9 years in the Caribbean
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Thu 7 May 2015 07:52
Spain via Caracas, Aruba, Amsterdam to Valencia in Spain in December last
year. I met my new grandson Liam for the first time, him being born in
October. Evie is very happy to have a baby brother; I wonder how long that
will last.
We sold our house in Spain too, which meant clearing out 30 years of stuff
into our eldest son’s house and to our apartment. It’s amazing how much you
collect living in one place for all those years. We then wanted to visit
James in Southampton while his girlfriend (now fiancé) Cristina was still
there.
On return to Spain we had to prepare for our next adventure.
As I mentioned last year, we thought maybe we will return to the
Mediterranean with Chaser, and now that is becoming a reality. We do this
for a couple of reasons, but mainly from a family perspective. At one time
we could fly back to Spain for what amounted to 200US$ but things here in
Venezuela have changed. The government here has not paid the airlines and as
a consequence the airlines will not fly in unless you pay in dollars.
Flights now vary in price, but you are looking at a minimum of 1000US$,
double that if you fly from here to Europe. Flying our daughter or son out
too becomes very expensive. Rob can’t get time off work; you need to be here
for at least 3 weeks if not more. So we have decided to return and cruise
the Med. It s a lot more expensive to moor a boat there but some places are
far cheaper than others and when we do the maths, it works out much the same
as living in South America. We pay a lot for mooring, but Insurance is
cheaper, flights are cheaper so it kinda balances out. The climate is not
as good neither is the sailing, but nowhere can compare with Venezuelan
islands.
We have been cruising the Caribbean for the past 9 years, we have visited
many Islands, Venezuela is still our favourite place, from all points of
view. We will be sad to leave and we hope we are doing the right thing
because we won’t be coming back by boat.
A small consideration too is the politics here. The so called socialist
government (striving to be communist) is creating many problems, for
everybody. We really can’t understand the mentality of this regime. The
people are getting poorer; the rich are staying the same or moving away.
Nobody invests in business because the government dictates the selling price
of their products (which is actually less that it costs to produce). All
this means businesses collapse and everything has to be imported, but there
are no dollars to pay for it, the government is basically bankrupt.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world but they can’t afford to
get it out of the ground. When I wrote the last blog in December 2014 the
exchange rate for 1 dollar was 113 Bolivares, it is now May 1st 2015, 280.
For us foreigners prices have fallen, diesel is now 1 dollar for 5000
litres, our slip is 1 dollar per night which includes electric and water.
It´s been said that the previous president Hugo Chavez, was an intelligent
man doing things badly with a corrupt government. The new president Maduro
is trying to follow in his footsteps but hasn´t got the intelligence!
Maduro even has posters on walls saying Chavez lives! Nobody has yet
graffitied ´´So does Elvis´´!. It really is laughable if it wasn’t so sad
for the people.
Nevertheless, we are leaving. So where are we going? That is a problem;
Spain has the same politics as Venezuela, a lot of corruption, taking money
from peoples bank accounts without notification, devising laws that
contravene the EU directive. So Spain is out, but we may visit for a short
time. Though we are an UK registered boat, we cannot stay in Spain more
than 6 months, freedom of movement within the EEC does not apply in Spain
(and we are VAT paid)
So we will arrive in Gibraltar, stay a while and sort things out, then maybe
up to a Spanish port closer to our family. Then next year we set sail for
Malta and maybe base ourselves there for a while. The thoughts now being to
cruise Tunisia, Italy and Greece. But, plans change as we have always said.
In 2005 we decided to stop work and cruise the Med, but we turned right
instead of left and crossed the Atlantic. So who knows what lies ahead, but
wherever we are, we can either drive, fly or sail to see our family for a
small price, and, they can visit us, even for a long weekend, something they
couldn’t do while we were in the Caribbean.
In the photos, some of our favourite places, more can be seen on the blog.
Until the next time, in Europe
These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google.
Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/
