Venezuela, Isla Margarita. 10:57.0N 63:49.8W
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Wed 11 Jul 2007 22:01
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The boats botty was clean and we had bought some
provisions for our trip south, so we figured we were ready to go. The only
things we hadn't done was to actually decide when to go and to say goodbye to
our friends in Prickly Bay. Funny how one thing leads to another....... We went
to happy hour on Friday evening which is a bit of a ritual among cruisers, -
almost like going to church on Sunday. Everyone would be there and it would be
the best venue to say goodbye. We were there early and shock horror, the
price of beer had been put up by over 50%!!! Happy hour was no longer happy.
That was it, the decision was made for us. It was time to go. In fact we were so
flabbergasted we decided to leave there & then. We spent our last EC Dollars
on a take away pizza for the trip and bought everyone a drink till the money ran
out, which actually didn't take long at all. So that was it, off to Venezuela...
here we come.
By the time we got back to the boat, lifted the
dinghy and sorted ourselves out, it was nearly dark. But that was ok, Prickly
Bay was easy to navigate even in total darkness and we figured that our passage
plan of about 12 hours (85 miles) to the islands of Los
Testigos would land us there at about dawn.
What we didn't allow for however, was the huge push from the tide and our
improved boat speed due to the boats new clean botty. Consequently we got there
far too early even with just a reefed genoa and so we decided to press on to
Isla Margarita instead. That proved to be a good
move. A tropical wave was due to come through on Sat night and Los Testigos is a
bit desolate & exposed for shitty weather. Other cruisers already anchored
in Los Testigos seemed to agree and left early that morning and eventually
joined us in Margarita.
First impressions of Margarita were not promising.
>From a distance it looked like a typical southern Spanish coastal resort, the
very type of place we were trying to keep away from.
 But what a difference it makes when you got some
buddies to show you the local delights. Vicki & Roger (El Vagabond) have
been here for about a week and have gone through the pain of sussing everything
out. Things are a little different here in Venezuela. The checking in procedure
in arduous to say the least and there is the question of the local currency.
Bolivar's would appear to be considered worthless outside of Venezuela. So there
is a thriving black market trading in US Dollar to Bolivar's and vice versa. The
rate seems to depend on how much the Venezuelan President Chavez slag's
America during his Sunday evening tele broadcast. If America gets a right
bashing, then on Monday morning you might get upto 4000 B's per US$ but during
the week that will moderate to 3500. Oh and by the way, the legal exchange rate
is only 2140 B's to the US$ which speaks volumes me thinks. And when it comes to
checking in, there is a great bloke called Juan, who runs a 'marina', or some
would call it a dinghy pontoon, and he deals with the officials for you,
for a small fee of course. So you can see that
some useful & friendly advice can save you both time and money in this
strange yet exotic country.
Once you get past your initial first impressions,
you really start to warm to the place. The people that we have met so far seem
genuinely friendly and welcoming. They certainly are very pleased to see you in
their restaurants are bars!! Food & drink here is dangerously cheap. We find
it difficult to spend more than £4 per couple in an afternoons drinking session.
One lunch time we ate gorgeous seafood and drank wine, beer & rum all
afternoon and came back to the boat drunk as skunks with change from a
tenner.
 This is an example of what will happen to you if
you take advantage and indulge to heavily in the cheap delights on offer. ( Jo
will kill me when she finds out I took this picture and used it on this
blog)
Continuing on the same theme, we bought some fuel
recently. A small converted fishing boat holding large poly diesel tanks sold
us 400 Lts of diesel for less than £15 (that is less than 4 pence per
litre). You can get it even cheaper if you take the trouble to go to the
station. There you can buy it at 1 pence per litre (which, by the way, is
cheaper than the bottled water). I say three cheers for President Chavez
and long may he slag off
America!!
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