The crew of Ma’alahi is alive and well, although quite road-weary. After leaving Ma’alahi on the hard at Glades Boat Storage in Florida, we’ve driven to San Antonio, then Dallas, Arkansas, back to Dallas, to Houston, back to San Antonio, Dallas AND THEN back to Florida, San Antonio, Dallas and now … Denver. The return to Florida was a real quick one, just to collect more of our stuff off the boat and make sure she’s enjoying her Florida vacation. We’re happy to report that all was well. 
Upon our return to Texas we picked up our 34 ft. travel trailer where it was being serviced after sitting on the hard itself for the past 3 years. We added new tires, brakes, wheel bearings, water heater, toilet, faucet and my favorite … refrigerator. It’s just like owning another boat! We then pulled it up to Dallas (where we had more of our stuff stored) and began moving in. Tuesday morning we began a 2-day passage and arrived in the Denver area yesterday afternoon. Here we’ll visit my mom and dad for awhile and then I’ll start work at a job that I think I have in Denver (a phone call later today should confirm or deny that rumor). So, yeah, we’re gonna try something new for awhile, but just as with the boat we’ll still be mobile and when we decide we’ve had enough we’ll migrate again. When we think we’ve made enough money we’ll go back to the boat and begin the repairs on her with a goal of getting back to the Caribbean and taking off these shoes!
Ma’alahi Survives End of Cruising
It’s over so quickly! I’m sitting in Floresville, Texas. It’s 100 degrees outside. MA’ALAHI sits on the hard in a cow pasture 11 miles west of Lake Okeechobee, Florida. We own a truck and a cell phone. Went to get my Texas driver’s license renewed … they had to have my social security CARD, which is on the boat, found an old 1099 form in storage which eventually sufficed. BEING BACK SUCKS!!
We arrived in Florida at the end of June, then with only 30 miles to our final destination, we received a glancing blow from lightning that took out our autopilot, radar, inverter/charger, battery monitor, solar panel regulator, antenna tuner, PACTOR modem and stereo. At first I thought it had also taken the ham radio, but when I unplugged the PACTOR modem the radio was working fine. And now that we finally got the boat hauled and safely into dry storage and we successfully made the drive to Texas, we are very relieved that we came out as good as we did … it could have been a heck of a lot worse! At the time of the storm we were motoring up the Caloosahatchee River right at downtown Fort Myers, negotiating the narrow channel on a Sunday afternoon, very crowded with all manner of pleasure boats and holding our breath as we maneuvered under the 55-foot bridges with our 53-foot tall mast! We had made it under the first bridge okay, before the storm, but then the blinding rain and 50-knot winds hit us and we couldn’t see the channel markers or the bridges or the other boats until we were right on top of them. There was close lightning all around but at the time it was the least of my concerns. We got just a little visibility back right at the entrance to the next bridge and we stayed in the middle of the channel but the wind waves were lifting us and I really feared we’d crunch the bridge. Just as we exited the highway 41 bridge it got hit by lightning and we got hit with a ricochet. The first thing I noticed was that the depth sounder was off, then the autopilot and gps. Then I smelled burning wire insulation and was afraid we had a fire but I couldn’t find any and the smell slowly dissipated. We continued on to our anchorage where I discovered the good news and the bad. The good was that the depth sounder, gps and radio came out undamaged and that there had not been a fire. The bad news, other than the equipment that is damaged, and scary thing was that the VHF antenna was gone! Apparently we did hit that last bridge and it snapped off the antenna which takes up the 52nd and 53rd feet of our mast. Anyway, we haven’t been able to do radio email since then and so our new address for the time being is this HOTMAIL account. Please keep us posted on your travels while we try to figure out how we can cope with being back in this dreadful place!
Will update again soon.
