June to July 2008

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You have no idea what a relief it was to have all the boat work done and being able to live a normal life again. Although I don’t think we were quite ready to leave Trinidad yet after all we haven’t had a chance to slow down and relax after all the frustrating boat work was finally done. But instead relaxing we did some last minute things including provisioning and cleared with customs and immigration. We tried to be out of the slip by 13.30 but that never happened, sometimes I think time speeds up and you slow down just so you don’t make the time limit. By the way the authorities here are real sticklers, when you check out you have exactly 2 hours to leave and you HAVE to leave. You also are NOT allowed to anchor on one of the islands first and wait up for weather or relax, you MUST leave.

Of course just about 20 minutes before we headed out of the slip the wind started to blow with strong gusts and knowing Paradise does not back up well, especially not out of a slip we were a bit worried, rightfully so. The channel between the opposite slips is very narrow and we watched numerous boats get in trouble trying to get out of the slips even hitting other boats because of cross winds. As soon as the lines were off the cleats the wind pinning us against the dock and of course as soon as we were out of the slip the strong gusts didn’t allow Sid to spin the boat slowly around instead it pushed us on the beam towards the shallow water at the end of the docks. No matter what Sid did the boat would not turn around and you can’t goose the throttle otherwise you’ll end up hitting boats. It was a hopeless situation. Luckily one of our neighbors had the dinghy ready in the water and just in time before we reached the shallow end pushed our bow around and we were out of the channel, ufff were we lucky. Not even in case of heavy wind, like or situation, customs will not let you stay one minute longer, you have to leave.

Out in the big open anchorage we had to calibrate the new autopilot first, that took a few rounds, we were hoping that it worked as there was no return to get it fixed unless we would check in again and pay quite a bit of money to do so. Luckily it worked. The wind was gusting up to 28 knots, not what we needed especially to get out of the Boca, the channels between TrinidadVenezuela which is nothing but rip currents and miserable for any small boat to come through. First we were going to go around all the islands and up the main channel but the water looked so calm between two of the islands we gave it a shot and headed out, even though everybody said not to attempt it. That was a good call as the water was calm and the further out of the cut we headed the wind was a steady 15 knots and didn’t gust through the canyons anymore. A current of 2 knots picked us up and shot us literally through the opening into the wild Boca. We did speeds up to 7.8 knots an impossibility for our boat, well under normal circumstances. At first it was really smooth ride but then the Boca opened its mouth and started to swallow us, well that’s what it felt like. It took us at least two hours to get through this turbulent mess and we were actually glad that we took the short cut as we had less current to battle with. and

As we finally arrived on the other side of the Boca of course we hoped the water would calm down, no such thing, it was a lumpy bumpy ride and this throughout the night at least not the wild ride we had through the Boca. We averaged a speed of 6.5 knots as a current was in our favor and pushed us with two knots all the way to Los Testigos. Towards the morning the weather calmed and we had to motor the last couple of hours.

Los Testigos are a delightful group of islands with about 160 inhabitants who live by fishing. The islands are fairly small but offer gorgeous beaches with sand dunes, lots of fish, interesting snorkeling and adventurous hiking. The Testigos make a convenient first landfall from either Grenada or Trinidad. The beach we anchored in front reminded me of one of those water color paintings of lonely beaches. Immediately upon arrival a friendly French man approached us by dinghy and invited us to a gathering on the beach at sunset. Immediately we jumped into the dinghy and drove across to the little village to check in with the coastguard. This was probably one of the funniest check-ins ever, we chat and joked with the guard and they gave us permission to stay here for 3 days or until the weather was good again, we still had that tropical wave coming. This is just a temporary check in the real one is in Isla Margarita so they give you a time limit which usually is 48 hours. At 7pm we went ashore and joined all the other cruisers, 3 French boats with Swiss people aboard, 2 Canadian, 1 Argentinean and 1 American boat, us. We had a good time until the wind started piping up and just a few minutes later a heavy downpour followed and ended the party. Here we were again in a tropical place to work on the boat LOL. Well, not really we were just tidying up the mess we didn’t before we left. Sid needed to hook the water maker back up and had some other little odds and ends to fix, but then it was relaxing.

