Venezuela Diesel
01 February 2008 | Porlamar
Randy
We asked Juan where we could get diesel around here and he gave us the low down. There is a fuel dock but it is in very shallow water so you need to go at high tide to be safe. It also doesn't always have fuel and sometimes when it does it wont sell to foreign yachts and if it does you will pay much more than the locals (they hit you up for the 2:1 exchange rate). Fuel dock out.
Then there's Diesel Man. Diesel Man doesn't come around anymore but his son does. They have a standard Venezuelan issue open boat with huge tanks on board and a hand pump. The trick to getting them to come by is to find someone else who is on their list and have them send Diesel Man you way when they are done.
Son of Diesel Man starts his day early and we heard them yelling as they came along side at about 7AM. I quickly jumped up and threw on a tee shirt and tried to act like I had been awake and waiting.
The Son of Diesel Man and his crew of two were cheerful fellows. We discussed price up front. It worked out to a whopping $0.39 per gallon at the 4.5:1 exchange rate I was getting. Delivered to the boat! We filled up everything we had. SDM filled our tanks and happily used our Baja Filter without getting crabby (which is usually the response). I inspected the fuel before we started pumping into the tanks and it looked great. (P.S. we had no problem with this fuel anywhere down the line.)