April 1.

The good news is Manuela’s nose is still attached and hasn’t fallen off yet, but it’s still as crooked as ever. Steve and Marsha are long home again and so are Shanna and Roman. We had so much fun with all of them and for us it was a welcome break from all the boat work. We kept our guests really busy, Steve and Marsha mainly testing all the Rums Venezuela has to offer, I think they are now on a liver cure. They all came for just a week, which really isn’t enough time but we did the best. We took them all to the El Morro Hotel where they have the best pizza ever and had a lot of fun with Karaoke, with Steve and Marsh we left early because the place was too smoky and too crowded. When Shanna and Roman were here I was ill that day and Sid took them. (Sid was sick for three days when Steve and Marsha were here). They had so much fun and sang Karaoke till 3 am. Even Sid sang some songs, poor crowd.

Each Thursday Jim drove us to Los Altos, which is up in the mountains about one hour east of Puerto La Cruz with the most spectacular view over all the islands and on a very clear day you can even see Isla Margarita. Each time we enjoyed a wonderful fish lunch on the beach, toes digging in the sand. The second trip we were lucky to find banana flowers, Tamarind and even a Cashew tree.

Both Fridays we took our guests on a fun boat ride to the Mochima National Forrest Islands filled with Cuba Libres, swimming, snorkeling and fun. Both times we had the same boat captain and mate and the second time they treated us to a special tour on the El Farro Island to see the fossil cemetery. One of the sights is a cave which the boat actually drives into, it’s pretty neat, the wall is very steep and flat and swallows nest in it. It was high tide and the driver was able to get way back into the cave and I happen to see light shining through the top of the cave in two small wholes. When I told our guide about it, he got goose bumps when he saw it and he told me he had been going here for 15 years and never saw that. He named them Las Velas de Manuela (The candles of Manuela) as they look like two burning candles.

Our guests also had to learn to play Mississippi Marbles and are hooked on that game now. It’s really a fun dice game we play every Thursday evening under the Tree of Knowledge. Sunday nights of course they enjoyed our fun BBQ potluck.

One afternoon relaxing on the balcony Marsha and Steve watched a cloud fly towards the house. Marsha though it was a swarm of moths and didn’t think anything about it. About five minutes later Gerry came running upstairs saying: “Manuela you have a serious problem with Paradise”, since we just replaced the shaft I was sure the boat was sinking and ran downstairs when I noticed a swarm of bees circling the companion way. There was no way to get on the boat so I observed the intruders from Gymnopedies. I couldn’t believe what I saw the whole companion way was covered with bees. They were not settled yet so there was nothing we could do at the moment other than get the camera to get a prime shot. By the time I returned with the camera most of the bees were inside already and some of the companion way was uncovered. Poor Sid was sick in bed and of course got up when I told him the bad news. We both put our black fly suits on and Sid got the fogger ready to kill the intruders. Of course when you really need it, it doesn’t work. Terry gave us some good stuff and Sid braved his way onto the boat to terminate the bees, while I watched form the balcony ready to jump into action if needed, from the second floor of course. He started spraying them and they now were flying wildly around him, glad I was watching from a distance. He finally found a huge bee he thought was the queen and tossed it in the water, that should get read of them right. Nope, the next day the whole inside was still covered. Sid fixed the fogger and went inside. He couldn’t believe what he saw when he stepped below; the whole middle hatch was covered with bees with yet the real queen. In all it took him four days to get read of the bees. You should have seen the inside, bees everywhere there was not one inch not covered with a dead bee. Now imagine being in an anchorage by yourself just coming back from a fun snorkeling or fishing and you find your boat taken over by bees, what do you do??? We were pretty lucky too; they were just honey bees and not the ferocious killer bees.

In the mean time Gerry and Terry have moved back onto their boat and are cruising again and currently in Trinidad. The day our last guests left we went right back to work, Sid on the boat and me inside the house sewing up a storm. It’s nice to have the house to ourselves, it was fun having roommates but nothing beats being by ourselves. Life goes on in Venezuela and we enjoy it as much as on our first day here and actually hope to be so lucky to have more friends for a visit while we still have the house.

