We also have tried to see the Art Museum in Porlamar - which is closed every time we go. Outside the museum are several sculptures - one is pictured here. Maybe it really will be open next week and we can look inside.

We did take a couple of trips around the island, one by bus, and one with local friends on the island. We saw La Ascension, the capital city of Isla Margarita. It is inland from the coast, and a sleepy town with not many tourists this time of year. It has a lovely cathedral which must be hundreds of years old, with many statues and tableaux of the Passion of Christ.






The local buses are fun to ride; it has taken us quite a while to figure out routes and where to pick them up. The fleet is ancient, along with many of the cars and other vehicles on the island. Here is one bus. The buses are cheap, only one bolivar for fare around Porlamar (about 25 cents U.S.), so we can take a bus just to see where it goes and have an adventure.

Getting Out the Vote, from Venezuela
Normally I’m not a politically active animal. Aside from voting in national elections or joining an occasional local cause, I keep a distance from the political process. Maybe this is my response to the sad spectacle of progressively atavistic and loutish administrations from Nixon through Reagan to the Bush coterie. Democrats have not been wonderful either, but at least they haven’t tried to tear down the house. Or it’s possible that my slow turning from 1960s enthusiast to imminent retiree has made me more worldly skeptical than wise.

But this election year is palpably different. The McCain-Palin ticket exceeds by half the Atwater-inspired gusto for fabricating dirt, bullying and trading truth for power. These two desperate figures have made for me an unbeatable case for giving participatory democracy an extra push. And what better place to become politically active than in a land where a strangely popular leader has remade government in his own ideological image. That’s right, I’m busy here in Venezuela.

Having literally sailed across the Caribbean into this Latin petro-state for a two month visit, I decided to do more than watch the American elections from afar. It was time to unlimber the laptop-Skype package and contact the Obama campaign to help persuade swing state voters to make a sane presidential choice. This means dialing to help my state of residence, Florida.

My first surprise was how easy the Obama organization had made joining online. Political campaigns, like retail stores, are naturally geared to accept monetary offerings, but are not always well disposed towards maverick volunteers. Yet in short order I registered and was provided a call list with names and numbers from Boca Raton to Ft. Lauderdale.
Now I was ready to help redeem the sunshine state’s seamy reputation for shady election results. But as anyone who has worked for a candidate knows, noble expectations seldom match the real results.

Back in Venezuela a national election is also scheduled later in November. It will be another referendum on the policies of Hugo Chavez and his efforts to radically reshape the country’s political landscape. Since Chavez came to power ten years ago through an old-fashioned Latin American coup, he has been eager to present his regime as being popular with citizens and more legitimately established through elections.

In fact, El Presidente does seem to enjoy the support of about 40% of Venezuelans—most, though not all of them low income. He achieves this in no small part by spending about half of the country’s oil-derived budget on social programs and subsidies for the poor. Gasoline here costs $0.10/gallon at the pump. His largesse for the masses, together with self-proclaimed leadership for other Latin countries and a vigorous anti-U.S. stance, are the lynchpins of his”Bolivarian revolution”. But Señor Chavez has not yet succeeded in being better at uniting than at dividing.

Meanwhile Florida residents are not exactly leaping on the Obama bandwagon as a result of my long distance canvassing. The majority of voters I call are either not home or have incorrect numbers. How many cellphones vs. landlines I call is unknown. Of the rest, some already support the candidate and politely tolerate a reminder to vote. A few remain undecided while some are so strongly opposed to the Democratic ticket that conversation is barely possible. Hangups happen. One woman who oozed hostility warned me that if Obama is elected president we are all “done for.”

A recent article, The Irrational Electorate, by Larry Bartels,
(The Irrational Electorate) about voter behavior confirms what a lot of research by political scientists has shown: that most people think we are being objective and thoughtful when we choose who to vote for. Instead we tend to make voting decisions based not on facts and careful comparisons but on wishful expectations and ignorance. (Not you and I of course.)

If U.S. politics is colorful and lively now, the polarized Venezuelan situation may be reaching combustion point. Public dialogue is punctuated with reports of assassination plots. Recently the offices of a leading newspaper were attacked after the paper’s editor made a very provocative statement about Chavez on a national TV interview program. Nothing too inflammatory, just that the President should be careful not to become too great a tyrant or he may end up hanging dead upside down like Mussolini at the hands of a mob. Chavez in turn has threatened to jail his main presidential election opponent and calls him a crime boss and a swine.

