On Tuesday evening, September 16, after almost three months in Grenada, we finally set sail for Venezuela. After a lovely overnight sail, we came to Los Testigos, and spent three days there. It is a lovely, isolated spot, with great swimming and snorkeling. We took the opportunity with the dinghy on deck to finally clean all the barnacles off the bottom and wax it. The poor dinghy never gets any attention, and we use it as our "vehicle" every day while at anchor.
Then, we sailed into Isla Margarita, the port of Porlamar, on Sunday, September 20. We knew it would be quite a different experience from our first view of the harbor - it is a big city, with skyscrapers and over a hundred boats at anchor. We've been spending our time getting adjusted to the island and the country - brushing up on our Spanish, figuring out how to change money and get groceries. We'll be writing more on Venezuela and our experiences here in future blogs.

On Saturday, September 13, Aubrey on s/v Veleda organized an outing for the children at the reading program we've been working with in Grenada. It was a great day, with lovely weather, and the kids and adults all had a good time. Four boats, including the Debonair, took kids out for a short sail. Then we re-anchored and had a picnic on shore at the local beach park. The kids especially were excited and loved it. For us, it was a good time to get the boat out, raise the sails, and check everything out.

We have been spending our Saturday mornings helping local school children in Grenada in a reading program. A number of other cruisers have gotten involved too, and everyone is having a good time with the kids. It is an existing program organized by Mrs. Jeanne Pascal on the island. We are helping the kids with math and science as well as reading. Kathy from Idyll Island, Kevin from Exodus, Pam and Chris from Wildcat, and Aubrey from Veleda IV made the bus trip up last Saturday to Mount Airy just east of St. George's.

And we are having a good time on the boat too - Margaret and Brian from Gipsy Days, who have sailed to Grenada from their home in Melbourne, Australia, joined us for "nibbles" in our cockpit the other evening.