Los Testigos in our mind is a must stop, what a beautiful island group. If we had known how beautiful they are we would have stopped on our way to Venezuela from Grenada. The snorkeling was amazing with the best visibility. Especially one spot will always be imprinted in my mind the beautiful elk horn coral surrounded by at least 15 different types of tropical fish, the ones you see in aquariums plus a big tropical trigger fish, just leisurely swimming around the coral and looking at me the same way I was looking at them. I was going to go back to the place and take a photo but I wasn’t even in the water for 10 seconds when I noticed a huge barracuda eyeballing me. He was about my size and started to approach me! That did it with one jump I was back in the dinghy, forget that photo! Sid of course has a good laugh. Another snorkel spot we had groups of fish follow us, no matter how often we changed course they did the same, if we stopped they stopped, it was funny. Now and then if we were separated they would glance over at Sid then rush over to him, then stare over at me and rush back and as soon as we swam back to the dinghy their companions would swim towards them and they mingled as if they were telling them all about our outing, it was really neat. On the other side of the reef is a sand dune that reaches to the other side of the island. What awaited us on the other side was the most magnificent desolated beach with an incredible view over all the other islands. The color of the water changing from light blue to turquoise to dark blue was just amazing. On this beach we found several tracks of Leatherback turtles and nests and the cutest little tracks from the hatchlings towards the sea, I sure hope they all made it.

The tropical wave that hit us brought us a lot of wind and rain and strong wind followed for several days. The wind was howling through the rigging and the anchorage was rather on the rolly side, but the scenery made up for that. We stayed four days and caught the best day to head for Isla Margarita before the next wave hit. We had a. It’s been a long time since we had a great sail. We had a constant current of one knot with us, of course always welcome but rare. We sailed and surfed an average 6.5 knots with the highest surf speed of 8.7 knots over ground 7.6 through the water. The last two hours before Margarita the wind got calmer and the sails were draining and so Sid made his configuration of sails with staysail (port), Jib (starboard) wing on wing and mainsail (starboard). The mainsail was feeding the wind to the staysail and that one sending the wind to the jib. Not just did it look good we sailed with 6.2 knots through the water dead down wind and were more stable with the 6 foot rollers. We sailed the whole 48 miles with NO motor running, which is something we don’t get to do too often. Once more we are anchored in Isla Margarita waiting for yet the next wave to pass and of course to do some shopping, after all we were out of good Venezuelan Rum.

Wow, shocker! Has Margarita gotten expensive, it’s not the shopper’s heaven anymore it used to be. Some of the food was as expensive as in the States if not more and liquor has definitely gone up BIG time. The Carta Roja rum we used to buy for 6 BS, 7 max was now 13 BS. My favorite champagne went from BS 14 to 21. Of course it didn’t help either that the BS now was at 3 to 1 dollar, when we left it was still at 5.

Checking in is easy now in Margarita as they opened an office two minutes away from the dock that houses customs, immigration and port captain. It’s great to know that we don’t have to use Juan anymore he has been ripping cruisers off for too many years, still is.

Not too many boats were in the anchorage about 1/3 what we usually see but then it was still early in the season, most show up the following month in July as the tropical waves will have intensified. The anchorage showed her true face again as it was rock n roll city and should be named Rolamar not Porlamar.

