(For photo stories and movies scroll to end)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
What a better way to start the New Year then with cutting the lines and leaving the dock early while everybody was still asleep or nursing a hangover. Silently we left the harbor and headed out to sea. Remembering once more that our plans are all written in sand at low tide which even applied for our Christmas plans. We missed the Christmas Eve party as I got sick with a cold and stomach flue; few days later as I felt better Sid followed my path. Christmas Day was canceled because our friends Darren and Rocio were involved in a motorcycle accident and poor Rocio broke her leg severely needing surgery. Luckily both were fine under the circumstances as they were broadsided by a car. They were lucky they escaped worse.
Jennifer and Mike on Heart Jump came by to wish us a Happy New Year and when they heard that we were planning on leaving, they asked to join us as it is safer to travel in a group. They didn’t have any plans on where they wanted to go so Trinidad sounded good to them. The very next morning Dec 30th Mike came by the boat again telling us that they were checking out. The weather hasn’t been promising since the Christmas winds have been kicking in, we had heavy wind day by day and night by night and it looked like we had a two day window coming up. So we decided to go for it as well. When I pulled our boat papers out I realized that we, well I had lapsed our boat renewal and my passport visa by 10 days, NOT good. Sid’s was still up to date as he just came back from Honduras. So I raced over to Anna Merced who usually does our paper work but oh horror the store wasclosed since the 18th for the Holidays. You have to know that in Venezuela Businesses close down from December 15th until January 8th. Heart Jumps paper work was underway already I had no other choice but do our check out myself that day because the Port Captain’s office was closing for New Years as swell. Thanks to Oliver the dock master I knew where to buy the stamps; he also gave the name of his port captain friend. Then the long ordeal began. Got my stamps, headed to the port captain, and was told to go to Immigration first. There I was told again I had to go to Customs in Guanta (outside of Puerto La Cruz). By now it was almost noon and knowing that everything closes between 12 and 2 or 3 I headed very disappointed back to the marina and noticed one travel agent was still open, the one Heart Jump was checking out with. There I was told it was too late to check out as the lady had left already. The guy then made a phone call and told me that I was in luck as the lady got delayed and has to wait until 2 to do the checkout. Then I told him my dilemma with the lapsed paper work. The normal checkout procedure with them costs 160 Bolivares, with my problem he told me I had to pay for this and that and “oh my gosh you don’t have this either it will cost you way over 500 BS”. Well, I guess that’s the price to pay for my mistake. He told me to come back just before 2. Then as the lady showed up he motioned me to follow her, I guessed with my problem Evita needed me to be there in person. We drove straight to the Guardia National in Guanta, she had 5 boats to check out then pointed at me the guy didn’t even look at my paperwork and said, no can’t be done, that I needed to go to the Port Captain first. It didn’t help any when I told him that I had done so already. He told me that I had till 5pm to return with the proper documents. My heart sank and I knew that this was not possible. I told Evita that if I couldn’t check out for her not to check Heart Jump out that were traveling together, she ignored the fact and proceeded to check them out anyway. Now we drove to Immigration, they lady there looked at me funny because I was back. She helped Evita with her check out and when it was my turn she said nope can’t be done until Monday the 5th. I told her then that it was only my passport that was out of date. She mumbled something all I got out of her was 50 BS, she stamped my passport, I handed her 50 Bs under the table and we were out of there. Then we drove back to the port captain, but it was also a no go, they told me to come back on Monday. So I explained to her that our buddy boat was now checked out and had to tackle the very dangerous Araya and Paraya coast by themselves and how dangerous it was. She said that I needed two stamps, which I immediately gave her. I think she was dumb founded that I had them already. She then went to talk to the Port Captain who denied us earlier, came back handed me the paper work and smiled. We were legal again. Knowing that I had run out of time to get an International Zarpe I realized that I still could get a National Zarpe as it is obtained by the Port Captain and so I asked her for a National Zarpe to Margarita, what did I have to loose other than another “no”. She looked at me smiled and said “very clever” and 10 minutes later we were underway back to the marina with my Zarpe. Evita told me that she didn’t think I could pull it off, as she could have not done it herself. Double sigh, besides the 500 plus Bolivares they told me it would cost me turned into the 50 (about 10 bucks) for the passport plus sharing Evita’s taxi fee of 35.