Opinions here often divide between those, on one hand, who see Chavez dismantling democratic institutions and leading the country down a socialist road to ruin. Supporters, unsurprisingly, believe that a new day has dawned for Latin America, with a foundation in social justice and overdue pride in the non-U.S./European heritage of the hemisphere. Mass rallies of Chavez’s red-shirted supporters proclaim vague slogans: We are the future of the people.

To wrap up my brief volunteer stint, I click and save, thereby reporting the results of my hopeful calls to Florida Obama HQ. For some reason, this part of their otherwise efficient online system does not quite work as advertised. I receive repeated automated reminder messages from my field coordinator to report all call results. I did that, many times. Or else I am a most un-savvy internet activist, which is likely.

It’s time now to dinghy ashore for good café with Venezuelan friends from across the political spectrum who are gracious and amable. The people here have a talent for open conversation about the world, life or just juicy gossip that leaves politics aside. Sometimes that’s where it belongs.
-Larry

Here in Porlamar, Isla Margarita, we have been exploring the city and taking advantage of the opportunities available here. We found a great watch place amongst the jumble of shops downtown and took all our watches in for new batteries and bands where needed. There are also very inexpensive clothing and shoe shops here.
The diesel man visited us at the boat one morning and filled our jerry jugs with diesel, delivered to us at anchor. He has a manual pump and comes right on board to get everything flowing right. We have full jugs and tank now, and it only cost 50 cents U.S. per gallon. We also took our jerry jug for gasoline in to a service station ourselves, and filled it for about 9 cents a gallon for gasoline. That's right, 9 cents! If you're back in the States you probably can't believe that.
We also started our medical and dental treatments here. Both of us have fillings that have fallen out; Larry's filling, done in St. Martin, fell out a month after it was put in, so he's been waiting for some time. Debby also got three fillings. The dentist was professional, using the latest 3M dental fillings. Total cost, for three small fillings, two large fillings, and two cleanings, was $200 U.S., or about one-fourth the price we'd pay in the U.S.

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.

Another waterfall expedition in Grenada. This one we reached by public bus and hiked in, along muddy trails up and down into the rainforest. This waterfall site is called the Seven Falls, just about smack-dab in the middle of the island. We only went to the first two falls; to see the other five required more hiking and then jumping (!) down each of the falls to get back. We did have a refreshing swim below the falls.

It's Carnival time in Grenada. We attended the steel pan orchestra competition at the National Stadium in St. George's on Saturday night with several busloads of cruisers. It was fun, but a lot of time was spent in set up and tear down of the seven bands. To see these orchestras perform was great - 70 to 100 musicians, with music you won't hear anywhere else. It is reminiscent of calliope music. Steel pans originated in Trinidad, just to the south of us, with musicians making instruments out of discarded fuel drums.
The big costume parade was on Tuesday - with some great costumes, including stilts. One of the steel pans had live music in the parade also.

We visited Father Mallaghan's Home for Boys - an old- fashioned orphanage for boys, ages 8 to 18, with some US Peace Corps volunteers. We had a great day with the Peace Corps, especially Matthew, and the boys were a delight too. We helped them string beads for the afternoon's activity. This home is up in the northwestern corner of Grenada, in a town called Victoria, a bus trip up the coast. Trying to organize volunteer opportunites for cruisers has been a long process, since nothing is in place for volunteering on the island. We've visited two orphanages, the second being Bel Air home for infants and girls, much closer to where we are staying in Prickly Bay. We also met with a social worker in the Ministry for Social Development, which has its hands full with housing, poverty, and all human services on the island. The Ministry is enthusiastic but we still need to work out useful activities, transportation, materials, etc.
Here is Debby in a familiar pose - using the computer with Skype to talk to her mom back in Minnesota.

We are still in Grenada, and just can't seem to tear ourselves away from it. So far it's our favorite island in the eastern Caribbean. Larry has been coordinating volunteer opportunities on the island, trying to find out what agencies or places would need help that other cruisers can offer, and working with the government and non-governmental groups. With no coordination in place, it has been a slow process. We've been visiting orphanages and the Ministry of Social Development, and will meet with the local Lions Club next week.
Carnival is also being celebrated in Grenada this week, and we will be attending a steel-pan orchestra competition at the big new National Stadium in St. George's this evening.