David and Claudia
Back in the USA
Greetings from Marathon, Florida! We left Nassau, Bahamas, Monday morning and after 45 hours and a slow, rough Gulf Stream crossing we put the anchor down outside Boot Key Harbor at Marathon to await the high tide that will take us across Florida Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico then on up to Fort Myers Beach. However, the weather forecast didn’t sound that great and we needed time to take the mainsail off and put up the old spare due to some minor damage coming across, so we stayed another night and will leave this afternoon at high tide instead, unless these thunderstorms don’t clear out this morning like they’re supposed to, then we’ll just stay here until it clears up. Once we do leave it should take us about 24 hours to reach the Fort Myers Beach anchorage then we’ll get busy finding a place to leave the boat for awhile. That’s all for now, see you soon.
David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
Still Better In The Bahamas
Well, the clock is ticking down on our going-on-three-year 
Caribbean adventure. I figure we’ll be stateside come Tuesday at Fort Myers Beach, Florida, but in the meantime, the Bahamas is sure a great place to wind it up! We arrived at Hawksbill Cay in the Exumas a couple of hours ago after a motor-sail from Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay this morning. The beauty of all the very clear and multi-colored water here is still the best we’ve experienced anywhere in our travels.
After leaving San Salvador at the end of May we spent a couple of nights at Rum Cay before heading over to Conception Island which is just as great a place as we remembered. While there we transplanted our palm tree in a spot that is visible from the anchorage. We hope to watch it grow as we revisit this place as often as we can. But with company coming we headed on to George Town and awaited the arrival of our daughter, Christina, her husband Rick and two very special grandkids, Justin and Kristina. A 
very few minutes after their boarding, the kids and their Papa (that’s me) were swimming off the side of the boat, which immediately became a daily must-do. If those kids had half as much fun as we did during their visit then they had a BLAST! We swam and snorkeled and hiked and dinghied around and played at the beach and even got to swim with a dolphin who decided to spend the afternoon swimming around the anchorage.
We made the all day sail back over to Conception Island, which pushed the endurance limits of the land-lubber crew but they all decided it was very much worthwhile after the first half day there. The snorkeling here is some of the best we’ve seen and the kids really enjoyed seeing so many of the fish that we had shown them in our fish-ID book. More time was spent swimming off the side of the boat with Papa and at the beach and hiking around. On day two, Christina decided to stay at the beach while the rest of us took a long dinghy ride over to and up the “creek” that is accessible only at high tide. We saw lots of turtles, starfish and barracuda in the crystal clear water of the creek. When we finally got to the very shallow headwaters we saw something splashing around ahead. Was it a couple of giant turtles or what? Wait a minute! It’s a SHARK! COOL!! We dinghied over and identified it as a nurse shark, at least 6 feet long in about 2 feet of water. We followed it around trying to get close enough to pet it but it kept swimming off. The kids thought that was pretty neat and we couldn’t wait to get back to the beach and tell Christina what she missed! However, when we returned Christina’s eyes were big as saucers and she excitedly told us about the sea monster she’d just seen swim up to her as she sat in the water near shore. 
From her description it sure sounded like a big shark! Can’t wait to see the pictures she took. For some reason none of them wanted to go snorkeling again, but strangely, the kids still wanted to swim off the side of the boat with Papa. We broke the return trip to George Town in half by overnighting in Calabash Bay at Long Island where there was more fun at the beach and swimming off the side of the boat with Papa and Mema.
After our return to George Town we still had two more days of fun before they flew home to their normal lives. We’ll be sure to rest up for the next batch, as we’ve got nine more grandkids to share this fun with. Y’all better hurry before we get too old!
Our current plan is to sail to Allan’s Cays tomorrow (20 miles) then on to Nassau which will be our last stop before Fort Myers (unless we change our plans, of course!)
See you in the USA!!
David and Claudia
6/21/2001
Land Ho!
