Pot Luck and BBQ: Everyone was watching the weather closely as we were due to get some squally weather Wednesday afternoon. Those of us who were scheduled to help set up for dinner at the Yacht Club got to shore just as the rain started at 2:30. The squall didn’t last long at all, but it looked like the party might be a wash out as most folks waited for the rain to stop before coming in. There were some incredibly nasty looking cloud layers to the north. Instead of eating outdoors everyone found room upstairs in the restaurant area and on the covered decks. The first part of the entertainment was a dry tee shirt contest with several categories. Roland won for the "funniest" shirt, one that read "A jury is a group of twelve people who decide who has the best lawyer." (A quote of Robert Frost) His prizes were a party hat, a kazoo, a whoopee cushion, a bow tie, and a bottle of gin! The rest of the evening’s entertainment was provided by two cruisers playing guitar and one cruiser playing banjo, and, of course, by all the folks who joined in singing along. We didn’t get home until 9:30, past our bedtime!

Beach Blanket Bingo: We didn’t really play BBB, but there were plenty of other games: balloon toss, underwater treasure hunt, sack races, kayak races, etc. Most of these games were played by cruisers who paid 5 EC$ each for the humiliation, but we were also joined by about a dozen local kids who had a great time diving for treasure with borrowed snorkel gear. Roland anchored one relay team in the kayak race, cut down the large lead by the other team almost enough to win.

Ryan’s Birthday Party: We left the beach party a little early as we had been invited to Ryan’s 12^th birthday party. Ryan is one of the Opti sailor’s, one of the best. His mom served us supper, consisting of chicken and goat stew, macaroni salad, stir-fry vegetable rice, and birthday cake. The family is Indian so it was a combination of local and Eastern food. We gave Ryan two squirt guns, the party hat, kazoo and whoopee cushion!

CCEF Auction: Lots of items were donated from "Treasures of the Bilge" to be auctioned. Besides a few things we got off the boat, Kathleen spent Friday morning baking cinnamon raisin rolls and Key Lime Cheese Danish to donate. Another cruiser lady made 24 dozen cookies. Since this auction took place outside at the Carriacou Yacht Club from 3pm-6pm, you can bet there were plenty of hungry bidders who gobbled up all the goodies. We bid on and won a small Danforth type anchor for the dinghy, an extra radar reflector, and a Cruising World (magazine) tee shirt (as if we need more tee shirts, but all the money is for the kids).

Junior Sailing Club Opti Races: At 8 A.M. we dinghied to the beach to get the Opti’s ready to go to Hillsborough. Since they were already on the sand, we dumped the water out, lined them up, and tied them in a row for towing behind Genevy’s motor boat. Ryan was up early and gave us a hand. All the boats were ready to go when Ted arrived to gather up the rigging to load into a borrowed pickup truck. Roland rode with Genevy, and Kathleen rode in the truck with Ted and several of the kids. Once in Hillsborough, we took all the gear to the end of the beach beyond all the larger sailboats that were being readied for their races. A short time later the string of Opti’s arrived like ducks in a row. It was turning out to be a hot sunny day with not a lot of wind. Kathleen spent a good part of it sitting under an umbrella at Snagg’s Restaurant and taking lots of photos of the activity. Roland spent way too much time in the sun! The kids sailed in two races. A young French boy from a cruising boat took first place in both races, but all the junior sailors did a fine job. When all the Opti’s were hitched back together, about 5 p.m., Genevy took them back to Tyrrel Bay, and the rest of us, Roland, Kathleen and Ted, hitched a ride home with Kadesha’s parents, Uta and Uwe. We waited at the newly rebuilt "Original Old Rum Shop" for the boats, and then untied them and left them in a row on the beach. By that time we were all exhausted, the sun was setting, and that’s when Kathleen got the great sunset shots of the boats in the bay.

After the party’s over: There were more grown-up races on Monday, and a barbecue at the Yacht Club with prizes handed out to the winners. The weather had held all weekend for the activities so it was only fitting that Tuesday brought rain all day. The group photo had to be delayed until the rain let up so all the participants could get to shore in reasonably dry condition. All the fund-raising activities netted over 16,290EC$ for the CCEF, a new record!

Thinking about moving on: When we said goodbye to Lucky the previous Saturday night, she told us she was leaving, too, going to NYC for a month for a vacation with relatives. We had thought about leaving on Wednesday, the 8^th, for Grenada. The morning was okay, but it started raining again after lunch, and continued to rain well into the evening. We visited Harm and Lizzy on the Dutch boat, Horta, that evening. Thursday dawned and proved to be drier, but we held off until Friday morning, spending more time getting things put away for the trip. Even though we left at 6 a.m. we didn’t get to the anchorage outside of St. George’s until late in the afternoon. There wasn’t much wind, and rather than motor we took what we could get until we had to fire up the iron genny for the last few miles.