Exhausted, hungry and thirsty but very happy and proud I arrived at home just before dark. New Year’s Eve I spend provisioning the boat, while Sid cleaned the boat to make sure our prop and bottom was clean. We were barley done when it was time to join everybody else outside for our New Year’s Eve appetizer potluck. At midnight we grabbed our bottles of champagne and went to the pool from where we had the best view of the hundreds of fireworks all around us. One champagne bottle was empty the next one came out. I knew right then that we were not leaving early as we had planned. We killed the last bottle of champagne at 2am. Sid was up by sunrise and took down the sunshade, pulled the dinghy up and at 7 I popped out of the hatch. By 7.30 the lines were on board and we snuck out the harbor. I guess I was wrong with my assumption.
We were lucky we left when we did then as soon as we headed out to sea the wind came back with a vengeance and blew 17 to 20 knots and of course on the nose. We didn’t have far to go and since we were sheltered by the
CRUISING IS.......
Sitting on deck locking up into the sky
As a flock of flamingos is flying by
Then our eyes wonder over the sea
Where hundreds of dolphins we now see
So don't as the question "WHY"
We like to be out on the big blue sea
Manuela Olshefski
It’s kind of funny, every time we arrive in El Oculto just after we anchor we get showered with rain, this time was no difference. It rained hard for at least 3 hours and the air was pleasantly cool. By sunset the clouds were empty and the bright stars started to shine. It was so quite you could hear a pin drop or as Sid says a mouse fart. We both slept so good, they could have taken the boat away from under us and planted us on the beach we would have never woken up. Heavy wind was predicted for the second of January but nothing happened, it stayed calm and in the afternoon some clouds opened up again and drizzled on us again. This anchorage is so peaceful and we enjoy even more so being the only boat here. For the first time ever here we had a flock of scarlet ibis fly over us. In the afternoon on the 4th Jennifer and Michael on Heart Jump arrived, the wind now was gusting again and we were stuck for a few days before we could head to Isla Coche and Margarita until the next break in weather.
Amazing how fast time goes by when you’re having fun and that’s just what we did. We never made it to Testigos or Coche, we just hung out in Isla Margarita with Heart Jump and did the tourist thing; shopping, movie, shelling on the beach, dining out, cocktails at sunset, some more shopping and also not so tourist stuff sail repair. How does Jimmy Buffet’s song go again: “Sail repair in Margaritaville”!!! Or something like that LOL. The mainsail of Heart Jump had a rip we brought our sewing machine to their boat, arranged it on deck under the mainsail and sewed away. Didn’t even have to take the sail all the way down, it worked out great and it was a great team effort; as a thank you Michael and Jennifer took us out for dinner.
The whole time the wind was blowing like snot and swells headed right into the anchorage. Sid helped Heart Jump to get their stern anchor set and we mounted our flopper stoppers. I tell you those flopper stoppers are the hit, they slow the roll down so much it’s like not even having swells and compared to all the other boats we had it calm. Wind still was blowing over 20 knots at nights even higher and pretty much every night we had squalls with yet higher winds. Sid likes to sleep in the cockpit but got rained out many times and had to come down below.
Finally it looked like we had a weather window, although short one, but enough time to get to Trinidad. CJ the weather guru who gives precise weather every morning on the Porlamar Cruisers Net VHF 72, even promised us that we would have calm seas and 10 to 15 knots of wind, perfect cruising condition. The high swells having rolled into the anchorage all week long were noticeably getting smaller too. So it was a go, we left on 01/17/09.
We truly were lucky with the weather as in January the Christmas winds are prominent and never slow down. The whole week we watched the weather we were sure we would be stuck in Margarita at least until the end of the month, and then all of a sudden a bubble formed, I call it a bubble as it looked just like that on the wind chart.
It formed off the eastern Coast of Venezuela and over Trinidad and held long enough for a two day passage. There was a wave underway and would probably hit us ¾ into our tip. We left Margarita at 7am with anticipation of how rough it would get. We had practically flat seas with some 6 foot gentle swells, the wind as usual was on the nose but did turn south for a couple of hours. We motor sailed the whole 147 miles in 26 hours, last time it took us 36 hours. Entering the Boca we had some confused seas but it was a calm crossing.
As we walked into the Cruise Inn Reception where Heart Jump was checking in we were greeted like we were long lost family; it was like coming home. Since we’re not staying at the hotel they invited us to come over and relax at the pool. After we helped Heart Jump get in to their slip we headed back to Paradise still tied up to the customs dock when we noticed dark clouds heading towards us, realizing once more how lucky we were not just with the flat seas but also that we managed to get here before the rain started. We found a 10 minute window between rain showers and tied up to a mooring ball and then it rained pretty much until late afternoon.
