Venezuela: Off the mainland where we are there is relative safety. The biggest challenge is picking up enough Spanish to communicate, but we have done reasonably well. There are not many Venezuelans who speak English, but most know a few words to help us out. Since most of the Spanish we need involves spending money, we have quickly learned numbers and phrases such as "quanto cuesta" = "how much does it cost?". Loads of fun! People are friendly regardless, and trying to make ourselves understood, as well as trying to understand them, has led to some laughs.

Security in the Anchorage: Well, "lift it, lock it or lose it" is the truth. One fellow came home late from an afternoon of beer at Happy Hour and an evening of rum at the Rhumb Bar, and barely made it back to the boat. He couldn’t lift the dinghy so his wife tried to stay awake in the cockpit to watch it. Sometime after 3:00 a.m. it was stolen with the outboard while she slept. It wasn’t the first time he had left the dinghy down either. We can think of better things we’d like to do with the $5,000 it probably cost them to replace both.

Happy Hour: The Friday afternoon ritual is Happy Hour at Marina Juan starting at 3:00 p.m. with beers for 1000B’s each. At the current exchange rate for US$, that’s 25 cent beers. At Happy Hour there is also a cruiser’s flea market where you can try to sell, swap or give away the usual stuff. We still had 14 bottles of Mackeson’s XXX Stout that we shouldn’t have bought in Carriacou. They were taking up space, not to mention heavy, in glass bottles. So we left two cold ones in the fridge and sold the other twelve for a total of 5000 B’s to a young fellow from South Africa who was thrilled to get them. Wouldn’t you know that after they were sold, John (S/V Possible Dream) had his tongue hanging out at the thought of that stout. Kathleen promised him he could have the two left in the fridge, and passed them on at the Sunday game. The bottles were cold, and he enjoyed one right then and there. Wouldn’t you know someone else said, "Oh, man, where did you get the stout?" Too late, all gone. Maybe they don’t sell stout in Venezuela. We could have made money if we’d brought more!

The Rabbit Market: One Wednesday morning Kathleen, Sharon (S/V Elusive) and Carol (S/V Possible Dream) took off to the "Mercado Conejero" to spend a little money, but not on rabbits. They took a lot of kidding from the guys about buying only females or males so as not to have lots of little bunnies hopping around by Easter. "Conejero" roughly translates as "rabbit warren," but since we don’t think there are many rabbits around, the name is a mystery. Kathleen thinks that the name comes from the fact that all the stalls crammed into two areas the space of football fields are like a maze of rabbit tunnels. This is like the Straw Market in Nassau times a hundred. There’s also a football-sized pavilion that is all restaurants, and another that is a meat and produce market. So did the ladies spend money? Sharon spent not a penny, Carol did all of her Christmas shopping for less than $100 US, and Kathleen spent less than $35 US for two tee shirts and a cap for Roland, capri pants, a sleeveless blouse and two sundresses. We’ll have to make a trip there before we leave Venezuela, just the two of us. So far this month most of our cash has gone for a year’s supply of Roland’s prescription meds.

Greyhounds: On one trip to the mall we passed a fairly large stadium which has been abandoned and fallen into disrepair covered with spray-painted graffiti. We learned that this was built as a venue for greyhound racing, but it never caught on. When the stadium was closed, all the dogs were let go, certainly not rescued by the greyhound society folks. This explains why so many of the dogs we see resemble greyhounds in one way or another, coloring as well as physical build.

WORK: Lest you think this is all play and no work, let us set you straight. The inverter had stopped working a while back so Roland took it apart and discovered that the wires to three tiny "muffin" fans had corroded away. There were the usual mumbling and grumbling while he took it apart and put it back together a couple of times, but now it is working just fine (Roland had to re-solder wires to the three small cooling fans). Can’t say the same thing about the VHF radio in the cabin. The light had gone out making it necessary to shine a flashlight on it at times to be able to read the numbers. Roland did try to replace the bulb, against his better judgement, and then we couldn’t even see the numbers at all. Oh, well, the radio still works, but it now resides in the "spare parts" locker, and a new radio that matches the one we put in the cockpit last year resides down below. A couple of days ago our dinghy was losing air, and it took a while to find the reason - an earlier patch that had come loose. At least that didn’t take too long to fix again.

