South bound with a little west

A little different layout this time. Mike has written the blog (and secretly I think it’s because he had sooo much fun sailing that he wanted to write about it). So here it is….Mike’s blog.
Well, as Meggie lays quietly at anchor in Porlamar, Margarita Venezuela, we feel we made a good decision to head farther south and then west to take the long way home, for many reasons. First off, Venezuela is rather inexpensive and it is also out of the so called “hurricane alley” of the eastern Caribbean islands. Those two reasons are perhaps the most important, but it’s also a chance to learn a new language and experience some new cultures. We have been away from any main land for 16 months now, but will end that once we land on the main land of Venezuela.
We plan to leave Meggie for a week or two in a safe marina and venture inland, most likely on a trekking trip into the interior mountains of Venezuela. But first she must be hauled out of the water in the beautiful Medregal Village located in the Gulfo de Cariacou. There we will give her some new paint, freshen her up and have material on board to replace her transom. With the eastern Caribbean behind us, most of our passages will be off the wind (a wind angle of 90’or greater from your desired course) also our passages will be a lot longer on average. In November we will go from Curacao to Jamaica a trip of about 500 nautical miles. If you grab an atlas, you will see what I mean and you may also notice that the prevailing trade winds are easterly (out of the east) and the equatorial current for the Caribbean basin is west to northwest setting. So for us, this means very fast and exciting sailing. We got a taste of this last weekend when we set sail from Carriacou at 1:00pm bound for the beautiful Los Testigos, some 115 nautical miles away. As we settled into our usual 3 hour watches throughout the night, we didn’t see any other ships all night long…just the way we like it. As we got clear of the southern tip of Grenada and into true air and open ocean the wind and following seas strengthened and settled in as did Meggie. With the wind on the aft quarter and full mizzen, reefed main and stay sail set we then handed the tiller over to our little buddy Timmy. (Timmy is our cap horn servo pendulum wind vane steering system) and we flew along between 5.5-7.5 knots all night long, never touching the tiller again. A steering system is vital on a trade wind route. I love to helm the boat to windward but in a fresh breeze and large following sea it is exhausting. Around 3:00am, Kylie woke me to say “Timmy doesn’t look right…I think he’s injured”. I found that 2 ¼” bolts had dropped out of the bottom and that his port side lower leg was dragging in the water. Funny enough in the stiff conditions he still manages to steer a true course. So with Kylie holding onto my ankles I was able to lean over the transom and jury rig it with rope until Los Testigos. I prefer to be awake at dawn as the sunrise is beautiful at sea and it’s time to set the fishing lines. Poor Kylie, no sooner had she gone to sleep when I called her on deck to help me drag 2 tunas on board. In ½ hour of dragging lines we had enough tuna to share with friends that we knew were in Los Testigos and 4 meals for ourselves. We make landfall at 10:00am in Los Testigos and wow…what a beautiful place, and guess what…..no sandals beach resorts or any development except a small village on one of the islands with a guardacosta (coast guard station). I met with the 23 year old port captain all dressed in full military fatigues. He spoke a little English and was polite and just a great guy. They only grant you a 3 day stay in Los Testigos unless it’s unsafe to leave, but unfortunately the forecast for a tropical wave prompted us to leave the next morning for Porlamar, Margarita. This was ok because the sailing was once again spectacular. We didn’t bother to fish as we already had enough. The weather was great a little off the forecast being strong winds at first and then lightening up in the afternoon. This time we ran down wind, wing on wing and covered 50 nm in just under 9 hours. (wing on wing is when the wind is pretty much behind you and you put your forward sail one side of the boat and the main sail on the other, therefore looking like wings). Our friends on Arctic Tern (Hunter and Devi) caught up to us during the sail to Porlamar and we were able to get some great pictures of eachother wing on wing. So once here we went about changing money, clearing customs etc… with no problems. A funny thing did happen though on the second day here. We walked a way before deciding to grab a cab into Plaza Bolivar, when a police officer stopped us (in a bit of a dodgy area) and said to get in “danger, danger” he said. So in we got and chatted (as well as our Spanish and his English allowed) and he drove us all the way to our destination…nice of him and a free ride.
We’re pretty sure he saw some mischief in the rubble we were walking by. Wow…I forgot what the hustle and bustle of a real city is like. People, cars, buses, shops and a lot of noise. One thing is certain… I much prefer the solitude of the sea and its islands with small villages! So I will leave you all with this lyric that I really like.
"Follow your heart, go out and play, don't wait until tomorrow it's too late, give it all you got today".
Peter Tosh, Jamaica


Ok then…there you have it our entrance into South America, and Mike‘s blog. We will write more once we arrive in Medregal village cause we’re gonna be there awhile! Until next time,

Hasta Luego
Mike and Kylie