Christmas Spirit

Even though Venezuelans start decorating their homes for Christmas already in October, the Christmas spirit for us is slowly setting in as it’s still a little unusual , especially for me ,to see decorated palm trees and the tropical weather just does not remind me of Christmas. It’ll get more Christmassy when I start baking traditional Swiss Christmas cookies this week. The marina crew has been wonderful to us and are doing everything to make as feel at home and in the meantime became good friends of ours. As a thank you we took them out for a Christmas dinner at our favorite Chinese Restaurant. You probably wonder why Chinese for Xmas right? All the locals that we know here go only to Steakhouses and so we thought Chinese would be different. We had hats made with our Paradise logo which was our Christmas present for them including a bottle of wine for the girls and rum for the boys. I think Adrian has never had Chinese food before as his face was right in the plate and he still is raving about the dinner. We sure had fun and quality time with them and we will invite them more often for dinners.

Looks like the marina is coming back to life, “T’Zaddi” John and Gerry came back and a new boat arrived “Dock Queen” with Bill and Debby on board. Plus Chris and Luima are back from the States so instead of just four people at the potluck we were a happy family again, just Jim and Jenny were missing.

Most boats have left for the Golfo de Cariaco, the Christmas winds as they call them blow strong from November on and make it unpleasant for cruisers. Except for those staying behind in marinas like us, we sit out on deck with a cocktail and enjoy the cool evening breeze waiting for January to come so we can start the cabin sole project. Most of the country on vacation 15^th of Dec to about Jan 7^th, not bad.

Life is good again

There were tense moments on Sunday December 2^nd and frankly we thought that the ”SI” vote would go through. The lines were long and we heard that some poling stations had some problems which slowed down the voting process. The poling stations were open from 7 am till 4 pm and fear was that not everybody was able to vote. Everybody that voted had to dip the little finger in ink, so that they could not vote again, still today you can see people with a purple little finger. At two AM at night the phone rang, it was Denny telling us that the result was out, I couldn’t believe my ears “NO” won. There were fire woks everywhere, people were celebrating in the streets all night long, it was great. You have no idea what a relive that was and you could clearly see it the next day and still now, no matter where you go the atmosphere has changed for the better. People were relaxed, smiling and more than not talking about it and even MFing El Presidente. The Bolivares went down by 1000 points in just two days and still is going down; people are not as desperate anymore to get their money out of the country, they see a future now. Best yet is he cannot bring this up for another vote and that is stated in the constitution. He’ll find other ways to make life miserable for his people but at least the worst pressure is over. We are very happy for all of them and also for us, as this means that El Presidente is not going to be able to turn this country into another Cuba and we will not have to leave this country due to unrest. Although it’s not over yet he still has another 7 years to be king. El Presidente must be really pissed and wants his folks now to have a shitty life I think, as he pulled the toilette paper off the shelf, this is now another item we will have to stand hours in line for. Out of all things toilette paper, amazing, I wonder what he’ll pull off the market next. In the news they just announced that El Presidente allows the sell of long shelf life milk but for a higher price, I guess he realized that his people do not believe him that milk is not THAT important for the kids. We also heard that the 51% win is not the true number, he didn’t want to loose by a big number so they made it 51% to 49% which means to him that he barely lost, poor looser. Anzoategui, the state we live in had the most NO votes in all the country, the governor was so pleased that he through a party last Saturday night for the whole state on the beach nearby, what a great guy. Just one year ago he was still on El Presidente's side then he realized that was not the way to go. The biggest joke is that El Presidente wants to lead his people forward or that’s what he keeps telling them, funny that he would turn the clock ½ hour backwards, what’s up with that, we call it Ego-Time and that’s all it is.

Last Sunday Thelma (Lady Alice), Linda (Dreamtime) and me hired Jean the dock assistant to drive us to El Morro with the most beautiful view over the whole basin of Pueto La Cruz with all the mountains in the background and we were lucky it was a super clear day to see it all. Then the trip took us to Los Altos with yet the most spectacular view over all the islands outside the PLC basin and ended the trip with a wonderful fish lunch on the beach digging our toes into the warm sand and watching the swells wash ashore.

Yesterday, Monday, Doc Dib told Sid that he has a lot of arthritis in both his shoulders and also tendonitis, so he started therapy today and if this is not helping the doc will smoothen out his joints with surgery. We’ll get him fixed one way or the other. In the meantime Paradise, Three Keys and the Tree of Knowledge are decorated for the upcoming holidays. The marina is still empty but hey we’ll still enjoy Christmas with a lot of people or alone.