Now politics, I finally saw one store with a whole wall full of sugar and a line out the door. Can’t find any chicken or tender beef other than meat for stews or ground beef, El Presidente put such a cap on the price that nobody wants to sell it under cost. I guess you can bribe the butcher to sell it if you know him well enough.

A couple of weeks ago the taxi driver who drove me to school was nearly in tears when he told me that El Presidente closed all the Casinos down because Fidel does not like gambling. He then said that he voted for El Presidente but that he hates him now and does not want him to be his president anymore he is not giving them what he promised. I couldn’t believe how upset this poor man was.

This weekend starts Semana Santa and lasts 10 days a huge holiday here in Venezuela. Most businesses will be closed for the holiday and yet another blow from El Presidente, yesterday, Friday, he announced that there is a ban on selling and drinking liquor on all the Semana Santa days from 5 PM till 6 AM. Poor restaurants, what are they going to do. Guess we’re not going to Karaoke either next Wednesday, the bar can’t just sell water and sodas.

I wathed TV the other day and found House, of course in Spanish and wathed it when the series was interrupted by a El Presidente biography whih lasted for 25 minutes. Every single TV channel had his biography on. With Radio the same, several times a day all channels get interrupted with a El Presidente speech.

March 12.

Well, the shaft was bent badly and so we had to have a new one made, which happened amazingly fast. The mechanic had it reproduced within two days for under $350 including the coupling which broke when Sid tried to get it out. The yard called a specialist in to align the shaft. That took a while, he didn’t want to come thinking he wouldn’t make any money on a small boat. He works on giant ships, but Victor managed to talk him into coming. He was working for about 3 hours and charged us 65 bucks. Then we noticed that the stuffing box was missing. Someone in the yard took it. Once again we couldn’t splash, had to somehow get a new stuffing box. It took Sid three days to find out there was none here in Venezuela. Just as he was sitting on the computer starting to order one, Victor called and told us the Mechanic was in the yard with a stuffing box that might fit. I don’t think we ever raced faster to the yard. It fit and the mechanic was happy that he could help and we were happy to pay him 38 bucks for it. The bottom then was painted and Paradise was splashed yesterday and is happily floating in front of the house looking just beautiful.

By the way when you need some work done on the boat whether it is the mechanic, canvas guy, diver, painter, carpenter, you name it, if he tells you he’ll be there at 9 you have to ask him which day and which 9 am or pm or you will wait forever and still they will not show up till days later. Nobody ever shows up on time. As a matter of fact the first month we were here we had a dinghy cover made by Orient Canvas, it took a whole month to get it, even though he told us four days. But still to this day we haven’t paid for it. Yet we run into him daily reminding him to bring us the bill, nope haven’t paid for it yet. But as soon as you go into town like the mechanic that made the new shaft they get it done right away. Also had the wickers in our cabinets replaced, it took three days for that including carving grooves into back to fasten the wicker.

Last Thursday was not my lucky day. Our roommate was telling me that she finished sewing her cockpit cushions, motioning towards the balcony and walking towards it. I was so excited for her and of course wanted to see the cushions and followed her. She opened the sliding door and I attempted to walk out to the balcony when I bounced right of the window. What happened??? You have to know we have two huge glass sliding doors and one was all the way opened and doubled up with the other. What I thought I saw was her opening the door but was actually closing the open door. Even Sid and Gerry thought she was opening the door. I (Manuela) shattered my nose. The next day’s X-rays showed three broken parts and when the plastic surgeon saw how crooked the nose was she told me she had to break it some more to get it back into shape. Two options under anesthetic in hospital or right there in the office. So I told her to go for it right there. She gave me two pills to swallow, (I want to know what they are) and sent me back to the waiting room ordering me not to walk around just to sit there until they come and get me in twenty minutes. Jim who drove me to the hospital and the doctor were waiting out there for me. Not even three minutes later I told him that it was feeling funny and that I saw everything double, he grabbed me and leaned me on his shoulder and I was out cold. I woke up getting lifted onto my feet and with wobbly legs half walking half being dragged back into the doctor’s office. With several injections, very painful by the way, she numbed the area around my nose and told me to trust her. That didn’t sound good but I had no choice, she then wedged my head between her arm and body and started to break my nose over and over again. I think a total of five times while my legs kicked wildly into the air. The pain was excruciating but I heard her say that my nose wasn’t just broken on three parts it was shattered. Well I now have a cute white cast over my nose for seven days and it hasn’t hurt a bit, so far. My brother was teasing me because as a kid I never liked my nose and told me that this definitely was the wrong method to change the shape. I totally agree. Next Wednesday we’re going for Pizza and Karaoke night again, guess I will have to sing some French songs.

