Life got even better as we had El Oculto all to ourselves. The weather not too hot during the day, humidity was down, the sunsets spectacular and the evening filled with a cool breeze so cool we needed a blanket to keep us warm in bed. The snorkeling again was incredible. A rare treat was to see a sea snake, many moray eels, baby trigger fish and a couple of octopus.

We think Tika had the best time of all chasing all the birds:

"YUMMY, dinner!!!!"

"I SWEAAAAR I didn't eat it, look!!!!"

After three days in this bliss bad weather was predicted as another tropical wave was underway and so we decided it was time to head back Marina Maremares where we are well protected from eventual storms. Just as we left the anchorage the already dark sky started opening up and a very heavy gust of wind let us know that the waves was already upon us. Luckily we had the main already double reefed but decided it was safer to lower the main and just sail with the jib, which we did. We didn’t get any other strong gusts but learned later that Cumana just about 20 miles east from us got hit with damaging winds. We sailed at 6 knots while rain was pounding on our dodger and a cold breeze chilled us. I called Maremares to let them know we were underway, but our slip was still occupied for another three days, bummer. We dropped the hook in El Farro which is by far the prettiest anchorage on any of the Puerto La Cruz Islands. The drawback is that every day around 10am one boat after another unloads tourists for the day and on weekends all the locals bring their power boats over and turn this quite place into a zoo. Every boat has their stereo on full blast you can’t tell who has the loudest music; that might not be too bad if they were on the same station. The nice thing is at 3 all the tourists are heading back to the mainland and around 5 the power boaters are heading home as well and we have the place all to ourselves again. Since it wasn’t a weekend only one other powerboat was anchored for the night. It was nice and quite although a swell rolled us a bit around, but we enjoyed the cool breeze as the wave had passed. In the middle of my sweetest dream I heard voices screaming. I jumped out of bed, my heart was pounding and I ran on deck, it sounded like there was some kind of disaster out there. I ran into the cockpit and saw an about a 50 foot power boat dropping anchor about 40 feet behind us with at least 30 people onboard, partying and the music full blast and that at 00:30 in the morning, I wanted to shoot them. They stayed about one hour before they thank goodness disappeared again. On the second day a flock of pelicans dashed into the water next to our boat and scooped up bills full of anchovies. One pelican had his bill so full his head was pulled underwater every time he attempted to fly off. Each time dozens of anchovies managed to escape out of his bill while others gobbled them up immediately. It was too funny to watch this guy as he over and over tried to lift off. The bill was so heavy he could not lift it out of the water, not even an inch. You should have seen how big his bill was it was enormous where is the camera when you need it?! Where there are anchovies there are bigger predators and Sid pulled his good fishing pole out. One cast and he landed a nice bonita, another cast a second good tasting bonita. He cast eight times and we had a wonderful dinner consisting of a wonderful appetizer of bonita sashimi, bonita poki (Hawaiian) and bonita tartar (yummy) and seared bonita. Unfortunately we also hooked a pelican, reeled him gently towards the dinghy, threw a towel over his head and bill, while I was holding on to his bill Sid took the hook out of his belly and as he was set free he sat numb for a few minutes while starring at us, then wiggled his butt feathers and happily swam away. We hoped the next day that the anchovies would come by again but no such luck.

Carlos the guide that took us to the islands on the tour boat we rented whenever we have visitors came by and brought us the freshest mangoes from his garden and a present. Last time we did a tour with him I found a stone that looked like a sailboat. He took it home and made us a present. He mounted the stone onto a piece of wood surrounded it with shells and also brought us a doily his mother had made, what a super nice guy.

