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.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment