Arrived in Venezuela

Gaviota
Sat 24 May 2008 13:45
10:57.088N 63:49.903W
 
Arrived here at Porlamar, Isla Margarita in Venezuela on Thursday afternoon.
 
Had a lovely last day's sail from our overnight break at Los Testigos - smooth seas and constant wind on the beam.  Syd spent the day below (a record for him!) whilst Annabel supervised the autohelm and kept an eye out for other boats(none), US coastguard(none), fishing buoys etc.
 
Luckily it was quiet enough for us to notice that the fridge/freezer cooler was making a funny noise, so Syd went to investigate and tracked it down to the water intake pump, which when taken apart was found to be in bits and some had even been pumped through the system - an hour or three later with the aid of the trusty loctite and a renewal of a rusty electrical connection it was fine again.  Then he decided to try the watermaker, which had decided to fill iself full of air (that bumpy night we guess)  an hour or  three again needed to force tiny bits out each time ... and quite a lot of water before enogh forced out for the pump to start grabbing water again. Now fine .. but it will happen again! 
 
Since Thursday, we've got ourselves 'checked' in to Venezuela - the boat for 6 months and us for 90 days each, connected to wifi (pretty damn slow and up and down so  Syd just swears at it and doesn`t use it! ... and the local cruisers' radio net and eventually yesterday some local currency.
 
It's very warm here, but there's usually a breeze blowing out in the bay; pelicans flying around as usual; sea clear but green(due to being 'near' Orinoco river outflow - crossing the border between Ocean and offshore seas where it changed colour was a bit scary - a real tidal race of confused sea); skyscrapers of Porlamar town all round the bay - very different to the Caribbean anchorages where we've been so far !
 
ps Syds mobile not working here