Voyages Of Raft -- C&C Landfall 38

2008-06-06T14:06:00.001-04:00

Crossing the Gulf Stream, heading to the USA June 2008

After consultations with Chris Parker, it now appears that we should have a good opportunity to get across the gulf stream and head north. May not be enough time to get to Beaufort as we would really like to do, but at least get us somewhere on the US east coast, and closer to home.
We pulled up anchor and headed our 0830 on Tues. May 27th with a reefed main. It was like RAFT didn’t want to leave, the engine started overheating as soon as we cleared the anchorage. A quick check of the possible problems showed that the water intake valve was half closed, our 1" rubber hose on the handle which was to stop this from happening had jumped off sometime in the past few days…said it was a bumpy anchorage. Easy fix this time.

As we approached Great Issac the winds had increased to 25+, we had reefed both sails. By morning we were in the Gulf Stream. Wonderful sailing, traveling the Gulf Stream was a delight, 10-15 knots of wind with a 3.5 knot current had the boat rocketing along all day and night long. We covered 175 NM with ease and best of all very little boat traffic, the seas to ourselves.
We were making good progress in the Gulf Stream until midnight when the wind shifted to the north putting it right on our nose of course, this causes big seas in the Gulf current so we were forced to bail out of the stream early for safety and comfort sake. We are now 45 miles south of Charleston and trying to decide if we can make Cape Fear or pull in there. The weather guru says there is time once the winds shift SE but that won't happen until this evening. So we started tacking up the East coast at 3-4 knots. Hopefully the wind will shift before we get to Charleston. We traveled 132 NM yesterday. Slow progress now in lumpy seas.
We had to motor sail for 24 hours. Weird eddy currents south of Charleston and stronger than expected NE winds dragged down our potential to put some miles under the keel. But we persevered. Still managed to do 127 NM pounding into waves and then finally late Thursday afternoon…NO WIND. So we turned the boat NE and headed for Cape Fear. We have another 50 miles to go and need to tuck in soon because of bad weather Sunday/Monday.
We feel the temperature change as we head north. We now wear sweat pants and long sleeve shirts in the evenings now. No shoes or socks yet. The blue water is gone and the brown/muddy ICW awaits us.
Decided to bail out at the Cape Fear River. This is Vixen’s (our buddy boat) home stomping ground so we let them lead us in. What a culture shock!! As we entered the ICW, after a 105 hour sail, we are bombarded by jet skis, fishing boats, people waterskiing and tubing in the channel, kayakers, swimmers (on the beaches) tons of buoys (remembering we need to put green to the right) and shoaling waters. We knew that we shouldn't be on the ICW on the weekend, but our Bahama crossing ended on a Saturday. And in the middle of this, the shackles on the boom and traveller broke, so Ross is on the deck jerry rigging the main sheet with Bev on the wheel. We did get anchor in Wrightsville by 6 pm, very tired after 108 hours -- our longest passage ever!!
Called US customs and they were insisting that we go to a local marina and check in, immediately!! It was now 1900, getting dark, winds blowing 25+ in the anchorage, and we were dead tired. We tried calling the marina and found out it was already closed. Finally the US coast guard intervened on our behalf, getting permission for us to delay the boarding until the morning provided we didn’t leave the boat. No problem all we wanted was a good night sleep.
Next morning we were off to the marina, as required. While we waited for customs to arrived, we were able to fuel, and water up, and do our laundry. Nice people at Sea Path Marina, so guess they are used to this routine.
Once customs arrived, it really was easy. He sat in the cockpit, copied our document info onto a plain piece of paper (reminded us of Luperon), and stamped our passports. He never inspected the boat in any way, or asked us any questions about what we had on board, or where we had been, except for last port. Obviously not many boats check in here, most boats go to Charleston or Beaufort. One advantage to us…we didn’t have to find our own way to the customs office, which are often at the airport requiring transportation.
We are spending a couple of days in Wrightsville, Paul and Denise have friends they want us to meet which means we will have access to a vehicle to take us grocery shopping!! After all the time in the Bahamas RAFT’s cupboards do need some restocking. Plus we have the traveller to fix.

2008-05-30T13:22:00.002-04:00

Leaving Nassau, heading Home!! May 2008
Now that Kathryn and Ron have left, our final visitors of our sailing odessy, and we have met up and separated from Jim and Dinah on Evergreen, it was time to make our way north. Time was passing, and hurricane season approaching.
Raft was refueled, rewatered, reprovisioned for the trip. Our plans were to head for Beaufort, with as few stops as possible. As always, weather was our major concern. And weather in the Abacos has always been tough to deal with. We were anchored in Nassau harbour with a cold front approaching, and a potential window to jump to the states after it passed. The two captains (Paul on Vixon and us) and decided that the anchorage behind Chub Cay would be just as good an anchorage as Nassau for the cold front, and that would take one day off the trip home. So we motor sailed to Chub and anchored in Frazier Hog Bay.
From the charts, we expected the anchorage to be more protected with drying sand at low tide than it was. But we knew that the marina at Chub was now a "mega marina" so not really an option. At first we were the only boats in the anchorage, but were joined by a couple others. We checked out the island, not much to see, had a beer at the Berry Beach Club, again not much happening.

Picture: Berry Beach Club

All the excitement would happen that night!! Why must excitement happen after the sun goes down? Luck of a sailor. Here is the report.
At sunset we noticed dark clouds coming our way, then the lightning flashes in the distance. By 2100 we were in 46 knots of wind, from the west. It was dark and we had not expected anything this intense. We were anchored in Frazier Hog Bay, in 12-15 feet of water in good sand, with Vixon and two other boats we had seen in Nassau, Fantasy Island and Caledon. The wind maxed up, and a big wave sideswiped us, and Ross felt the anchor give way. We motored for over an hour while the anchor dragged and grabbed, in good sized wind chop. After an hour the winds slowly dropped back down to 15kn, Ross dropped the second anchor. He hadn't wanted to do that earlier, in case they fouled each other, plus our backup anchor only has 40 ft of chain, and he didn't want to risk running over the rode. We had a restless night, and this morning we calculated we had dragged about 400 ft, fortunately there was lots of room in the anchorage, so except for our pride, no damage was done.
We have reanchored, and are still sitting here, awaiting the approach of the cold front, expecting 20-25 kn from the NE later today. Hopefully we won't have anymore squalls....Last night was the highest winds we have seen in all our time out here.
Things did settle down, and the last couple days in Frazier Hog Bay were bumpy but nothing like we experienced that night.

2008-05-30T09:32:00.000-04:00

Revisiting the Exumas May 2008
We hung around Georgetown another week, and we were able to reprovision, before Kathryn and Ron (Bev’s sister and brother in law) arrived. This was their third visit to RAFT, having previously visited in the Puerto Rico/US Virgins and Antigua-Dominica. Since K&R’s passion is snorkeling and walking beautiful beaches, we knew that they were going to have a great time in the Bahamas. Our plans were to pick them up in GT and sail with them to Nassau, letting them explore and us revisit our beloved Exuma Islands.
Once they arrived we gave them a quick tour to GT, moved over to Volleyball Beach, where we hiked to the Monument, kayaked the holes and snorkeled the "blue hole". The weather gods were with us, and we took advantage of the light winds, to motor sail to Rat Cay, fishing as we went. We caught a "big" barracuda, which we returned to the sea and ¾ ‘s of a good-sized ceral mackerel. Vixon, sailing with us, caught a mahi mahi, plus tuna and mackerel. We enjoyed a great fish dinner on RAFT that night.
Next day we were off to Galliot Cay. On the way, we caught our first mahi mahi of our trip. Paul had warned us, that when you catch a mahi, it will jump out of the water….and this one was jumping and continued to jump. As we reeled it in, we saw what was causing its displeasure…it was being chased by a shark. We had to reel in quickly in order to save our dinner, and we did. What a beautiful, blue and yellow 30" fish it was. It might have had a chance to be returned to the sea, except mahi taste so good! After an exciting "drift" snorkel between Galliot and Big Farmers, on the incoming tide, we had a second wonderful fish dinner in 2 nights.
Next day, we walked the island before taking a leisurely light wind sail to Black Point. Black Point looked better than we remembered Lorraine’s Mom is still baking great bread, and Lorraine’s restaurant is about the same, self serve bar, good food. In town there is a newer grocery store and a superclean laundromat.
Moving right along, our next stop was Piggy Beach at Big Majors. The pigs were there, waiting to be fed, and the Mega Yachts are definitely using this as their preferred anchorage. At low tide, we snorkeled the Grotto, and Bev still was impressed with the coral garden just east of the Grotto. Next day, after checking out the Pink, Blue and Ayles General Stores and buying fresh bread from Rhonda, (a new bakery to us) we were off for a high tide snorkel at the Grotto. This was a new experience for Bev, and a very enjoyable way to enjoy the Grotto. Even at high tide, you can still get in without going underwater, weaving your way through the cave entrance with about 6" airspace.
Pipe Creek was our next stop. We had heard about the docks at the end of the Decca Range but had never visited there before. We were fortunate to have just us and Vixen there, and thoroughly enjoyed checking out the military ruins, and walking over to check out the "mice run" at both high and low tide. Bev collected as many palm fronds as she could, knowing that her sources were coming to an end….and once they were gone she would have to go through the painful process of "weaving withdrawal".
Next day: a lovely sail to Exuma Park…a little more wind than expected. We had reserved a mooring ball in Warderick Wells in anticipation of an approaching cold front bringing in strong south and west winds. The park is much more organized than it was a couple of years ago. A huge mooring field has been installed in Emerald Bay, and there are now moorings at Shroud and many of the other islands in the park. They have installed Pay Stations, like the on St. John, to collect the money. Price is still $15 per night for RAFT.
First item: walk up BooBoo Hill to see if our RAFT momento is there, and if so, retrieve it to add a new date. But alas, the park clean up must have also included removal of the "old" momentos, the only new remain are those from the past year. Too bad. The trails are better marked, and new signage has been installed identifying the flora and fauna. Bev didn’t like all the "organization".
Over the next few days, we hiked all over the island, including revisiting of Pirate’s Lair. Once the wind had calmed down, we enjoyed the snorkeling on the wall at the north end of the mooring field. We knew that lobster season was closed, and we were treated to nature’s exhibition the reason why. The mega lobsters, at least 5 pounders, were playing hide and seek under the coral heads, but some were crawling right out in the open, some were chasing each other, some fighting, and others doing things that couples do. Although a little voyeuristic, that didn’t stop us from watching! Paul and Denise (Vixen) did a SCUBA dive, and it was wonderful to watch them pirouette under the water doing a wonderful dance.
K&R still had a couple more days of their vacation, and we had a couple more islands to share with them. One night at Normans, where they snorkeled the plane, and had a beer at the reopened McDuff’s – now called the Normans Beach Club. Next, we were off to Alans (not our favourite anchorage) but our guests definitely wanted to see the iguanas.
We had to motor to Nassau, very little wind, where we finally met up with Jim and Dinah on Evergreen IVrest. K&R visited Atlantis and returned with a KFC banquet for all. Their last day was spent shopping at the cruise dock for souvenirs and eating lunch at Potter’s Cay, before they caught a taxi to the airport. Another successful, and possibly their last, tropical holiday on RAFT.