Other than that life in Venezuela is great, we’re still in the house and will be a bit longer as Paradise is getting a new varnish job inside out. Lockers will get painted with anti mildew paint. Sid will also paint the foredeck himself as they wanted way too much money for that. Manuela has been busy sewing. All the zippers on dodger are replaced. New covers made for various things on deck. Yesterday the new sun-awning was finished. Next project will be new shade for hull along refrigeration area, new cockpit cushions and new interior and so much more.

Yeah, we finally are having some friends come and visit. Our cruising buddies from the Seas Cortez Steve and Marsha on Spirit are flying out from San Francisco area and will be here for a week. Poor guys I hope they have room for some of their cloths as their suit cases are full of stuff for us. The day they leave we have our next guests Shanna and Roman arriving for also one week. So we will get a chance to relax between all the boat work, Sid is really in need of that as his sore shoulder hasn’t had a chance to heal. And they say cruising is fun LOL.

Now to Politics: El Presidentethreatens to arrest anybody who is charging more than he allows. Result, the affected people can’t afford to buy supply they then have to sell under cost, so beef, pork, poultry, milk and other things are hard to come by now days. Only the toughest cuts of meat are to be found. There is still no sugar, maybe every two months a small ration will be placed on the shelves which will be gone within minutes. Last week the public market’s meat section was shut down for three days because of charging too much. Rumor has it that they want to shut down the whole market completely, which is the income of too many poor Venezuelans and too many can only afford to shop there.

Also we had no water in four counties for the last three days, reason they had to do some work on a major water line. We have a big water tank on the roof which should give us enough water for a week. We hardly used it and yesterday the second day the tank was already below half and this morning barley anything was in it, we have a huge leak but have no idea where. Well the water came back for some 20 minutes, enough time to fill the tank before it shut off again. But we’re used to the drill as the water goes off at least three times a week.

February 20. Boat Yard

As you see we're still alive!!! Sorry for not updating our Blogg for sooooo long.

Wow, are we on a schedule or what, I don’t know where to begin in filling you in what’s been going on since my last entry.

Schedule:

Sunday: potluck at Maremares

Monday: late afternoon Manuela teaches English in a private school

Tuesday: Tivi our maid is here so one of us has to stay home, usually Manuela

Wednesday: late afternoon English classes again

Thursday: Mississippi Marble Night (a fun dice game)

Friday: Tivi is here again

Saturday: 9 am private English class with a parent

In-between Sid is mostly all day long in the yard working on the boat or working on projects at home. He polished some of our stainless steel. No polisher?!! Well, this one works just fine!

Manuela has lots of sewing projects and when we relax with a cocktail in the evening we wonder how we ever fit work into our busy schedule. (The last project she needed plenty of help).

The English teaching is really fun although the 4 to 8 year olds are little monsters and hard to control, their attention span is about as long as I can say a sentence.

I teach ten 4 to 8 year olds one hour each of the two days and 1 ½ hours to six 11 year old girls or shall I say teenagers, a challenge in itself? The school now is trying to talk me into doing an adult class, no way Jose, after the little monsters I’m pooped. But one of the parents is taking private lessons on Saturday.

