Arrived in Venezuela
Gaviota
Sat 24 May 2008 13:45
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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
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