Adjacent to Medregal Village Haulout yard, is a new eating venue. 'Pericantal' a house 100 yards east of the Cocobongo Club, with a 'rib shack' on the end of his dock. The opening night was last Friday and it was good to see the support from all the local people and cruisers. Albeit that there are not many cruising boats here at the moment, but the turnout was good, Christ and Gunnila, Kenneth and Monica, Sven and Eva, Peo, made up the Swedish contingent, Peter  and Sylvia, Paul, Yvonne and me, Micheal, made up the Brits, there was Swiss and French couples too aswell as our Venezuelan host and his son Rafael.

 

Yvonne and I have been trying to promote the area by writing articles and placing an advert in the Caribbean Compass newspaper. Now there are three snack bars and a restaurant in or near the Medregal Village anchorage. Hopefully this should attract more visitors, cruising boats. This past year has been a disaster for many in the boating industry and together with some of the bad press that Venezuela has generated, has greatly reduced the numbers of visiting boats, which is a shame because the Gulf of Cariaco is such a safe and tranquil area with wonderful year round sailing to blue water islands nearby. This part of South America is the real Caribbean, as once was in the windward island chain, long gone now of course; so many of the Leeward and windward islands are so commercialised that you could be anywhere. A bit like travelling to Benidorm and believing you have visited Spain.

 

I forgot to mention we had an earthquake while we were on land a few weeks ago, nothing serious, about 5 on the richter scale, but enough to shake the windows and floors. First it was Haiti then us here and last week Chile, fortunately there were no casualties here.We also had our first scorpion in the house, don't like them, it wasn't big about 2 inches long, but apparently give a nasty bite.

 

Once Yvonne had settled back aboard we sailed off again to the eastern end of the gulf with some new friends Peter and Sylvia, they were aboard their Nic 32 Tradewind, and we aboard Chaser, Paul another guy we met last year also sailed up in his Moody 34 Decanter. We had a nice few days and evenings though the bird life was a little non existent this time. Better luck next time. Our son James arrives on Saturday from New Zealand where he is currently working aboard a classic yacht 'Seljm' as engineer. It'll be good to see him, we haven't seen him since Christmas 2008 and he hasn't been aboard Chaser2 since Christmas 2006. More on that next time.