Since the weekend was approaching and we definitely didn’t want to be in this anchorage for that so we pulled anchor and headed towards Maremares planning to anchor out until our slip was open. There was no need to anchor out as Jean had a slip for us right between the two nicest, biggest and most expensive mega yachts in the marina, remember my Christmas present a tour on Rompemar a 6 million dollar mega yacht? Paradise after her face lift feels pretty special to have the privileged to be placed next to the big bucks boats, well at least until our slip opened. We’re back in our slip and are enjoying once more the beautiful facility of the Maremares Hotel with its incredible pool, the many wonderful restaurants within just walking distance, the company of our old friends at the marina, sitting under the tree of knowledge every evening sipping on a cocktail and exchanging stories and indulging on the wonderful meals at our Sunday potlucks. There is no better place to be than here during hurricane season, it feels like home.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeees!!!!

What is it do we look like a honey comb???!!! We had a storm cloud building up on the other side of the bay and the boats started to turn into the wind of this thunderstorm. We enjoyed the cool breeze while reading our books. Once in a while I would glance over the side to see what the storm cloud was up to and with horror I noticed hundreds of bees buzzing right next to the boat. That made me jump: "Siiiiiid we have a huge problem!" sure enough behind our boat were many more bees, all trying to
land on the fast spinning wind generator. "Sh…..t, *&^%$...., oh nooooo…..!!!!" We both grabbed a can of insect spray and started spraying. The wind was blowing too much and the spray only reached the bees on our level. The wind generator is about 9 feet higher then the cockpit and the spray was ineffective. The wind generator had chopped up about 500 and sprayed them all over the solar panels (we were thinking about Beesburgers for dinner). What now? Sid ran to the foredeck and got the hose and
hooked it up to the saltwater outlet in the cockpit and started to spray the invaders with salt water. You should have seen the trail of swimming bees behind us. But the spray still didn't reach all the way up to them due to the wind. I guess at this point we had half of them in the water. There was only one thing to do abandon the anchorage and head out as fast as Paradise can do into the wind. While pulling up the anchor I noticed our French neighbors running around their boat with fly swatters,
kind of funny and made us giggle, I wonder how we looked running up and down the boat. We did get the attention from all the other boats as they stood on deck watching us flee. We hurried out into the bay, straight into the wind and these buggers kept following. Sid was still spraying water at them. We must have gone almost 2 miles before we could count less then a dozen and slowly turned back to the anchorage. We decided to anchor on the west side this time but then we noticed the Swedish boat spraying
his wind generator which had quite a few bees stuck to it, so back towards our original spot and they came back. Out to sea again and they left, so we finally anchored outside of all the other boats and maybe had another 10 bees which luckily flew right into the insect spray.
We got back just on time to take a shower and get ready for our guests Kylie and Mike on Meggie. We settled down with a beer and told them our other bee adventures we had in Puerto La Cruz. WHY US??!!! Sid said that if we have one more invasion he is going to paint the boat blue!