2008-04-30T08:16:00.000-04:00

Long Island and Conception Island April 2008

Pictures: Beautiful beaches on Conception

One island we had missed on our previous times in Georgetown was Conception Island. Rated highly in the cruising guides and among our boating buddies, we did want to get there. However, due to its unprotected location and only having a lee anchorage, visits are not recommended if west quadrant winds are expected (common when cold fronts pass over area), or if northern swells are present (common if cold fronts pass to the north).
Following Brenda and Dan’s departure, we decided to move down to Red Shanks anchorage to sit through the next cold front, while we waited. This was another anchorage we hadn’t visited, so wanted to check it out. We were surprised how pretty the anchorage is. We knew it was well protected and collected an assortment of cruisers who enjoyed its serenity and lack of facilities, a total opposite of Volleyball Beach. While here we checked out the blue holes, snorkeled and kayaked plus were treated to a meet and great at the legendary Red Shanks Yacht and Tennis Club.
The weather still would not allow a trip to Conception, so we moved out of Red Shanks (saw 6’6" at low tide) and started doing the typical Georgetown shuffle, staying a couple nights at Monument and then back to town to shop, fuel and water up.
Desperate for a change of scenery, we decided to check out Long Island. Thompson Bay now has two new marina operations, Parrots of the Carribbean (2 cottages and restaurant/bar/laundry) and Long Island Breeze Resort. The latter is planned to be a major development, complete with $900,000 condos, hotel complex, and docks. At present a model condo is up, and the main lodge with restaurant, swimming pool, laundry and internet, is open. In fact while we were there, we attended the grand opening complete with free pizza and nearly everyone including us won a free Tshirt. Everything is first class, but it is tough to imagine that clientele rushing to vacation in Long Island.
We hung around Long Island for over a week, still hoping we would get the weather window to go to Conception. The well at Thompson Bay is still there, so we took advantage of the fresh water to do laundry, hanging our clothes lines around the "sailors bar". We had a campfire on the beach, walked the ocean side shelling, beach combing and collecting palm fronds.
We had almost given up on our trip to Conception, when finally a short weather window opened up on Saturday. Not perfect, since we would have to motor there, in NE winds, and run from westerly winds Wednesday. But we decided this short trip was better than no visit. And we were right!! The westerly beach off the anchorage definitely rates near the top of the most beautiful we have seen. An incredible long crescent of fine white sand and beautiful crystal blue water. The mangrove area is an interesting dinghy run, although we didn’t see any wildlife. Snorkeling the reefs: excellent visibility, good coral recovering, large reef fish, but not in large numbers. Despite our short stay, we were very happy we were able to see the Island.

2008-04-15T09:22:00.000-04:00

Family Island Regatta, Georgetown April 2008
Threatening west winds chased us back to Georgetown, arriving back in town for the Family Island Regatta. This regatta is totally for the local Bahamians, a full week of partying and they know how to party!! At least six of the local commercial (mailboats) boats had brought boats and participants from all over the Bahamas.
There were three classes of Bahamian sailboats racing each day, one small dinghy, and two larger sloop racers. Each wooden boat is manned with enough crew to sit on planks on the high side, to help "flatten" the boat, and keep them from capsizing. Quite often, during the race, there was crew in the water that had to be retrieved. The boats start the race with their sails and anchor down. When the gun goes off, the anchors are raised, and the sails unfurled, and race begins. The first couple days were quite windy, and there were a couple of broken masts, and blown out sails. We were able to watch the races from the comfort of RAFT anchored in Kid Cove.
The GT commercial dock had been transformed into a parade route flanked by about 50 plywood temporary stalls selling all kinds of foods and beverages. Every evening, after the races, everyone dressed up in their finest, to meet, eat, dance and party. The locals were really having a great time, and it was fun to speculate.
With all the extra people on the island, and the nightly BBQ’s, it isn’t surprising that Exuma market and Shoprite were running out of food. Not that it mattered too much, because the stores were closed most of the time to allow their staff to attend the celebrations. Even after the Regatta closed, there still was no food in GT, since all the commercial boats had to return their charges to their respective islands, before heading back to Nassau to get stuff to bring back to GT. There were a few complaints, but hey, this is the Bahamas!!

2008-03-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

Georgetown -- March 2008

Pictures: Dinghy raft up for concert on Free Bird, dolphins doing Seaworld routine beside RAFT

2008-03-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

Back to Georgetown - March 2008, originally uploaded by S/V Raft.

Picture: One of Bev's dreams - a ride in the back of a pickup!!

Spent a few days waiting in Boqueron for weather. Boqueron hadn't changed much in the past two years, although the weekend we were there, the Harleys didn't show. A new marina store had opened, opposite where the vegetable/meat man was last time, whom did not open while we were there. The Peas and Rice restaurant is still there, offering cheap breakfasts and lunches, the bakery is still up by the highway, as is the only ATM. Rodrigues offers very limited groceries, but we did luck into a farm truck selling great fruits and vegs on the street by the bakery, so we were able to restock those items. Marina looked the same, but we didn't need water or fuel, so did not confirm availability. Gallaways, has free internet, if you are enjoying their food or beverages. Ross sat there all morning, slowly enjoying a couple of beers and no one hassled him.
We knew we had been having long distance problems with our VHF radio, and Paul from Vixon had determined we were having power output problems. The new marina store had one in stock, so that one has made a new home in RAFT. We didn't want to make the next passages without full VHF coverage.
Waiting for weather, created another problem. We had decided to sign up for Chris Parker's personal SSB verbal weather service last fall, so that we could get his weather expertise for our longer passages. Wouldn't you know it, the week we were planning to jump to the Turks, he was in Georgetown giving a weather seminar so not on the air. So based on our own expertise, we decided to head out expecting lighter SE winds than we would like, dead down wind, and we would be racing a cold front which might meet us there. We hauled up the anchor about noon, Sunday, sailing with Vixon. The trip went quite well, mostly sailing, some motoring until we approached the Turk's passage. In the middle of the night, the winds were up to 20+ still dead astern, and we were doing over 7 knots. Ross decided to take the longer course, around Big Sand Cay, to kill some time and arrive in Cockburn at dawn. We were very pleased that the depth sounder, which had been giving us problems since St. Croix,
decided to work as we entered the anchorage. The passage had taken us 68 hours, our longest ever, but we could have done it in 62-64 hours if we hadn't slowed down to arrive in light.
After a brief rest, Denise and Bev went to check in, having to ask several of the local people for directions. As we had experienced the last time we were there, the people as so friendly, but none of the buildings have signs indicating whether it is a business or private home. We needed to find both immigration and customs, customs had a new office since we were there last. Cost $15.00 to check in. One new thing, free wifi internet available to all the boats in the harbour.
While the women were doing the legal thing, the guys were checking out the damage to Vixon's davits and determining that a welder would be required. The locals indicated that out at the new hotel development at High Point, the job could be done. Unfortunately the only way to get there was by taxi, $50 return trip. We all went, and received a tour of the island at the same time. Saw the airport, the salt flats, the flamingos, plus spent a lot of time out at the work camp waiting for the welder to show up and do the job. The US hotel project is massive, overlooking the beautiful sand beaches and gorgeous blue water on both sides. Most of all the workers are imported from Haiti and the Dominican Republic and live on site. The morning we were there, immigration was on site extending all the workers' visas, and that was the main reason for our wait. Even the airport is being upgraded to take larger planes, in anticipation of this project bringing huge numbers of tourists to the island. We are glad we had the opportunity to see South Caicos before the world discovers it.

Picture: Flamingos in front of unfinished resorts

No matter how we planned the trip, it seemed impossible to get to Mayaguana without doing an overnight trip. Neither Vixon or us were excited about heading across the banks, especially with our lack of confidence in our depth sounder. So we decided to leave Cockburn Harbour and sail the north coast of T&C directly to Mayaguana. During the night, we had to deal with lots of current in the Caicos Channel. We experienced a north setting current on both east and west coasts of the Caicos, and a west setting current on the north coast. The combination resulted in confused seas, and the light east winds required motor sailing, preventors to hold out the main sail, and we furled in the foresail to just a small triangle.
In the morning, the seas had settled down, and the wind had completely died, so we motored the last four hours, and anchored after lunch in Abrahams Bay. We had never been here before, and were surprised how large the protected bay is and quite easy to enter. We anchored with Vixon and Excaliber who had come from Provo, too far from the reef to snorkel, and too far from the town to go visit. But Excaliber had caught a 4' Mahi Mahi on the way over, and was sharing!! What an excellent meal that was.
That night the wind did catch up with us, and blew and blew and the rain fell, so we did laundry and filled all our water tanks. Next day, we had a meeting on RAFT to discuss weather and harbours available between here and Georgetown. Neither Vixon or Excaliber wanted to do any more long trips, so wanted to stay put until the next week, when more settled weather was supposed to come. We still had 2 weeks to get to Georgetown for Brenda and Dan's arrival, but were feeling some pressure. We knew we could go now, and sail directly to GT, or hang around for the next few days, and hope that the weather would cooperate and allow the day sails. Probably the unreliability of our depth sounder, which was still working, pushed us to the decision to make our move.
We left at first light, expecting moderate winds from the stern. Timing the trip to GT was difficult. The distance to travel was about 185 miles, which at 5 knots would mean 37 hours. However, we rarely average 5 knots, especially lately, even downwind and with currents. But maybe we would be lucky and arrive into the harbour at sunset the next day, and we knew the harbour well from our previous visits.
We were doing alright for the first nine hours, averaging just under 5 knots and then as we approached Plana Cays the winds died and the sea went smooth. We had to start the engine until midnight, we had finally found wind off of Long Island. We did 106 miles in our first 24 hours, not bad for us.
Day 2, we had lots of wind, averaging over 5 knots but it was evident that we couldn't avoid another night at sea, so we spilt wind, slowing RAFT down to try to arrive at dawn. But once we rounded the north end of Long Island, we were on a beam reach, and RAFT just wanted to run. At 0400 we dropped the main, and did a 180 turn, killing time sailing with a small jib. It was a beautiful night, stars shiningdidn't mind being out on the water at all. 0800 we dropped anchor in Kidd Cove, ready to assault GT.

2008-03-01T11:29:00.001-05:00

Pete and Kathy Visit February 2008, originally uploaded by S/V Raft.

Picture: What the shark left!!

By careful coordination, Bev and Kathy and Pete flew into San Juan the same day. Ross, with Denise and Paul from Vixon, did the well practiced Fajardo - San Juan routine, and were waiting at the airport with the rental car. We even had enough time to stop at West Marine and still make the 7pm ferry back to Dewey.
We were looking forward to showing our favourite Virgin island spots to Pete and Kathy, who had been with us last year in Martinique, Dominica and Guadaloupe. They had been in training at their Canadian gym for this trip, so we started off with a hike to one of our top ten beaches, Flaminco. As expected. K&P we impressed by its beautiful crescent uncrowded beach, affordable campgrounds and tank art.
We wanted to go to Culebrita, but decided to head for St Thomas for two reasons. First, northerly winds and swells would make the anchorage uncomfortable and we had one empty propane tank. Ross had been unsucessful finding propane man on Culebra while Bev was away, and we knew it was easy to obtain in Crown Bay.
Once underway, fishing lines were out. Immediately we caught a 48" barracuda, which we released. Our next strike, would have been a very large yellowfin tuna, had we not had to share. The guys did forensics on the teethmarks, and determined our thief was probably a shark. Even our share was sufficient for a good meal once we anchored in Charlotte Amalie.
We hadn'd told P&K about all the seaplanes that fly in and out of the main harbour. We passed the two large cruiseships at Crown Bay Marina, and just as we motored through Haulover Channel a seaplane was landing on our starboard side. A surprise for them, but Bev was more concerned about the failed depth sounder, as she negotiated the narrow waterway. We had been in and out of Charlotte Amalie so often that anchoring without a depth sounder wasn't a problem.
The next couple of days were spent exploring the town including all electronic and marine stores to see if replacement electronic parts for the depth sounder could be found, or a fishfinder could be purchased as a backup plan. Pete and Ross had the depth sounder apart, all contacts cleaned, soldering points checked, and for no reason at all, the depth sounder resumed working, but not consistantly.
We motored to Moho Bay, St. John to show K&P another of our favourite islands. We did our usual hikes, and snorkeling and relaxed, until unexpectedly the second propane tank ran out. Now we are in St. John, with company and no propane for the stove. Bev was not impressed, since she had suggested we stop in Crown Bay on our way through and we hadn't. We don't know why we ran out, as the guys could not find any leaks, so maybe it hadn't been filled properly wherever we had had it filled wecan't remember. Fortunately we had one small can of propane (off a torch), which fit on the BBQ. The girls tried to sweet talk the guy at the Moho Resort to sell us some gas, but he was afraid he wouldn't have enough for his glass melting kiln. Imagine valuing a melted beer bottle paperweight more than our meals. He suggested we eat in their restaurant!! We were able to buy another small canister in Cruz Bay, so we won't have to eat raw meat, but the meals will be interesting. After a couple of very enjoyable days snorkeling in Christmas Cove, we headed back to Crown Bay and refilled both of our propane tanks. Let the cooking begin.
The weather had settled down, and we had a lovely downwind sail to Culebrita. Here we did a lot of beach walking, hiking, turtle and deer watching, and playing in the Jacuzzi's. Alas K&P"s trip was coming to an end. Back on the early ferry to Fajardo, rent the car, and off to San Juan..all without a problem. On the way back we once again stopped at West Marine, and bought a fish finder. We haven't shut our depth sounder off, and it was been working for over a week, but we still know it will quit sometime in the future. We have asked Pete to check out a replacement for ours on Ebay.
It is now time to continue our trek north, but the weather gods want us to delay a few more days, before sending us lighter winds to head to Vieques. We overnighted at Green Beach, and made an early start the next morning for Salinas. We hadn't even got the sails up, when Ross sighted a dinghy floating offshore, no motor, or painter. The party boats in Green Beach weren't answering our radio hail, so we contacted US Coast Guard and told them we would tow it to Salinas.
We also had a whale surface very close to RAFT and show off with a few blows before waving with his dorsal fin goodbye. Sorry no pictures, but vivid memories.
Next day, after turning the dinghy over to the Park Police, we were off to Gilligan's Island. This was one of the anchorages we had missed on the trip down (you don't stop when you have west winds). While we were here, we heard Valeda IV on the radio. What are they doing here?? Aubrey and Judy were on their way back to Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. We were so excited to see them, we had parted company last fall in Venezuela. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together and the next morning we had to part again but such is the boating life. Who knows when we meet again.