I bet you have never seen a cat getting a pedicure? Well, it's not really that, poor Tika keeps getting infected nails so we treat it with soaking her paws in warm camomile water, poor thing. She doesn't like it but she tolerates the soaking for 20 minutes.

I’m still the report from out trip to Angle Falls, Gran Sabana and the photo album, will post them as possible.

Election Day

Sunday December 2, 2007 a day that will go down in Venezuela's history either way the election will turn. It's been an interesting year to see how the current president is running down his country. Little by little he starts to control everything. It started with not being able to find sugar in the stores. Still to this day there is no sugar, although I managed to get three kilos a few weeks back, great I thought I will bake Xmas cookies this year, but then I couldn't find flour, that is taken off the shelves as well, I finally found some a few days ago in the most expensive store in Puerto La Cruz the locals don't shop. After the sugar beef and chicken was a problem, then butter, then cooking oil and even salt. And now the major thing we cannot find is milk, fresh milk, every once in a while one of the stores will bring powdered milk in and turning the store into a chaos as everybody in town wants to get some, sometimes involving the police. You are limited to two boxes per person. The lines are incredible just for milk. The worst is the Government is trying to convince the people that milk is not that important for children so don't worry if you can't find it in stores. Today's vote will determine whether El Presidente will be able to stay in office indefinitely also have complete control of the people of the country. The pool shows that the majority wants a NO, students all over the country have been demonstrating against El Presidente to keep their freedom of speech and freedom period, but his followers are sent in to disrupt the peaceful demonstrations even some military groups on bikes with guns. All the stores are sold out of most, especially toilette paper and papers towels out of all things, as they are worried what will happen. It's not just a vote that will determine the faith of the poor folks here but also the faith of us visiting tourists. What a beautiful country this is and what a shame to see it loose all it has to offer to be turned into another Cuba. We doubt that he'll succeed but this country will probably face a lot of unnecessary turmoil. It's bad enough that it is a Latin American country and corruption controls most things, but the people that have made a good life for themselves are probably going to loose that if he wins. We're still having a good time here, even though it hurts to see what these people are having to face.

In the mean time we've been to Angel Falls and Gran Sabana, but you will have to wait on this report as I'm still working on it. It was an incredible adventure and the scenery was just absolutely breathtaking everywhere we went.

A couple of weeks back we were invited to Arnaldo's daughter Francesca's 15^throom, but instead a beautiful dressed princess (in a type wedding gown) is brought to her father. In front of the princess were two "not" ring bearers but "shoe" bearers carry a nicely decorated pillow with a glittering shoe on it and lead her to dad. In front of dad is a dressed up chair the princess will sit in, he then places the shoe on her foot which symbolically puts the girl on the market to be married. Then he starts a dance with her where one bachelor after another will take a turn. Poor Francesca had to dance 4 songs. Then the party started. It was quite elaborate, champagne and whiskey was placed on the tables, a steel band showed up a couple of hours later followed by a mariachi band, where dad sang a song for his daughter. It's a Spanish song saying "Isn't my daughter beautiful". We had a wonderful time and danced until 4 in the morning (there are no parties that stop before 4 AM here). You should have seen how they dance here, it's amazing, they wiggle they're butts and bodies like they are made out of rubber, we couldn't get enough watching them, no matter how young or old the person was they still have the same moves.

Maremares Marina is pretty quite, there are only 3 boats here, Three Keys, we're still boat sitting, White Tiger, Ottifant. So our usually busy potlucks are usually only White Tiger and us, the four of us.

Remember the tiles my friend Gabriela painted for us, Sid put them in the head (bathroom) and it looks just beautiful. It was hard work as he had to custom fit lots of tiles and he managed to only break one tile, not bad. He did a great job. I've been busy sewing again, made new mosquito netting for the cockpit and a sun awning for the foredeck.

So life is good, we're keeping busy while meeting more and more wonderful Venezuelans. The Christmas spirit has set in early as all the stores and private homes have been decorated since begin of November already. I just pulled my Christmas stuff out and will decorate Paradise in the next couple of days.

