Medregal village haulout and adjacent anchorage
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Sat 6 Feb 2010 20:35
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We left our anchorage 600 yards east
Medregal Village haulout marina for Cumana. We had to go to Caracas and
Yvonne was then flying off to freezing England and sunnyish Spain for a couple
of weeks to see our family and especially our new grand daughter.
Yvonne currently in Spain, returns in a couple of weeks,
Monday I believe Yvonne Susie and Evie fly to UK to see her
Dad/Grandad/Great Grandad. I've been left to continue work here in the
Gulf, it's a hard life. Various friends have invited me to dinner, that's good
saves washing up, I don't mind the cooking. I'm currently utilising my
experience from a previous life by helping build a swimming pool. The guys here
really haven't got a clue, nice guys but have never built one before and didn't
want to turn the work down, so I'm a kinda clerk of works.
There are a couple of places come on the market here
recently, the price is excellent in as much as you get a lot for your money. One
place having 12 apartments as well as a house and various out buildings,
I'm quite tempted but one wonders if it would be a viable proposition, it's
not the most accessible place for a small hotel but there are possiblities. The
area is becoming, albeit slowly, more popular, the American sailors are
biggining to arrive again. Security in Venezuela as a whole is improving,
finally the government seems to be doing more to help, by drastically improving
the policemans pay and providing the Guardia Costa with some stunning new boats.
In fact Venezuela's coastline had very few incidents last year, and here in the
Golf of Cariaco of course there hasn't been any to date, now, arguably
being one of the safer places to visit in the Eastern
Caribbean.
During the past 18 months I've tried to spread the word
that Venezuela has a lot to offer especially with prices and exchange rates
being what they are, and as a result many cruising people have visited. Of
course they all spend a lot of time at Medregal village where there is a
swimming pool and bar, open 7 days per week. Further along the coast, 300 yards
to the east is Cocobongo, which is more a cruiser hangout, it's run by ex
cruisers Sven and Eva and serve wonderful home made pizzas from their wood
burning oven one evening per week. A little further east a Venezuelan guy offers
superb ribs and mashed potatoes under his dock house, his plan was to do this
once, weekly but a combination of few boats and him having a couple of family
health problems has stopped this temporaily. Then 300 yards again to the east
another one evening per week cruisers club is due to open serving
mainly English style snacks.
For those cruisers thinking of coming to this lovely part
of Venezuelan back waters, the haulout prices are quite reasonable, the Medregal
snack bar prices are quite good too, the restaurant and drinks are a little
expensive though, that's because the drinks subsidise the use of the
showers, swimming pool and facilities. Unfortunately many of the people that use
the pool and showers do not buy any drinks, consequently those who do buy drinks
pay for the freeloaders. Not the way I would run the business, I belive it would
be fairer to have an addmission charge, or charge for the pool or wifi apart and
reduce the drinks prices to a more favourable rate. Cocobongo's prices are good,
as too will be the other venues, this is not because of lack of overheads, it is
because they want to meet new cruising people and share their stories, and
clearly, it's better to sell, for example 100 beers at 3 B's than sell 5 beers
at 6 B's, ok 500% profit is nice but if you don't get bums on
seats!
Everywhere is quite though these past 18 months,
throughout the US, Europe too, money is in short supply and the tourism and
boating industries are the first to suffer.
If you want more info on this area you can email me at svchaser {CHANGE TO AT} gmail {DOT} com
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