Picture: Baby turtle on beach at Gilligan's

2008-01-09T14:21:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year -- St. Thomas Jan 2008

Picture: Murray with his part of the Wahoo
Our company arrived Dec. 28th, exactly as planned. Since the airport is very close to Charlotte Amalie, and the main harbour anchorage is very convenient to town, we made arrangements for Debbie and Murray to meet us at the Green House Restaurant on the waterfront. Our experience with meeting guests has shown us that bars are the best place, taxis don’t need directions, and we can enjoy a drink while we wait for the cab to show up.
We are always very careful who we invite to visit us. RAFT doesn’t offer our guests, or us much privacy; no private staterooms, heads or showers. So we always want our guests prepared that their getaway is closer to "camping in paradise" than a five star resort. Fresh water is rationed, we don’t go to marinas, and we tend to live with the sun. We actually didn’t know Murray and Debbie all that well, but Ross’s parents and Murray’s parents had been close friends for thirty-five years, starting as neighbours when both families were growing up in Toronto. But we knew that Murray and Debbie liked camping, had a summer cottage (a real one with no running water), and lived in Northern Ontario for the past 20+ years. That meant they must love fishing, snowmobiling, and roughing it. Murray had taken a keel boat sailing course and participated in their local yacht club races as crew this past summer. They had been following our trip on this blog and contemplating getting their own boat, but wanted to make sure they were compatible to the lifestyle.
We chose to have them come to St. Thomas, because we were concerned that with strong Christmas winds, we might get blown about in big open anchorages. We were confident in the US Virgins we could find some quiet anchorages, great snorkeling and fine sailing even if the wind blew strong.
Over our first breakfast, we discussed with M&D as to what they were interested in doing while they were with us. As expected, sailing, fishing, snorkeling and hiking were activities mentioned, while enjoying the sun and beautiful islands. Based on this list of priorities we decided on the sailing adventure right away. We sailed off the anchor and headed off to Christmas Cove. The winds were 15 knot trades, and the eastern swells were considerable.
We put out our 2 fishing lines, and within a few minutes the clothespin alarm jumped off the life rail. We were towing the dinghy with the motor on, and the line had gotten caught on the motor, so we thought it was a false alarm. The sea state was rough enough that Ross didn’t think he could free the line without getting into the dinghy. Then the other line also got caught on the dinghy motor, or so we thought. Not a great start for our fishing expedition. Debbie also wasn’t feeling great, so the decision was made to retreat to Charlotte Amalie. We turned around and Murray started to pull in the lines, Ross got in the dinghy to assist, and Bev was on the helm trying to keep RAFT steady. Murray thought his line was really hard to pull, but it wasn’t fighting like a fish. We soon found out why, as he pulled in half a Wahoo. Obviously something else had enjoyed the tail portion, but had left us more than enough for a great meal. There wasn’t another fish on the other line, but it had managed to get wrapped around RAFT’s prop. Good thing we are sailors, and sailed back into the harbour and anchored under sail. Bev went in the water to free the line, and managed to save the lure.
We thought we had thoroughly upset our guests, but we were wrong. They were very excited about the fish, and that overshadowed the rest. The fresh Wahoo steaks for supper were fantastic!!

Picture: Debbie, Murray and Bev at brunch in Red Hook
The wind conditions were similar on Sunday, so we went took the $2 safari (bus) across the island to Red Hook. After walking the docks and having brunch, we got back on the safari, and enjoyed the tour of the southern anchorages. Bev thought that we could get a safari up to Magens Bay Beach, but a local resident on the safari told us otherwise. He also informed us that we could take the safari to the end of the line at the Universtity and walk to Brewers Bay which had a lovely beach. This also gave us the opportunity to see how close the safaris pass the airport. (Not close enough, a taxi is necessary) We followed the instructions and ended up at a very nice beach, which we shared with a handful of local families enjoying their Sunday afternoon.
By Monday, the winds were coming down, and we wanted to go explore St. John. We went out prepared for the upwind passage to Current Cut, motor sailing in the lee of St. Thomas as much as possible. Once through the Cut we were able to sail to Trunk Bay. After grabbing a mooring, Debbie, Murray and Bev went to enjoy the beautiful beach and snorkel trail. Later we moved up to Maho Bay for our New Year’s Eve celebrations. We did enjoy a lovely Italian meal, but completely missed the celebratory champagne toast when 2008 arrived.
New Year’s day was spent hiking around the north end of St. John, visiting the old sugar mill and Annaberg Schoolhouse and snorkeling Waterlemon Bay. It was a delightful day as was the next one, when we stopped at Cruz Bay to allow M&D to tour the town, before sailing to Christmas Cove. Bev was anxious to snorkel here to see if it lived up to her memories of 18 months ago. The manta rays were there to greet us, another green turtle, plus lots of fish were present in the trench, just as she remembered.
D&M’s week was approaching its end, so we down wind sailed back to Charlotte Amalie. We wanted to give them some time to check out the "fairy land" that greets the cruise boat guests, and see how many diamonds are sold in the numerous stores. Fortunately their flight was not so early, that we didn’t need to find a taxi at "O" dark 30, so they had ample time for some last minute shopping before going to the airport. Our week together had been very enjoyable, and all of our initial assumptions about compatability worked out. We are quite confident that D&M had a great time, and we would welcome them back anytime.
Now that we have RAFT back to ourselves, we get to plan our next couple of weeks, before we must get to Culebra, and Bev’s trip to Florida.

2007-12-28T13:16:00.000-05:00

Christmas in St. Thomas 2007
Picture: Merry Christmas Everyone!!
Now that we are where we need to be, our guests arriving on December 28th, we started to plan our Christmas. We had never been to St. Croix, and understood there were lots of Christmas celebrations planned so we decided to go there. It is a 40 mile trip, with a very tricky entrance (read reef protected) into Christiansted. Having never been there, we definitely wanted to arrive in early afternoon with lots of light to guide us in. We were up before dawn and underway by 6am. But the weather gods were still not being kind to us, and after 3 hours we turned back, knowing we would not get to St. Croix in daylight. The waves/currents were pushing us the wrong way, and there just was no reason to take unnecessary risks for a pleasure trip. We would have to find something else to do for Christmas in St. Thomas.
And for this, the boating community did not let us down. We were not expecting "Diesel Duck" to be in St. Thomas, but when we heard them on the radio, we quickly made contact. We had been following Benoit and Marlene in and out of anchorages for nearly two years, and only had personally met on a couple of occasions. We accused them of branding us as fleas, because it seemed as we entered an anchorage, they were making their exit.
We met up on their boat for drinks, and planned to share Christmas dinner on RAFT. As they were anchored off Crown Bay, we decided to move RAFT over there. Anchoring off Crown Bay is difficult, as you must choose a spot among moorings, long term residents on multiple anchors. Plus the bottom is debris and coral covered, and the depth quickly changes from 4 ft to 30ft. Not an ideal anchorage, and one that caused us difficulties when we were there in 2006. However, Benoit had snorkeled and determined a spot that we could "just" fit in.
We had a lovely Christmas dinner, since we couldn’t be with our family, new boater friends are the next best. Benoit and Marlene know many of our Ontario boater friends, having built Diesel Duck through the OBBC (Ontario Boat Builder Coop), living and sailing out of Toronto.
Marlene showed Bev how to take the safaris to the "upcountry"shopping areas after the holidays, something not high on Ross’s desired activities, but the girls had a good day out.

2007-12-18T13:12:00.000-05:00

St. Martin to St. Thomas December 2007
Picture: Megas in Simpson Lagoon
The nasty weather that Chris Parker had been warning us about turned into Tropical Storm Olga, surprising everyone. Olga passed just north of us, giving us some rain, and lots of gusty winds. We are anchored in Simpson Lagoon, completely protected, but even here, there have been some waves in the 35 knot gusts. Unfortunately the lagoon bottom is weed covered and the anchors tend to fill up with weeds and become big balls of dirt, instead of doing their job. We dragged a few times when we first got here, but then we put out our second anchor, the CQR, one that likes weeds better, and now we seemed to be okay. Problem is that there are many other boats in the lagoon, and every day someone else is dragging near us. This means that we don't go too far from RAFT and that we don't sleep too soundly at night.
The Big Atlantic Rally boats arrived in to St. Martin while we were there, Some of the boats made the crossing from the Canaries (2600 miles) in 10 -12 days. Every day there is a parade of the multi million dollar plastic megas, trekking in and out at bridge openings. The marina guys with divers, really have to work hard to shoehorn them into the med moored docks, especially with the wind. Gives us a new "show" to watch from our cockpit everyday.
We ended up paying for another week, as we waited for the 9-12’ seas to come down. However, we had to get out of there, boats just continued to drag onto us regularly. Our boat neighbours were disappointed to see us leave, we were such good goalies. During the time we were in the lagoon, 12 days, we dragged 3 times, stopped with second anchor. We were endangered by six boats, Ross helped reanchor 3 unoccupied boats, and woke up one sleeping sailor as his boat approached the mega boats on the dock. Note to anyone considering anchoring there....don't anchor close to Shrimpy's. That's were all the boats try to, and then the owners jump off their boats, leaving others to tend to while they are off enjoying St. Martin.
We moved out of the Lagoon on the 1130 bridge and anchored in Simpson Bay, planning an afternoon departure. We calculated that with the predicted NE winds 15-20, we should have a fast downwind sail, and if we left too early we would arrive in St. Thomas before dawn. Not that it would really be a problem, given how large and well lit Charlotte Amalie harbour is. But as usual, the winds did not perform as predicted, instead we had light east winds, directly on the stern. We were able to sail, the main securely tied off, the foresail flogging, furled, wing on wing, averaging 4knots, instead of the expected 6. As a result our anticipated 18 hour sail, took over 24.
We were pleasantly surprised to find "Off Call", friends from Trenton Ontario we had not seen since Luperon. They were heading off to St. Martin but had waited for us, knowing we were coming in. It was great to see Joe and Wendy, even if it was only for a few hours.

2007-12-01T13:08:00.000-05:00

Leaving Venezuela December 2007

Picture: Catching tunas
All systems are ready to go north. Its time to wait for weather. Our intentions were to sail from Margarita to St. Thomas, which should be a 4-5 day sail in moderate easterly winds, southeasterly would even be better. Since it was only the middle of November, we were hopeful of getting a favourable window, before the Christmas winds set in. So we started the wait, consulting Chris Parker, computer models, Sandcastle (our buddy boat) and for the next two weeks, all we saw were light northeast winds (guess which way we want to go), nothing to sail with.
By the 29th of November, we are starting to get tired of weather consultations over cheap beer at Juan’s. The 7 day outlook indicated more of the same. Some weather gurus and old salts seemed to think that the Christmas winds were kicking in early—just our luck. Our Canadian friends were going to join us in St. Thomas on Dec. 28th, and we wanted to get there. We made the decision to motor in the light winds east, to Los Tostigos and then on to Grenada, hoping that the winds would go more easterly and we could sail up the island chain. Of course that meant burning our cheap Ven. Fuel, but we didn’t have many other options.
We overnighted in Los Tostigos and continued using the iron genny until we pulled into the Lagoon, Grenada. There we stopped long enough to buy fuel, caught a few hours of sleep and then left, still motoring as we passed Union, Bequia, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, thinking we would stop in Martinique. By the time we were there, we were finally getting a little lift from the light east winds so we kept going. We finally anchored at 8pm in Deschaies, Guadaloupe on Dec. 5th. Next morning, more weather consultations and we determined we had one more day of good weather, before nasty 20+winds and squalls were expected. Up with the anchor and we set off sailing. The winds continued to be from the NE, but now we have done our easting, and our course is west of north to St. Martin.
We had been dragging fishing lines most of our trip, (except at night), so Ross set the fishing lines out as we were leaving Deschaies. Within 20 mins, Ross pulled in a small blackfin tuna…Lunch!! We reset the lines and continued sailing. As we passed a big commercial fishing trawler, both of our fishing clothes pin alarms went off. As we started to pull in the lines we figured the two lines had gotten twisted together, but we very quickly discovered we had two more tunas, they had escaped the trawler and come our way. We kept one and released the second one, to go back to school!! The winds we clocking and we enjoyed a beam reach the balance of the way to St. Martin, anchoring in Simpson Bay at dawn.
We checked in with the Dutch authorities, paid $10US for a week’s stay. Charges are levied for all boats in Simpson Bay and in the Lagoon. With the rough weather predicted, possibly the beginning of the Christmas winds, we decided to go into the lagoon on the 0930 bridge opening.
It had taken us one week to make the trip from Margarita, with 3 overnight stops (Los Tostigos, Grenada and Guadaloupe). Not the trip we had planned, but we now were only 100 miles from St. Thomas, and have three weeks to get there.

