Margarita

Thursday, 17. April 2008, 10:32:21

We left St Maarten early on Sunday the 16th March heading for Margarita. We had planned to leave a few days earlier but Andrew offered to take us for a flight to the British Virgin islands as he had some work to do out there on of his clients boats.

Unfortunately the boat let him know that it would not be able to make the rendezvous so we cancelled the trip and decided to have a leisurely breakfast with Andrew on Mind the Gap. While he was aboard he also resolved a charging problem on the starboard engine’s alternator.

We made good progress to St Kitts and it was dark by the time we sailed past Nevis. The journey to Margarita was only a few hundred miles and we made good time. At dawn we had already passed the islands of Antigua, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St Vincent, St Lucia, Bequia, Carriacou and were sailing past the coast of Grenada although we could not see it.

We would not make Margarita before dark so we decided to head for Los Testigos which was a little island about 30 miles closer to us than Margarita. We had a good look at the Tsunami chart, it was an interesting shape and with our limited knowledge of Spanish come to the conclusion that the name was very appropriate.

Battling against the current to get there before nightfall and just managed it. We anchored in the fading light as the sun had already set. We were glad to have a good nights rest.

It was an easy journey the next morning, downwind all the way, we arrived in Margarita by noon. This island belongs to Venezuela and the currency is called Bolivar’s, named after Simon Bolivar a so called freedom fighter that liberated the region from slavery. It was a great place to stock up as prices for food and groceries and fuel is cheap.

We also visited the dentist here and Lorna had a tooth fixed. The dentist, Vincente could speak good English. He and his wife Maribel ran this very neat practice. He did a good job on Lorna’s tooth. As he was also interested in boats we invited him and Maribel for a drink onboard and offerd to show them around. As we left his surgery he came running out after us and suggested that it would be better if we came out with him on Sunday and he would show us around the island and we could barbeque some fish.

We had a real good day out and Vincente and Maribel were perfect hosts. We were able to see much of the island that would never otherwise had been possible. We met the local fishermen and were able to get a first hand insight to their humble and stress free way of life.

We left Margarita the Tuesday, early and sailed west to Tortuga, another island in the Venezuelan chain. We arrived before sunset and anchored in a beautiful bay. Two other boats were there already, both French. One of the boats was a cat owned by Christian and Isabelle Picard. They own the yacht brokerage AYC. We went to see his employee, Francious in Montpellier in France back in 2005 just before I bought our boat. It was Franscious that showed me around the Dufour Nautitech 475 and that I became interested in buying one of this type. Small world indeed. We had a delightful evening with them and their children, Lucy, Thomas and Silva.