We visited St. George's, the capital of Grenada, again last week and climbed to the top of Fort George. A beautiful view of the bay and city unfolds from there. We also saw the basketball court at the fort where the prime minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, was executed in 1983, during events leading up to the U.S. invasion.
Later, we took a bus tour of the island with other cruisers, from Cuddy's Taxi and Tours. We had a great time, even with the cloudy skies all day. We had several nature lessons, where Cuddy stopped to find samples of different herbs by the roadside (mace, nutmeg, allspice, lemongrass, saffron) for us to sample in their natural state. We toured a cocoa factory and a rum factory, and saw Annandale Falls.



The rum factory can only be described as Dickensian - it is still operating using 18th/19th century tools, cauldrons, a water wheel, vats, and wood-fired furnace. After seeing the vats of rum bubbling in open vats, even the most devoted rum drinkers in our group had second thoughts about drinking what came from these vats, with bats flying around, and flies everywhere.

At Annandale Falls, we met young men who leaped down into the pool for us to photograph them (and then asked for donations, natch). It appeared that this was their job.

On Friday, July 11, we took a bus from Prickly Bay up to the capital city, St. George's in Grenada, a short trip. It's a lovely Caribbean capital city, with lots to see. We will need another trip to see it all. It's got the ubiquitous fort overlooking the bay, a museum, and each street has many things to see. In the first photo, of the Carenage in St. George's harbor, you can see the cathedral with no roof on the skyline, we think from hurricane damage. You can also see hurricane damage in the roof of this old Parliament building (no longer used). They have done a remarkable job of restoration after the damage done during Hurricane Ivan in 2004, but you can still see many roofs blown off, especially on the historic buildings.
The streets of St. George's are steep - many do not have motorized traffic, only steps, and many others rival San Francisco in their climb. The views from the top are wonderful, though.

While in Carriacou, which is an island in the far southern Grenadines and actually a part of Grenada, Deb got the sewing machine out again and finished the lee cloths for the cockpit and some other repairs. Carriacou is about the sleepiest little island we have been to, not much going on there, but we could go running in Tyrrel Bay and swim around the boat.
From Carriacou we sailed south to Prickly Bay, Grenada, and we really like it here. It's a great cruiser community with a VHF net every morning, and several protected bays on the south coast. We'll stay here and take some buses around the island for a few weeks and then move on to Venezuela.

While in St. Lucia, we took a bus up to the Sulphur Springs and saw the active steam vents and bubbling cauldrons. We also soaked in the sulphur springs pool, very warm waters that we eased into. It is supposed to be good for the skin.
We sailed south and bypassed the island of St. Vincent, with all the reports about boat boardings and some violence in Chateaubelair in the last year. We sailed into Bequia, in the Grenadines. We stayed there a little over a week, until the wind came down a bit.

Wake Up and Smell the Guano

After an unchar- acteristically smooth, comfortable sail of 5 hours from Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, we arrived down island at the fishing village of Soufriere. There are many Soufriere place names in the Caribbean islands — it means “sulfur” in French - a testimony to their volcanic origins. Soufriere, St. Lucia happens to have one of the most distinctive landmarks in the Caribbean for a backdrop — the twin pitons looming over a large bay.
These jagged peaks rise nearly straight up from the water’s edge to over 2500 ft. Likewise water depth drops off from 15 ft. at spitting distance from shore to 600 ft. a stone’s throw away.

We picked up a mooring ball, available for a small fee, since anchoring was not permitted (or very practical) in this area which turned out to be a protected national marine reserve. Luckily for us this meant great snorkeling and swimming right from the boat with thousands of tropical fish scooting around as if we were floating in a giant aquarium. 50 ft. away from our boat a vertical rock wall with clinging shrubs rose to about 100 ft. With breakers hitting the rocks so close to us, especially at night when they sounded a little too close, we glanced nervously in that direction for the first day or so. Fortunately our mooring was snug with short strong rope and a solid anchoring in the sea bottom. A scenic bonus was a spontaneous waterfall that materialized next to us during and after every rain.
Just forward of our boat on shore was a remarkable geologic formation. A fissure split the 100 ft. high wall from top to bottom creating a soaring A-shaped cave. We would sometimes notice a faint urea-type scent in the air, but assumed it came from the outskirts of town. Not so. Now and then a small guide boat filled with tourists from a nearby resort would slowly motor up to the cave entrance. People would peer up into the dark chasm and snap photos. After a few days we realized we had moored next to a local spectacle called the Bat Cave. The odor that occasionally wafted past us was the byproduct of hundreds of bats roosting during the day. Our consolation was that all these squeaking creatures probably kept the mosquitoes to a minimum at night after they fluttered out of the cave at sunset. So another ecology lesson aboard the Debonair about nature’s connections: scenic landscape, intriguing cave, strange smell, bats galore, insect control. At least these bats were not of the vampire variety, I think.