2007-11-15T13:04:00.000-05:00

Shakedown cruise to Porlamar November 2007

Picture: Happy hour at Juan’s Hutch (Sandcastle) and Frankie(Second Wind) beside Bev

After our exciting and exhausting land trips, it was great to be back into the more sedate boating life. Raft had done fine in the marina while we were away. It was now time to restart the refrigeration, refill the water tanks, (we left them superchlorinated while we were away), pay our marina bill and say our farewells to all our friends, whom are either staying in the Cariaco area or heading west.
Before leaving Ross had spent the week in the marina in Cumana getting the boat ready to go. We had been in Venezuela since July, and had done very little sailing in that time, plus RAFT had been at dock for over six weeks, all the systems needed to be checked. Fuel was scrubbed. Filters were changed. Batteries were topped up. Sails and rigging were checked, and retaped.
Friday morning looked like a good day to make the run to Polamar. The winds were supposed to be light for one more day and from the SE, afterward a week of higher trades were predicted. Up at 5:00 am to put the last minute lines, power cords & water hose away. Tuned on the computer to start the navigation system only to find that the inverter would not start up to power the computer. The battery monitoring system error code indicated that there was insufficient voltage and probably dirty contacts. We started to trouble shoot the system and within 30 min we had the problem identified and repaired. The isolation switch on the inverter had shorted out internally and melted the contacts. The solution was to remove the switch from the system until we can buy a new one. We will try in Polamar or up island.
Departed the marina at 7:00 am and headed north up the Arraya peninsula. 15 knots of breeze from the ESE. Wonderful sailing weather. As we reached the north end of the peninsula the winds increased to 22 knots but the waves were less that 3 feet and the sky was clear, so a good day for a sail. The water is less than 100 ft deep here and protected by the islands that lay to the east, Cubagua and Coche. Rounding the north end of the peninsula we began to get the full effect of the current and the winds switched the NE. Guess what direction we wanted to go. You guessed right, NE. RAFT does not travel well head to wind so we continued to tack off the wind for the next 4 hours, managing to make 4.5 miles of NE progress towards our destination 22 miles away on the Northwest side of Coche. After 3 tacks to windward we commented that we were breaking all the lessons we learned on the trip down about traveling to windward.
We decided to start the engine and motorsail to help with the progress. This lasted for about 30 mins when the engine quit. This was not a sputter and die, but an instant stop. Bev felt we must have picked up something on the prop. Checking the engine compartment we could see that the prop shaft was still turning, so this was not the problem. Checking the Primary Fuel filter revealed that the sediment bowl was clean and full, and that the filter was just as clear as a new filter because we had only pulled 1 hour's worth of fuel through the system. We checked the intake from the fuel tank and found that it was blocked. Blowing back through the supply line cleared the pickup tube but dirt was obviously present in the bottom of the tank. We rigged up temporary fuel supply lines from Jerry cans that we carry on deck and got the engine restarted. Luckily there was no air in the system so she started right up with the alternate fuel supply. We still had a long way to go but decided that it would better to sail and leave the Jerry can fuel system as a backup for our arrival.
Now it was 2:00 pm and the afternoon sun was increasing the wind velocity up to 28 knots. On one of our tacks the flogging jib sheet wrapped itself around one the dorade cowlings on the deck and tossed it overboard. Now we are short two because of the one that the kayak knocked off in Medragal Village. The boat looks better now that is symmetrical again. More parts to look for as we go up island. By 5:00 pm we were still 7 miles from Coche when we did a tack. The winds were still 23-24 knots and we had hoped that they would be dying down by now. Not so. As we tacked the back edge of the jib caught on one of the spreaders and tore the leech line out of the sail. We furled in the sail to prevent the winds from shredding it further. Time to go back to motorsailing with the main only. Given the wind and current situation we decided carry on to Isla Margarita rather than stop at Coche. We also knew we would arrive in the dark, and we had never been in that anchorage before, but knew the fisherman like to spread their nets around it.
Although the fuel system was temporary it should still allow us to motor up to the south coast of Margarita. Motoring into strong winds and current reduced our boat speed to under 1 knot for the first 2 hours of the trip. In fact at some point the GPS said we were going backwards. It was a tough uphill slug. By midnight we were north of Coche and 12 miles from Polamar. The winds began to drop to 15-18 range and the engine continued to run well. Our only concern was that we seemed to be using fuel at a faster rate than usual. We had topped up the 23 litre fuel can we were drawing from to make certain that we would not run out through the night. Normally this tanks should have given us 12 hours of motoring time but it was 3/4 empty after 6 hours. Not a good sign. Either we were burning too much or there was leak in my temporary fuel lines.
At 3:00 am we had rounded Mosquito Pt and were 6 miles from Polamar when Ross went down to check the fuel situation. He took one look at the Sediment bowl and could see that it was almost empty. The engine died just he called to Bev to shut the engine down before air was sucked into the fuel system. Too late. Now the system had be purged of air and refilled with fuel. Obvious we had some leaks in the temporary fuel system that allowed air to enter it. We pulled out the foresail part way to maintain steerage prepared to purge the fuel. Over the next 3 hours we purged the system twice. Getting the engine to run once for 10 minutes before it died again. During the course of the purging event, Bev was on the helm when a thunderstorm passed over us. Of course this brought the wind up from 12 knots to 25 knots instantly. Disrupting our purging process and blinding our visibility until the rain passed. After the storm, which lasted only 20 minutes, we were back to purging and sailing onward.
We finally reached Polamar at 7:00am. Dropped the anchor, had a beer and went to sleep until 2:00 pm. A 24 hour adventure that got us right back into sailing/traveling mode. Even with all our preparations for the first major/minor trip in a 4 months the Gremlins were still in fine form. We weathered it well.
Next day we took down the jib to be repaired. Borrowed extra jerry cans to store all the fuel. Bev dove on the boat to check and clean the prop. Ross would not let her do this in the marina in Cumana (foul water and stray electrical currents). She said the prop and shaft were heavily coated with barnacles and this obviously contributed to our slow motoring speed and higher fuel consumption. We opened up the fuel tank to clear out the sludge and dirt that had accumulated over the last 4 months (we did this job last in January and found it to be reasonably clean). We also have to go up the mast and re-inspect the rigging at the spreader to find out what the sail caught on. We suspect that it was a cotter pin that is protected by bits of carpet we have wrapped around the spreaders especially for this purpose. They probably have deteriorated over the last 3 years. Yep, we were right, new carpet was taped on, hopefully it will last the trip home.
The sail took a few days longer than Johnny the sailmaker promised, a few times we checked on it we were told, manana and tarde. But we did get the repair done satisfactorily. We finish our final shopping in Venezuela – beer, coffee, Chilean wine. Our US dollars are going much further now, but unfortunately there is less to buy…tough to find milk, flour,butter, etc