The yard work is coming along slowly but great. Paradise is finished with her new paint job and looks just incredible. The brown is a lot lighter than before but it’s a beautiful mocha color we love better. The rudder still needs to be painted and the bottom is next. While painting the rudder they dropped it and so they had to fix some cosmetic dents, but no harm done, just a bit of a delay that’s all. Sid also was able to bend the strut back to almost where it should be but has to replace the cutles bearing, we hoped the shaft was not bent, but when we ran the engine and ran it in gear the noise was just gut wrenching and told us that we need a new shaft. We then pulled the shaft out and yep it looked pretty bad. As Sid tried to get the coupling out it broke so he had to cut the shaft to get it out. Now we really need a new shaft, a new coupling and a new bearing. The shaft is 30 years old and badly worn anyway. At least we're at the right place to get it fixed. Cruising is finding tropical places to work on your boat.

The guys at the yard are working very hard and are doing a great job. Unfortunately this is the windy season and so they had to postpone the painting on some days. The wind blew so hard that each time they had to re-tape the paper as the wind shredded it. It was really interesting to see the stages of the painting process, especially seeing the boat in snow white.

We’re not just working our butts off, a few weeks back we took a break and drove to Colonia Tovar with some friends (Dale and Sandy “Snow White”, Jim “Three Keys” and Chris and Luima). We had a wonderful time. Colonia Tovar is a German settlement and when you first see it you think you just landed somewhere in the mountains in Germany or even Switzerland until you hear the Spanish. It’s nestled in a valley high up the mountains some 2 hours West of Caracas, the most beautiful little town with little Chalets. I felt right at home. We staid at the Bergland Hotel with cozy rooms and big balconies with the most incredible view over the whole village and valley. The most incredible thing was to see all the hummingbirds (cklick on photos to see bigger) in the most beautiful colors. The hotel kitchen was so wonderful we never ate anywhere else for dinner. You should have seen the pork shanks we devoured, it was a feast. The second night all of us ordered New York steaks, the best we’ve ever had. Shopping was fun too especially to visit the butcher stores and we all loaded up on all kind of yummy German sausages.

The drive to get there was quite challenging at times as we decided to bypass Caracas and took back roads. At certain places it was completely washed out, but luckily our two cars were four wheel drive and no big deal to plow through the muddy muck.

We’re still living in the house and in the mean time all our marina buddies have left cruising again, the marina seems deserted and we feel left behind, not a good feeling. Three Keys, Bird of Paradise, Brazil Nut and White Tiger are the only boats left and of course us. We will be in the house another 2 months as we still have a lot of work to do on the boat, varnish inside and out and other odds and ends. Then who knows, we may just stay or go island hopping for a little bit.

I still haven’t gotten used to having a maid, but it sure is nice to have one. We realized that we really don’t need her twice a week, but for 15 bucks a day it makes us fell good to give her a job. She’s not all too well educated and still after two months I cannot understand her Spanish. She’s so funny though, whenever she cleans the kitchen and finds a ¼ full bottle of coke, she shakes it madly and asks me: “is this coke still OK?” while still shaking it waiting for my answer, to which I started to answer: “Not anymore”.

We also had our Iranian friends over for dinner. They have been living in Maremares for months and the ladies miss cooking, so I told them that my kitchen was their kitchen. They cooked up the most incredible meal, it was wonderful. They can use my kitchen ANY time.

In the last couple of months a lot of businesses have been shut down for a couple of days, due to not paying taxes. Our hotel along with the grocery stores and restaurants we visit all were closed at the same time. It seemed that every good restaurant or store in town was shut down at the same time. The Bolivares in the meantime went from 3300 to 4500, good for us but unfortunately not for the poor people here, they can barley get by as it is. The Government has taken over so many businesses. Ernesto my Saturday student, the father of one of the little monsters has worked for a company for the last 12 years, now being taken over by the government as of May 1^st. He didn’t vote for El Presidente and therefore he knows he will be fired. Every person that didn’t vote for El Presidente will loose their job. We’ve met so many Venezuelan’s that lost their jobs due to that.

Oh by the way at one of the potlucks the kids had some fun with Sid.