Sid finally had X-rays and MRI's taken on his shoulder and next week we'll find out what the problem is as he cannot lift his arm over his head. Imagine the cost of the X-ray was US$ 18 and the MRI US$ 68. A couple of weeks back I had my tests done, mammogram, bone density test, all the blood tests you can get and more, total cost just slightly under US$ 80. Since it is so reasonable here and I'm going to turn 50 in three years I thought I go ahead and have my colonoscopy done here as well, so think of me next Tuesday LOL US 72. I also lost a filling in my tooth, I found a wonderful dentist that picks patience up and drives them home. He refilled the filling, did some X-rays and cleaned my teeth for US 43. The type filling I have they say last 6 years, mine are now 7 years old and so he'll exchange them for 17 bucks each and I though Colombia was cheap. Anyway, we're still enjoying it here and plan on staying a bit longer as we still want to replace the cabin soles and eventually galley counter, but that depends now on the politics.

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Switzerland Trip

I’m sure by now you’re tired of reading the same Blogg entry over and over, so I guess it’s time to continue with a new one. I left off with not being able to do laundry and warned my brother to come pick me up at the airport with gasmask on. Luckily he didn’t have to do that as two days before I left I finally was able to do laundry. I had a great flight with an Air France Jumbo and was able to sit in the top floor and even luckier I had no seats in front of me, could stretch my legs. I was a bit worried about missing my connection flight to Zurich. I had only one hour in-between, but a friendly hostess with a “Passengers to Zurich” sign, helped me get there faster.

I stayed in Switzerland for four weeks and it was wonderful to catch up with everybody or almost everybody as 4 weeks are not nearly enough time to visit with everybody you know. Main thing was to see my mom and it was good to see that she is coping well being alone after my dad had passed away five years ago. It was great to see my family, unfortunately or very sad is that they don’t get along with each other, so my family was never together at the same time, really sad. The first weekend I spent with my brother Marco who started his own beer brewery. Wow was that interesting to learn all about beer making. I never tasted a better beer, has nothing to do with him being my brother, it’s really an incredibly rich beer. I’m so proud of Marco, originally he started brewing beer as a hobby then when he lost his job and couldn’t find any work and got close to having to get social help, he took a chance and started brewing, while his wife Barbara started catering, both were and still are working their butts off. In the meantime he found a job and is doing the brewing every weekend, not leaving him much time for other things. Good thing is that his beer is a hit and he is on his way to expand.

I did some travels by train with my mom and I’m amazed about the public transportation system in Switzerland, it’s just amazing and way faster by train then by car, but is very costly as well. We visited the castle of Rapperswil and took the boat back on the lake of Zurich. Another trip was to Lugano the Italian part of Switzerland, what a most beautiful area. The most I enjoyed was seeing the snow capped mountains up close.

Then of course I had to visit my good friend Gabriela, when she knew that we wanted to remodel our bathroom she painted tiles for us, but look for yourself how cute they are.

She is incredibly talented. She had planned to visit Rita in Malaga to study Spanish for two weeks and was a bit disappointed that she only could see me twice; well that’s what she thought. Week three I flew to Malaga and surprised her with a five day visit, besides that it was great catching up with Rita, family and friends as well. This was truly the highlight of my trip to Switzerland. On my flight back, (Air France again) we had a delayed start and so I missed my connection flight to Zurich in Paris. I already had my episode in Paris on my way to

Malaga as I had a four hour layover. Four hours is a long time and so I found a very nice Steakhouse at the airport, settled in and was just done enjoying my appetizer when a police man came running into the restaurant and everybody started to scurry around. The waitress brought me my bill and

