Mochima National Park

Our house is awesome but not all too much different to a boat as there is always something to fix. At least most of them were easy fixes like exchanging light bulbs and throwing away the blender because the fluid we pored in came out of the bottom faster than we pored in, hooking up the hot water to the washing machine and tightening the hoses so it wouldn’t flood the floor anymore. The water pump had to be rebuilt and now it goes out all the time, so it’s going downstairs to turn it off, then walk upstairs to the third floor and turn on water tank. Then when we have enough pressure again it’s climbing up to third floor turn water tank off and all the way to ground floor to turn the pump on again. Well, the guys are doing that for us.

We had a wonderful house warming party last Friday and all our friends showed up, we had a full house and partied late into the night. Everybody loved the house and we have reservations already to rent our guest room when they are in the yard and others will rent the slips in front of the house until our boats come back. Best yet, an old friend Bill Tittle from Venice Anglers came, he lives just around the corner from us, small world.

Last weekend we were invited on an overnight boat trip to Mochima National Park on Snow White a most beautiful 57 foot Nordhaven (used to belong to Gene Hackman “Hula Girl”). It was an overcast day and rather on the cool side, we almost decided to put on jackets. On the way to Mochima we had a big pod of bottle-nose dolphins which played with the wake of the bow. I took 130 photos and managed to catch some out of the water. They must have been on our bow for at least one hour, it was really neat. We also saw a big flock of flamingoes fly along the coast that is a rare sight.

Approaching Mochima reminded us very much of the Channel Islands with the dry brush like appearance and rock formations. El Culto was our anchorage which lies deep in a bay surrounded by islands, very protected and remote. Sandy and I tried to do some noodeling, but changed our minds after dipping our feet into the freezing water. Later when the sun came out we did sit on our noodles, not for long as our skin was hurting and the toes were freezing from the cold water.

For dinner Larry, Dotty and company came over and we had such a good time we decided to stay another night.

The following morning Dale and I took off in the dinghy to a nearby fishing village to see if we could buy some fresh fish but the village was abandoned. Instead we saw this big fishing boat along the rocks with lots of small boats attached to it, so we drove over there to check it out. Between the rocks and the boat was a huge fishing net which they brought in and now were scooping sardines out of the water and into the boat with a huge net, the net was at least 10 feet across and 10 feet high and each dip they filled it up half way. It was amazing to watch. Nobody had any bigger fish than the sardines and one of the guys scooped two big scoops of sardines into our dinghy. They flopped all over the dinghy covering it and us with scales. I fried them up for lunch later on and even Sid was impressed that they tasted better than he thought, for him sardines and anchovies are bait and belong on a hook. I finally convinced him that Sardines are actually very tasty.

After that we all decided to take the boats to the town of Mochima, which is around the other side of the park, a tiny quite village with a couple of restaurants and one little convenient store, actually all we saw in there were coconuts and some bananas in a cooler.

In the evening Dale and Sandy thought us a new dice game “Mississippi Marbles”, I think we kept the whole anchorage awake, well the three boats that were in there anyway. We laughed so hard our faces hurt.

But then it was back to reality, we had to haul out Paradise. It went pretty much without any glitches until they started pulling her out of the water and the cradle slipped, wow almost heart attack, for me anyway. Then they told us that they couldn’t lift the boat any further, that we had to undue the forestay, of course the jib was still furled up on it, so it took a while to get it off as there was lots of tension on the rig. But then it was smooth cradling her to her temporary resting place in the yard, although they want to move her to a better spot for the paint job. Sid took the rudder off today, which needs a new bushing. He said it was tough work to get if off as it is very heavy. He also found a week spot in the steering so we may be in the yard a tiny bit longer then we want to.

