Another year has passed, so quickly. It doesn’t seem more than a couple of weeks ago I wrote of our Christmas 2010 visit to Spain.

This year we spent with friends in Venezuela. We met Jaco and Christelle with their friends James and Anita aboard S/V Songerie in Mochima. We all went ashore and had a sundowner or two before venturing to a favourite restaurant for a meal.

The next day we went our separate ways and the path of Chaser2 took us to Medregal Village in the Golf of Cariaco to meet other cruisers and friends for a Christmas Eve meal in the hotels restaurant. We all had a good evening and a late one, and returned to our boat at 1am by dinghy. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the meal, but someone has and I’m sure they will be forwarded on at sometime.

Up at 0530 the next day, Christmas Day, it’s usual to get up at this time, it’s light and hot. Today Yvonne prepared a more traditional English meal for ourselves and our friends Peter and Sylvia, aboard their pretty Nicolson 32, S/V Tradewind. Dinner was served aboard Chaser 2 at a more reasonable hour of 7pm. No turkey, but we did have all the vegetables with a whole 3kg fillet steak roasted in the oven — beautiful.

As usual we had a little work to do aboard the next couple of days, shopping too and then new year was upon us. Yvonne and I made a beautiful meal for ourselves this night, a bottle of wine and a couple of rums with some early evening phonecalls wishing family in Spain a happy new year. Again as usual we managed to fall asleep at around 9pm in the cockpit to be woken by fireworks from the local villagers at midnight. It amazes us, these people are quite poor, their house is little more than a shack with a dirt floor, electricity but no running water, just a tank full, no toilet facility, they have to cross the road to the trees. But they have the best mobile phone, they have a stereo with a 1000 watt amp, and speakers standing 2.5 metres high and 1.2 metres wide. Their music which sounds like a man trying to escape out of a large van using a rubber hammer, can be heard 8 miles away. They even have a brick built house in the garden that I thought was going to be their ablutions. It has been rendered and painted on the outside, with a tiled roof, and a ceramic tiled floor on the inside. A door with glass, and it is used to house their Madonna effigy. Then they spend what must be a small fortune on fireworks that go – bang! They love noise.

So, new years day we up anchor and move on to Puerto La Cruz. On route we called our friends on the VHF radio, turns out they had a gearbox problem and couldn’t take the engine out of forward gear. They anchored in Laguna Grande, so we diverted to see if we could help. Somehow their gearbox was stuck in forward gear, so the decision was made for them to follow us to Puerto La Cruz to find a mechanic. In the morning we helped them raise anchor before hauling our dinghy, then we sailed on to Mochima for a night stop, and the following day to PLC.

We have arrived, fill our water tanks, charge our batteries, do some washing, have a long, long shower, maybe even watch a movie, we can even leave our lights on.

The last photos are of our family in Spain celebrating their Christmas Day, this time at James House in Lliber, our 3, James, Rob and Susie, with Cristina, Berny and Billy their partners, not forgetting of course the lovely Evie Marie.

We now have to prepare our boat for a haulout back in the Golf of Cariaco next month. Then in February we fly to Spain, UK and Gran Canaria to visit friends and family.

These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google.

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