On the Road Again: We figured the only way we could break free of Porlamar was not to renew the wi-fi after five weeks. You know, out here, wi-fi replaces the need for TV. We’ve been following the Red Sox games, and now the Buffalo Bills, but since the NFL and MLB don’t allow live streaming of the games over the Internet. So we said "what the heck, let’s lift the anchor and go somewhere." That somewhere is just around the island to the north side to a lovely little anchorage at the town of JuanGriego, named for a Greek pirate who was shipwrecked here a couple of centuries ago.

The Neighborhood: There are lots of fishing boats, both pirogues and the larger boats that resemble lobster and crab boats in the U.S. We spent the day sailing here on the 27^th, arriving before suppertime. Just after dark we heard a marching band playing "Surfin’ USA" by the Beach Boys. They were practicing in the parking lot of the Coast Guard Station off our port side. The band was pretty good, playing with mucho gusto when all of a sudden they played a tune that reminded us of the Cheektowaga Central Middle School Band. Ah, just like home! There’s one other mono-hull sailboat here which is actually an original Carriacou sailing vessel like the ones we saw launched. Her name is "Mermaid of Carriacou", and we recognized her because her owner occasionally writes articles or letters for the Caribbean Compass newspaper. His name is John Smith (we’re not positive that’s for real), and he’s from Connecticut although he’s been living out of the States for the last thirty years. There are several catamarans as well, but only two appear to have people on them at this time. On Friday we stayed home to fix the dinghy so on Saturday we were ready to explore ashore. As soon as we got to the beach, before we could even pull the dinghy up on the beach, a local fellow came running down from the park to help us, and even took our small trash bag, pointing out the trash receptacle which couldn’t have been more that thirty feet away. He didn’t even ask for a tip for his help which is something the men in Tyrrel Bay try to do. We had a leisurely stroll around the main area, lots of shops and lots of Saturday shoppers and street vendors. Roland made a purchase at a ferreteria (hardware store). We spotted the Chinese restaurant for future dining. Then after we had walked around several blocks, we bought four cans of cold Diet Pepsi at a bodega and two each of hot empanadas con carne and empanadas con pollo from a street vendor. We ate in the shade of some coconut palms on the beach while we watched the kids playing in the water. All that lunch for $3 US. It wasn’t until we had finished eating that we looked up, and, yes, there were coconuts hanging over our heads. Good thing it wasn’t windy.

Back to the dinghy to head home, and who should appear but the same fellow with another in tow to help pull our dinghy back into the water. This time we gave him a couple of B’s for his help. As we started motoring, a man in the water called out to us, asking is we were from New York because he saw the NY on the dinghy. He told us he had lived in Brooklyn and that he LOVES NY and Americans. It’s true what we’ve heard, that while our governments clash, the people are as nice as can be. Kathleen had a conversation with a woman at the supermarket in Porlamar who had also lived and worked in NYC for a time, traveled to Toronto when she could, and wished she could go back there to live again. She doesn’t like the VZ government, but she keeps quiet because what else is there to do. We also heard of a young woman who has started her own tour service because she can’t get a job. She has a master’s degree, but she didn’t pull the right lever when she voted (apparently she’s one of the very few who didn’t vote for Chavez). And people think the U.S. government is Big Brother and that the Patriot Act violates their civil rights. They don’t know how lucky they are.

The Ice Cream Truck: Well, that’s what it reminded Kathleen of when she first heard it on the street by the park. After searching her memory data banks for a couple of days, she realized what the music really was. This is weird. Her son, Dustin, had a little blue battery operated electronic keyboard which has been passed down to the grandkids. Is it still around? Anyway, the tune we heard was the same one as when the button was set to play the automatic sample tune. Why this tune was coming from someone’s car we’ll never know!

El Fortin de la Galera: This fort by no means compares in age and size to El Morro in Puerto Rico. It’s the smallest one we’ve seen in the Caribbean so far. Even so it played a part in Venezuela’s fight for independence from the Spanish in 1817 when Simon Bolivar was leading the revolution. As we understand it, every city, town and village in the country has a plaza and streets named for Bolivar.

We’re still exploring the town of JuanGriego, as we will for the next week before heading back to Porlamar. Today we signed up for some wi-fi time; we found a shop with 2-cycle oil for the outboard, and another with copper tubing to make a repair to the stove. And another Chinese restaurant! And we’ve managed to communicate with everyone one way or another!

(October 5, 2007)