Last Monday Manuela got talked into a job, she’s teaching English every Monday and Wednesday in a private school. She has two classes the first one with 9 kids ranging from 4 to 8, for as little as they are they sure wear her out, kids now days are just not as behaved anymore. The second is the fun group with 8 teenager girls all 14 years old. She just had her first day last Monday when the principal asked her already if she would extend her classes to adults. I don’t think so!!!!!!! But it’s fun to do it for a while and it will give me the chance to better my Spanish as well.

Oh, can’t forget to talk about El Presidente, I guess he screwed up last week by eliminating the TV stations as the Venezuela stock market plunged and the Bolivares was for one day at 5000 per 1 US dollar. It’s now at 3300. He also announced that he wants to change the name of Venezuela to Republic de Bolivar. A lot of cruisers feel like it’s time to head out of this beautiful country.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season, we sure did and again we have no idea where time went. So much has happened and I probably will forget to mention one or two things.

First to catch you up on El Presidente, it took him exactly 10 days after the election to pass a new law which is not in favor of his people. His congress of 167 people voted 167 to 0 to pass the new law. Of course nobody would even think voting against it, they either loose their seat in congress or much worse. The new law is every citizen of Venezuela age 15 to 50 has to volunteer 5 hours per months to the government or have the choice to go to a school for two years (must be a brain washing school). Citizens not following the law will have to pay a fine which will be deducted monthly from there already measly salary. I think some citizens are finally starting to have a rude awakening. “VOLUNTEER???”

There was finally some sugar in the store, but of course sold out after just two days at two bags per person.

Yesterdays rumor was El Presidente eliminated a TV station that is not under his control, starting to sound very communistic to me.

Lots of cruisers left to spend the holidays with their family. It got really quiet on the dock as only a few remained. Denny on White Tiger came up with the most unique Christmas decoration for his boat, empty beer cans wrapped in colorful shiny Christmas paper. I asked him if we could steel the idea for the tree of knowledge, me wondering how the heck we’ll manage to drink two or three cases of beer on time for Christmas, which was one week away. The next morning when I stepped on deck I found a trash bag full of empty cans, Denny was so happy that somebody liked his idea he donated the cans. He also had a good time harvesting them. Later that afternoon I had all the kids together and we decorated the tree of knowledge. The kids had a blast.

Sid’s buddy Jim (the unofficial “Mayor” of Maremares) are busier than busy running around town, helping Zenny with her hot dog stand, shopping in hardware store, fixing up things on the dock, building a BBQ for the boaters or having coffee early in the morning with a “Sicilian mafia gang”. The Gang wanted to cook a pasta dinner for all of us cruisers and so they did. I tell you it was awesome. First they cooked us a Pasta Carbonara which was served in a wooden bowl that was about 5 feet long, looking like a cattle trough. We ate it all and surprise, they cooked more pasta and filled that trough up again, this time it was Spaghetti with seafood on a marinara sauce. I don’t think anybody cared that they were full already because we ate all of that too. It was an incredible evening.

A couple of days before Christmas Jim and Jenny invited Dotty and us to Los Altos, about two hours away from here up in the mountains. What a beautiful place, very remote and each house with the most spectacular view over the coast line and the islands.

Christmas Eve we had a comfy get together with the left behind cruisers and shared appetizers and played some games. Jim’s friend Darrin invited us for Christmas Day to his house. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with his Venezuelan friends. New Years Eve we celebrated with a wonderful Fondue Bourguignon Dinner under the tree of knowledge and enjoyed the most incredible fireworks show at midnight. There must have been 20 individual firework shows all around us. Most of us partied until 3 am, Sid, Joanne and Natalie and family danced until 5 am and I think they were still drunk when we started our New Years Brunch at 11. We had a wonderful time.

Venezuelans love fireworks and since Christmas we been watching several each night. On the 8^th was the last day of celebration in Venezuela so it got a lot quieter here.

And finally on the second of January we moved into our new home for the next few months. The condo is incredible and so are the many stairs to schlep everything up to the first, second and third level, we are all very pooped but in good shape now.