We are spending a very pleasant couple of weeks in Martinique, anchored in the capitol, Fort-de- France, which is a very large and bustling city. It is also a very old city, settled in the 1600s by the French. It was fought over by the British and the French in the 1800s, and is now a departement of France (the equivalent of one of our states). We realize that Martinique and Guadeloupe are very similar to Hawaii for Americans - an overseas tropical destination on home soil for the French. We see tourists from France here in Martinique. France also subsidizes the islands here, and it shows in the infrastructure of a modern bus system, good roads, a drinkable water system, and other outward signs.
We helped our friend Sue on Enee Marie deliver her boat about 10 miles down the coast to a boatyard, where she will leave it for hurricane season while she and her husband go to Chicago. We had some adventures getting back to our boat after the delivery - from Marin, about 30 kilometers away by road, collective taxis are supposed to run until 5:30 every afternoon, but we couldn't find any. So, for the first time, we hitchhiked back, and were picked up by several wonderful Martiniquans, the last one who sought us out to deliver us directly to our dinghy dock.
We also had a package delivered to us at the FedEx office, at the airport. Our water jugs from Reliance had all failed with cracks in their seams. Larry found the telephone number of a vice president of the Canadian-based company, who was very interested in our problems. She found mistakes in their manufacturing process and wanted to replace our jugs, free of charge - almost unheard-of for a company to stand behind its products in this way! Kudos to Reliance.
We also have had a very good time walking around the city, seeing all the French shops, walking to the suburb of Schoelcher for a large supermarket (they call it a Hyper Marche), and visiting tourist sites in town. We've developed quite a liking for French bread of all types, from baguettes to pain complet (whole wheat), pain compagne (country bread), pain de cereales (multi-grain), batard aux noix (bread with walnuts). We will miss the French bread, French cheese, and French mustard, among other culinary delights available here.
We will be sailing on to St. Lucia and St. Vincent in the next couple of weeks, as we make our way south for hurricane season.

Many of the Caribbean island nations have colorful flags. Here is Dominica's.
I'm not sure if the parrot shown in the center has a special meaning for Dominicans. Maybe it's their national bird, although when we toured the island, not a single one of these vivid creatures flew by. In fact there are more wild parrots noticeable in the Hyde Park area on the south side of Chicago, near the Museum of Science and Industry. How they got there is another story.

As the country's emblem, a parrot does not quite project the bold, inspiring image that nations seem to prefer, a la the American eagle. You can't seriously picture a platoon of Dominican soldiers marching bravely into battle under the banner of the happy parrot. But then imagining Dominica at war isn't easy either, with St. Kitts? Martinique(France)? over bananas? tourist attractions? For the record, a symbolic force of Dominican troops was sent in support of the U.S. invasion of neighboring Grenada back in 1983. In appreciation, the United States increased its foreign aid to Dominica which helped build the fine paved roads all over the island.

Dominica's gentle flag could be a good thing though, toning down the usual aggressive, nationalistic tendencies and replacing them with an unpretentious, let's-enjoy-the-moment island attitude. Besides, parrots are not only attractive birds but no doubt feisty as well as renown for their verbal talents, compatibility and unexpected intelligence. Not a bad national mascot after all.



We spent about a week and a half on the island of Dominica, most of it anchored at the northern town of Portsmouth, and just one night at the capital city of Roseau. We took an island tour with another couple, Bill and Sue from Unchained, given by one of the tour guides named Alexis. He was a good guide, took us to the Emerald Pool, over to the Atlantic side of the
island, through the Carib territory, and back. The tour was set up by the other couple; we would use a different tour guide, probably Martin on Providence if we had to do it over - Alexis was good, but he tried to overcharge us at the end. The quoted price before the trip, to Bill and Sue, was $135 US, and at the end he wanted $200 US - pretty sleazy way to give himself a $70 tip. We talked him down to $140 total.
We did enjoy Dominica very much, including the open-air vegetable market in Portsmouth on Saturday morning, and the fish and vegetable market in Roseau. Dominica is a significantly poorer country than others we have seen in the eastern Caribbean, but the people are friendly and the public buses are efficient and cheap.
Now we are in Martinique as we make our way south for hurricane season.