08/19/07 Scarlet Ibis

The wind blew pretty much all day and sent a slight roll into even this little protected anchorage. Realizing it was the begin of the weekend we knew that we would be in for some loud music. Any village has loud parties going on on weekends. Sure enough music was blaring on every corner along the beach, the screaming and giggling of kids bathing in the water echoed through the whole anchorage and everybody mingled under the palm tree roofs along the beach, it was a happy atmosphere. By sunset the
whole town was out and about and music still blaring from different homes. Across the village behind the beach a house had music blasting all night long. As I got out of bed at 6 am some classical latino music hung over the bay. Sid said at least the music was nice all night long non of this annoying Raeggeton. Too funny, because the next song was Raeggeton. Later on we found out that the whole village thought that we cruisers had music on all night long as it was coming across the small bay, too
funny. Sid brought Dreamtime, Jabulani and me ashore at 7 am to catch the porpuesto into Cariaco for some provisioning, we were pretty much out of fresh produce and meats. In Puerto La Cruz porpuestos are all old big American cars, here they all are very old trucks with a covered a camper shell on the back with narrow benches around the inside, a spare tire in the middle and just enough headroom to not bump the roof except when he hits one of the numerous potholes. The porpuestos are usually packed
to the rim, canned sardines comes to my mind. My neighbor must have spent the night where the loud music was playing all night long, his eyes were just a little glazed over, his breath smelled like a brewery and he slurred heavily when he spoke. He tried the darndest to have a conversation with me but no matter how hard he tried I could not understand one word he said. Shopping was fun and this being my third time in Cariaco I could give Ed and Linda the grand tour. It was the busy hassle and bustle
of a Saturday filled with people and the vendors were topped with the freshest produce. The butcher had some very lean lomito (filet mignon). Here you have to buy the whole piece and since I don't have a freezer Linda offered to go half on it. The whole piece came to an amazing $ 6.45, then the butcher was so happy that I came back he threw two homemade sausages in the bag for free. Same at the fresh market, most of the vendors greeted me with a friendly smile and handshake, mumbling nice to see
you and after I paid they would throw something extra into the bag.
Back on the boat it seemed the whole town was partying, everybody was out and about, kids screaming in the water and boom boxes turned full blast. Dreamtime and Paradise pulled anchor and headed away from the fun music and turmoil and headed up to the quite river. A huge squall was looming towards us but as we got closer it had moved east and out of our way. Only a few raindrops made it, Sid said he counted 45. About five minutes after we had anchored a giant thunderstorm behind us let out it's fury
and headed over to Guacarapo where we came from. This system was strong enough to pulle the squall in front of us into it. We got a few more than just 45 raindrops out of that one. As sunset arrived and the sky cleared somewhat flock after flock of scarlet ibis came flying across the lagoon to their roost and flew right over us. It was amazing to see these incredibly red beautiful birds up close. Around us were at least 50 pelicans feeding, the most I've ever seen in one spot. It was a busy anchorage.
After sunset more thunderclouds got underway, one of it had bright pink lightning and was pretty noisy, the closest lightning bolt came about one mile from us. Then it rained almost all night long and Sid who likes to sleep in the cockpit was forced to sleep down below. Since we couldn't open the window due to the rain it got pretty warm so I moved into the salon which made it for both a bit cooler. Finally around 1.30 am the stars came out and we could open the hatches at last and Sid returned back
into the cool cockpit. At 8.30 this morning we picked up Ed and Linda and took them up the river. We couldn't believe our eyes as we entered the river when scarlet ibis flew out of the mangroves right in front of us but away from us. Due to the rain the river was flowing pretty strong so on our way back Sid turned the engine off and with the oars ready to steer we floated down the stream. Sid had to row hard on many occasions as the flow was so strong that it pushed us ashore right into the mangroves.
At one point we disturbed a whole bunch of fruit bats that were hanging under a hugs trunk that was overhanging the river. Almost out of the river a few more wood ibis fled from us as well as giant blue herons and as we headed back to the boat few more scarlet ibis flying along the mangroves. After we dropped Ed and Linda off Sid did a detour around the entrance to the lagoon to see how close we could get to the ibis from there when I found lots of scarlet feathers floating in the water, big time
score. Tonight we're invited aboard Dreamtime for dinner and instead of flowers we'll bring her a bouquet of scarlet ibis feathers, I think she'll like it.
She sure did and dinner was wonderful. We also watched all the flocks of scarlet ibis coming back. We're the only two boats in this big anchorage and it's just incredibly quite. Tomorrow we'll go hiking and maybe try to find some more red feathers but then it's off to Medregal for a few days before slowly returning to Puerto La Cruz.