Margarita
24 October 2008 | Porlamar, Venezuela
"Lift it, Lock it or lose it" that is the dinghy mantra amongst cruisers in Margarita.
When you approach Margarita in the dark it looks very cosmopolitan with large high rise buildings scattered along the coast. We commented upon arrival that it looked like an island in the med, Palma maybe.
The night we arrived we anchored toward the back of the pack however the next day someone told us that was not very safe so we quickly moved to dead center, no privacy, lots of neighbors but safety in numbers.
Those highrise buildings I saw coming in were quite different in daylight. Most were dilapidated and had clothes hanging out the windows others had big rust streaks down them, most of the worn and tired. All in all it was not the wonderful metroplois I had anticipated.
We had anticipated getting in and getting out of Margarita in two days tops, yet here we will sit almost two weeks later. It would be an understatement to say we encountered a few difficulties. The first and foremost being our freezer. The freezer packed up the night I provisioned both the fridge and freezer were brimming with fresh fruits, veggies and meats.
The stores and products here are the best I have seen since the states, just incredible. There is an abundance of everything, farm fresh veggies, beautifully displayed, cheap, clean, nicely packaged meats and the cheese is awesome,, goudas, mozzarella, parmegiano, swiss anything you would want..they even have wonderful selections of proscuitto!! Lots of American and European products.
Juan's marina runs a free service to one of the large grocery stores every mon/wed/friday. They leave the marina at 9:30 and return back at 1:30. Everyone is given an number on the bus, when you check out you show your number and they don't bag your stuff, you go to a special line after you have paid where they box it and load it onto a different bus which follows the bus to the marina. There they unload it and a man with a dolly carries it out to your dinghy. Easy as pie, the best provisioning experience yet.
The bus is free however, you are expected to tip the guy that boxes and the guy working the dock. I think most cruisers are disgustingly cheap so I always feel bad for these guys. The guy that works on the dock lives there on the dock and watches the dinghies. His entire income is dependent on tips. Apparently he almost left last month because he was just not making any money but the cruisers rallied around at the last minute. Rumor on the dock is that some nationalities refuse to tip at all...
Speaking of, we are in a fight with the French boat in front of us. They dumped oil overboard and it went straight back to us where it leeched onto our paint. O was FURIOUS especially since he had just waxed the boat in Grenada. He confronted them and they did the horseblow/shrug and went inside. I thought he might torch their boat. We has tried everything and just this morning, after OBSESSING all day yesterday, finally found something that will work. ....talk about war over oil!!
Getting back to the freezer. The temp in the freezer started climbing very quickly. We had to hustle to find someplace to put all of our food. We ended up giving some to our friend Roberto(our new Italian cruiser friend on Vento) and one of the restaurants here graciously agreed to take some. So with that out of the way we embarked on the next project..repairman.
We asked over the cruisers net in the am(yeah, you know how much I love those) and all hands pointed to a man named Robert. Robert politely agreed to come have a look. He is a fellow cruiser from England, nice guy, but was in the throws of dengue fever. The poor guy had a rash all over his body and was just dripping in sweat. I kept giving him paper towels because he was sweating on my carpet. Anyway, he diagnosed the problem as the compressor and black box both of which were going to have to be ordered from the States or Grenada.
Roberto said he knew a local guy that had done some work for him and would most likely be able to fix it. He pointed out that the locals can fix almost anything because they usually don't have the option of just ordering a new part. The next morning Roberto's friends came over. They looked it over and said the same thing as Robert but claimed they could find it on the island. So, the three local guys, Ben, Otis and Roberto climbed into an old pick up truck and searched the island. Apparently the windows in the back of the truck did not roll down and they were all stuffed back there..during mid day heat. They came up empty handed but claimed they would have one by Monday. So, Friday O was suppose to meet one of the guys on the dock to go someplace to pay..well, he never showed up..then Saturday..he never showed so we had to go another route. I felt bad because I wanted them to do the work but they were a little unreliable and we were anxious to get out.
