Susie and Evie at Medregal and beyond, Isla Blanquilla 11.50.23N 64.38.81W
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Sun 21 Nov 2010 19:49
Our daughter Susie arrived with her daughter Evie on 27th October in Puerto
De La Cruz (PLC) airport in Venezuela.Flights were on time but Yvonne flew
to Caracas to meet Susie to help her through with the baby and luggage
aswell taking some Bolivares to pay the local airport tax. Its only 32 B's
(about 3 euros) but without the cash it is difficult. Yvonnes flight from
PLC to Caracas was about 33 euros return. I met them at the local airport
and brought them back to Chaser for their first night aboard.
We spent a few nights here, PLC is a pleasant bustling town with a lovely
promenade with a family atmosphere. We spent a couple of evenings walking
the seafront where Evie enjoyed the electric cars and fairground. During the
day we took a dinghy ride through the 'little Venice' type canal system to a
large modern shopping centre at the head of the waterways. You can leave the
dinghy in various places without any worries, take a walk, visit the
supermarket or take time out for ten pin bowling. In town Susie could
believe the prices for
some of the clothing and DVDs etc.
We drove from PLC to Medregal Village haulout yard and stayed at our house
for a few days. Jean Marc of Medregal prepared a beautiful meal in his
restaurant, Thai pork, so juicy and tender. Evie loved it as did we all, we
were at the head of the table and Evie and Susie were in the limelight of
course. It was a good evening and nice to see a few more cruisers. Yvonne
and I showed off our granddaughter to our friends Kenneth and Monica,
Crister and Gunilla, Sven and Eva. Evie loved to be able to walk out of the
house to the beach and take a swim, we had to be careful she has no fear of
the water.
It was time to head back to PLC and make plans to sail off to the Island of
Blanquilla. Our first stop over was Porlamar in Isla Margarita, just for the
night, then next morning head round to the north of the island to the town
of Juan Griego. Weather was good so we decided to keep the dinghy on board
and head off to Blanquilla at 0530hrs the following morning.
We arrived in Blanquilla 9 hours later after a 60 mile motor sail, the sea
was calm but the wind was light. Yvonne and I had originally thought to go
to this island at the beginning of Susies holiday, but hurricane Tomas had
not long passed and although it would give us no wind this far south, I
suspected we could get a westerly swell for a week after making the
anchorage uncomfortable, it being open to the west.Even so this swell was
still there, not too big but made the beach landings by dinghy a little
interesting.
While there we had a visit from the coast guard, not an uncommon thing in
any of the islands, they asked to come aboard, if we had any weapons, drugs
etc. I showed him our flare guns, one of which he thought could use live 9mm
ammunition. We said its impossible without blowing your hand off.
Nevertheless he took it apart and couldn't put it back together, saying
then he would have to confiscate it and make a citacion. He then decided to
take our pet parrot, saying it was a native of the Island. I told him it was
native of Sucre and he could not take it. He insisted, and so did we! He
decided to take the flare gun and told us to collect the citacion, (a
report) which could involve a fine the following morning, and bring the
parrot. Overnight we decided to take our computer to show the photos of this
bird as a baby in our house. There are no houses on Blanquilla, we didn't
take the parrot. He read the riot act, showing us it is illegal to take
these parrots and cut their wings etc etc. If it wasn't for us feeding this
thing 8 times a day with a dropper it would have been dead I told him.
Anyway, while we were waiting the 2 hours for this obviously dislectic
dipshit to string the 10 words together in his report, we took a walk around
the grounds, only to find 6 baby parrots living in a tree outside the
coastguards office. I wanted to have a few words with this little Hitler but
Yvonne said best to leave it in case a he comes and thoroughly searches the
boat. God knows what he would have said if he found the kilo of white powder
that Susie brought for us, (It was only a meat preserving salt, but) I did
though take some photos of these babies, obviously someone saw me and little
Adolf decided we could keep our parrot but he would keep the gun until until
he spoke with his boss. It has been decided we can have the gun back and has
been sent to Margarita. We'll get it next time.
Isla Blanquilla is a beautiful island though and snorkelling and diving is
good too, though we really only had time and air for one dive.
We returned to Isla Margarita to do some shopping in Juan Griego, we had a
nice meal ashore in one of the beachside restaurants and took advantage of
some of the duty free shopping. You can spend and spend here, but we didn't,
not too much anyway.
We sailed back to Porlamar on the south side to meet up with some friends
that liveaboard year round in the bay and have a meal and a swim on the
beach.
Susie and Evies' holiday was over for this year, but they and us had a great
time. Susie also commented that it was so nice to see the variety of the
places we visited, the back waters of Cachicatos and Cariaco, the hustle and
bustle of Puerto De La Cruz, the markets, traders, shopping centres and
Islands. And, everyone she met was friendly and helpful. She hears so many
bad reports about Venezuela and obviously worries that we aren't regularly
mugged or shot. This she says from a security point of view is no different
from any other city or town she has visited or lived in, except, that the
people are so friendly, chatting and laughing with her, Susie was more
surprised by their friendliness than anything else.
Susie arrived back in Spain today, having been greatly missed after 4 weeks
by her partner Billy and her brother, Evies uncle, Rob.
We haulout in Medregal Haul out on the 9th December, 400 euros to haulout
Chaser and put her back in, clean and paint the bottom and 45 days stay in
the yard, how bad is that?
We then fly to Spain for 6 weeks over Christmas. Until next time
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