June 1- 5, 2002 -- Coche This was it. Today, we went to Coche! However, before leaving, we met Precocious Gale at Jak's for Huevos Rancheros. Normally, we wouldn't do something like this; however, since Coche is a whopping 20 miles from Porlamar, we weren't to concerned about it. After a leisurely breakfast, we returned to the boat and struggled to remember how to put Fido (the tender) up on deck. We managed to forget our pull back line; however, with a little bit of effort we managed to get Fido situated in his cradle. We raised the anchor and swung our compass. A fluxgate compass needs to be recalibrated every 200 or so miles north or south. We haven't swung our compass since Peurto Rico, so it was definitely time to do this. With that one task completed, we headed for Coche. It was a very comfortable trip. The seas were around 2 feet, and the winds never exceeded 15 knots. We arrived in Coche, dropped two anchors (Normally we only use one anchor, but don't get off the boat until the day after we are sure it is set, since we had plans to get off the boat we set two. This puts a total of 280 pounds of anchor down and set, and we feel better about getting off the boat sooner this way.) and spent a relaxing afternoon in a new anchorage. We launched Spot (the small dinghy), and I visited with Blind Date and Precocious Gale. We made arrangements to go snorkeling on June 2 in the morning. I returned to the boat, and we spent a quiet evening. On June 2, bright and early at 8:00 AM, we headed out to snorkel with Blind Date and Precocious Gale. The snorkeling isn't very good in Coche; however, we had heard that there was a place where you could find lobster in abundance, so we went searching for it. Unfortunately, though we hunted and tried, we never did find lobster. It was still a fun morning snorkeling with everyone. We returned to our boat around noon, and invited everyone over for cocktails that evening. Mike and I had lunch, and then took a nap. Being in the sun and surf is exhausting when you haven't done it in a long time! At 6:00 PM, everyone showed up for cocktails and snacks. We had a fun evening with Ray, Gail, Ashley, Carol and Ashley. Ray is excellent with constellations. We spent part of the evening staring at the stars and learning how to find the Southern Cross, and several other constellations. We had a fun evening with everyone. On June 3, we got up had a plan of action for the day. We needed to fix a few things that we discovered on the trip to Coche, nothing major just a few minor problems. After that, we moved the boat from the upper end of the anchorage to the lower end of the anchorage close to town. We planned to go into town and have a late lunch or early dinner. The weather had other ideas. We have always heard that the wind howls in Coche. We certainly experienced it! The wind blew between 25 and 35 for the rest of the day! There was no way to get off the boat without getting completely soaked. After a conference call with Precocious Gale and Blind Date, we all decided to cancel our plans for the evening. Since we were planning to return to Porlamar on Tuesday, we put Spot up on deck and stowed the motor and spent the rest of the evening lounging and reading. On June 4, we got up at 4:30 AM and saw that the wind was blowing 20 knots. We decided stay another day in Coche. We went back to bed and woke up around 8:30 or so. Blind Date called to ask if we would be interested in going into town today. After explaining that I (Bryan) had hurt my toe so we did not want to drop Spot again. They offered to shuttle us in so we made plans again to head into town. Unfortunately, as the day went on, the wind came up and again, everyone opted out! On June 5, we got up at 4:30 AM again. We watched the wind. It was blowing 15-20 knots. As we watched, around 5:15 AM, the wind dropped to 10-15 knots. We decided to leave. The trip back to Porlamar was another easy trip. The winds and seas were relatively calm, and we arrived back in Porlamar around 8:00 AM. Since we hadn't had breakfast, we deployed 2 anchors, dropped Spot and went into Jak's for breakfast. Later in the afternoon, we headed into town with Ashley from Blind Date. After we completed our running around, we met Galadriel and Carol from Blind Date by Funda Farmacia. We had a great dinner at Punta Criollo. We returned to Jaks for drinks after dinner and had an enjoyable time before finally returning to the boat for the evening.

June 6-30, 2002 -- Quick Month From June 6 through June 8, we didn't do a whole lot. We headed out to the Centro Commercial in Los Robles twice to pick up some stuff for the computer, and otherwise didn't do a whole lot. On June 9, we headed over to Gary and Josefina's for the day. Josefina had been after us for some time to come out to the house for an afternoon. She is a wonderful cook! Whenever we have dinner there, she always tries to fix a traditional Venezuelan or Dominican meal. On June 10, it was back to work though! While I took care of some things in town, Mike took Fido's "clothes" off so they could be repaired. The dinghy cover came to be known as clothes because I don't know how to say dinghy cover in Spanish! So, when I was talking with Johnny about the cover, I referred to it as the dinghy's clothes. After a second, Johnny knew what I was talking about, and they have been the dinghy's clothes ever since! By the time I returned to the boat, Mike was ready to deploy our stern anchor and launch a now naked Fido. After that, we ran Fido's clothes up to Johnny so he could repair them. On June 11, I was back in town again. This time I was showing Dan and Jan from Sojourner around. We hit all of the important places: the boat supply store in town, travel agency, grocery store, pharmacy, and Tiva sandal shop. It was a fun outing with lots of walking. After I got back, we were invited to go to dinner with Galadriel and Blind Date at a Chinese restaurant. Now, you have to keep in mind, Mike and I aren't crazy about Chinese food to begin with. However, we agreed to go because we had been told that the food was good even though the service was horrible. So, forewarned is forearmed, right? Wrong! As predicted, the service was horrible. Being the only diners in the place you would think that you would not need to send up a flare to get their attention. However, when the orders came out, they were also wrong! There wasn't a single dish that we ordered! If it weren't for the company, it would have been the worst meal we have had in Margarita. On June 12, we tackled our head problem. There was a definite blockage in the line running to the head pump. We tried to burn it out using Muratic Acid, but that didn't work out. So, we took a hammer to the PVC line to try to break the scaling loose. This helped significantly. Unfortunately, everything then piled up in the elbow! So, I took the line apart and sure enough there was 15 years of scale build up. Once we cleaned that out, the pump worked fine again. After a day of working on the head pump, there was no way I was cooking, so Mike took me out to dinner at Bambu where Galadriel and Blind Date joined us for dinner. After returning to the boat, we ran muratic acid through the head lines again, just to be sure. Between June 13 and June 15, it was business as usual. We did a little work on the boat, we had fun with friends, and enjoyed a nice dinner aboard Nightwinds with Dan and Jan from Sojourner. We were resting up for the next job. On June 17 and 18, we tackled the replacement of the bad heat exchanger on Ling Ling, our Fisher Panda generator. It took two days to complete because the heat exchanger is located below the engine next to the sound shield. So, in order to change the heat exchanger, you have to un-mount the engine, then jack it up. We spent the rest of the month doing small things aboard the boat.