said I had to leave and to return in about twenty minutes. Of course I questioned that because I didn’t have my steak yet and that was on the bill too. She mumbled something in French which I interpreted “bomb in a suite case”. I wasn’t going to run out on my bill but I was definitely not going to pay for the steak I hadn’t enjoyed yet either, so they took it off the bill. As I left the restaurant I was facing the window through which you can see where they unload and load passenger. There was a Peugeot oddly parked on the other side of the window, two police officers on their knees leaning into both front doors, a fire truck right behind them then the yellow tape and hundreds of spectators. Next to the restaurant more yellow tape and more spectators. They were closer to the scene as I was happily sitting at my table waiting for my steak. When I observed all this, it didn’t take me one second to get the heck out of this area and as far away from the bomb as possible. I can’t believe how unsafe that was handled. About twenty minutes later the area was cleared I went back to the restaurant and finished my meal. So on my trip back from Malaga we ran one hour late, the exact time to catch my connection and oh boy is that airport huge. To get from terminal D to F was a never ending walk then going through customs and baggage check, the line was never ending. I had about 15 minutes to reach the gate. The customs guys, knowing I had limited time, insisted that I stood behind the last person in line. All the passengers in front were very nice to let me jump ahead, while the customs gave me dirty looks as I kept smiling at them, I was sure they were going to rip me and my luggage apart, but I actually made the gate 10 minutes before departure. Here comes the problem though, since my flight was an inner city flight they bring you by bus to the plain and they were not going to do the trip with just one person. As I stood at the info counter to find out that I had missed the last flight to Zurich for the night “KABOOOOOOOOM”. I was ready to hit the floor as it sounded like there was a shooting going on. Wide eyed I starred at the guy behind the counter, he smiled and assured me that was no gun shot, they must have exploded another suspicious suite case that happens here all the time, oh is that all (which made me decide to pack my luggage differently on my flight home, I place all camera wires in a Ziploc). So instead of spending my evening with my brother one more time before I flew home, I had to spend the night in, although a very nice hotel room , the Radisson instead. Boy did I miss Sid, would have loved to share that room with him. I must say as unhappy as I was I got treated really well by Air France, had an expensive room and a four course dinner, not to mention lox and caviar breakfast buffet. To top this story off, while in Malaga our debit card got blocked again, happened last time as well. Luckily I had some Swiss money with me and had just enough left to buy me a glass of beer at the Radisson. A few days later I convinced my bank that I indeed spent the 72 dollar on my debit card in Malaga.

Now some backtracking, a very memorable visit was to see Helen and Peter, the couple I met in Puerto La Cruz last November. I met her in Winterthur one early morning. She greeted me with a nice down jacket which I welcomed as it was cold. As early as it was we hit a fancy restaurant/bar and toasted with a “Güppli” (Glass of Champagne) and afterward walked through this charming town. It was a picturesque day as we drove trough the country side to her home up to the “Nollen” a hill above the Bodensee (Lake of Konstanz which boarders Germany). The view from the house was just spectacular as you can see nothing but fields, hills, forests and snow topped mountains in the background. The highest peak is Säntis. You should have seen the trees full with apples and pears and quince and and and. Every time I walked by an apple tree one jumped right out of there into my hand. There is nothing more delicious than biting into a juicy, firm apple fresh from a tree with the most incredible sweet and sour apple flavor, yum. I love Peter and Helen’s house, especially my room on the top floor with a view of the Säntis. Peter wasn’t home yet so Helen took me “Pilzen” (collecting mushrooms in the forest). How exciting that was, for once to forage in a forest instead of in the water. We found I think 6 different type of mushroom which Peter turned into a gourmet meal the next day. In the evening I used their sauna that was awesome as a cold beer was waiting for me and I cooled off in the cold mountain air outside. Oh and you should see her bath tub.

Now get this, I am a Swiss citizen and wanted to open a savings account with a little inheritance I made. Do you think they would let me open one? Nope! Reason: I don’t live in Switzerland. They gave me an option though to open an account for foreigners which would cost me 250 bucks a year, now that I don’t call a savings account anymore. Then when my bank blocked my credit card I wanted to exchange some dollars. First thing she asked was if I had an account because they only exchange with an account. How could I have an account when they won’t let me open one? So she wanted 10 bucks to change a 50 dollar bill, absolutely NOT. Also as a Swiss Citizen I cannot renew my passport in Switzerland, because I don’t live there anymore, my paperwork is in Atlanta and therefore I have to renew it there. But for the same price of renewing one I could extend the old one for one year, oh really! Well, my passport is expired since 1999 and customs never even noticed, neither in Spain or France.

I had a great time in Switzerland and loaded up on all the seasonings I ran out of over the years including cheeses and of course chocolate and of course I had 4 kilos overweight. They closed the eyes on two kilos but I had to pay 40 bucks for each other kilo, ouch. I was looking forward to going home as I was longing for Sid, Tika, my bed, the boat and the friendly people in the sun. I came to the conclusion that I could not live in Switzerland anymore, people are way too serious and drive off negativity, without it, they are not happy. Simply I changed way too much over the years, I don’t fit in anymore.

I lucked out once more with my Jumbo flight home, this time I was sitting in the front row right behind the cockpit and since there was a cabinet under the window I was able to prop my feet up, I felt like flying first class, the ultimate was that I was allowed to sit in the cockpit and chat with the pilots for 1 ½ hours. The pilots asked me more questions about our sailing than I could ask them, but we discovered that sailing and flying are similar with all the instruments and keeping watch, except of course the difference of speed. In Caracas a zoo was waiting for me, immediately I realized it must be a holiday (Columbus Day) as every counter was filled with long lines. I think I had 200 people in front of me. Then we sat in the overheated plane on the runway for over two hours while one plain after another landed. It went something like this, two to four planes landing one taking off. It was a traffic jam in an airport. Well it was a very long day for me but I forgot all about it once I was in Sid’s arms.

