Sept. 5. Isla Cubagua

Porlamar where we were anchored is the biggest city on the island of Isla Margarita and we were actually very surprised to find such a big city with hundreds of high rise buildings on an island like this in a third world country. As I mentioned before the shopping here is just amazing. The island is known as the vacation island and since it is duty free everybody from the mainland comes here to shop, especially liquor. All the days we spent here I think I rested only one day the rest was spent in shopping, mainly grocery shopping and I even managed to drag Sid into one of the stores and he was very impressed. The funny thing on that trip was we were sitting in the taxi headed towards a traffic light and witnessed a car blow the red light. On one side of the intersection were two traffic cops on foot. One immediately blew his whistle and pointed at the first car coming across the intersection to pull over, ran to the car, hopped into the passenger seat and made the driver chase after the traffic violator. We sure thought that was funny, but don't know if he ever got to write him a ticket. Our anchorage had the clearest water we've seen in a long time and it was more of a teal color. There were anywhere from 90 to 100 boats anchored and most of them French, German and Swiss and were told that the Americans all go to Puerto La Cruz. Venezuela has it's problems and you have to pull the dinghy up every night, lock it or loose it they say. Sure enough the last night we were there an expensive Boston Whaler with a 40 bhp outboard got snatched. We also were warned to be very careful when using ATM machines or using the credit card and one boat had problems with that as well. They tried to warn the fleet about not using ATM machines, but wouldn't go into the details until they were asked several times. They admitted that when they approached the machine a guy told them the machine was not working and for them to use the machine next to it, where a women was standing. She then told them that they had to swipe the card first in a separate swipe slot and then the ATM slot. Hello, it's a scam!!!!! Well, they got suckered into it. Anyway, we're having a wonderful time and are not letting these stories ruin our stay. We had some wonderful meals in local restaurants and enjoy not having to pay much for gourmet meals. Today we lifted anchor and are finally headed for Puerto La Cruz with an overnight stop at Isla Cubagua. We had to motor the whole way as there was no breeze, but we enjoyed the view as the mountains and clouds were reflecting in the almost mirror like water. The island is pretty barren with red rock lined shores to sandy beaches with cactus in the background. Kind of reminded us of Mexico, we feel right at home.