Thankfully our friend Alex on Friendly Rival, tracked down a used black box and compressor from another cruiser. In the mean time a belgian guy named Alex came by and had a look now .Alex(on Chacha) was a refridgeration repairman in Belgian and had all the proper tools and knowledge that made us feel very comfortable. He looked at the parts Alex found and told us he could make them work. Now, Alex was not cheap 30US an hour, plus tool charge and the 300US we spent on parts BUT we did not have to wait here for the parts, pay shipping, customs etc so we did save money overall.
Alex did a fantastic job and had it up and running in three days. When he would come at 9:30 to start I would offer him something to drink and he always asked for beer but I never had any cold...I had no freezer so my fridge was stuffed with other things. He always though this was so strange. So, he fixed the freezer. It is not reading as cold as it did but the stuff seems to be colder. Fingers crossed.
While all of this was happening our propane went out which meant we had no stove, oven Our first approach was to go local and so we waited all day friday but nobody showed. Again, we turned it over to Alex on Friendly Rival, he took it to someone and within a day the problem was located and fixed.
There are two trains of thought on Margarita. I actually like it and if it had better beaches I could hang out here. The food is incredible, the shopping both food and clothes great and the people are friendly plus it is cheap!!! Gas is 35cts a gallon..yeah you read correctly. The only problem is that Chavez has made it illegal to sell fuel to foreign flagged boats. So you can either rent a car and fuel up using jerry jugs or use Alex, our friend on Friendly Rival(more about that later). All along the beach are seafood shacks that sell oysters, clams, squid, ceviche etc. The oysters are fresh daily and incredible. They have different delicious, seafood salads which are all named kind of crude things such as mattress breaker, the reviver etc. Each salad is just a few dollars and a beer is fifty cents. On Sunday the beach is packed with families and is a lot of fun. All the families picnic on the beach talking, laughing, eating oysters, drinking cold Polar. The energy on the beach on Sunday is electrical. Our kids are running around playing with the other kids and we hang out with our friends Alex and Roberto. I just wish there were kids there on days other than Sunday!
The problem with Margarita is that there are no kids here to play with and the beach that I just spoke of is not all that nice. It is fun when filled with people but kind of gross when empty.
As I said earlier we had not planned on being here long but since we have been here we have met two very cool people. The first is Roberto. He is an Italian guy that has lived in NY for the last ten years. He is hilarious! We have spent quite a bit of time with him. Sometimes he reminds me of the Billy Crystal character that always tells everyone they look marvelous. He has just recently been joined by his Russian girlfriend. He seems to know everyone and the ins and outs of Margarita. He speaks four languages on of which is spanish so that has also been a tremendous help. I have to tell a funny story. Last week he came over for a cocktail and it ended up being quite a late night. We were all talking over each other sharing stories etc. it was so much fun. Anyway, the next morning he came over and declared that he should have been on the cover of "Rob Me" magazine because he did not bring up his dinghy but left it trailing behind his boat with the keys in it, he had fallen asleep in his cockpit with the boat open and all of his money out on the table. He is coming with us to Los Roques are next destination and we are looking forward to hanging out some more!
Our other friend is Alex of Friendly Rival. Alex is Venezuelan but grew up in Miami so his english is perfect. He lives on a boat here and is going cruising in December. At the moment he is making money taking people on island tours, making diesel runs for people(he fills up your jerry cans), changing money, getting parts etc. He has proved to be invaluable to us and has become our friend in the mean time. If you are coming to Porlamar you can call him on channel 72. He is fantastic! I feel bad that he and his girlfriend are not leaving until December. I don't think we will ever see him again but I wish him well and we are very glad to have the opportunity to hang out with him.
Funny we were in Grenada where we expected to meet other cruisers for two/three months and other than Zen didn't meet anyone new. We have been here for two weeks and met some of the coolest funniest people thus far! You just never know.
Let's see...oh, the money. Venezuelan currency is called the Bolivar. There is a official/unofficial rate. If you went to a bank you would get 2.2 bolivars for a dollar but if you changed dollars on the black market you would get 4.0 so there is a pretty significant difference. When we first got here we were getting 3.5 to the dollar and now we are getting 4.8. There must be a full time staff at the grocery store just changing prices.
We just tried to clear out but the port captain is on vacation so we went to town but the guy there left so we will probably be here until Monday and then we are off to Los Roques.