Margarita

It was an interesting trip here to Margarita. The winds were pretty lousy all the way. Friends of ours who came this way a few weeks ago seemed to race over. That being said we learned a lot about our Code Zero in low wind conditions. In winds ranging from 5 to 10 knots coming across our beam we were consistently doing about 55% wind speed. We thought we may be dead in the water at 5 knots but we seemed to be able to eek almost 3 knots through the water. Not bad at all for our floating condo.

As we approached Margarita we were greeted by our second pod of dolphins of the day. No acrobatics this time but pleasant to be greeted by our aquatic cousins all the same. Having spent nearly a year traveling down the eastern Caribbean seeing no dolphins at all we seem to be catching up.

Before we reached Porlamor I managed to sneak an internet connection off of someone along the coast long enough to download a message regarding our next years insurance and, I hope, respond to it. All other regular emails were not read nor responded to. Anyone trying to reach us should use our winlink address for a while. Perhaps a long while as we’re venturing into more and more out of the way places.

That being said, Margarita is a bit of a holiday destination. The coast is lined by high rises, some derelict. It’s a mashup between Fort Lauderdale and Beirut.

In the afternoon we went ashore and took a taxi to the town where we could exchange some US$ for bolivars. The official rate is just above 2 but between 5 & 6 can be had from various sources if you know where to go. We had been well informed prior to our arrival.

We wondered around the town for a while. Even at our street exchange rates prices for many goods weren’t the bargain we hoped. A trip to a supermarket revealed bargains on beef which we’d heard of before. We also finished our shore trip at a bar where we had a couple of beers each for the equivalent of a dollar each. Not bad for a public establishment. On the way back to the boat we picked up a crate of 24 beers for sampling. The price was pretty good but again nowhere close to what we had been told. They’ve been sampled and we may be filling the bilges for the long term with the local stuff.

Back on the boat we moved a little within the anchorage to see if we could get an internet connection. I want to be sure our insurance is sorted before we leave. No luck. There is a cheap pay for service but it’s down at the moment. We’ll see.

This evening we plan to go back to the bar where we had our beers earlier for food. In the meantime we’re awaiting the diesel boat who recently popped by. I can get 4.5 liters of diesel for 1 dollar. We had to guess how much we needed so they’ll come back with our request. Once that is done we’ll be off.

We can only stay here 2 days as we haven’t formally checked in. On Saturday we’ll move down to the west end of the island and on Sunday move on to Tortuga. We both think that getting up early for a long passage and arriving in the afternoon is better than leaving in the evening. When it makes sense to do so, we’ll do this more.