2007-11-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

Trek to Roraima October 2007
Walter met us at the airport, and confirmed to us that the bus to Santa Elena was an all night bus. While on the Angel Falls trip, we met a couple of younger guys who were backpacking/touring South America on the cheap. They had stayed in Santa Elena, and filled us in on where to stay, eat, get money changed. Etc. Also, the tour group that we shared the Angel Falls camp with, had done Roraima and loved it Best part was they didn’t look anymore fit than us. We made our decision, we had decided to head south to Santa Elena and give Roraima a go!!
We had farewell drinks with Pat and Miriam in their hotel (Valentina again) and then took a cab to the bus station. Of all the companies and times, we chose Occidental, 7:45pm to Santa Elena, thinking that would get us in early in the morning and we could figure things out from there. This trip was quite different. We were still in a Buscama, 2 storey edition, with lazyboy styled chairs, but no assigned seats. We chose to sit right above the stairs, no one directly in front of us to give us more leg room for the night. As expected it was cold, but we had long sleeved shirts, sweat shirts, long pants….and we still froze. Wish we hadn’t booked our sleeping bags in the luggage compartment. We got underway by :00pm and the first couple of hours were uneventful. However just south of Port Ordez, the bus was stopped by the Gardia National and all the passengers were required to get off the bus, and make two lines, male and female. Our passports were checked, and we were allowed back on the bus. At least 3 or 4 more times during the night the bus was stopped, soldiers with guns boarded the bus, sometimes checking passports, other times just looking at the passengers. Finally, about dawn, just north of Santa Elena, again we were stopped, and ordered off the bus. This time we had to claim our luggage and all bags were searched. At least this time, the Gardia National did give Bev a cup of coffee.
We were told that the GN was searching for illegal drugs and aliens trying to get into Brazil, and apparently in the past week, there were arrests made from these bus searches. We obviously had nothing to hide, but all of this military presence can be uncomfortable…or perhaps it should make us feel safer…but it didn’t.
We arrived in Santa Elena bus station and took a cab to Hotel Michele, which our backpacker friends said was the headquarters for the backpackers as well as the cheapest hotel in town, 30,000B for a clean double room (about $7). When we started to find out if there was a Roraima trip happening, this is when things bogged down. Apparently we were the only 2 people in town, at this time, who wanted to make the trek, and to be affordable the guides want 4 or more.
We figured we would stay in Santa Elena a couple of days, see if a group could be put together, and if not…c’est la vie…and we would head back to Cumina. Our backpacker friends had told us about the KILO restaurant, where you can get a great meal, cheap and we were hungry. The KILO restaurant is a large buffet, not all you can eat, instead they weigh your plate and you pay by the Kilo. Our lunch/dinner cost less than 20,000B ($5) for both of us, and we ate well. After eating, we returned to the hotel for a nap. We hadn’t gotten much sleep on the bus. We were sitting out in front of the hotel having a beer, about 5pm when one of the guides came to us with a proposition. He would agree to guide just the two of us, for a minor increase in price (100,000B more per person -- $50 for both of us).. This price was still very much in line with what we expected to pay, (1.6million B) and the B exchange rate was getting better each time we changed money. We had very little time to make up our mind, as this deal meant leaving the next morning. We agreed and starting packing for the trip. We would leave our extra stuff at Hotel Michele, and carry the bare minimum for the six day trip.
Day 1 – Friday
We were up early to go to the Indian market to buy fruits and treats for the trip. About 0930 we jumped into the 4 wheel drive vehicle for the 70km trip to the Indian Village (San Franciso)– Jaime’s, (our guide, pronounced Himy) hometown. From there we were off on the dirt road that winds its way to the Trek’s starting point. We ate a cold lunch (sandwiches) before setting off about noon. The sand path led up and down through the grasslands over a couple small streams. At the first stream Jaime insisted that we stop, wash our faces and ask Nature’s permission to enter, and provide us with a safe trip. This portion of the trail was 12 kms, relatively easy except for one very large uphill. We arrived at Rio Tek camp in the expected 4 hours.
We washed in the stream, while our dinner was made and our tent was set up. Jaime, and Alex (our porter) did all the work. With no power at the camp, once dinner was over, it was off to sleep on the ground in a tent….exactly what we wanted to get away from when we started boating. However we were comfortable, tired, and not cold at all. There was a beautiful full moon to compliment the night.
Day 2 – Saturday
Of course, we were up at dawn, and Jaime had breakfast of eggs and Harina de Mais Tosedos (cornmeal porridge – which we liked) ready for us. We were off on the trail by 0730, but only had a short trek to the second river, Kukenan, where we went for a swim, before continuing on. We walked past a pretty Catholic Church on top of a hill. A fantastic view point, and it can be seen for miles, only problem is very few people live in the area, so it is only used about once a year…what a waste. We continued on the path through the Sabana, and as we progressed the trail became more rocky and rough. We were quite tired by the time we made it to the Base camp about 2 pm. While we soaked our feet in the cold mountain stream, Jaime made us soup and tea…exactly what we needed. We had made it to the base of Roraima, and were camping under the shear cliff face.
After supper, we stayed up long enough to see if the Guacharo birds would come out of the caves at dusk. Unfortunately, no such luck, so it was off cheerfully to bed, knowing tomorrow would be our day to ascend Roraima !!
Day 3 – Sunday
We started up the "golden walk", slowly ascending Roraima from the Base Camp at 1870 m to the top at 2700 m in 2.5 km. We had to work our way across the jungle, to a crack, climbing up rock rubble. Unfortunately it is not all up, there were quite a few down legs, necessary to get over to the crack trail that led up. Every time you gave up elevation, it hurt, because you knew you would have to reclaim the loss. When the trail became tough, Jaime started telling us Indian folk stories, designed to take our mind off our hurting muscles and pass the time. They did work, but we also knew what the purpose of the stories was. We rested at the first lookout point, and the second lookout point. At this time, we wondered how many more lookout points we had to endure….By 1130 we were on top, and Jaime welcomed us to Roraima !! We relaxed, enjoyed the view and our accomplishment.
Roraima is not flat. It has no trees, only lots of large and small black rocks….very desolate looking. Almost a disappointment at first, until you start looking at what Roraima does have. She has many varieties of miniature flowering plants, indigenous tiny black frogs, veins of fully formed quartz hexagonal crystals. And it is windy and cold!! After a short break, we were off to our campsite…..Jaime promised us we would be sleeping in a cave. It took about another 40 minutes to walk to our side, called the Principle. Apparently there are 12 camping sites, the largest one accommodating 40 people. Each site is nestled under a rock ledge, giving rain and wind protection.
We said goodbye to Alex who was walking back to the village that day. He had brought all the foodstuffs up to the top of Roraima, and it was up to us to eat it all, or Jaime would have to carry it. There was lots of work for porters this week on Roraima . There were three large groups coming in, a film documentary crew from Caracas, a group from the National Geographic, plus a Japanese group which were being helicoptered up and were going to spend eleven days ontop. The Japanese group even had a generator brought up, and rappelling/ledge climbing professional and equipment ready for them. The porters were going up and down as fast as they could, taking advantage of this opportunity to make money. It appeared that only the very old and very young were left in the village, everyone else was packing up the trail.
After we made camp, and relaxed, we were off exploring the summit. First stop, the Jacuzzis for a swim. Erratic pools of clear water whose bottoms were littered with huge quartz crystals. Although the water was warmer than the mountain stream at the base camp, it wasn’t warm enough to entice us to go in. Only Jaime went in. We were using our raincoats to break the wind, and weren’t about to get wet. We slept well that night, in our tent, sheltered by our rock ledge.
Day 4 – Monday
We told Jaime, "no long hikes today" our old bodies needed to recoup after the past 3 days hiking. Jaime had mentioned going to the triple point, an 18 km hike to the geographic border of Brazil, Guyana, and Venezuela. We didn’t realize that all 3 countries share this tepuis mountain, but weren’t going to take on an all day hike to see the monument. Instead Jaime took us to the canyon where the Guacharo birds live. Here we saw the birds, and heard their screaming which reminded us of our earlier adventure to Caripe. Then he took us into one of the caves where the Indians had found gold dust, and diamonds. Of course, none can be found, and if they were, nothing can be taken from the mountain.
After lunch and a rest, Jaime insisted we climb to the highest point of Roraima, the roof of the maverick, which was very close to our campsite. Since we had come this far, we had to agree to go to the summit, and we were glad we did. After supper, we snuggled into our tent, and we were glad to be protected by our ledge, as nature put on a thunder/lightening and rain show all night.
Day 5 – Tuesday
We had been warned that Day 5 is the toughest day, even though most of it is down hill. We were expected to travel from the summit right back to Rio Tek (the distance that we had taken 2 days on the way up), and going down on the steep, rocky parts and the slippery muddy parts is difficult. Plus it had rained overnight, and the streams would be fuller. One advantage of the rain, the previous night, was the waterfalls off of the next tepuis, Kukenan were revitalized. One of Kukenan’s waterfalls is the second highest in Venezuela, but only exists after a rainfall.
Without Alexis, we had a slower start, not getting underway until 0800. The going down was tough. You had to be careful for every step, watching the rocks, roots, or slippery mud. Bev fell once, and fortunately only bruised her right knee. We were very tired when we got to the Base camp, fortunately before it really started to rain. After a short rest and lunch, we were on our way, across the Sabana. But the trail continually goes up and down, over hills and down to streams. At what had been our previous lunch spot, Bev laid on the warm rock, not wanting to go on, but Jaime once again insisted we must keep up the pace, as rain was once more approaching us. We joined a group of porters huddled in the shelter at the Rio Kukenan as the rain pelted.
The Rio Kukenan can be dangerous. During rain, it can flood quickly, and be impossible to cross. The previous year a porter was killed when a flash flood washed him down the river while trying to cross. Since our supper meal had been left at Rio Tek on the way up, we had to get across the Kukenan before it rose, or we would have no supper. Jaime helped us across the rising river, it wasn’t too high or strong yet. Rain continued to fall all the way to Rio Tek, and the waterfall off Kukenan Tepuis became more impressive. This waterfall feeds the Kukenan River we had just crossed.
Rather than sleep in the rain, on the wet mud, we decided to sleep in the shelter. Just before dinner we had seen 2 hikers leave Rio Tec for the Kukenan campsite, and after dinner 2 more porters had followed them. At dark we could see lights at the church, but we don’t know whether just the porters or all of the hikers couldn’t get across the river. We didn’t hear there were any problems, so guess all were safe.
Day 6 – Wednesday
Our final day on the trek. Jaime made "bakes" and they were excellent. Bev got the recipe, but will have to practise, as Jaime just makes them by feel. The morning was dry, so Ross and Bev took off ahead of Jaime. Jaime, is also the local medicine man, and one of the porters had fallen the day before and sprained his ankle, so Jaime wanted to tend to him before he left.
We knew Jaime was tired, this trip without porters was wearing him out. He had told us at the start that he was 51 years old and had made 386 trips up Roraima . His wife is expecting her 5th child (his 27th or 28th) in the next week. All week he ad continued to call on the walkie-talkie to make sure she was okay. But we were quite surprised that we beat Jaime to the Park office, the official end of the trek. But only by a very few minutes, we had seen him hurrying down the trail trying to catch us.
Jairo (Jaime’s partner in Aponwoa Tours) arrived soon after to take us to Jaime’s village for a great chicken bbq dinner. We can’t complain about the food on this trek…it was excellent, and more that we needed. After lunch we returned to Hotel Michele, and took long showers. We also took all our clothes to the laundry, and were happy to have them back clean later that afternoon (5 kg of very dirty laundry –25000B $6US)
Day 7 – Thursday
We were still very tired when we got up. After packing up our stuff, we headed off to the Panderia for breakfast and to get some snacks for the bus trip home, back to RAFT. Who did we meet there? Jaime!! But this time Bev brought him his drink. We changed some money, checked out of the hotel and went to the bus station to wait. The bus didn’t leave until 630pm, but the bus station was as good as place to wait as anywhere else. We wondered how many stops we would have on the northbound trip.
The Environmental/Park person searched our bags and tagged them. They said this would eliminate the need for the Garda National to do it. We were stopped, just south of Jaime’s village, but only passports were checked. The overnight bus was cold, but this time we kept our sleeping bag, and we both slept reasonably well. We arrived in Porta La Cruz by noon, caught a bus to Cumina and were home on RAFT by 4pm. It had been a great trip, but we were happy to be home.
In case you are interested, and we know some of you are…the trip from Cumina, to Angel Falls, to Santa Elena, to Roraima and back --- 5 million B’s (about $1200) --- Memories -- PRICELESS

2007-10-22T10:29:00.000-04:00

Angel Falls, Venezuela October 2007
Back to RAFT after a 3+ week family visit to Canada. With so many people we wanted to see, and others who wanted to see us, we were very busy. It was very enjoyable but we were happy to return to our quieter life on board. Our taxi driver, Miguel, was waiting for us at the Caracas airport at 0600 am and drove us to the Rodovias Terminal, to catch the next bus to Cumina. Being a weekday, there was much more traffic on both the run from the airport to the bus station, and along the road to Cumina. As a result we did not get back to the marina until 9 pm.
However, Mary and George from Avalon V were in the marina. They had opened RAFT’s hatches to air for us, and left cold beer in a cooler bag for our return. Boater friends are so fantastic!! RAFT had faired well in the marina while we were away. One dead cockroach, but no other obvious problems or creatures. Not sure if it was the ant bait, the boric acid or the Baygon spray, but one of these worked. Since we were planning to take off on land travels now, we "camped" out on board, not starting the fridge, or taking on food.
We visited the dentist, and both had our teeth cleaned and checked. This time the dentist had water. We had made appointments to see her before our trip home, but she was unable to do the cleaning due to "no agua", a common problem in Cumina. Ross has one cavity and will get it attended to when we come back from our land travel. Cost of check up and cleaning 95,000 B each (about $25).
Also in the marina were Pat and Miriam on Rhiannon 3. We were pleased to find out that they were in the process of booking a trip to Angel Falls, and we could go along with them. They had made the arrangements with Walter (speaks great English) from Sapito Tours (representatives of Bernal Tours). This company had been recommended to us from other boaters. Angel Falls is the highest waterfall in the world and we wouldn’t want to be this close and miss it.
We left Cumina on the 0700 Caribe Express bus for Cuidad Bolivar. (35,000B each) The trip went via PLC and then south through the oil fields around Le Tigre, and across the large suspension bridge over the Oronoco River. Being Sunday, the trip was fast, no traffic or construction, and we arrived in Cuidad Bolivar by 1 pm. Walter picked us up, helped us with a couple of errands and then took us to the airport where his office is. We had hoped to stay in Posada Don Carlos, but apparently it was full, so we stayed in Hotel Valentina, a nice clean hotel, quite close to the airport but a little expensive for cheap travelers like us. (115,000B)
After settling in at the hotel, we went for a tour of the town, walking down to the waterfront, seeing the bridge from the land side, and walked up to the church. Not much was open, no restaurants or stores. In fact things were very quiet. This was no surprise, we had been warned that if we arrived on a Sunday, nothing would be open. We took a taxi back to the hotel, getting the driver to stop at a local bar to get some cold beer, to go with our snacks we had brought with us.

