As the 'winter' season approaches, the temperatures are falling and the winds are increasing. I even managed to catch a cold in Venezuela, our first since we set off in April 05. It may sound odd that the Caribbean has seasons, there are three of them. The Hurricane season (July to November) tends to be hot, wet and windless with brief blasts from passing squalls and hurricanes. The windy season (December to March) tends to be drier, cooler and blowy, starting with the 'Christmas Winds', and finally April to June is just about right. The current revival of the winds is a relief bringing cooling breezes sufficient to blow away the mosquitoes, fill the sails enough to stop them slatting away to rags and provide lots of electricity from the faithful wind generator. Sometimes, we even have to climb under an empty duvet cover when sleeping at night instead of gasping under a whirring fan.

We have briefly managed to break away from the maintenance cycle (but more below) to get back to what we consider to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the cruising lifestyle - sailing and visiting new places. The most enjoyable aspect is the new friends we meet on the way - sounds sentimental but it is true. Having left Puerto La Cruz in Venezuela, we have been visiting some of the offshore islands en route to Curacao.

These islands are quite unusual. Generally when sailing, one can expect the shape of the land to reflect what happens under the water. If the land is mountainous, the water will probably be deep close to the shore. If the land is flat, the nearby sea will probably be shallow. However, the islands off Venzuela are mostly coral atolls less than 3-5 metres high but the depths can be too deep for the depth sounder to measure within a hundred metres of the shore line. Within the islands/atolls there are lagoon areas strewn with coral heads, fishlife and difficult navigation problems. The secret of these places is to enter at the right time of day with some sunshine from the right direction and a set of polaroid glasses to reduce the reflections. Under these conditions, the shallow patches and coral heads are fairly easy to spot and avoid in the clear water. As we approach the anchoring area, Ruth goes up to the bows to watch for shallows while I steer, and we both scan the sky nervously hoping that a cloud won't obscure the sun at a critical moment.

Our first experience of these conditions was the island of Tortuga which has a couple of nice, easy anchorages to get us started. The Islas Roques and Islas Aves gave some more difficult approaches with twisting, narrow channels and extensive shallows. All good practice for the atoll anchorages which we will encounter during our Pacific crossing next year (El Nino permitting).

When settled in the chosen anchorage, we can settle back and marvel at the spectacle of being surrounded by calm, brilliant green/blue clear water, under blue skies and with the ocean rollers crashing onto the protecting windward reefs. The quality of the light is such that even the seagulls and clouds are bright green from the reflected colour of the surrounding water. The adjacent reefs are mostly submerged giving the impression of floating on a clear green/blue lake in the middle of the sea. Spectacular. Snorkelling enhances the experience further, although as we have noted before, much of the coral is, sadly, dead or dying but some of the hardier species, such as brain coral, is still hanging on and there are still plenty of fish.

With all this coral dodging, we are beginning to feel more like real cruisers. We have passed 10,000 miles sailed since we set off, and we are holding regular long range social chats with friends via our short wave radio. And for the final evidence, we found that the 6 kgs of rice we purchased in Trinidad had to be thrown over the side as it was infested with weevils. What more proof is needed.

Stocking up

Ruth is back in Project Manager mode and has set up a plan. Her parents are joining us for Christmas in Cuba, so we need to keep moving west. Our information on Cuba is that there is very little available for tourists and not that much for locals, so we need to be self sufficient in food and stores from our arrival in early December until our arrival in Panama in February. The best place around these parts to stock up is Bonaire and Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles. These islands, with a Dutch colonial history, are quite modern and progressive with good infrastructure and rely heavily on oil refining and dive tourism. Bonaire, in particular, is one big dive site and boat movements are severely restricted to protect the remaining coral from anchor damage. The prices in Bonaire were very high, fortunately, Curacao's were more reasonable with a much wider range of stock.

We had a very satisfactory visit to a local supermarket filling up four shopping trolleys and managed to give the cash register a seizure as we exceeded the maximum amount of goods it could accept. The supermarket manager was so pleased, he gave us a discount and transported us and all our boxes back to the dinghy dock for free.

Things that Broke

In my September update, I mused about how much time I spent fixing things or doing preventative maintenance. Last month, very little went wrong, and I was secretly feeling quite pleased with myself that our session in Trinidad was paying off. Oh, silly me. The effects have run out. The first item to misbehave to an unacceptable level was the digital meter that monitors the health of our batteries and electrical system. The readings have been a bit peculiar for a while but have been broadly correct, however they have now gone right off the rails and the meter has been sent back to the makers in the UK to be fixed. The cost of the shipping was £30, the cost of fixing it has yet to be revealed.

Next, I started noticing that the oil level on our Perkins engine was rising, never a good sign in an engine, particularly this one which normally likes to ooze all the expensive fluids that I feed it into the bilges. An investigation showed water in the oil and oil in the cooling water. A thumb through my books and a vote amongst the friendly local experts pointed towards a leaking head gasket. The received wisdom amongst experts is that "Perkins parts can be found anywhere". It is not true, certainly not Bonaire or Curacao, both reasonably modern countries. So back into the faithful internet to order the parts from a company in Florida who managed to get them to Curacao in 24 hours. It then took four days to get the parts out of the clutches of customs, a phenomenon we have encountered before.

I did not have the training, courage or confidence to have a go at changing a head gasket by myself. However one of the excellent friends mentioned above, Sim from 'Alianna' - a Brit, had been a ships engineer working on sail training ships and was keen to have a go. He spent two days changing the head gasket on completion of which, the engine started first time and has run smoothly since although it is still under close scrutiny. With friends like that, we will go a long way

Next Update

That is about all for now. We are not sure when we will manage to upload the next website update as internet access in Cuba is probably fairly limited. You may have to wait until February when we get to Panama.