Sid had a lonely time in Puerto La Cruz while I was gone. Lonely because he was pretty much the only person here, all had left for travels or went to the States. He was taking care of our friends boat Three Keys, feeding their cats, our own and doing odds and ends on our boat. Unfortunately while I was gone he received sad news that his mom died. She had Alzheimer’s and breast cancer.

I’m glad to be home again and told Sid that I’m done with flying for a loooooong time. Well, that looooooong time is not so long as we are going to see the Angle Falls next week and from there to Gran Sabana which is twice flying in a tiny, scary Cessna or something like that.

And here a few photos of Switzerland:

Did you know they have self cleaning toilets in Switzerland?

09/09/07 Back in Puerto la Cruz

We stayed three days in El Faro, I showed Linda and Ed the cave on the other side of he island, the cave where "Las Velas de Manuela" are, the two lights I found flickering through the top of the cave. Just as we drove into the cave we were surrounded by dozens of dolphins how cool is that. We also hiked up to the top where the lighthouse is which offers a beautiful view of the whole anchorage and hiked to the fossil cemetery which is on the other side of the small island where you clearly can find
imbedded fossil shells. As every morning we listen to the weather and a tropical low was forming and we knew we would get some of the rain. So Sid and I took the dinghy to the next island Chimana Grande which is 3 miles away and checked out the anchorages there. On our way I saw a beautiful piece of driftwood floating in the water and thought of looking at it closer but we were going to fast and so I forgot about it. We looked at all the possible anchorages and returned to El Faro. The weather was
declining and just about an hour after we got back it started raining and after several hours we had a break in the weather. I went on the bow and noticed something bobbing on the water and couldn't believe my eyes when I recognized the same piece of drift wood floating slowly towards our bow. I kept an eye on it and within 10 minutes it arrived on the bow. Amazing as this piece was around the corner and in front of the other island. So I picked it out of the water. It looks like a snake and so it
is now the Maremares snake and in front of our slip. In the mean time the tropical system turned into tropical storm Felix and brought 65 mph sustained wind to Grenada. We knew we would get the tail end and moved to Chimana Grande to a more protected anchorage. We left early but the wind was picking up already, at least it was only a three mile trip between the islands and so not all too much of a problem. A few hours later the wind laid down and we enjoyed a beautiful day in our new surrounding.
We tried to explore the mangrove that has a passage to the next anchorage but not too many use it or not at all anymore as it was pretty overgrown and we could only go a few feet into it and had to return. In the mean time Felix turned into a very dangerous hurricane. Normally it takes 3 to 5 days for a tropical storm to turn into a force 1 hurricane, Felix made the record of all hurricanes ever and developed into a force 5 hurricane within only 51 hours. Luckily we had the tail end already and were
out of the path. Felix even created waves of 50 plus feet.
In the mean time we're back in a slip at the Maremares Marina, had just about enough time to get the boat all washed down and settle in when the main waterline broke and leaves not just Barcelona, Lecheria and Puerto La Cruz without water but almost most to this State, Millions of people have no water. The newspaper announced no water for 3 days and 7 days later we still have no water. Most of the hotels and condo buildings have huge tanks below the building as the water gets turned off a lot, we
had that problem at the house almost daily. This time it is more serious. The hotel shut down the water to the marina complete and only give us about one hour a day to fill up the tanks, if that long. We haven't been able to take showers as they are turned off too, just good there is a pool. The hotel rooms although have water. Since Isla Margarita we haven't done any laundry and are waiting for the water to come back on. I'm flying to Switzerland next Thursday so I hope I don't have to bring dirty
cloths with me, guess customs will have a surprise if they search my luggage, LOL. Anyway, we're settled in Puerto La Cruz and will be here until the end of the year. We promised Jim and Jenny on Three Keys to baby sit their boat and feed the cats while they are in the States. Also after my return from Switzerland we're planing to explore this beautiful country a bit more and will do inland trips especially to the Angel Falls. Sid will stay here as one of us always stays with the boat. This is our
last entry for about two months. The Boatbumms are taking a break for a while, but we'll be back until then you all take care. Hugs and kisses.