Pictures: Suspension Bridge over Rio Oronoco, Inside the church in Cuidad Bolivar, Our Cessna at the airport, Bev, Miriam and Ross in Cessna, Views from plane, Five waterfalls across from Bernal Base Camp

Next morning, bright and early the taxi picked us up to take us to the airport (0700) to catch our flight to Canaima. Angel Falls is only accessible by air, there are no roads to the area. Our pilot ushered us onto the 5 passenger Cessna plane. Miriam and Bev were seated in the back, Ross in the middle, and Pat took the copilot seat. This was a first for all but Ross, who had flown in a small plane before. The views were magnificent, flying just under the clouds at 5000 ft, looking down on the rivers, trails, and one mining operation.
Once we arrived in Canaima, we were met by Jose, for the trip across the lagoon to the Brenel camp. Passing by five waterfalls on the way to the base camp in the motorized dugout canoe type boat, was our first taste of what was to come. At the Base Camp, we chose our hammock for the night and had lunch, before going on our afternoon hike to Saputo Falls. The most thrilling part of the trip was the passage under the falls. At times it was like a hurricane, incredible water shower, and noisy!! No trip like this would ever be allowed in Canada or the US.
Pictures: All of us in the motorized dugout canoe, Bev choosing her hammock, Bev on hike to waterfalls, Behind/under the falls, Bev getting shower on top of falls -- Pat watching, Rainbow over Saputo Falls

We hiked to the top of the falls, had a swim and then got to do the under the falls passage a second time…just as thrilling.
We ate well, and as darkness fell, we moved into our hammocks for the night. The hammocks were large and comfortable, each equipped with mosquito netting. It was cool that evening, and we were happy to have our sleeping bags with us. The camp does have blankets, but you have to ask for them.
Tuesday morning, and we are waiting for another group to arrive by plane, before we could start our river trip. The fortunate part of this, was that we got a truck ride to Ucaima, instead having to walk. Before we left the base camp, we had pared down our luggage, only bringing what we needed for the night, and packing it all in "dry bags". Although the boat operators, do cover the luggage with tarps, we had been forewarned that this keeps the bags dry from above only. The boat's bilge gets full of water, and things still get wet.
The boat ride up the river was fantastic. For 4.5 hours our driver, Joel, who is only sixteen, had to weave his way up the river, dodging rocks, racing up rapids, lifting the 48 hp motor to clear rocks. The bowsman had a paddle to help steer, and at times had to shove the boat off the shore or large rocks. The trip takes its toll on propellers, and if they damage 3, the tour loses money. When you looked back at Joel, you could see the concentration and determination on his face. He knew his job and he did it very well. Lunch was delivered on the boat ride, airplane style, ham and cheese sandwiches and cookies on a Styrofoam tray, Pepsi poured from a large bottle and passed forward.
When we reached the Angel Falls tributary, the boat discharged us on the shore at the edge of the jungle. Looking up we could see Angel Falls. We walked uphill through the jungle for about an hour, stopping first at the viewpoint, and then on to the base of the falls and the swimming pool. The rocks here were very slippery and the water quite cool, but Bev still went in for a dip into the pool. After all we are at Angel Falls!! We didn’t stay too long, as we were concerned about getting out of the jungle before dark. The sun was setting as we got to our pickup point, and it was getting dark by the time the canoe came to get us to take us to the camp across the river on Raton Island. Just a note about the jungle hike: trail is not really groomed, worn paths with lots of roots and rocks to watch out for and not to steep. We understand in the rainy season, the pool is overflowing so swimming is not allowed, also in the dry season, the falls are just a trickle and there is virtually no pool to swim in and the boats have difficulty maneuvering the river. We seemed to have timed our trip perfectly.
A great roast chicken dinner was prepared for us, and then it was off to bed in our hammocks, as the generator was running out of gas….lights out by 8pm or when the generator runs out of gas whichever comes first. We were sharing the camp with a group that was on a 16-day tour of Venezuela, about 16 in total. Add our 10 and it was a full camp, the hammocks were slung quite close so occasionally you did swing into your neighbour. This had a knock on effect similar to the little chrome ball desk ornaments that swing back and forth – thank you Sir Issac Newton. Blankets were provided, but we still used our sleeping bags, the night was cool.
As we awoke, the view of the falls was obscured by clouds/mist, but these burned off so we could have another beautiful view of Angel Falls before we left. We had an early departure, and once again Joel did a magnificent job of jostling the canoe down the rapids this time, weaving side to side across the river, much faster this time as the current was pushing us as well as the motor. It was as thrilling as a water park ride, water splashing all around and over us. "You will get wet on this ride!!" We stopped at Happy Pool, for a great shower, better water pressure than most homes have. Great back massage and it is FRESH WATER.
Back in the boat, shove off, and the motor won’t start. Fortunately we are in a quiet section of the river, so we drifted gently for about 40 minutes, as Joel, Jose and the bowsman, all took turns pulling on the recoil rope, adjusting idle/fuel mixture, changing spark plugs to no avail. Another canoe came to our rescue, and his driver tried his muscle and mechanical skill. Still would not start. Fortunately for us, the second canoe had a backup engine, which as all good boaters would do, he was willing to lend to us, minus its propeller. Joel quickly changed props and got our boat going with the back up motor and we were off and running.
Now we were running late for our flight. To save time, we were let off above the Sapo Hacha (hatchet falls) directly opposite the camp, and hurried down. As soon as we arrived, we were informed that the pilot was waiting. We quickly changed, and the camp prepared us a "to go" hot meal and we were rushed to the airport via dugout canoe. Well not really rushed, the guide did stop at the general store to buy cold drinks for us. We did miss the flight. But arrangements were made for the four of us (Pat and Miriam) to go back on two planes, one couple on each.
This time Ross and Bev sat in the second row, Bev directly behind the copilot’s seat and could watch the pilot at work, and land the plane….pretty exciting.

2007-10-15T12:38:00.000-04:00

Cruising the Golfo & Flight Home -- September 2007

Picture: can you see the Red Ibis?
The next weekend, we went with the group, to the east end of the Golfo, where the Rio Cariacou enters. We dingied, and kayaked up the river, where the scarlet ibis live. These birds are a bright, almost fluorescent scarlet, definitely not camouflaged in the mangrove trees where they roust. Also up the river is a derelict shrimp farm. the ponds where the shrimps used to breed were huge, probably covering a couple hundred of acres.

Pictures: Shrimp farm -- water pumping system, old ponds, Ross gunholing in the river

With Aubrey and Judy (Velada IV) we toured the small town, Muelle de Cariacou, another fishing village, but not so isolated, as it is on the main road between Cumina and Cariacou.
More info about our time in Muelle de Cariaco, and Laguna Grande: see Velada IV's blog http://www.searoom.com/veleda/logsec14/veleda4-log44J.htm

We returned to Medregal on Sunday for a possible final domino game, swim and dinner. Monday we paid our tab, and headed off to Laguna Grande. There Bev received a lesson on how to find scallops, clams and other edible shellfish while snorkeling. Not exactly Bev's favourite food group, but Ross should enjoy the adventure and the dinner afterward. She had a second chance the next day, when Rhiannon joined the group, another set of Canadian boaters we hadn’t seen since Antigua. And it was on that snorkel, Bev got to see her first whale in the wild, swimming and blowing in the Laguna. She was so excited…just wish Ross had been there, and that we had been able to take a photo. The whale had entered the Laguna, and was blowing as it swam back and forth in the main channel. At one time, it surfaced and its back and tail were above the surface. Don’t know what kind of whale it was, but from her vantage point in the dinghy, it looked quite large.
Picture: Beautiful Laguna Grande

It is now time to head to Cumina, to get RAFT settled in the marina, and ready to leave for the trip home to Canada. We were given our "old" slip next to Don Carlos, and reacquainted ourselves with the skipper of the charter fishing boat. Explaining in our broken Spanish, that RAFT would be his neighbour for a month, we tied the attached RAFT’s stern line to Don Carlos.
Picture: Cumina Marina

After completing our tasks and farewell drinks, we off to Caracas. We had purchased our tickets a couple days before our departure date, and walked over to the bus station, early to catch the Rodovias Bus. The lazyboy styled seats are assigned when you buy the ticket, we were on the upper level, and it wasn’t as cold as everyone was prepared for. Most of the countryside is flat, skirting in and away from the coast, on good highways. The bus stopped for lunch at a busy roadside restaurant area. After that we entered the more mountainous area, with deep green valleys, becoming more picturesque as we approached Caracas. We were slightly concerned about dealing with a busy city bus terminal and were pleasantly surprised to find out that Rodovias has its own very clean, modern terminal.
Outside we easily found a taxi to take us to Catia La Mar (100,000B), about a 30 minute very pretty drive, on a freshly paved expressway, with a couple of modern tunnels through the mountains. The driver had to ask directions to find La Parada, the hotel which Louis, the travel agent had booked for us. They had our reservation, and the young man on the front desk spoke excellent English, having gone to school in Chicago. Our room was small, but spotless, air-conditioned, and had a large private bath, with modern glass and ceramic shower stall. The cable TV even had about 5 English channels including CNN. Since it was Sunday, the hotel restaurant was closed, but they were willing to drive us to another one, no additional charge. We weren’t hungry, but we did want to see if we could get the Polar Beer cans with the attractive ladies on for our son. Could they direct us to an open liquor store? No problem, their driver would take us there and bring us back. We asked about walking….but they preferred their guest to take the ride, to ensure their safety. The town didn’t look that rough, in fact looked quite nice, but we took the complementary ride anyhow. The hotel staff was quite attentive to all our needs, wake up call and transportation to the airport early the next day, less than 10 min. away. Price, a little higher than expected, 180,000B but we all know that airport hotels get a premium.
Flight home to Toronto, via Houston, no problems. Watch for our return in October.

2007-10-01T11:55:00.000-04:00

Playing in the Golfo -- September 2007

After Dean came Tropical Storm Felix. Although only expected to be a tropical storm, we decided to move RAFT into the lee of Guacarapo, not taking any chances. During Dean, the boaters who had remained at Medregal had experienced some heavy west winds and lots of bouncing. And the night before we anticipated Dean’s influence, had been very rocky, the worst it had ever been, claimed the Medregal "regulars".
Guacarapo is a small fishing village about seven miles down the Golfo, and protected from the west by a long sand spit. The village doesn’t offer very much, a few small shops and bars, but it does have "por puesto" access to Cariaco, if you need to get to the larger town. We anchored off the town with about 4 other boats. Being the weekend the locals were enjoying themselves, the children were jumping and swimming off the "town dock", cars were driving the "strip" and the music was thumping. There even was school road race running and all the town’s folk were cheering on the kids.
The next morning birds squawking were disturbing our morning coffee. Through the binoculars we ascertained that a large flock of green parrots were arguing in the trees on the east side of the bay. We explored further by dinghy. These were large green parrots, more than we had seen on our parrot expeditions in Dominica and Grenada.
Pictures: Boat Parade -- Festival of the Virgin Valle

The first weekend in September is the festival of the Virgin del Valle. The small town just to the east of us, Los Cachicatos, was written up in the cruising guide as having a big celebration. We went down by dinghy, early in the weekend to check out the venue, and to find a place to land the dinghy, in anticipation of returning later. The town people had strung streamers, set up a couple of band stages, and decorated their homes with paper and plastic flowers. Unfortunately for 3 of the 4 festival days, there was just too much wind and rain in the afternoon to dinghy down and check it out. The final day, Sunday, was beautiful, warm and calm, but we wasted the opportunity enjoying the Medregal’s pool. We did see the fishing boats, decorated with balloons and streamers, loaded with partygoers, many carrying their own Virgin statue, heading down to the village. Even a large Garda Coasta boat was decorated and participating in the boat parade.
By mid September a new group of boaters had shown up in the Golfo. We had sailed with many of this group in the Bahamas and Dominican Republic and hadn’t seen them since spring of 2006. As veterans of the Golfo anchorages and Medregal Village we became tour guides.

Pictures: Ross sitting on cooler on bus, entrance to caves, Bev and stalagtite/mite, Our guide, guide holding fledging too fat to fly, group at end of cave

We arranged to have a bus trip to the caves in Caripe, recognized as some of the largest caves in the world. In the caves live the local guarcharo birds, actually about 18,000 of these nocturnal birds, which squawk as the guide's lantern slightly lit up the caves. The stalactites and stalagmites were fantastic. Plus the 3 hour trip each way through the mountainous countryside was very enjoyable. Another highlight of the trip was the fresh strawberries and cream in Caripe.
Pictures: our group, Linda (Sandcastle) & Paul (Vixon) behind guide, Bev and Ross, Jeanie & Bob (Island Dreamin') Denise (Vixon) Hutch (Sandcastle) Judy& Aubrey (Velada IV), Sephanie (Stephanielyn)
For a more descriptive detail of our day’s adventure check out Valeda IV’s site http://searoom.com/veleda/logsec14/veleda4-log44J.htm

2007-08-29T21:38:00.000-04:00

Cruising the Golfo de Cariaco August 2007

Pictures: RAFT and Drumbeat at anchor in Laguna Grande, Mike, Marlene and Bev hiking

Now that we have found our summer home our next priority was to make arrangements for our trip back to Canada in September. Usually arranging our flights is no big deal, we just check things out on the internet and book the flights, paying by credit card. But in Venezuela there is one big difference: to take advantage of the exchange rate differential (as discussed in Venezuela General Info July 2007) we needed to pay for our flights in Bolivars. However we did not have sufficient Bolivars or even American cash with us and even if we did it is hard to stuff them in the computer. Jean Marc in Medregal had a contact who will cash cheques in Carupano, but JM only goes there once a week, and we figured making our arrangements would take more than one visit. We decided to head to Cumina, a city at the west end of the Golfo, to see how we would make out.
Picture: Old and new towers, one for spotting fish, the other for modern communications.

