September 20, 2006
Wednesday
Yesterday evening Judy found $300 TT lying on the
ground. We asked everyone we knew at the
marina if they had lost any money and found no takers, so we decided to blow it
at The Lure. This is a restaurant next
to our marina that we have avoided because everyone told us how expensive it
is. They were right. Bill had grilled kingfish and Judy had a
seafood salad. We shared an appetizer of
calamari and drank only water. Total tab
was $412.77 TT, or about $66 US. That is
a very expensive meal for Trinidad .
Cleared out and left Coral Cove Marina shortly before
noon. Topped off with 135 liters of
diesel. Also filled another gerry can
with 12.8 liters gasoline for future use for the dinghy outboard.
Another coincidence meeting occurred at the fuel dock. While we were filling our tanks, a guy came
out of Sails Restaurant to talk to us.
This is the same guy who had been docked next to our boat last summer,
fall and winter in the BVI! Can’t
remember his name, but his boat is a catamaran named Dharma Bum III. We have heard him on the VHF radio all summer
and never realized he was the same guy from the BVI. Sometimes we can both be a little dense.
Seems he was at anchor at TTSA around the point from Chaguaramas Harbor Trinidad , so he is still
working on that. But his boat is fixed
enough that she is floating and they are living aboard. They are headed to the South Pacific and hope
to be in the Marquesas by February; that is about 5,000 miles away. He wants to be there before the cruising
crowd arrives. We think he is a little
daring to be crossing that 3,000 mile open stretch of ocean during typhoon
season.
Can’t remember if we mentioned this last year, but this
particular family was/is doing a language experiment with their daughter. The kid was born in Venezuela and
heard Spanish for the first 18 months of her life. But the mother speaks to the kid in Chinese;
father speaks to her in German; and if they together speak to the kid (like at
the dinner table) then they speak in English.
They were curious as to which language the kid would learn first.
The daughter is now 3 years old. And she speaks Chinese almost all the
time. So we just guess that means that moms
still have the most influence during early childhood development. One lucky kid. She will be fluent in 4 or 5 languages and
see half of the world before she is elementary school age.
When we left the marina, we left the computer running;
uploading a few photos to this website as we motored out of the anchorage. Hope the WiFi connection held long enough to
complete the upload, but will worry about that later.
We followed Chuck and Pam Ursey on S/V Helen Louise out to Chachacacare Island
It was so pleasant at anchor at Chachacacare, even without
air conditioning. There was a pleasant
breeze. Early to bed; anchor up at 2:00
a.m. to head to Los Testigos.
September 21, 2006
Thursday
11.22.085N; 63.07.308W
First, Happy Birthday to Kristina.
We left Chachacacare in pitch blackness at 2:00 a.m. Beautiful stars but no moon. We followed S/V Helen Louise the entire 100
miles to Los Testigos. As we mentioned
previously, our boats are identical so we travel at the same speeds.
This was the first night passage during which Judy did not
get seasick. Not sure which was the
strongest contributing factor:
- last
meal was 9 hours earlier and only ate yogurt underway
- seas
were totally flat calm, instead of the very rough seas during earlier
night passages
- the
stern light of S/V Helen Louise provided a visual fix to follow rather
than watching the chart plotter so much
We motored with mainsail only for the entire passage. Winds were from our stern at only 4 knots,
and our forward speed was greater so we couldn’t use the genoa. There was a 2.5 knot current pushing us
along; so we were clipping along at 9-10 knots SOG (speed over ground). Trip was exactly 100 NM in 10 hours 45
minutes, for average speed of 9.3 knots including the time spent raising and
lowering the anchor at beginning and ending harbors. It was a very pleasant passage.
Los Testigos is a quiet tiny group of 4-5 islands. There is a tiny fishing village with a total
of 160 inhabitants on two of the islands.
This is not an official port of entry, but there is a local Guadacosta
(Coast Guard) station. You are required
to present your documentation on arrival and request their permission to remain
on Los Testigos for a few days. The
sailing guide book says that the attitude varies by officer but that they
normally will let you stay for 48 hours.
We had an extremely nice officer, very courteous and friendly. He allowed us to stay until Monday 7:00 a.m. This was the easiest clearance we have
experienced to date. The officer liked
the fact that Judy is the official captain.
He also liked that we had gone to the trouble to present our crew list
and paperwork in Spanish. Great form
that Judy had downloaded before we moved aboard. We have 100 copies for future use in any area
where Spanish is spoken.
Many of our friends who had left Trinidad
on Monday and Tuesday were already here.
We all met for dinner ashore at the Case Verde, which is exactly what the
name says—a green house—the home of a nice young Venezuelan couple who decided
to sell dinner to a few dozen cruisers.
They offered dinner choices of kingfish, barracuda or “salmon of the Caribbean ”
(mystery fish to all of us). Dinner was
$4.50 and beer was $1.00. We opted for
the grilled kingfish and it was delicious.
It was a lot of fun.
Beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear waters. Snorkeling is supposed to be superb. We will enjoy the next few days.
September 22, 2006
Friday
All our friends left at 7:00 this morning for the passage to
Isla Margarita. We opted to stay here
because we don’t want to rush. Our
reservation at the marina in Puerto La Cruz is for October 1st, and
we see no reason to get in a big hurry to go sit in another marina. We only plan the one stop at Isla Margarita
before settling in at the marina in Puerto La Cruz for the month of October.
The diesel fuel we bought in Trinidad
was dirty. Our engine was missing for
the last half of the trip here. We were
worried that we might not make it for the final 20 miles because the missing
was getting worse. The engine was only
turning 2,000 rpms at that point. We
have dual Racor filters, and you are supposed to be able to flip from one to
the other; but we didn’t want to try it for the first time while out at
sea. When we were safely anchored here,
then we flipped to the other filter and everything worked fine. But that meant we still needed to change the
clogged filter.
So, this morning Bill changed the clogged fuel filter. Since he was down in the engine room anyway,
he also changed the engine oil and the engine oil filter. Glad to be done with those routine
maintenance chores while anchored in a calm area with a nice breeze.
Bill’s gout is acting up again; swollen and painful toe
joint. Guess he has been enjoying too
much fish again lately and will have to forego seafood for a few days.
It’s been fun listening to all our friends on the VHF who
are enroute to Isla Margarita. They have
been chattering all morning about the fish they are catching and about a little
yellow bird that has flown from boat to boat, resting a bit on each one.
We enjoyed our day of solitude. There are six other boats here, but we don’t
know any of them. The Guardacosta toured
through the anchorage this afternoon in a local fisherman’s boat and wrote down
the names of all the anchored boats; keeping an eye on things. Guess they needed to make note of which boats
had left in the mass exodus this morning.
What a difference. The coast
guard here has no resources whatsoever, yet they are trying to be vigilant
about their responsibilities. They don’t
even have any small boats at their disposal, or radios, or anything except a
bare office ashore. The coast guard in
Trinidad has all kind of resources (including resources from the US government)
yet they don’t do a darn thing and don’t seem to care about what should be
their responsibilities.
September 23, 2006
Saturday
Open all the hatches and side ports; enjoy the breeze. Light rain starts. Close all the hatches and side ports; get hot
and humid down inside the boat. Rain
stops. Open all the hatches and side ports
again.
Repeat every 15 minutes.
When you get tired of doing this, start the generator and
turn on the air conditioning and watch DVDs for a few hours.
There you have a complete description of our day in Los
Testigos today as an extremely light tropical wave passes through the area.
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