Things were moving rather fast, two days later we were hauled out at Power Boats where
Paradise was sitting right next to the water with a coconut palm tree behind the cockpit and the most spectacular view over Chaguaramas Bay. We had our deck chairs set up and after a hard day of work we enjoyed a cocktail with front row seat to the beautiful Trinidadian sunsets. Good thing we hauled when we did, as we were waiting to get into the dock to be hauled Sid heard the fresh water pump running but no water came out of either faucet. It took him two days plus buying a new pump to find the problem was an air leak. Then he changed some through hulls, changed the pitch of the propeller, cleaned hull and fixed all kind of other thing, sanded down the bottom, fixed a few blisters, had a survey done which we passed with flying colors. The surveyor was impressed how Sid keeps the boat up plus all the upgrades he’s done.
There was already a Hash on the first weekend so we rented a car and joined our old buddies. Jennifer loves nature and so she joined us. The hash was held in Maracas Bay where we first went along the beautiful beach then up the hill to the main road again from there it was a really, really steep up hill and for the ones that had a bad ankle like me we took the road around back to where we started. Then it went into the flat area which was surrounded by nothing but steep hills. We waded up a cold stream, across some rugged ground that was over grown with lots of weird looking weeds then into some really muddy area. It was so muddy that our shoes got stuck over and over, at one spot it was so slick, my one foot went sideways while the other went the opposite and down hill and I was doing a very ungraceful split, ouch. The trail was fun except for the mud that was a bit tough especially since Jen and I were pretty much the last ones and over 150 people had trampled this mud into deeper mud. Jen disappeared in one area up to her knees in that gook, yuck. Many weeks later I found out that there were alligators in the muddy area, yikes!!! Of course at the end of the run ice cold beer was waiting again and several Hasher welcomed us back and wanted to let us know that they had been following our Blogg.
The following morning we woke up feeling very, very old. We both had to collect our bones together before we could climb out of bed. At 7.30 I picked Jen and Diane up and we drove to Marqueripe Bay for a swim and mainly for me to collect beach glass for jewelry making. What a disappointment it was to arrive at a barrier before the beach with a guard telling us that the beach was closed. Instead I took them to the Bamboo Cathedral, which at this time of the year is very lush. We saw many butterflies, at one spot the sun shown through the thick canopy and lit up a beautiful spider web with spider in the center. On our way back to the car we heard howler monkeys and then the trees right next to us started rustling and we heard some different kind of noises. We could not believe our eyes; the whole tree was inhabited by spider monkeys. More rustling in the next three and the next, then bats flew by and black birds with long yellow tails landing in the same trees making the weirdest jungle noises, it was just amazing. After that I took the girls shopping but all we could talk about was our experience with the wild jungle. (We enjoyed it so much we went once more the following morning with the same result).
Later on, same day Sid and I raced on Beex at the weekly Sunday regatta. Beex is a 44” Benneteau. Owners Paul and Karin are friends of Shawn and Debbie and needed crew. The race started a bit slow towards the weather mark, not much wind was blowing then half way to the mark it picked up then a shift and we didn’t have to tack we kept getting lifted right to the mark, a first for us, only heard of these stories. We never had a downwind leg as the wind shifted around. We started with doing 1.8 knots and ended doing 8.5.
After the race Paul and Karin invited us to race the Tobago Regatta in February with them.
A few days later at the morning net on VHF radio a new boat introduced themselves, we jumped up and down when we heard their names Pamela and Tom on Imagine. We met those two up in the Sea of Cortez in 98 before they left for their circumnavigation. The first chance we had we had them for sundowners on the boat and tried to catch up but there was so much to cover we need many more sundowners. It was really great to see them both.
We were still in the yard and it rained pretty much every day ever since we arrived. After three weeks when a shining object they said was the sun was blinding our eyes, we took full advantage of it and painted the bottom. The following day it rained again and Sid painted the boat in-between the rain, which was at 8am and 11pm in the dark. Finally we were done and the 6th of February Paradise was lifted back into the water.
I tell you work ethnic here is something else. We are in the need of new batteries and went to THE battery man and he told us that he would get back with us the same day with a quote, two weeks later when we splashed we still didn’t have a quote. Busy Bee a carpenter was supposed to bring us a quote as well and came back 6 days later, I told him that his price was too high and that we were not interested. The very next day he called and wanted money for the wood to which I had to remind him that we did not hire him. 10 minutes later he called once more telling me that if we don’t pay he will not be able to get contracts again at Power Boats. Sorry dude that is your problem. The carpenter right next to where our boat was hauled told us when we asked him to come over for a quote that he would be over in a short time. Well that short time never came either. Makes you wonder how they make money here. When we told this story to our friends they sad they could top that one and I think they did. They’ve been here for 12 years on and off and used to go to this one bakery where they made donuts, the best ever, the guy ran out of donuts every day and instead of making more donuts every morning he decided to go out of business, Hellooooo! What’s wrong with this picture?!!