Five days and two hours after raising anchor at Puerto Rico, it was splashed again but this time in the clean, clear and blue water of San Salvador in the Bahamas. It was here, purportedly, that Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492. He couldn’t have picked a nicer spot! Our passage was less significant but more enjoyable I’m sure. We ran our engine when the wind died, knew where we were going and, therefore, took the direct route, let our autopilot do all the steering, made fresh water from sea water, stayed in contact with friends and family via email and radio, were informed of weather conditions 24 to 48 hours in advance of it’s occurrence, and never once feared sailing off the edge of the earth! All in all it was a long but easy passage. “Long” is such a relative term. While we were under way we received an email from Rick and Mary on TRANQUILLITY, announcing their arrival in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific after their 21-day passage from the Galapagos. Their description of French Polynesia suggests that it is well worth the effort of getting there. Check out their adventures at http://www.tranquillity.net. We are looking forward to checking out Rum Cay and Long Island in the next few days, as we sailed past them the last time we were here, but we’re especially looking forward to revisiting Conception Island, a mere 35 miles from our present location, it being our very favorite Bahamas island. It is there that we will transplant our palm tree that we’ve raised from a coconut picked up in Bequia over a year ago. Although we left the Caribbean back in Puerto Rico and then sailed out of the tropics yesterday when we crossed north of the Tropic of Cancer, we still have a few weeks left of cruising the Bahamas, some of the best cruising and definitely the prettiest water we’ve seen, before making the west coast of Florida the first part of July. Please drop us a note and fill us in on your goings-on, too!
Regards,
David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
5/25/2001
Under Way
SUNDAY 1100 AST MAY 20
We finally left Puerto Rico, Saturday morning, after waiting there about a week, first to help get Runa from RUNAL on an airplane home to Sweden to be with her family and terminally ill mother (she passed away a week after Runa arrived) and then for Al’s brother to arrive to help him sail RUNAL on back to Florida. We’re 24 hours out of Puerto Rico and our current position is 19 degrees 37 minutes north and 067 degrees 18 minutes west, heading 308 degrees magnetic on a rhumbline to San Salvador, 489 nautical miles distant. We’re making 5 – 6 knots with the wind right on the stern which makes life a little rolly but it’s a lot easier going than beating into the wind, waves and current! We hope to arrive in the Bahamas Thursday morning and are looking forward to spending a little time there before sailing on to Florida toward the end of June. I’ll keep this short since we have to turn off the autopilot to transmit on the radio (and we’re quite spoiled to not having to hand steer!).
Later,
David and Claudia
MONDAY 1050 AST MAY 21
Well, I never got around to getting this sent out yesterday so here’s a brief update: Our current position is 20 deg. 43 min. N, 069 deg. 03 min. W. Sailing along at 4.5 – 5 knots but the forecast is for the winds to decrease to only 10 knots Tuesday night so we’ll be doing a lot of motoring before we get in.
D & C
Alive and Well Aboard Ma’alahi
A question for you:
Which of the following excuses is the biggest reason we have not written in such a long time?
a) We’ve been too busy having fun
b) We’ve been too busy with boat projects
c) We’ve settled into such a routine that we just don’t think about it
d) I’m just too lazy
e) The computer has been broken
f) ALL OF THE ABOVE
(in my best gameshow host voice): Well, if you guessed “f, all of the above” then YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!!
Even though we’ve been in the Virgin Islands since mid-December, we’ve moved around a lot … never more than one week at any anchorage at one time. We’ve done two tours of St. Croix, spent lots of time in St. Thomas and explored parts of St. John that we’d missed before. We’ve spent big bucks fixing and replacing broken boat parts, including the transmission, dinghy, autopilot and refrigerator; discovered and hung out in our newest favorite St. John anchorage,
Hurricane Hole; got visits from friends Randy and Lonie, Mike and Cynthia, and my brother Gary and sister-in-law Vanessa, read lots of books and learned a lot more about the world of amateur radio.