The marina in Cumina, Marina Cuminagato, is a basic marina, but has finger docks, fuel (most of the time) and offers free water, electricity and wifi is available at most slips. For us it costs 22,500 B per night (about $6 US). Once we were in our slip, we were met by Alexis, who speaks English, French and a few other languages. He gave us the name of a travel agent who speaks English and should be able to help us. Of we went by local bus (800B about 25cents) to downtown Cumina to see him. Arranging the flights –no problem—but Luis wasn’t going to help us with our cash arrangements. It was then suggested we visit the local business where the owners spoke great English. Theyd agreed to accept a wire transfer, and then release the B’s to us. 24 hours later, we had our airline tickets in hand, RAFT full of diesel, water, market shopping complete, interneting and skyping done and we were ready to head back out into the Golfo.
We were heading for Laguna Grande, and this time we knew Dreamtime and Paridise were there to keep us company. We hiked, kayaked, and dinghied around this impressive basin, exploring all the little bays. (The pictures only start to show the desert beauty of this anchorage). And then came Dean…and we had no worries, knowing no weather issues could hurt us here.
Pictures: Bev kayaking in Laguna, various beautiful views, Ed and Manuela (Dreamtime and Paridise) putting their "rocks" on the summit pile

Once Dean had passed, we had been joined by Avalon V, our sailing companions from Trenton Ontario, whom we have been sailing with since the Bahamas. George and Mary had shown us the way in and out of West Caicos, Luperon, and Grenada. But it was their first time in the Golfo so it was great to be their tour guide, leading them from Laguna Grande to Medregal, and then back to Cumina.
We have been playing with dolphins, every time we sail up and down the Golfo. You can count of being entertained by a couple or a lot more. We have seen up to thirty at a time, but other boats have reported more. All of our friends have also seen a whale, up close, but we have not yet had that experience. They say you have to get into the middle of the bay….we usually have been on the north side. But now we have a mission…..We want to announce on the radio "There she blows!!"

Pictures: Laguna Chico, a small fishing village on the north side of the "Golfo" with bar and dance floor, afternoon storm clouds passing over most afternoons

2007-08-28T21:26:00.000-04:00

Medregal Village August 2007
We have found our summer home, Medregal Village and Marina, on the Northern coast of the Golfo de Cariaco. To us it is everything we have been looking for, a safe anchorage in about 12 feet of water, 15 boats to keep us company, great dinghy docks, and the owners Jean Marc & his wife, do everything to keep the cruisers happy. Jean Marc speaks English, French and Spanish, offer free water, and an honour system bar. The pool and showers are available to us. He drives his old Landrover to different towns and for a small fee takes cruisers where they need to go, ie for shopping, parts etc.. They have just installed a travel lift, so are now hauling boats. There are no slips, but we don't like being at dock anyhow. Talking to the other boaters, they are telling us about all the day trips you can do from here, by boat, dinghy or land...to see caves, birdwatching, desert hiking...lots of places to go, things to see, all from this safe location. Sounds like heaven to a cruiser.

Pictures: Loading Jean Marc's van at Cariaco market
the chicken lady selling her goods -- now that's fresh!!
The Golfo de Cariaco is 35 miles long, about 8 miles wide....with only one entrance to the Caribbean about 2 miles wide at the west end at Cumina. It reminds us of lake sailing, except of course the water is salty. Medregal Village, is about 2/3rds of the way down the length. The Araya Peninsula is very mountainous, so we are well protected from any adverse weather coming from the south, east and north.

2007-08-08T20:34:00.000-04:00

Tortuga, Venezuela July 2007
We really enjoyed our stay on Blanquilla and now we are off to another deserted sand island, Tortuga. Fine white coral sand that makes all ou pictures look out of focus because of the shimmering heat rising it. Only things here are the Guardacoasta Station and the fish huts. This island is a rich & famous haunt for the mainland crowd. A small airstip was built some years ago (very narrow -- 15 -20 feet). The affluent mainlanders fly out in private planes and helicopters for a day at the beach with coolers and umbrellas in tow. On the Saturday we arrived, three planes just as we were anchoring, and the next day, Sunday, three more planes and two helicopters. Nobody stays overnight, they all leave before dark because there are no lights on the airstrip and it gets very dark. Once the weekend tourists leave, we are alone in the harbour with 6 other boats.

Our time in Tortuga is being cut short due to weather. Both Chris and Eric do not have a handle on the tropical wave which is developing in the Atlantic, not sure whether it will or not develop into a closed low system. The problem we have, is that if a low does develop, (no one expecting a named storm or hurricane), we could experience some strong west winds and seas. Unfortunately these out islands don’t offer much protection from west winds, so we will enact our hurricane strategy….run south!! We are only 70 miles north west of Cumina and the mouth of the Golfo de Cariaco. This large bay is south of 11 degrees latitude, and has many well protected anchorages.
We set off at 1pm anticipating light winds on the nose, expecting to motor into light seas and stronger current. Figured we would average 4 knots and arrive at Cumina by dawn. Of course that didn’t happen, within an hour we had northeast winds 25knots and we were doing 7knots, and if that continued we would be in the Golfo at 3am. We slowed our progress, and the winds died as well, so ultimately we did have light to find the golfo entrance and motor to Laguna Grande. When we found that we were the only boat in that large bay, we continued on to Medregal Village, (Photo Page)where we knew we would find company.

2007-07-30T20:19:00.000-04:00

Juangriego-Blanquilla, Venezuela July 2007
Juangriego
Having completely filled all the lockers on RAFT, it was definitely time to get out of Porlamar, quit shopping and get on with exploring. We motored east, past Pompatar, which we could see this time, no haze, and then sailed up the east coast of Margarita island, past all the resorts and beautiful sand beaches to Juangriego. This is a quaint fishing village, quite the opposite to Porlamar. Although there are lots of touristy shops. We toured the fort, mainly just a scenic view point and the boat building factory. The guys there we great, letting us look around, take pictures, even took a tarp off a big Caterpiller diesel engine so I could take a picture for Ron, Bev’s brother in law who works on Cats in Canada.
Next day: off to Blanquilla, a small fishing island 50 miles north of Margarita. The only people who live here are fisherman and "guarda". so why are we here? ... to get away from everything Porlamar is...shopping, traffic, noise, city lights. Here the beaches are so beautiful, certainly rival any we have seen in the Bahamas and the Virgins. The water is so clear, you can watch the gurnard crawl along the bottom in 25' of water. We can snorkel right off the boat. And at night, the stars are fantastic, even saw a shooting star and there is lots of phosphorescence in the water.
We had a great day sail from Margarita island here. Early in the day the winds were light and from the south east (stern quarter). Ideal conditions for our spinnaker (light nylon colorful sail) which we hadn't used since we left Canada. Our inexperience showed when Bev mishandled the sheet and got a rope burn on her right hand. Really our first onboard accident. Now before everyone gets worried, we have lots of prescription antibiotic cream onboard she is using this "hurt' as an excuse not to do her usual household chores, so Ross gets to cook and clean. She can still manage the helm, type one handed, but will baby herself for a couple of days.
We are basically anchored on the the west side of the island hiding from the tradewinds. When we were in Margarita we were out to the "Trade Wind" belt. Now that we are back north we are back into steady east winds blowing 10-15 knots, no roll so very comfortable. Blanquilla has white sand beaches mixed in with granite outcrops. Looks a little like a moonscape with the craggy bits. The sand is very powdery and very comfortable to walk on. There are about 12 boats in the anchorage, all sail except one large fishing boat (Wooden 60 ft long.) This is the mother ship that all the local fisherman bring their catch (average around 25 fish a day per boat) to and then weekly they return to Margarita to sell the catch. This is the type of boats we saw being built in Juangriego.

The local fisherman only fish when the big boat is here as they have no way to store the caught fish. Once a day the small boats pull up to the mothership and off load their catch. Because Blanquilla has only a small fishing village, we have only seen about three different boats come along side. The mothership has a crew of five who don't seem to do much all day long and even less at night. The boat is in complete darkness-no music day or night. One guy cooks and four tend to lounge around on the deck waiting for the local fisherman to return. Wedon’t know whether the motherships are part of a national (gov't) operation or private. I suspect national to help the local fisherman get their product to market as this whole Agro Economy is subsidized by cheap fuel ($0.03 per litre) to keep the cost of food down. Anyway I digress.
These fisherman which are always touted as being the source of the "we Cruisers" problem. We anchored beside this boat the day the we arrived which was late in the afternoon on Saturday. During the night at 2:30 am we bumped into the mothership. We were more concerned than them but it brought all of us on deck, we let out some more rode so hopefully that would solve the problem. We thought they would be upset with us, but the next morning after we re-anchored the fishermen were all smiles and nods.
Later that afternoon two of the crew were dispatched to our boat and we both though that now we were going to hear something about interfering with their operation or that we had damaged their boat in the night. These were the type of ploys we had been told to watch out for. What they wanted after much pantomime was a to see if we had replacement brass fitting for the pressurized gas system on their boat. I rummaged through my stores and found a some partial pieces that could get them started but were not a direct match. Off they went to other boats to try and find a replacement. At 5:00 pm on our way to another boat for Sundowners they call us over to say that they got system working and here were the parts that I gave them back. We thanked them and carried on to "Dreamtime" for drinks. On our way home from "Dreamtime" they waved us back to the mothership again. This time was to present us with a 10-12 lb Tuna to thanks us for trying to help them. Looks like we will have sushi for happy hour today. Off course Ross had to clean this in the dark last night because it would not fit in the fridge whole. Bev's hand injury strikes again.
Other activities we managed to fit into our week here: dinghy picnic to Americano Bay – absolutely beautiful, must be seen, pot luck on the beach where we cooked a 36" Barracuda on a fire and shared with all the boaters (another gift from the fishermen), plus a day exploring the south bays and fiords, where once again we ended up anchoring among all the fishing boats.

Pictures: Americana Bay iguana, coral fossils, rock bridges Last Picture: unusual rock formation weathered into girl like statue, south coast of Blanquilla

2007-07-20T22:28:00.000-04:00

Venezuela General Info July 2007
We are really enjoying Venezuela. However if you plan to visit here, there are a few things you should know before you arrive.
Money Exchange
The official exchange rate (Up to date Info at Veneconomia site)at the bank is 2200 B per 1 US, but the are many people/businesses who will exchange US$ at 3500 B. Big difference. they want larger bills ($20 min, $50-100 bills even better), and there are also places who will take a personal cheque, $500.00 minimum drawn on an American bank, and some have an American acct that you can wire money into, and still give you the higher exchange rate. So what this means, is bring as much US cash in larger bills that you can get your hands on, before you arrive here. You need to ask around to find the money exchangers, but it isn’t all that difficult. You don’t want to use the ATM’s because they only exchange at the official rate.
Things you cannot buy get here:
peanut butter, butter, white sugar, pancake syrup, batteries -- we have been trying to get 6volt ones, unsuccessfully, BBQ lighters. Eggs are only available in the small markets.
Picture: Diesel being delivered to RAFT
Pricing:
Beer is 800-1000B a can, Chilean wine is good value, Vene. wine was cheap and okay. Rum is 5000-10000 B per 750 ml ($2-$3) Gas/diesel so cheap, less than $.30 a gallon delivered to your boat. Water is available delivered to your boat in Porlamar or jerry jug from Juan (.10 per gallon).
In general, if you pay the official rate, most other things in Venezuela cost about the same as in US or Grenada. It is when you get a good deal on your exchange, that you see great savings.
Juan charges $70 US or 210000B to do the check in, therefore you are better to change your money before you do your check in. Nearly everyone still uses Juan, but there are some complaints that it is too expensive, and now you can do it yourself, but it still is a fair amount of work.
Taxi's are cheap...10000 to 15000B for most rides, we never did take the buses, although there are many in Porlamar. Happy hour at Juans after 4pm, starts earlier on Friday. There were over 100 boats in the harbour. Sigo’s (a very large grocery/department store/mall runs a free bus from Juans every Mon, Wed, and Fri.
We have had no problems with security, Porlamar is relatively safe, However we had security bars made for our hatchway and are using them at night, and always raise and lock the dinghy. These will go missing regularly if not well secured, or if left at dock after dark.