Every Tuesday night was movie night. One of them as we stood in line for popcorn a young women approached me and very happy she told me that her mother had seen us last Tuesday and that she absolutely adored Sid’s mustache and then wanted to go and sit next to him. So we pulled a little joke on her mother Jacky, I followed her daughter Tanya inside and spied where she was going to sit, then when Sid came in with popcorn we moved up to their isle and sat right next to them and Sid said: Hi Jacky, how are you? She almost fell out of her seat. That was really funny. Of course after the movie we chat with them a bit and exchanged phone numbers.
The day Paradise splashed we were invited at Shawn and Debbie’s for a lime along with their friends Linda and Joe on Nesta. We had such a good time, but let me tell you the funniest was to get totally hammered Joe and Sid back on the boats. Joe had to climb a 10 foot ladder up to his boat and Sid had to jump a 6 foot gap from the dock onto the boat. It was very comical but both made it safe. A bit slow the following day we managed to get Paradise on a mooring and prepared her for the 89 miles trip to Pigeon Point on the Island of Tobago for the Regatta. At 1 am we broke the mooring and headed out into the bay and through the cuts of the islands and hugged the Trinidad coast all the way to the east end. It was at parts very confused seas, like in a washing machine, due to currents. Just good the wind was only blowing 10 knots which changed as we headed the last 18 miles towards Tobago. It blew for a while with 18 knots but settled again and we felt lucky with the weather until we were about 10 miles off shore from Tobago. There lurks a shelf of only 33 feet and since there is a current running right over it; it can get a bit confused. Sid decided to by pass the shelf on the west side and it should have been OK if it wasn’t for a squall west of us sucking all the air in and creating a huge mess. This mess lasted until we reached the anchorage. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable it was, the high swells were broken up by the current and wind and tuned into sharp peaks tossing the boat in all directions, with water spray from all directions. It was a mess and first thing we did after anchoring and turning the engine and instruments off we sat down and had a cocktail, we needed one bad. After that cocktail we straightened up a bit, had dinner and enjoyed our new surrounding with the incredible view of Pigeon Point. On one side are pipeline type waves curling and crashing over the reef on the other the most beautiful beach overgrown with palm trees of all shapes, a scene you only see on post cards. At several places the waves are crashing onto the beach over shallow reefs. The night wasn’t as restful as we had hoped as the anchorage is a bit on the rolly side. First thing in the morning after our good morning coffee we put the flopper stoppers out and now watched all the other boats roll around. Then we ventured onto shore to check in with the authorities, which came especially out here for the regatta, otherwise it would be hiring a taxi and going to Scarborough to check in. Ashore we had to wait for the officials to arrive and in the mean time met Neal and his wife Alana who were in charge of entertainment. There is not just the sailboat race but they also had other competitions like kite surfing and the local fishermen had some sort of race as well. They both told us what was going to happen every day and when he found out we never had fish broth a very local dish he took us over to the comittee tent and his wife prepared us a bowl of this wonderful, wonderful soup.
So here we were waiting for all the other boats to arrive and were very happy we came when we did as the wind had picked up and was blowing a minimum of 15 knots with much higher gusts which made I pretty rough out there, but it will made for good racing. The weather got so bad that many boats didn’t make it to Tobago, it got so bad that the ferry closed down for two days and lots of racers couldn’t make it either.
While sitting in our cockpit I noticed a Boobie swimming towards us and then I saw that he had a broken wing. He headed for our dinghy and hopped on it first. The wind was blowing it’s feathers around and so he just jumped inside the dinghy and out of the wind. He sat there all afternoon long until we had to go ashore. It didn’t seem to bother him that he took up our dinghy and stayed, actually he hopped right next to me on the dinghy tube and when we rolled around he leaned on me I had a hand on him to keep him steady and as we were close to shore I have him a gentle push into the water and he swam ashore. I don’t think that poor bird survived his ordeal on land as we spotted many dogs.