And, yes, the computer was out of commission for awhile when the keyboard finally succumbed to corrosion from the marine environment. But after disabling the notebook’s keyboard and adding an external one, it’s working ALMOST normal again (I just have to choose whether I want to use the mouse or the keyboard). Anyway, this will be an attempt to bring you up-to-date with our goings-on.
The first thing you should know is that we left the Virgin Islands this past Friday when we sailed over to Isla de Culebra, one of Puerto Rico’s eastern islands. We hope to be here just long enough for a weather window to open up for us to make the 640 nautical mile passage up to San Salvador in the Bahamas. However, there is a very nasty low pressure system and gale centered just north of that location and it’s taking it’s sweet time moving on out. I’m downloading weather faxes and reports frequently looking for a break; hopefully we’ll get to leave here Wednesday morning and are looking forward to the 4 – 5 day passage out into the Atlantic.
Way, way back on the 3rd of March, Randy and Lonie came sailing in 
to St. Thomas on a cruise ship. We picked them up and went for a short sail before dropping anchor in Honeymoon Bay on Water Island where we managed to grab a table in the shade on the loveliest beach around just before the day-charter barge KON TIKI showed up, dropping off their 100 or so guests. After a late lunch back onboard Ma’alahi and the strange disappearance of a great number of bottles of beer, we managed to race back to Long Bay and deposit R & L on the cruise ship dock just in time for them to make the gangway before it was stowed.
A couple of weeks later Mike and Cynthia flew in for a week’s visit. We didn’t waste any time taking them to our newly discovered Hurricane Hole near Coral Bay, St. John. We swam and snorkeled and spotted many birds. Then we thought it would be good to take them to a favorite little funky bar-restaurant, Skinny Legs, for a quiet Sunday late-afternoon cheeseburger. WRONG DAY! We dinghyed over to the sounds of a BIG party going on. There was a live band and people jammed in every corner, both inside and out. I will not EVEN attempt to describe all the bizarre events of that evening but we think we remember that the cheeseburgers were excellent! We made a run to Virgin Gorda, via Peter Island where we enjoyed another exciting episode of “The Charterboat Anchoring Show” which consists of getting to a BVI anchorage that has no moorings early in the afternoon, getting something cold to drink and then watching the show as late-arriving bareboat charterers come in and go through hilarious gyrations in their attempts to set the hook! The next day we sailed on to The Baths at Virgin Gorda. We spent the afternoon with Mike and Cynthia, climbing the giant boulders and making our way to the fabulous Devil’s Bay Beach. Upon returning to the mother ship, we were shocked to discover that in our absence about 30 or more French bareboat charter boats had anchored closely around the frightened Ma’alahi. We quickly made our escape to the overnight anchorage at Spanish Town and next morning fled the BVI. It was a week that went by too fast.
However, two weeks later we swung right back into vacation-mode when Gary and Vanessa arrived for their visit. Things got off to a fast start as we sailed offshore from Water Island heading toward St. John and Gary caught the last two fish in the Virgin Islands. The first was a barracuda who got tossed back after we carefully removed the hooks without losing any fingers. The next one, though, was a definite keeper; a very nice-sized, two-dinners-for-four Wahoo! Actually, there must have been at least a couple more fish in the ocean because Gary almost caught them, too. Problem was, I had just replaced the rusty hooks on a couple of good lures but they turned out to be too puny and these sea monsters bent the hooks straight and slid off! Well, one morning we had an experience that would top any fish story. We were just coming out of the cut in the reef from Cane Garden Bay when Claudia let out a shriek, “Oh my 
gosh, it’s a wh-wh-whale!!!” Holy cow! Sure enough, there was a mama humpback and her calf swimming by very close to us and the shore. We turned the boat around and got even closer. Gary was at the bow snapping pictures like crazy and we were all treated to the sight of the adolescent humpback breaching and splashing several times only 150 ft. away! Don’t think we’ll ever top that! I think we came real close to talking G and V into staying with us and helping us sail back to the Bahamas and Florida, but in the end they flew home anyway (sigh).
