Date: 24 September, 2000
Port of Call: Porlamar, Isla Margarita, Venezuela
Subject: Just an Ordinary Month
Looking back through our e-mails, I see that it has been over a month since the last CruiseNews. My, how time flies! I haven't felt compelled to write anything, since no single big event or experience has marked the past month. It has just been "ordinary" cruising. But I suppose that for most of the people who read our letters, our "ordinary" days are pretty unusual. So, here is what we've been up to for the last ordinary cruising month…
Venezuelan passport stamps
We left the islands
of Los Testigos on August 21, after 10 wonderful days. We headed
first for Porlamar, on Isla Margarita, to check in with Customs and Immigration.
We had been in the Venezuelan out-islands for 10 days without checking
in with Customs, and we were a little worried that Venezuela might have
a problem with that. The cruising guides recommend that in Venezuela
check-in should be done with an "agent", a person not associated with the
government who does all the work for you. So we left our ship's papers
and passports with an agent at a company called Vemasca, and went to see
the town.
Venezuelan Bolivars--B100=US$0.15
Our first priority
was to get Venezuelan money to pay the agent. The agent charges the
princely sum of 35,000 Bolivars (abbreviated here as B35,000) for the process,
so we had to locate an ATM to get local currency. Fortunately another
cruiser was headed downtown, and he showed us where to catch the bus and
where to get off. We had to try three ATMs before we found one that
accepted our card. We withdrew the maximum the machine allowed:
B50,000. After a little mental arithmetic with the exchange rate
we figured out that the agent charges about $50, and we "maxed out" the
ATM with a $75 withdrawal!
The next day we took a bus trip to the boatyard at Chacachacare on Isla Margarita. Along the way we got to see some of the scenery. Margarita is unlike the islands of the eastern Caribbean in that it is mostly arid desert. Cactus and scrub brush are the dominant plants, iguanas and small lizards are the most prominent animals, and shades of brown are the colors that greet the eye. Margarita has mountains that rise over 3200 feet, long sandy beaches that ring the island, and areas of mangroves tucked away in quiet little corners. All this on an island that is less than 40 miles east-to-west and 20 miles north-to-south.
Kay and Cathy shop at Mercado Conejeros
One thing we have
done a lot of here in Margarita is shopping. Cathy loves it here!
Our first shopping experience was at Rattan, a huge combination grocery
and household goods store of two stories, similar to a Super Wal-Mart in
the U.S. After the small "supermarkets" in the other islands, we
were astounded at the size and we wandered around in a daze, unable to
choose from the thousands of products available. The downtown area
of the city of Porlamar is a glitzy collection of stores, with neon lights
and signs everywhere. It looks like the shopping district in many
American cities, except for the numerous street vendors selling jewelry,
music CDs, or offering to braid hair in cornrows and beads. We have
made several trips to Mercado Conejero, or Rabbit Market, which is the
open-air market here. It has nothing to do with buying and selling
rabbits, it is just located in a region that happens to be named Conejero.
They have stalls where vendors sell clothing, jewelry, and the usual tourist
souvenirs.
On August 29 our 10-month-old VHF radio died. For us the VHF radio is used like a telephone--it is the way we communicate with nearby boats and local shore stations--so its loss affects us quite a bit. We have a small hand-held radio for backup, but it doesn't work nearly as well as the big unit. After talking to the manufacturer we decided that it would probably take months to get the radio back to us in Venezuela if we shipped it in for warranty repairs. We wound up ordering a replacement radio through a local marine store and decided to take a mini-cruise while waiting for it to arrive.
Isla Coche--Gabe from "Geronimo" shows off his sea star
We left for the
nearby island of Coche on September 1. On our way there we were asked
to deliver a message to a boat in Coche concerning a death in their family.
When we got there we passed along the sad news. The other boat didn't
have any way of getting in touch with their family back in the U.S.
Our ham radio was still operational, so we got on a ham net and arranged
a phone patch with a station back in the U.S. The woman from the
other boat came over to Sovereign and was able to talk to her brother and
father back in Ohio and to send e-mails to her family. It was good
to be able to help out. Getting a ham license was one of the best
things we did in preparing to go cruising.