We had an incredible time at the race. The first day we had 25 to 28 knots of wind with 10 foot seas, not something we would get Paradise
In the mean time Carnival was in full swing. We went to Dimanche Gras which is the final of the King and Queen Costumes, Calypso and other contests. This is a must see the costumes are just amazing and can cost around 10 000 dollars by the time they are done. Some are 40 feet high and wide, just spectacular. The Calypso music lyrics are about what's happening in politics and is very funny. Monday and Tuesday is Juvee and the parades. We had signed up with the Hash House Harrier Band and canceled it due to Sid's shoulder and instead chipping with the Hashers we sat on a stand along side the road where the Parade started and were able to see all the bands, where we would have just seen people sitting in the stands watching us chip by, so it worked out OK. Although we did chip for about 10 minutes with the Hashers as we had on their costumes. The Parade was fantastic, it was an explosion of colors as each Band was chipping by (chip = a walking shuffle step done to socca tunes), ..... I took way over 300 photos plus film. (If you like to read about Carnival click on "Trinidad Carnival" or "Wikipedia Trinidad and Tobago Carnival". It was just such an incredible experience and makes you want to come back for another Carnival.
The marina has emptied out the second day after Carnival and all was back to normal, meaning all Trinis were working again and you could actually get boat work done, nothing was on hold anymore.
Shawn and Debby took us to a Trini cookout which was in the beautiful Valley of St. Cruz just a bit north east of Port of Spain in the inland of Maracas Bay, beautiful area. The lime was held on a private property the owners let organizations use as a retreat. It's a 9 year old orange orchard with a beautiful gazebo. They had about 8 tables set up and each served a traditional Trini dish. The flavors were all yummy, we tried everything except the hot dogs and hamburgers, but then why would we eat them if we could choose from succulent barbequed pigs tail; believe me it tastes much better than it sounds, pickles pigs feet (ceviche style), oil down which is a soup with pigs tail, yes pig again, but really yummy, pilow (rice dish), jambalaya, jerk chicken with rice and ice cream. We were so full we didn't try anything else that came up. There was a clown entertaining the kids as well, but I think the adults had more fun than the kids did. I took Sid for a walk through the orchard where I had found some cute puppies. As we played with the puppies two couples standing behind their car eating oranges started to talk to us and wanted to know if we were Trinis. Nope we are tourist; they immediately invited us to taste the juicy oranges, one called kings orange. It was the owners of the orchard and just the nicest people. Marlene showed me around the orchard and showed me a star fruit tree, which they call five finger fruit. When we finally left they sent us off with a huge bag full of juicy oranges and five finger fruits. We are amazed over and over in how friendly Trinis are. Almost makes you want to stay and never leave.
Where does time just go? In no time a few weeks had passed and Sid had a chance to recuperate his shoulder, although still more time was needed to heal completely. Poor guy was going out of his mind not being able to do anything on the boat without getting yelled at by me and our neighbors. Marina life for him means working on the boat, well not this time. I guess it must have been even more so frustrating on him to watch me sew away.
Life started to become a daily routine. After making coffee Sid sat in the cockpit reading the daily delivered news paper while I did my communications officer duty answering emails. At 8 we listened to the daily VHF net. After the next at 8.30 noodeling time in the pool, I gave noodeling aerobics every morning which hooked half the marina. We had anywhere from 12 to 14 noodelers and they refused to take off on Sunday. It was a lot of work even managed to get 6 guys into the pool.
Thursday nights potluck night with around 30 people attending and food is always wonderful. It really is a great way to meet new cruisers. At sunset a lot of chit chatter around the pool for a sundowner and Tuesday nights matinee night at the movies where Jesse James organizes a bus for us. At least once a week the ladies head into town as Trinidad is well known for fabrics. Two seamstresses come to Crews Inn every Thursday and for a reasonable price sew cloths for cruisers or copy any outfit. I found the nicest bathing suit materials and had Tina’s swimwear make me 7 new bathing suites. They can also copy any favorite bathing suites for a fraction of the cost of a new one. I also found some beautiful imitation leather, tan colored texaline and sunbrella and sewed up a storm in the cockpit. I made a sunshade cover for our neighbors bow; she in return bought me a very nice material to make slip covers for our cockpit cushions. After renting a car to buy foam for the cockpit cushions, Sid glued the new foam on top of our old close cell cushions to make them more comfortable which I then covered with vinyl. We have an all new cockpit, which looks great. I also replaced all the pockets I had sown two years ago. What a difference.
As Sid’s shoulder started feeling better and still very bored he decided it was time for another haul out, yes another one! This time we hauled out at Peaks and let me tell you what the difference between Power Boats and Peaks, its like checking into a Hilton verses a Motel 6, Peaks being the Hilton. So Paradise lost her sea legs for a couple of weeks, she received new rub rails. We hauled on Thursday and Sid’s shoulder felt that good that he wanted to attend the next Hash on Saturday. This changed our cruising plans drastically.....
TO BE CONTINUED…..