There are numerous Swedish boats in the anchorage and they are talking on the VHF hailing channel all the time, I mean all the time. The rule is when you call someone you switch channels so that the others don't have to listen. Well, they don't, which wouldn't be so bad if they would speak English so that we at least could lurk into the conversation. So we get annoyed and turn off the radio. Don't really like to do that, especially at night as it is a bit of security for boaters could alert each
other of any dangers. So the radio was off and just before 3 am I heard our Swedish neighbor's dog bark like crazy. "What's the ruckus?" I hollered at Sid in the cockpit, he replied: "you better get out here". I got dressed in a hurry and as I got into the cockpit I saw flames. Ohmygosh, a boat was on fire. Sid said that he was woken up by the dog and some flares and many voices were screaming. To me it looked like a sailboat was on fire, but Sid pointed out that it was a fishing boat behind the
sailboat that was on fire. We turned the VHF on and sure enough a lot of frantic Swedish was exchanged, so we lowered the motor onto the dinghy, grabbed a flashlight and hand held and headed towards the boat on fire to see if anybody needed help. Sid explained that he saw four fishermen splashing water onto the fire then jumped into the water. On the way over there we ran into two Swedish dinghies one in tow. They told us that the guys in the burning panga had stolen two dinghies. They had retrieved
one and he was showing us the cut rope and where they had cut the chain. Then he went: "wait a minute" and pulled a big object of the dinghy floor it was the bolt cutter the thieves had used and left behind. The fires attracted all the local fisherman either fishing in this area or coming here from their homes. They all were pissed when they heard that these guys had stolen two dinghies. They've been having some problems here lately as the thieves don't just target us cruisers they steel the engines
especially from the fishermen trying to make a living. We went back to the boat to get the camera to take a photo of the registration numbers on the boat and name before it sank. Early in the morning Sid saw two policemen on the dock where the carcass of the burned out boat was. Later we found out that they had caught the four guys, one was badly burned on his arm. Of course stories started flying about what happened and we were amazed how fast rumors start. I talked to the security guard of Medregal.
He caught one of the guys on the beach and roughed him up a little, which he was very proud of then he called the police. He said that three of the guys were arrested after being caught by the villagers and the fourth one later. They were from Cumana and had been victimizing this area for a year now. He also said that the fishermen in the village roughed the guys up pretty bad to teach them a lesson. It's great to know that the panga of the thieves burned down, we just hope it was theirs and not
a stolen one. Unfortunately dinghy theft is everywhere even in the States and cruisers are warned to haul the dinghies up at night. Still some cruisers ignore the fact and leave them behind their boats although chained to the boat but that does not help.
It's a shame that this happened here at Medregal as they never had a problem here before, just good this had a happy ending and the bad guys lost their boat and are in jail.

During summer time right around end of July the Golfo can develop westerly winds which usually occurred around 1 o'clock for a few hours, by four it's usually out of the east again. It depends on how strong they blow in how rough it gets, but in any case the anchorage gets uncomfortable with 3 to 5 foot swells rolling through the fleet resulting the boats to hobbyhorse around. This year the westerlies have started early, every afternoon the wind shifted. On two of those days ominous thunderclouds
started building up from the east due to another tropical wave. As ominous as they looked we saw it as a blessing as they suck the air right out of the west killing the wind and flattening the sea. Then the question was how much wind would be involved in the thunderstorm but the rain is always a welcome sight and you can find Sid on deck scrubbing everything down, including himself.
In the mean time the first Atlantic hurricane of the year "Bertha" has formed and is luckily in an area where she should miss the Caribbean islands. Hope the Bermuda Island will be as lucky. We're glad we are in a safe area and definitely out of the hurricane belt and all we have to deal with are tropical waves and perhaps a tail of a hurricane.
We got tired of the westerly winds so we pulled anchor and sailed the 8 miles into the Laguna de Cariaco. We were the only boat in the Lagoon, the water was as flat as a mirror and the only thing we could here were pelicans splashing into water, catching fish and occasionally leaping mullets jump out of the water. As the sun lowered towards the horizon hundreds of parrots filled the air with their loud squawking and settled in the near by mangroves. Then the scarlet ibis returned. We sat on deck
with camera and binocular and of course a cocktail and watched how these incredible birds lit up the sky in fiery red. They settled and after a few minutes it was quite except for the pelicans and fish. What a peaceful place. I prepared us a wonderful dinner (rack of lamb, lemon herbed rice and salad), played some cards and ended the day with watching the stars.
After a peaceful good night sleep Sid scrubbed the mud off the chain and anchor as we lifted it and headed along the Golfo towards El Oculto. It was a very delightful day and flew the spinnaker until we passed Cumana. The highlight again was dolphins accompanying us for at least two hours. They were really lively this time, many jumped completely out of the water right next to the boat, it was awesome. What I really enjoy is watching them play with the bow and them looking right into my eyes and
when you hear them talk to each other you just want to jump in the water, cuddle them and play with them.
Just as we reached the entrance to the Golfo the wind shut down and down came the shoot and the iron jib carried us the rest of the way to El Oculto where we are the only boat in the pretty anchorage just in time to cover up for a rain shower and a sundowner Ah, life is good.

