The scenery was a complete change from the tropical island vistas of the previous months with a slow moving a silty river passing through jungle vegetation. Much of the river is uncharted as it has no commercial value (yet…), but we had details of the main channels and exploring the unmarked side channels added interest. Generally there was sufficient depth but all of the boats in our little flotilla had a squelch in the mud at least once. During the evenings, we would find a suitable channel to anchor for the night and settle down to watch, listen and beat off the bugs as the jungle changed character. The bugs were a bit of an issue, but we came well armed with smoke coils, insect repellent, high voltage fly swats (very satisfying), sufficient mosquito netting to cover the cockpit and all hatches and plenty of anti-histamines. The brave could even swim in the muddy waters to help cool off at the end of the sultry, humid days. We were assured that the caimans and piranhas would not cause a problem - most of them have been eaten by the humans, so there was plenty of food left for the remainder. As dusk settled, the day animals would go to bed and the nocturnal fauna would take over. We took a couple of days to catch on to the idea, but the best time of day to be up and about in the dinghy was at dawn when all sorts of weird and wonderful sounds and sights would emerge from the foliage.

Part of the fun of this trip is that the local Warao indians have little contact with the outside world and are keen to barter for goods. They were particularly interested in children's clothes, needles, thread and material. Mostly, they offered baskets and bowls in exchange although odd canoe paddle was available. A previous enterprising yachtie had managed to barter for a complete dug-out canoe (which was sadly smashed by a runaway pirogue on their return to Trinidad - but that is another story). On sighting our group of yachts approaching their palifitos (waterside huts on stilts) they would paddle briskly paddle out to meet us in their canoes waving whatever they had on offer. Often children would paddle out just to gaze in wonder at these strange apparitions and just smile and giggle at us. Our Warao language skills were limited, but we managed with plenty of sign language, smiles, gesticulations and a little Spanish, to get by. The intrusion of the modern world was apparent in the vicinity of the tourist 'eco-lodges' as they would often ask for hard cash and set hard bargains.

Out of curiosity and a desire for our fix of emails, we dropped into some of these eco-lodges. This growth industry is the latest way of persuading rich first worlders to pay to stay in wooden thatched huts in the jungle suffering the mud and bugs making them feel good about themselves. In case the tourists could not spot enough wildlife, most of the lodges kept a menagerie of tame animals to entertain and steal food off the tourists. One even had a puma, but as any tendency to run away or eat tourists was to be discouraged, it was kept in a cage. This lodge also had an amorous tapir who would wiffle its prehensile nose down ladies necks causing much screaming. One of the lodges was good enough to provide an indian guide to show us some of the more domestic aspects of the flora such as which could be eaten, which could be used for medicine and a tree whose leaves could be used for a very foamy soap.

As you can probably realise from my tone, the lodges did cause us to reflect on their and our effect on this largely unspoiled area and wonder what the future holds, particularly as oil has been discovered at the mouth of the river.

If you have a broadband link, you can see a video of our experiences here.

Back to Trinidad

Eventually, our most enjoyable holiday had to come to and end and the boat maintenance continue, so it was back to the noisy, dirty, rough Chaguaramus anchorage in Trinidad. A few days was enough for us and we into retreated to nearby Chacachacare Island, an old leper colony, to do some intensive work undisturbed. The island is fascinating, it was used until 1984 when a cure for leprosy was found, at which point everyone left leaving the buildings as they were. Beds still in place, medicines still in cupboards, notes in drawers. The vegetation is gradually taking over, but still a scenic place. However, no tourism for us, down to work.

Ruth had to make a dinghy cover for our 'new' inflatable dinghy, our previous one having disintegrated. There are two materials generally used to make dinghies, PVC and hypalon (a sort of rubber). The PVC ones are cheap, but don't like sunshine (it melts the glue) while the hypalon ones are expensive but last forever. My father bought a black rubber Avon Redcrest back in the mid-sixties and it is still being used by my elder sister's family on the beach front at Bexhill over 40 years later. When we purchased 'Do It', she came with a PVC dinghy and as we were haemorrhaging money at the time buying new stuff for the boat, we weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Unfortunately, the glue started to come unstuck faster than I could repair it. Just as we were considering buying another dinghy, some friends GAVE us their old Zodiac inflatable as they were trading up and were about to dispose of the old one. The dinghy had its problems (a wood rot in the transom and an air leak) but a weeks work had it serviceable again. As we didn't want to repeat the process in a years time, Ruth set about making a fabric cover on her trusty sail maker's sewing machine. Eight days later, she had created a masterpiece but was swearing "Never again." Which was unfortunate as the first time it was seen by other cruisers, they asked her to make them one too. Ah well, another money making opportunity lost.