New power source: It was time to bite the bullet and replace all four of our house batteries before leaving Grenada. We should buy stock in Island Water World, the West Marine of the Caribbean. The store was only open until noon on Saturday so our first trip to shore was to purchase the batteries which had been charging overnight. Roland had called a few days earlier to ensure that there were four available. We hurried back to the boat with four heavy passengers in the dinghy. We disconnected all the power cables and removed four old batteries, then proceeded to put four new ones in place and re-connect all the power cables. Guess what! The positive battery posts on the new ones were larger so Roland had to make the holes on those lugs larger. There was barely enough power left in the portable drill to get it done. Also the batteries were smaller in size than the two that were under the settee so the cover had to be fastened differently. Well, bottom line was that we got the old batteries back to the store for disposal at 11:30, but still had work to do when we got back. While we were in the lagoon, we stopped to say hello to Paul and Denise (Vixen). They had their yellow fever shots and paid about double what they cost in Trinidad, but were waiting to leave until Paul could have another medical problem taken care of. We had learned from other friends that the shots are free in Venezuela so we decided to wait.

On the road again: After spending the rest of Saturday and Sunday finishing up the work, and relaxing a little listening to the overly loud music of Carnival (LOL), we sailed around the point to Prickly Bay to join Elusive, Gary and Sharon. Before we left St. George’s we were able to see with the binoculars the Monday morning Jouvert revelers in the Carenage. If you remember from our trip to Grenada for Carnival last August, that was the PARTY that started at 4 a.m., and included all the mud, paint and oil, and LOUD music. We got anchored just before noon, and invited Gary and Sharon over for pizza for supper when we would talk about traveling. Everyone had been watching the weather, a.k.a. Tropical Depression 4, which later became Hurricane Dean. Elusive had been through Ivan in Grenada, and Gary and Sharon had no desire to be anywhere near another one. The guys went to clear out on Tuesday morning, and by half past noon we were on our way to Isla de Margarita, Venezuela. There is supposed to be wind and current that shortens the trip by a couple of hours, but we didn’t see much of either. On one hand it was a slow sail, but on the other hand it sure beats bad weather! The last time we did an overnight passage was the squally night we spent going from Tobago to Grenada in December. Elusive is a lighter, faster boat so they got in about noon, and we arrived at Porlamar closer to four. It’s always nice to see land again.

Porlamar: It’s nice to have something different to write about, although Kathleen already misses the quiet of Tyrrel Bay and the ease of grocery shopping. When you check in here, the easiest and most recommended way is to go the Marina Juan and pay Juan to take care of all the work. You have to be at his office by 9 a.m. We handed over our documentation, passports and clearance papers from Grenada, and were told be back at 3:30 to be taken to the Immigration Office (something new because now they take a fingerprint of the captain), and then back to Juan’s office at 5:30 to pay him $70 US and get all the paperwork back. Juan and his son-in-law were very busy that day as 15 boats had arrived the previous afternoon. Most of the boats are French who had run down from Martinique to avoid Dean. And four of the boats had problems with Customs and Immigration which delayed the return of the paperwork until almost dark, 7:00. We decided to hang around the marina and have a couple of beers rather than come in the next day. In the meantime we met a couple, Fred and Linda, who were clearing out that day, and they invited us to share a cab to El Sambil Mall. This is the largest mall we’ve ever seen. It may not have any more stores than the Walden Galleria in Cheektowaga or the Eaton Center in Toronto, but it was very spacious with a food court about the size of the Galleria’s. Would you believe we had Subway sandwiches for lunch?

Side effects of Dean: We had planned to take the free bus to the supermarket on Friday, but we had swung around from east to west during the night and were getting strong waves in the anchorage. Most folks stayed home and kept an eye out for dragging boats during the worst of it. We weren’t happy with the way the smaller boat in front of us had swung and how close it now was so we let out more chain twice. They must have dragged a little because after we let out the chain the first time, the boat seemed just as close as it had before. Saturday morning we woke facing east again. Even more unhappy with the position of the other boat, we lifted the anchor and moved to the far northwest corner of the anchorage. Since we were the last boat to anchor in the first place, we had to honor the unwritten rule of being the ones to move. Saturday morning Roland got us connected to the wi-fi here through the cruiser who runs the business. It was good to be in touch with the outside world again as he needed to make a phone call to the medical office. We hung out at home all day, and early in the evening we were "treated" to a thunder and lightening storm that lasted for hours. Early Sunday morning we had a call from Gary asking if we would come over and help them. They had dragged during the storm, and were tangled up with a French boat. Their second anchor line had wound around the rudder so Roland was able to get that out while in our dinghy. Then with some maneuvering and pushing off the other boat, Gary got his primary anchor loose, (and after Roland’s lifting the other boat’s chain off Gary’s anchor) moved over near us where the boats are a little farther apart.