2007-07-11T07:51:00.000-04:00

Los Testigos, Venezuela July 2007

PICTURES:

Momma Leatherback turtles buried in the sand, laying their eggs. (taken with 2 different cameras) Tracks from ocean to nesting spots, Ross measuring track width -- up to 80" wide. We estimate these turtles to have shells 3-4' long, weigh 400+lbs.
Northern ocean beach where turtles came ashore
Downwind sailing, it is hard to believe, that we have finally made the time on our adventure that we are venturing west….and the winds behaved themselves and were on the stern quarter and sometimes right from behind as we made our passage from Grenada. It was a lovely sail, under the full moon. We got underway about 5 pm, a group of 4 boats leaving Prickley Bay, and another group of similar size leaving St. George’s. The wind was very pleasant 15 knots, and we were doing about 6 knots with reefed sails. The current came and went, but really wasn’t an issue, we just sailed east of our rhum line so we could let it take us, if it wanted. Once we approached Los Testigos, the current certainly did pick up, and was pushing us towards west towards the islands, as we wove our way into the central passage. We anchored in front of the Guardacosta station by 9am. Check in was very easy, and we were given permission to stay until Monday (arrived on Thursday). We reanchored off Playa Real, rested for a short while, before going over to walk on the beautiful beach.
Navigational note: If you are using the Doyle/Fisher guide, 2002 edition, chartlet on page 70. The way point off I. Noreste 11 25.0N 63 02.0W puts you dangerously close to the island, especially with the easterly trade winds, easterly swell, and west setting current, all encouraging an unexpected visit which after an all night sail is the last thing you need. We had to adjust our course southerly.
Friday morning, after a wonderful hike around Testigo Pequeno, we moved the boats just north of Isla Langoleta, in preparation for our noctural turtle expedition. We walked over the sand dunes, and waited under the full moon, hoping we would get to see the Leatherback turtles laying their eggs.
We had been waiting from sunset (7pm) and about 10 pm we were just about ready to give up, when we discovered that the moms had decided to use the next beach to the east, and one was buried in the sand. We sat for the next 3 hours and 2 more big mommas waddled up out of the sea surf, proceeded to dig a hole, larger than their own diameter about 1-2 ft deep using only their flippers, drop their light coloured eggs, and then meticulously bury their important treasures. It was fascinating. These turtles are about 4 ft in diameter, probably weigh 300-400 lbs. Their flippers look as long as our arms. With the full moon it was easy to see them against the white sand background.
We went back to the beach area the next day, took pictures and measured the tracks. We also discovered that three more turtles had come to the beach last night after we left. They seemed to arrive around High tide which makes sense since it is a shorter distance to the high water mark, above which they lay their eggs. Hauling that bulk about soft sand must be a real chore for these moms. The total time out of water was about 3 hours. We found out from another boater, who had been on an organized trip that the turtles lay both fertilized and unfertilized eggs (30%), about 120-150 in each nest. The unfertilized ones act as space makers in the nest so the baby turtles will have room to dig themselves out. The fertilized eggs are light brown coloured and the spacemakers are white. One of the nests that was laid the night before was deposited too close to the surf and unfortunately the high tides accompanying the full moon, washed it open. We measured the span of the fore limbs on the turtle we saw the night before from the tracks. The largest one left tracks 80" wide, another was 72". They look like ATV tracks in the sand.
Bev got to go turtle watching again the next night. That was after we had our first Venezuelan beer in the only local bar (actually the porch of the owners' home) with the cruisers in the anchorage. Beer was 2000 Bolivar (less than $1 US) which is an outrageous price we were told, as it is usually 700 B in Margarita Island. But is was cold, served in a can, on a plastic patio table....who can complain. We actually didn't even pay, because we don't have any Bolivars yet!! Some of the other cruisers, who had been to Venezula before and had B's, picked up the tab.
After our liquid refreshment, 12 of us went back to the sand dunes to wait for the turtles. Another beautiful night, full moon, and a fresh, warm Caribbean breeze. We waited until about midnight before the first Mom lumbered out of the sea. Then we watched for an hour while she chose her spot, dug her hole, laid her eggs and buried them. No other moms had arrived, and the group decided to let her return to the sea in peace, so we departed. Ross, Mike, and another Dutch boater were our water taxis for the night, and dutifully came when called.
Next morning Bev woke briefly at 0630 to check the SSB weather, find out nothing has changed and no "bad" stuff is headed our way, and then slept soundly until 0900. Two late nights in a row, had tired us out!! We were sitting having coffee when we started to hear a lot of chatter on the VHF radio, the coast guard was being called in Spanish and some French, but really weren't paying much attention. Then Bruce on R Phurst called Drumbeat (Mike and Marlene). Bruce had left about 0830 heading for Margarita Island, so we expected he was just calling back a wind/sea report. No, Bruce was diverting his course, to heading north toward a motorboat (3 miles further north and 10 miles from Los Testigos) that was on fire, and would we make sure that the coast guard was aware of it. We could see the plume of gray smoke from RAFT. Next we saw about 4-5 guys running with gas cans and jumping into one of the larger open island boats, about 22 ft long with double outboard motors (75+). The boat took off right away with one motor, and with a little persuasion (maybe some gas) the second one fired up. Seeing this, plus M&M checking with the fishing boat anchored beside us, it was determined that the coast guard and locals knew and were responding.
Bruce called back to say that he had rescued 3 persons from the sea and that the local boats had picked up one. He transferred his 3 to a local boat, and that he was continuing his trip to Margarita island. Hopefully someone there will give him the hero's welcome he deserves. Once the local boats returned, things got much quieter. Fortunately there were no injuries, but the powerboat is burnt down to the waterline and left to drift at sea. More garbage to avoid in the night.

Pictures: Local fishing boats, Bev and Ross enjoying the wonderful setting
All this before we had time to make breakfast!! Today being Canada Day, we are celebrating by raising our large Canada Flag (thanks Sheila Copps) on the flag halyard, and installing a new smaller flag on the stern flag pole. (All our flags fade and fray due to the constant exposure to sun, wind and salt.) Fortunately, the summer we were home we were able to get quite a few on sale at Canadian Tire after Canada Day, and still have a couple left.
Monday, as dictated by the guardiacoastal, we left Los Testigos, reluctantly. It is a lovely group of isolated islands, with wonderful people, and unless you have a boat, you won’t get to see them. We were enjoying a very pleasant sail enroute to Margarita Island, when we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins. Our special good luck sign.
Did someone ask about fishing?? Once we had cleared the islands, we did start dragging our two lines. All morning long, not much was happening. Just after noon, we could see the mountains of Margarita Island rising from the haze. As we were approaching Pompatar, Bev was contemplating bringing in the lines. A noise like a gunshot surprised us, and once we figured out what is was, we realized the entire fishing system on the port side was missing…the bungie cord shock absorber had broken, the 80 pound test line had broken, 250 feet of line was gone, as well as the lure. Even the clothespin alarm tied to the lifelines with dental floss was missing. We consoled our loss by realizing the one that got away was definitely too big for us!!
We continued on and anchored in Porlamar – affectionately known as Rollamar with about 100+ other boats. Another boater came around, he had been fishing on his way over, and was offering us wahoo. He had caught and landed a 50 pounder, and was very willing to share his prize. So we got to eat fish, despite our loss.
We expect to stay in Porlamar for a couple of weeks. This is the shopping meca of Venezuela, so let the shopping begin!!

2007-07-10T16:53:00.000-04:00

Grenada June 2007

Picture: Ross using cockpit table as a work station to take 4 hp apart.

Back in Grenada, it seems like "home"!! However with the exception of Sea Witch, most of the boats are new to us. But we are in Grenada with a purpose….get some work done, have some fun, and get ready to head for Venezuela.

Work list: Improve security on RAFT and dinghy….new locks, dinghy chain, "bars" on companionway
Get 4 hp motor welded -- the controller arm had broken off the main aluminum casting
Service gib winches -- salt water had welded the winch to the base plate, but PB Blaster and a lot of arm wrestling got them free. Ross was then able to dig out the drainage holes, and greased them, so hopefully they won’t weld together again.
New sewage discharge pipe on head (not on original list, but when split got priority treatment)
Fix drain from head sink (not on original list, but broken when trying to install sewage pipe)
Check and changed fuel filters – the motor trip around the south end of Grenada was very choppy as usual, so shook up the diesel in the tank.
Clean dinghy
Replace lost water jug and bought a extra gas jug
Clean head after shaving cream can rusted through and spurted cream on vanity and sink
Of course there were a lot of things on the work list that just didn’t have high enough priority to be completed, and sooner or later will need to be attended to.

Fun: Hash x2 -- were able to do 2 hashes – one at Mount Carmel and the other north of Victoria. First one very easy, last one really tough, but both very enjoyable.

Rogers BBQ – revisit Hog Island -- Rogers has installed "waterside" deck, picnic tables, & benches -- major development for his "restaurant" But Roger hasn’t changed!!

Pictures: Ross and Bev after Hash, Roger's new "look"
Not much change to Hog Island, except cleared "road" on island to where bridge is intended. Local people very upset with govt. Apparently nothing is finalized with Four Seasons re development.

Pictures: Hog Anchorage still as pretty as ever, Wrecked fishing boats still there, destruction of island

Get ready to go to Venezuala
Determine weather window to leave
Check out
Fill up with water, fresh foods
Spend all our EC’s -- did last minute shopping, didn’t have enough EC’s so had to use VISA, so l left with a few EC’s
Say goodbye to Grenada and our friends

Having done all the above, the departure date was set: 1700 on June 27th -- we were heading for Los Tostigos, Venezuela on a new continent…..a new adventure for us!!

2007-06-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

Fishing and SSB Radio Communications June 2007

Cruising lingo:
Newbies: Cruisers who are on their first trip down the island chain
Reruns: Those cruisers who have spent at least one summer out
So we are Reruns. The advantage of being a rerun is knowing basically where you can get things, as evidenced by our shopping in the various islands, and having lots of boat friends in many places. Nearly every anchorage we enter, we know someone, or they have seen or heard of us. Over the past three years we have met probably over 200 boats, and have 135 boat cards to show for it. Note to would be cruisers: Make up boat cards before you leave home…you will go through a lot!! And over the past 3 years, our boat friends are certainly spread out, as far as Tahiti, nearing the Azores, and many have returned to their homes in Canada and the States. We use the internet to follow many of their adventures, as well as emails and the SSB radio.
Currently we have friends travelling off shore to the USA and to the Azores, and we have been talking directly with them. It is quite fascinating that we are able to talk to North Carolina, the mid Atlantic and Venezuela all through the SSB radio. We listen to Herb, from Burlington on 12359 at 1530 to hear the boats check in for weather and guidance as they make their offshore trips. Our good friend Calaloo, who we were with most of last summer is working their way to the Azores and it is great to follow their progress.

Pictures: our Tuna and Kingfish

We had been travelling a lot this year with Vixon. Paul and Denise are great fishing people. Motivated by their successes, we decided to buy a couple more lures, and put our lines back in the water. It is true that how successful you are at catching fish is directly proportional to the amount of time your try, and you will definitely not succeed if you aren’t dragging a line.
We proved the statistics are right. We dragged lines on all our sails since Antigua. Ron did get a barracuda, which we did not keep. We were 2.5 miles north of St. Lucia when our "clothes pin" alarm sprung, under full sail doing 5.5 knots. Fishing while sailing requires some planning, as we have heard of boats being so excited about their fishing that they to go onto reefs, as they were bringing in their fish. So we luffed the sails to slow us down, brought in the second line, then dealt with the fish. We were surprised to see we had caught a tuna. It was 22" long, and about 8 pounds. We were able to use our old fishing net to pull it in, lashed the net & fish to the front deck and we continued our sail into Rodney Bay.
Having seen other boats clean their fish in a garbage bag, on their foredeck with lots of pails of sea water, we followed suit, and had a couple of meals of fish to enjoy for our efforts. It was so exciting, to finally have caught our supper!!
Leaving Tyrell Bay, we once again were setting out our lines. But before we even had the second line set, we had a "big hit" on the first one. We still had the motor on, hadn’t even let out the jib, so we could concentrate on the fish, as Otto steered us away from the anchorage. We hauled in a 30" Kingfish (or King Mackeral), guess about 12 pounds. Our limited fishing gear doesnot include a weigh scale, but that is only required for bragging rights. We lashed it to the stantchion, and continued our sail to Grenada. We decided we were done fishing for the day, one fish is enough. Once we were in the lee of the island, we cleaned it and filled the freezer with yummy steaks!!
So now we are back in Grenada, our summer home last year, and it feels great to be back.