Dear Friends, This is a follow-up of our Christmas letter of 22. Dec. you could read at PUP archive: http://lists.samurai.com/pipermail/passagemaking-under-power/ We spent a good deal of time in St. Thomas, the US Virgins to lick our wounds from the Cape Horn trip. Most of this time fixing or replacing things on the boat. Our 4 Trojan L16H batteries started to die back in Grenada and Venezuela. They were purchased 2003 up in Canada but the pounding of the Diesel Duck working itself south along the Pacific Chilean coast was something else. There I noticed that during the steady pounding into 28 to 30 knots headwind, the battery acid started coming out of the hydro cap vent holes. I don't want to know what was going on inside of the batteries. Anyway, we replaced the complete house bank of 4 L16H Trojans plus the 1 group 24 battery close to the VHF-SSB and solar panel incl. giving the extra whack to the electric toilet. Diesel Duck left St. Thomas at the beginning of Feb. and ventured across the Anegada Passage via BVIs to St. Martin and parked there for three weeks in the lagoon on the French side. While holding on to our Visa card, I still managed to burn a hole into our bank account. Budget Marine and Island Waterworld are the Caribbean chain stores for marine supplies and potential credit card killers. DD needed bottom paint in a hurry. The last time we painted the bottom was in Apr. 2008 at Panama. Of course down in the frigid waters of Chile and Argentina there was no growth, but up here in the lagoon of St Martin we had more growth on the bottom in three weeks than in the four months in St. Thomas. I started to panic and purchased 5 buckets of 5 liters each of Jotun Sea Alu in blue for $963 to replace the Sea Hawk Biotin Plus which DD had been using since 2007. While painting the bottom later on in Trinidad between monsoon style rain showers of biblical proportions (I would call them floods) and later frantically wiping the ark down between downpours to slap on another coat of bottom paint before everything goes to hell again, we had to thin down each pail of paint with 1 liter of Jotun #7 thinner. Otherwise the paint would dry on the roller. It was hot there and with the rain it was hell to work on the boat. A price to pay for being in paradise. DD cruised down the Caribbean island chain sipping Margaritas and Pina Coladas while enjoying St. Barths, Antigua, The Saints, Martinique, plus a longer stop in Grenada. Then on the 1st of May we got into Trinidad for a TLC on Diesel Duck including painting the bottom. On launching day May 20th we faced the decision what to do about Venezuela. Do a strait run through pirate alley to Margarita, do a dog leg via Los Testigos to Margarita or, go up to Grenada and then follow the 12th Lat west and bypassing Margarita with the cheap diesel, cheap rum, cheap beer, cheap everything, or pack it in, sell the boat and hide up in Canada in the bush. We've done the straight run Trinidad-Margarita-Trinidad three times in the past. Every time at night past the most dangerous section, the coast of the Peninsula de Paria between Boca Grande (the entrance to the Gulf of Paria by Trinidad) and west toward the Venezuelan city of Carupano. This is the most active section in Venezuela with piracy. Just in April this year a yacht got hit and the skipper got shot. Another hit was in Dec. 2009. The Caribbean Safety and Security Net website: http://www.safetyandsecuritynet.com is a good site to get information about problems in the Caribbean islands. After some serious discussion with my wife, we came to the decision to risk it one more time the old fashion way using following criteria: 1. Run this section in the dark of the night 2. No running lights 3. Constant radar watch 4. Only when big ships approach then switch on running lights for necessary time 5. Change the amber bezel of our pilot house roof mounted strobe light to the blue one (for plowing snow in Canada) 6. Keep both flare guns handy with plenty of flares 7. Put new batteries into the cattle prod 8. Dig out the can of bear deterrent spray 9. Check out the function of our pilot house roof mounted award winning ambulance, fire truck and police siren with the wail-yelp-pierce and horn 10. Stay calm, no panic, create a diversion in case it happens. I love point 9 myself. The test was positive as the boatyard dog took off like a rocket when the horn opened up. The plan, when having a pirat contact, is to stop for a second and turn the bow toward the pinero of the pirates, switch on the powerful 10" search light on top of DD, switch on the blue strobe and the red strobe on top of the mast and fire up the siren. In case this does not change their minds, then we would run toward them. Remember, at night every cat looks grey. The Diesel Ducks got a very official look, especially in the dark. Okay, when this does not change their minds, then we'd run like heck and start defending ourselves. So on May 20, we launched at Power Board Yard in Trinidad at noontime. We had alrady cleared out with Customs and Immigration and at 17:00 hr we were on our way. At 19:00 hr in the dark, we crossed the borderline to Venezuela on a direct curse to Isla Margarita. Two commercial freighters passed us during the night and we switched on our running lights during this process. At about 05:00 hr in the twilight of the morning, a pinero crossed our bow. I switched on the blue strobe for a moment and the pinero took off like a flash. At noontime on May 21st the anchor went down in Margarita and I quietly exchanged the blue bezel strobe light for the amber one. It's nice and warm here, no need to plow snow. (haha) Things have changed here since our last visit in October. No more diesel to foreign boats at the gas station, but the following day, the Saturday, the diesel man came by with his boat. "Captain, you need diesel? Only 1 bolivar the liter." I said, "Si, si" and told him I could do 2400 liters. Miguel, the diesel man is changing also US dollars for bolivars: $1 US = 7.5bs At the grocery stores one 750ml bottle of rum is 10bs, one case 24 cans of Polar beer is 68bs. Do your math! Not bad, isn't it? Coming week we will clear out of Venezuela and start cruising toward Curacao via Tortuga, the Roques and the Aves. At the end of the hurricane season we are going to work our way toward Columbia and the San Blas islands of Panama. Best Regards to all Benno and Marlene on "Diesel Duck"