At the last Hash in Trinidad Sid sprained his ankle pretty bad, it was good until Los Testigos as we went swimming around the boat cleaned some sea grass off the hull and the following morning Sid couldn’t stand on his foot. It was swollen again and he was in agony for a couple of days and so we staid for the tropical wave. The wave brought heavy wind (25 knots) out of the SE and brought rollers of 4 feet straight into the anchorage. Just glad we have the flopper-stoppers, although one broke and needs to be fixed. Still with just the one up we sat more comfortable in the water then the rest of the boats who were rolling from ear to ear. They all looked like little rubber toys being tossed around in a huge bath tub, it was not a pretty sight and I felt sorry for them even though we didn’t have the most peaceful sleep either. At this time of the year one wave after another is heading from the African coast to the Caribbean and every 4 to 5 days we feel the effect as they bring us heavy wind and rain. Our original plan was to visit the outer islands of Venezuela but the tropical waves have strengthened already we decided it was safer to just head to the Golfo de Cariaco where we have possibilities to find safe anchorages especially if one should develop into a low or worse. We waited for Sid’s food to feel better and headed to Isla Coche, and had another nice sail of about 4 hrs and anchored in front of the resorts in Isla Coche, along the long white sandy beautiful beach. Even though the wind was blowing at 18 knots the water on this side of the island stays as calm as on a little pond, no matter on how strong it blows. The next wave hit with 30 knots and some thunder clouds around us, but non hit us and we had a good night sleep again in a calm environment.

Sid’s foot still wasn’t good and so he rested for four more days before we lifted anchor. The sail was just perfect when we left I came up with another one of those silly “Cruising is:” poems:

Cruising is..........

.............Sitting in the captain's seat

Enjoying the tropical summer heat

In one hand holding an ice cold beer

The other on the wheel to steer

Captain Sid leans over kissing his wife

Saying "isn't this a good life"

06/30/08 Manuela Olshefski (Golfo de Cariaco)

We left Coche at 3 AM, the wind was blowing a steady 12 knots and a 1 foot swell with a one knot current pushed us towards the Araya Peninsula, of course with the motor running (to make water and pump up the batteries) and the jib out. The reason we leave this early is to be able to reach Laguna Grande before noon as around that time the wind starts blowing 20 to 25 knots and sends a long fetch of choppy waves towards the entrance of the Golfo de Cariaco making it rough for us to head right into it. We arrived just a little past 11 am and twenty minutes later the wind started to blow, wow just on time again. By this time several tropical waves headed for the Caribbean, with lots of clouds and showers and we expected rain at any time, but for the time being all we saw was the mirror image of the blue sky on top of the water surrounded by the colorful red, white and brown hills. This is probably the prettiest anchorage along the Venezuelan, well protected and just so colorful and when Maxine the wind generator shuts up for just a couple of minutes it's just quite and peaceful, the only thing you hear is the chirping of cicadas, frolicking birds, the squawk of herons, the splashing of small fish somersaulting out of the water, the ripple of water gently slapping the dinghy, the wind starting Maxine to run again and a "pssssst" -- "pssssst" - "smack" -- "smack" -- "pssssst"……. Sid sure kept very busy, in one hand he had a fly swatter, in the other a can of bug spray, "psssst" -- "smack", and then he had to think about which one to set down for a couple of seconds to pick up his cocktail and take a sip before continuing the battle with the flies. Don't know what it is with this place, sometimes we're here there are no flies at all and other times sooooooo many. Well, it kept Sid busy LOL.

The nets came out again and we had it peaceful again. This time it was so quite you could 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 one 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 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. 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 in 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. 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 haven’t landed yet! It was a baby iguana that must have swam out here climbing the anchor; he was a pretty tough guy as he didn’t even mind us getting close to him. Not even the camera lens that inched towards him got him distressed; 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 Laguna 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 8 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 breathtaking; the left over clouds turned a golden red which was reflected in the water. It doesn’t get any better than this.

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
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! 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

There are numerous Swedish boats in the anchorage and they are talking on the VHF hailing channel all day long, 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 boat 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 boat 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.

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 jumping leaping mullets. 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 and arrived just on time to cover up for a rain shower and a sundowner. Ah, life is good.

Life got even better as we had El Oculto all to ourselves. The weather was perfect, 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.

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 to 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 weather 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 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 for dinner 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 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 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. He also brought us a bottle of rum and coke, he was pretty sure we must be out and we were, 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 and of course all the local friends we made, 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.

(listen with head set to dolphin film)