In the meantime, I had not been idle. One of the pieces of equipment we were keen to have on board was a device called a series drogue which is trailed off the back of the boat to slow her down in strong winds. These are normally sold as a kit, which you make up yourself as they are very labour intensive to construct. It consists of a 350-foot long rope with a 150 six-inch diameter parachutes along its length. The drawback of the traditional single large parachute is that that can be collapsed by big waves leaving the boat to accelerate away before being yanked to a stop as the parachute fills again placing enormous strains on the yacht/rope/parachute. The idea of a series drogue is that the majority of the mini parachutes will be working all the time giving a smoother ride. We had to make up the mini-parachutes and then splice them onto the rope. That was 600 seams to be sewn and 900 splices to be made, the seams were a joint effort, but I did the splices - every one of them.

Another major advantage of going into sanctuary at Chacachacare Island was that we could swim again every day. The waters of the Chaguaramus anchorage were so foul that we had not had our evening swims for two months and were getting desperate.

Maintenance

Further on the maintenance note, you may have read during last months web page about having our engine injectors fixed by a local engineer. This was an eye opener for me. I had previously been treating our Perkins 4108 hidden under the stairs as a greedy, temperamental ogre which had to be treated like a delicate watch, regularly fed expensive juices and filters and generally worshipped to keep it in a good mood ready to function if it felt so inclined. On starting, we always allowed it to warm up before asking for motive power, we limited ourselves to 1800 RPM and generally worried about any odd tinkles or stange sounds. Under this regime, it had not let us down despite the knocking episode.

The treatment meted out by the Trinidadian engineer was amazing. On starting the engine during the knocking sound diagnosis, he did a couple of experimental jabs on the throttle to trigger the knocking and then rammed the throttle fully open sending it up to 4000 RPM, way above the 3600 RPM limit in the manual, with the poor thing knocking away. Apparently my eyes were like saucers. As result of this performance, it was decided to send the injectors for servicing, something that has to be carried out with specialised equipment in surgical conditions due to the nanometre precise tolerances to which these things are built. So it was with astonishment that I watched the engineer use a crowbar and a large hammer to remove the injectors from the engine. During the subsequent re-installation, the engineer dropped an aluminium washer into the cylinder, another piece of precision machinery. I had visions of having to remove the cylinder head, precipitating all sorts of problems caused when functioning engines are disturbed (another adage, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it"). He breezily shrugged his shoulders and said "No problem man, happens all the time, it just gets spat out the exhaust". We had a prolonged discussion about this, and my views on my expensive machinery, but he put forward a convincing line. So he started her up, she did a couple of the predicted coughs, and has run smoothly ever since. From now on, I intend to adopt a more dominating approach to the engine.

On a philosophical note, one of the areas that had been worrying us was how much time we were spending on maintenance, fixing things or carrying outpreventative maintenance. There is one old cruiser maxim that says "Cruising is boat maintenance in interesting places" but we felt that maybe we were taking things a little too seriously. What was very revealing about our two week trip along the Orinoco tributary in company with two other boats was how much time they spent fixing things that broke or carrying out preventative maintenance, and it was equal to or more than us, which was quite reassuring. I might start a new entry in our monthly diary listing the major worries/expenses for the month. Last month it was the injectors

That is it for now. Next month, we should be in Venezuela prior to travelling to Cuba for Christmas were Ruth's folks will be visiting us for a couple of weeks.

PS: We have just had our first earthquake of the trip. All sorts of excitment but, much to the disgust of the local news radio station, little damage and no casualties.

For those of you with Broadband internet, this month's video is here