Claudia has had a good time learning to play the piano. We bought an electronic piano keyboard back in January and she’s teaching herself how with the books we bought with it. It was slow going for awhile but she’s reading music now and readily picking out (guitar term) new songs. I play a little, too, but only by ear. It’s another reason why this email has been so long in coming. Since getting the HAM license I’ve also spent more time with the radio, both on the marine and ham frequencies. It still amazes me that with this little black box and wire antenna and a little power from our batteries that I can talk to so many people in so many far-away places from our little boat in the remotest of anchorages. I talked to a guy in Copenhagen, Denmark one evening, talked with Mary and Rick on TRANQUILITY while they were on passage from Panama to the Galapagos Islands, frequently talk to Andy and Diane on SPIRIT BORNE in Panama’s San Blas Islands, Rosie and Neil on DREAMCATCHER in Columbia and even had a good conversation with Liz on RUMPLETEASER the other night in New York City! I’ve talked to my dad in Texas from his friend’s HAM station a couple of times and have had a couple of really good, long conversations with my friend Elkin, up near Pittsburgh. So, HEY, get a radio and let’s talk!
When the wind and sea conditions finally improve we’ll take off from here and make way to San Salvador. We’ll spend two or three weeks visiting some of the islands in that area before heading over to George Town where our daughter Christina and her family will meet us for a visit before we head on to Florida. We’ll be in touch and start sending position reports along the way via email.
Regards,
David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
Caribbean Update From Ma’alahi
Hello everyone out there in email land!
David and Claudia are finally back online with a new email address: KD5MXA@winlink.org. This email address is a permanent replacement for the old SAILMAIL address. Like the old email account, this one is via the HAM radio and it makes use of the identical technology and software. So, it’s the same SLOW send and receive for us on this end, although we do have more stations and frequencies available to log on to. There is a real neat feature of this new setup. On the web, go to http://wl2k.org/arps.htm and enter KD5MXA in the call sign prompt and click “display”. This will take you to a series of maps that show our last reported position which gets updated each time we logon to email.
We really love it here in the Virgin Islands. Even though we’ll be heading to Florida in the coming months to setup a new home base, visit family and friends and go to W*RK for awhile, we think this would make an excellent home base, too, someday. We already know that when hurricane season arrives, we can be south to Venezuela’s out islands in 3 days and that is a perfect place to cruise during that time of year, and then return here at whatever pace that suits us. We sailed down to St. Croix around the middle of January (35 miles south of St. Thomas) in order to take the HAM tests, the passing of which has given us these new email privileges. On this trip we finally made it over to Buck Island, a small island-national park less than 5 miles from Christiansted harbor. What a great discovery this was! The west end of the island has a beautiful white sand beach lined with palm trees and the anchorage is in deep sand in about 10 feet of water just off this beach. There are fabulous coral reefs around the island that made for excellent snorkeling. When we go back we hope to lure some of those big lobsters outside of the park boundary and have them over for dinner. On the sail back to St. Thomas we had yet another encounter with a group of dolphins playing at the bow of our boat. It was especially fun to watch the m in the incredibly blue and clear water competing for position directly in front of the bow.
We’ve made extensive use of 1-800 numbers and the U.S. mail in St. Thomas; ordering new parts, returning broken ones for repair and getting them back in a reasonable period of time. We’ve been without the use of either of our depth sounders since the first day of October when our backup unit decided to take early retirement. Although we got real good at judging depth from the color of the water, it is very good indeed to have both of them repaired and back onboard again. The forward seal on our transmission took to leaking awhile back and we’re going to have that fixed next week. Since the parts are on order for that and will take a week or so to arrive, we sailed over to St. John to spend some good NO-SHOPPING time at some of our favorite anchorages. We’ll head back to St. Thomas early next week to make the transmission repair.
