We had thought of paying off the loan with the proceeds from our house but being without insurance scares us. If the boat were totaled, it would be a huge financial loss. Recently, a catamaran went aground on a reef here in VZ & was totaled. The people had no coverage & lost everything. So, it made us want to get the coverage. Plus, there is a liability issue if you hit another boater. Anyway, Maremares came & picked me up this afternoon to show me around the marina & talk about price & when we wanted to come. It is a beautiful marina & they said they would see about what they can do but they are full right now. Since we want to winter here, they may have an opening in late November or December. That would be perfect with us as that's when we will be coming back from the islands. We want to leave the boat in a marina again when we go up to Merida & Caracas. The only drawback is that its med moorings again just like BR. Crews Inn & Coral Cove in Trinidad are the only 2 marinas down island we know of that have regular side slips- these are much easier to use then continually climbing over the bow or stern of the boat to get on. However, med moorings are cheaper to build, as they don't have to make finger piers plus they can fit a lot more boats in this way. I made a wonderful dinner of lomito in a red wine marinade that was fantastic. I also made marinated mushrooms in the pressure cooker in a tomato sauce- fantastic! I'm back to my old tourista problems from last week. Don't know why I can't seem to shake it. I also updated my logs for around an hour or so- I need to get caught up again. Oct 11 Fri Well, the march in Caracas seemed to go well yesterday & was peaceful at least. If things start to get violent, we will definitely leave but we are hoping things stay OK. They are calling for President Chavez to resign or there will be a nationwide general strike on 10/21. At least things seem to be no violence so far. I spent the day catching up with my logs. The PC uses a lot of electricity so it's easier to use it while we are still at a marina. Oct 12 Sat Columbus Day here. They haven't changed the celebration date like they did in the US. Since it falls on a Saturday, the stores are still doing their normal Saturday half-day schedule. We are getting ready to leave. It's amazing how long it takes to unhook yourself from the dock. I did more laundry today. Larry cleans the lines to the mooring balls. After being in a marina for almost 3 months, the lines are full of algae. Larry also washed the hull where it was really dirty. I had some bananas that were going bad (bananas don't seem to last too long out here in this hot weather) so I made some homemade banana bread. I also worked on my logs some more. We got our dinghy cover back on Thursday & it looks great. We are both pleased with it. Now I hope it will last! We know it will be good protection for the dinghy. Some parts, like the handles, will still have to be treated with fabric protection but that can't be helped. We chose light gray for the sides where you sit & dark blue for the vinyl & textaline as a contrast. It looks really good. We chose gray because we knew dark colors get really hot so we wanted a lighter color. Actually, the color is almost the same gray as the actual dinghy itself. Oct 13 Sun- Our wedding anniversary Well, today is our 17th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe it's been so many years- times seems to have flown by. Anyway, my parents & Aunt Mary gave us money for our anniversary so we decided to treat ourselves & go to the nice brunch at Maremares. The brunch was fantastic & they lowered the price since there were not many guests eating. As a matter of fact, for a while we were the only guests eating. It was a wonderful Sunday brunch but actually I should call it lunch as they didn't have any breakfast items on the menu. They had all the champagne you wanted (it was supposed to be only 1 glass but they never stopped pouring it), 4 wonderful hot plates including duck, grouper (which was out of this world in a lovely shrimp & scallop sauce) chicken & beef. They had huge salads, a pasta bar, bread & cheese table & delicious desserts. The only down side was the restaurant was not air conditioned as it had a roof only & it was extremely hot. The price itself was only $8USD each but by the time they added the tax, tip & another 1% tax for something else the bill was about $24 for both of us. Not bad when you consider that is the price for 1 Sunday brunch at a nice hotel in NY. We were very happy we went. Afterwards, we stopped to say hello to the marina staff so I could introduce Larry to them. Funny, they had wanted to see our boat before they said we could have a slip there. They wanted to make sure the boat was acceptable looking. Considering how much time we have put into it, I should hope it is! But actually, a lot of boats we have seen- mostly non-Americans, don't look so presentable. Also, they had wanted to know if I was by myself as they have had problems with single-handed men bringing "ladies of the evening" into the marina. I assured them I was not. Anyway, they were having trouble with their SSB so Larry helped them with it. Seems like they didn't have it grounded so couldn't tranmit outside of the marina. After we helped them, we went to go back to the boat, but the dinghy engine wouldn't start. Larry was working in the broiling sun & was hot & aggravated. I went into the marina again & asked for help. Well, they couldn't have been nicer. Three of the guys were looking at it. They discovered there was almost no oil in the gas. I think the gas may have been old too that another boater gave us in Trinidad. Thank goodness the engine didn't start, as we would have burned it up without any oil in it. The marina gave us their spare gas tank so we could get back & insisted we called them when we arrived to make sure we were ok. They could not have been more accommodating. And we were even guests there yet! The Venezuelan hospitality we have encountered has been truly unbelievable. Nowhere in the entire Caribbean have we encountered such genuinely nice people. Anyway, by the time we got back it was after 4pm so we just relaxed the rest of the day & I went in the pool. We weren't even hungry for dinner. |