Forced march: Around three in the afternoon we decided to go for a walk around the road to the beach. It was a little cooler in the afternoon, but it was still hot and sunny! We stopped to get a few things at the CM supermarket about halfway around the loop. What the supermarkets here lack in variety, they make up in quantity. Picture an 8 linear foot section of 5 rows of shelves filled with bottles of Heinz ketchup. Or 20 linear feet of various brands of rice. No Cheerios here. No "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter". No cottage cheese. No eggs in the supermarket. You have to buy eggs on the street. No milk in cartons, only powdered milk. The reason there are no eggs and no milk is that government price controls keep the prices so low that the markets will not stock them. On the other hand, there are rows and rows of caviar, candy (including M&M’s, Snickers and Hershey’s Kisses, and wonder of wonders, Lays Papas Fritas con Sal (potato chips). Meat is sometimes a mystery as to the cut, and still not terribly tender.

Sunday afternoon dominoes: We never played dominoes on Sunday in Trinidad, and this presented an opportunity to meet some new cruisers so we went. There were only four of us, which we were told was unusual, but we had a pleasant afternoon ashore. Most of the cruisers here at the moment are French and they don’t play dominoes!

Monday shopping: Roland didn’t feel like spending four hours shopping so he stayed home. The supermarket sends a bus (three times a week) that holds about 20 passengers. People are not allowed to stand so yesterday the bus driver had to make a second trip. Each person was given a number that would identify their boxes of groceries which would be delivered to Marina Juan on the return trip. The market, Sigo, is part of a mall that is smaller than El Sambil. Liquor and wine is sold in the supermarkets as well as beer. At this store a young man will box up your groceries, number the boxes and take them to the truck. There sure isn’t room for the groceries on the little bus. We had to wait for the truck longer than usual at the marina because of the extra trip so we had a beer and chatted with our friends. The mall was half an hour away from the marina, probably 10 miles in traffic. At one intersection a man stood in traffic selling items, two machetes in one hand and a rack of earrings in the other. On the chainlink fence at the sidewalk he had displayed kites and paintings of the Virgin Mary. Talk about diversity!

Eye surgery: Roland’s first check-up with the ophthalmologist was early on the 22^nd. Fernando, a young Venezuelan who learned English watching TV, was our driver, guide and translator. He picked us up at Marina Juan, drove us to the office, handled the paperwork, and took us home. On Friday, the 24^th, Fernando picked us up again for the YAG laser surgery which took less than five minutes. Roland saw an immediate return to the clear vision he experienced after the cataract was removed almost four years ago. What a relief, and at a cost of $175 US which was paid with a PayPal e-check. He still has a cataract growing on his other eye, but it is not yet ripe. This surgery can be delayed for a while.

Playa el Agua: This is a tourist beach on the northeast side of the island. George and Jeannie (S/V The Vagrant) whom we met in Tyrrel Bay, invited us to take a bus ride one afternoon. This is a desert island and quite dry so it was a hot dusty hour-long ride on a local bus for a couple of US$ each. We arrived at lunch time and found El Pacifico Restaurante for a nice meal. After that we walked along the beach until we found a nice spot to sit in the shade and have a few beers. You know, the stuff people think we do ALL the time.

4^th of July Party: George is quite a character. He called on the VHF and invited us to a 4^th of July party last Sunday. Why the 4^th of July? Why not! Any excuse for a party. Hot dogs and Texas chili, munchies and lots of beer! Paul and Denise (S/V Vixen) had arrived the previous afternoon, and added to the party.

Cambio: This is Spanish for exchange. Men will approach you on the street and offer to change dollars to bolivars, but many of them are not honest and will cheat the gringos. There is a gray market here for changing dollars to bolivars. The current rate is 2,150B’s/$1.00. The street rate can be as much as 3,800B’s which we get most of the time by various means. It’s fairly easy to fall into the routine of B’s after months of EC’s, but when you spend almost 8,000B’s for a couple of prime rib cuts, it’s nice to know that it’s little more than $2.00.

What and where next?: Roland has a follow-up on Friday morning, and possibly another in two weeks. We’re thinking of going to Mochima National Park or to Cumana. Porlamar is fine, but there’s not much to do here but go ashore and spend money. (August 29, 2007