Medregal Village

I don't think there is a more peaceful place than Laguna Grande, it gets so quite you can hear ants walk around. Yes, aunts as we accumulated quite a few of these nasty little pests. We're not the only ones having them; it seems every boat we've gone aboard over the last year has them. They definitely got on board Paradise in Puerto La Cruz, to numerous times we've seen them crawl up the dock lines. First it seemed we had two types of pests on board, one a tiny sugar aunt the other looked like some kind of mite until I trapped on under the magnifying glass and compared it with photos of ants and discovered the mite and ant was the same and no other than the Ghost Ant. That was somewhat a relief as we were afraid that they could be wood eating ants or mites. They are tiny small and have a white almost see through butt, so when they walk on a dark surface they look like mites and when they walk on a light colored surface like an aunt. On deck we have another type aunt that is double the size and has a read and black body, they are cruising along the deck and cockpit and are seldom seen inside. Are they part of the other ants? Not sure. Where do ghost ants live? They can hide in pretty much anything, cloths, linens, computers, toasters, paper towel or toilette paper rolls, you name it. We tried to track them even left treats out for them just to get frustrated as they crawl along ledges and then disappearing into a hole or crack somewhere on the boat which we cannot trace any further.
Sid was cleaning the deck and moved the bumpers out of the way when he realized something was wrong with them then he saw the nests. Two nests, one in each bumper and sprayed them of course with ant killer. It seems that keeping after them the ghost ants disappeared as well only an occasional one wonders lonely around. It finally seems after one year of battle we are winning. Well, lets hope we are.
Two other boats where here already, one from Nice and the other from Spain "Heritage" with Jordi and Christina we met in Porlamar and again Coche. In Coche we had them over for dinner and Jordi threatened us with an invitation for Paella on Heritage. While here in Laguna Grande they met the local fishermen and they took them fishing inside the bay by laying a big net. What they brought out of the water was more than just fish, so we had the most wonderful paella with shrimp. For dessert Jordi made us one of the best Margaritas we have ever had. Unfortunately they had to leave the following day and two days later we were the only boat in the anchorage. It was just wonderful. Knowing that there is shrimp in the bay we of course took our net out and went shrimping. Many hours and sore arms and shoulders later we hauled 5 big shrimp home and believe it or not but it was enough to make a wonderful lunch to fill our tummies.
The same day we had a little green visitor on board. No worries the Martians are not here yet! It was a baby iguana that must have swam out here climbed the anchor, he was a pretty tough guy as he didn't even mind us getting close to him, he wasn't even afraid of the camera lens that extended almost out to him, instead he just smiled into the camera. He walked around not minding us at all and eventually after about one hour did a swan dive into the water and swam back to the close mangroves.
Fredi the son of a local fisherman comes by every time we anchor here asking for a dive mask and food. I couldn't give him a mask but we did have some food and coffee for him to take home. Maybe next time we come back to Laguana Grande we can bring a care package.
We enjoyed the calm and quite here, we did have another wave come over us bringing us just little wind and rain and the nights were just filled with twinkling stars, phosphorescence in the water and dancing fireflies ashore. After 6 days in this bliss we reluctantly lifted anchor and headed for Medregal Village. The wind was calm and the air was so clear that we could see all the mountain ranges on the mainland and both ends of the Golfo de Cariaco.
The dolphins didn't miss joining us an hour or so playing with the bow and letting the wake push them along side the boat.
We were amazed to just find 8 boats anchored in front of Medregal but the yard that only three months ago had 6 boats in storage had now 30 boats hauled out and one was just being brought out. Wow, great to see that Jean Marc is getting busy. Later we found out that he actually ran out of stands to support the boats and is in the process of having more made. Another wave came over us and spectacular rain shower started on the mainland and slowly inching its way towards us. It rained long and hard and the air cooled down to almost where we wanted to put on a jacket. After the rain it was so crystal clear you could see every crevasse on every hill. The sunset was spectacular, the left over clouds turned a golden red which was reflected in the water. It doesn't get any better than this.