Well, that’s the news from the Virgin Islands. It’s good to be back online and will be even better when we hear from you!
David and Claudia
aboard Ma’alahi
Leinster Bay, St. John, USVI
February 10, 2001
Wintering in the Virgins
Hello again and Holiday Greetings from the Virgin Islands!
Yes, we’re back in the USA … have been since the 4th of December when we dropped the hook in Christiansted, St. Croix, after a 51-hour, mostly-pleasant passage from Martinique. We had definitely been traveling hard to make good over 600 miles in less than 2 1/2 weeks, which included 6 days spent at Martinique and 5 days at Union Island waiting for weather. The trip from Los Testigos, Venezuela, to Union Island was slow. The west-setting current was so strong most of the way that we were steering a course of 46 degrees and when not running the engine making good 0 degrees! We persevered and finally made the Frigate Island anchorage at Union Island where RUNAL was waiting for us and guided us in, since it was long past dark. It was late and we were tired from our 38-hour marathon, but Al and Runa had dinner ready for us and with our second wind we stayed up even later comparing our exploits since we had parted ways last spring.
After a few days of relaxing and waiting for the weather opportunity we left Union for an overnight trip up to Martinique. However, RUNAL soon developed a problem with their alternator and it was decided to continue on but to put in at Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, where not only would parts and service be available but also the English language. By the time Al was making electricity again the wind and seas had begun building with the forecast for alot more of each. We all agreed that we’d much rather get stuck waiting for weather in Martinique than St. Lucia so we braved the 25 knot winds and 9 foot seas for the 20 miles north to Martinique. It was on this short passage that my worst fear was ALMOST met. About half way to our destination as we were just holding on and “enjoying” the ride I happened to look up straight ahead. There was no mistaking the broad black body that surfaced right in front of us, not even one boat length away. A whale! I held my breath and that must’ve worked because we didn’t crash into it. I wonder, how many close calls are had at night?
Well, true to the forecasts the wind and seas continued to rise over the next few days and we were all glad we’d made our escape to Martinique in time. We immediately got into the swing of things and spent the next six days enjoying all things French including breads, pastries, cheeses and wines. We rented a car one day and made two provisioning runs in order to take as much of France with us as possible. Once the wind and seas started to subside we knew it was time to leave; next stop, the Virgin Islands.
When we arrived at Christiansted we saw the boat FREE SPIRIT who we knew from our last visit. The next day we stopped by and John offered to take us on his special Cruzan tour in his 4-wheel drive Jeep. What a trip that turned out to be! We visited several ruins of the old sugar plantations including many of the islands wind
mills. John knew the area well and he took several turns off the road to isolated places with fantastic views. Then we drove down a … well, more of a goat trail than a road, to a rocky beach. We walked along the rocks and came to a tidal pool where we cooled off with a swim. Wow! Not many people could even get to this place, even if they knew where it was!
After a few days we headed on up to St. Thomas. Al’s son and his family arrived last Saturday and they’ve been having a great time. We sailed over to Norman Island and then to Virgin Gorda in the BVI this week and met up with them for a couple of days. We’re now 
back at St. John and getting ready for a big Christmas dinner with Al and Runa on RUNAL and Tim and Leslie on FOLIE A DEUX. The six of us plan on spending Christmas day anchored over in, where else, Christmas Cove.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: We plan to change our email address after the end of this year. Our SAILMAIL account is an annual, calendar year thing and we’re going to let it expire this year. I’ve been studying for a HAM radio license which will give us access to email for FREE. Only problem is that the test won’t be given until around the middle of January so the only email we’ll have until then is via HOTMAIL. That address is: wcw5564@hotmail.com. When I get a HAM call sign I’ll email you all our new address. Please continue using this SAILMAIL account until the end of the year and then use HOTMAIL until further notice.