We stayed in Coche for three days, then moved on to Robledal on the west end of Isla Margarita for a night. The following day we sailed for Isla Blanquilla. It was a nice sail, nearly 50 miles due north on a beam reach. We anchored off of Playa Yaque on Isla Blanquilla.
Playa Yaque, Blanquilla, Venezuela
On the chart, Blanquilla
is shaped like an axe head, with the blade facing to the east-northeast.
It is about eight miles across. It is a low, flat island, rising
only a few dozen feet above sea level. Blanquilla's only permanent
human inhabitants are the Guarda Costa (Coast Guard) on the east side of
the island. We tucked into a little cove on the western side of the
island, very close to the beach, and partially sheltered from the swell
by a long flat rock.Natural bridge at Americano Beach, Blanquilla
At Blanquilla we
did some of the typical tropical island things: walked on the sandy
beaches, picked up shells, went swimming and snorkeling, and sat in the
shade of the palm trees. The water in Blanquilla achieves a vivid
mint green that is rarely seen elsewhere, and it is really quite striking.
The soft rock of much of the island also allows the sea to undercut the
banks, forming interesting shallow caves and natural arches that can be
explored by swimming.
At Blanquilla, we also did some of the typical cruising sailboat things: Cathy finished up the varnish on Sovereign's exterior teak and started varnishing the floorboards in the cabin. I tracked down and fixed a leak in the fresh water system that had started dumping gallons of water a day into the bilge. We must have about 50 spare plumbing fittings on board, but none of them were the right one to fix the problem. The boat next to us, La Corsaire, just happened to have the ½ inch T-fitting that we needed. Around the same time our computer died, so I started trying to determine what the problem was. I gave up on that job without success and went off to help La Corsaire set up their radio e-mail system. They had had the components on board for four years without being able to install it! In the process of doing that job, I found out that La Corsaire had an IBM ThinkPad of a newer vintage than ours. I was able to determine that the problem with our computer was the power adapter, and La Corsaire just happened to have an extra one exactly like ours! It is pretty amazing to be in an anchorage that is miles from anywhere, and find a boat right next to you with the two exact things needed to fix your most pressing problems!
September 13th was the day our new VHF radio was supposed to arrive in Porlamar, and on that day we left for the 60-mile passage to a harbor on the northeast side of Isla Margarita called Juangriego. The wind was too far forward to sail, so we motor-sailed all day. On the trip we saw a lone whale headed north. It only blew a few times so we couldn't make positive identification, but it looked to us like a finback. We arrived at Juangriego just at sunset. The next morning we left for Porlamar, and motorsailed around the east end of Isla Margarita back to Porlamar. The northeastern corner of Isla Margarita provided unexpectedly breathtaking scenery, with high rocky cliffs plunging straight down to waves crashing at the base. It looked more like Maine than the Caribbean, and it was a nice diversion to an otherwise tiresome motorsail.
When we arrived back in Porlamar, we checked on our radio. It hadn't arrived, and neither had the mail package we requested. It took another week for them to show up. In the meantime, Cathy continued varnishing the floors in the mornings. It is a huge job, made even more difficult because we can't walk around inside the boat while the varnish is wet. In the afternoons, we typically go to town for shopping, we visit with other cruisers, and we've even seen a movie! We have actually seen TWO movies since we've been here, "The Perfect Storm" and "Frequency". The movies here are shown in English with Spanish subtitles, so there is no language problem for us. The movies were good, but for me the best thing about the movies was that they kept the air conditioning turned very cool in the theaters. It was the first time I've stopped sweating in over 10 months! It felt like being in Maine!
Speaking of staying cool, we hope to head for mainland Venezuela next so that we can take a bus into the Andes Mountains. We are looking forward to being cool for more than just the hour or two at a time that the movies afford.
Beyond that, not much is going on here. Just your average month of cruising.
Smooth sailing,
Jim and Cathy