Weathering the Storms

Well, it looks like our decision to come to Venezuela has been a good one.  There have been two hurricanes come through the southern Caribbean this year so far and the season is really just beginning to heat up.  Hurricane Dean went well north of us and we didn't even notice it here.  Hurricane Felix however came much closer but still did not affect our weather much.  We have had a couple of short bouts of gusty winds and rain, but nothing to get excited over.

The marinas are mostly full as the other boaters from up north make their way down into the protection the mainland offers.  There are a lot of great, fun folks here and our social calendar has stayed full.  We play spades on Wednesday, Texas Hold'em poker on Saturday, Domino's on Sunday and a big marina wide bar-b-que on Monday evening.  We take Spanish lessons three days a week and are trying to learn to play bridge whenever we have time.  There is so much to learn and it is a great deal of memorizing.  This is harder than it used to be.  I put things into short term memory while trying to find a place to store them permanently.  When I finally figure that out. ...  Let's see, where was I?  Oh well... We were able to see the full lunar eclipse the other morning.  It started here around 5:00 AM and finally disappeared as the sun came up shortly after six.

This is a shot as the moon set over the area of town know as Lecheria, just west of our dock.  You can see the dock light in the foreground.

 

 

This is what it looked like just before dawn. 

We still have a few boat projects to accomplish before heading on to Bonaire and up into the islands.  We are thinking that we will go as far north as the Virgin Islands after the first of the year again this year and spend several months coming back down island and then spend next season here again. 

This is a good place to have labor intensive things done to the boat, but parts are very hard to find and very expensive.  Most of the folks around us have  brought what they needed with them, including material, stainless, bottom paint, pumps, tools, etc. 

Well, like always, our plans are firmly cast in jell-o.