We want to wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
David and Claudia
12/21/2000
Goodbye, Venezuela
I just re-read the last letter we sent out and realize that I’ve left you all hanging, with great anticipation I’m sure, regarding our attempts to secure diesel fuel for our continued windward passage through the Venezuelan islands. Well, be assured that we did indeed procure 50 gallons from the supply boat “Luciano” the very next day and were able to fill one of our two thirsty fuel tanks.
We left Gran Roque immediately but spent another three nights in a couple of beautiful and secluded anchorages before deciding it was time to make our way to Isla de Margarita, via Isla Tortuga. The deciding factor was being very low on provisions (we learned a long time ago to appreciate, but not depend on, the bounty of the sea) and, even more scary, being critically low on beer. It was an overnight sail to Tortuga, arriving the next morning. After six weeks in the beautiful Aves and Roques, Tortuga doesn’t have much to offer (however, for those traveling east to west, coming from Trinidad and Margarita, I’m sure it looks like paradise).
We spent a restful night at Cayo Herradura and the next morning traveled along the north coast to the eastern end of Tortuga at Playa Caldera. We found the huge crescent beach as lovely as advertised but the anchorage was crowded and rolley. After listening to the weather that afternoon and hearing that these relatively calm conditions would soon disappear we decided that we would rather handle another overnight passage than be stuck here for several days. It was just getting dark as we pulled up the anchor and headed back out to sea. As most of our destinations since leaving Curacao have been directly upwind, and especially since running low of fuel, we have gotten quite used to making long tacks and actually sailing the required zig-zag course to our goal. This night was no exception and we actually had a fast and gentle sail all night long. However, when the sun came up the wind died down and we motored the remaining 30 miles to the small island of Cubagua on an increasingly flat sea.
About 14 miles out we were visted by old friends that we hadn’t seen for a long time, a large group of dolphins. They swam with our boat and played at our bow for quite awhile and we watched them in the bluest and clearest water we’d ever seen any of them in. A few miles later, as we neared Margarita, we must have crossed some line and the clear blue water became murky, semi-clear, more-green-than-blue water. We’d seen Venezuela’s best and for us it was over (for now) but our dwindling supplies carried us on. We overnighted at Cubagua, a tiny sister-island just off Margarita’s south coast, and next day sailed another upwind, zig-zag course to Porlamar, Margarita’s largest and busiest town.
We were pleased to find our Texas friends, Bob and Susan from “Sunrise”, who we hadn’t seen since leaving Martinique in the spring. They’d been in Margarita for about two months and were ready to leave for points west and south but we had their company for a couple of days and got to take advantage of their local knowledge. Porlamar is certainly a different and interesting place. It is a duty-free zone and the most popular holiday destination for Venezuelans which accounts for the many high-rise condos and the many opportunities for all kinds of shopping, which is a definite plus when one’s stores are as low as ours had become. Eating out has seldom been more enjoyable and inexpensive (the latter foretells the former when on a cruising budget!), especially the local dishes of fish, plantains, arepas, empanadas, etc. One of our favorite spots was the 4D Heladera Italiano. I’m not sure the significance of “Italiano” but the helados (ice cream) is muy bueno! The grocery stores here are among the largest and best stocked we’ve seen anywhere, including the U.S.
Our friends, Al and Runa from “Runal”, are back in Trinidad and had been planning on meeting us here in Margarita and we’d then go explore the mainland’s Golfo de Cariaco before we both headed north back to the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and then Florida. But, Al got word from his son that he and his wife will be flying to the Virgins in mid-December for a visit so that schedule has changed our plans. We left Margarita Thursday morning (yesterday) and made it to Los Testigos last night. We plan to leave here in the morning for the 120 airline-mile (it will be more like 180 zig-zag miles) trip to Union Island in the Grenadines. “Runal” plans to leave Trinidad in the morning for the same destination, so we’re looking forward to getting back together with them while we make our way slowly back to the U.S.
David and Claudia
aboard “Ma’alahi”
November 17, 2000
Travels of Ma'alahi 