I can hardly believe that we are now into our fourth week in El Yaque... The last few days have been light winds - I have not sailed since Sunday - keeping my infected ear dry (the other one now!!!) to see if that helps it heal. No one has really sailed for the last two days - yesterday the water was flat calm and like a mirror - totally different to normal. And for one day it was really nice. I think that if it carries on though, people will get frustrated quite quickly. It's ok for us as we are here for a long time - and for me as I am keeping my ear dry it means it is no sacrifice at all. Maybe it is my fault that the wind has stopped. I don't think that I 'd better mention to anyone that I'm pleased the wind is not blowing - I won't be popular!!!
 
We went to Porlamar on Tuesday to go to the hospital to see a doctor about my ongoing ear problems. Unfortunately the ENT specialist is at a conference in Caracas this week and won't be back until Monday - so that wasn't very successful! But the journey there was quite an experience as local bus drivers were demonstrating about the lack of security on the buses (as there have been cases of the drivers being mugged). Their method of demonstration was to blockade the road with branches and tyres (which they appeared to plan to set fire to). The police were stopping traffic at the exit from the highway prior to the demonstrators' blockade - to avoid confrontation, I guess. So we ended up going through the streets of downtown Porlamar - along with all the rest of the cars from the highway. Luckily, Nora had taken us in her truck rather than us hiring a car, which we had discussed. She managed to navigate her way through the maze of tiny back roads and we we just about to rejoin the highway, when a group of protestors blocked the opposite carriageway of the road we were on. Vehicles on our side slowed down to look, much to Nora's disgust and frustration - and hey presto, the protestors managed to block our side of the road about 4 or 5 cars ahead of us!! Of course the drivers of the cars/trucks in front of us got out and remonstrated with the protestors - and managed to 'negotiate' the removal of the barricade (I think it was along the lines of 'let us through, or else!!') - at which point the cars pushed their way through the gap. Nora was close behind in our truck, but not before one of the protestors could throw a tyre and stone down in front of the truck. Nora looked at me and said 'We're going for it' - I agreed, and she put her foot to the floor and went straight over the tyre. The guy who had put it down was just thinking of adding another, but I think he saw the look on Nora's face and jumped back out of the road pretty quickly!! So all that - and then we got to the hospital and no doctor!! As I say it was quite an experience though :0) And we did go to the local shopping centre (very modern and stylish) and had lunch. Well, it seemed a waste of a trip otherwise!!!
 
On the windsurfing front, as I say it has been quiet since Monday - but last week was pretty full on. We have both been enjoying getting on what is small kit for us and getting comfortable on that. We don't normally go far beyond the reef as we tend to be practising turns and jumps so cruising out into the ocean just lengthens the time between the turns! But, as lots of the others at the centre go way out, we decided towards the end of last week to join them out there and see what they were all getting up to. It is nice to sail further out - a bit quieter - although of course the more people go out there to find the space, the less space there will be!! The only trouble I find is that as I go from chop to swell - all the happens is that my jumps get bigger, and bigger, and bigger!!! I know the idea is just to cruise over the swell, but I have got so used to looking for bits of chop to jump off that when I see a nice big wave I can hardly resist it :0)
 
On Tuesday last week Dave decided to take a day off and rest his tired muscles. I went out on a 4m on a 92L board... I had been back and forth a few times when I decided I would go in and change down to 84L. So I went back to the beach and found Dave sitting with Alex with a pair of binoculars... apparently they had been analysing my gybes. Alex said that to come out planing I just need to stay sheeted in and not open out my sail too early. So, I went out again leaving Alex and Dave (now joined by Lindsay) with the binoculars - no pressure then! The first gybe on the outside went well - keeping sheeted in a little longer seemed to help with the speed, although I still struggled with the rig flip - but made it. The inside was a different matter. Remember, I am pretty stacked with power and had been going in to change down boards, which I hadn't done as I was going to be watched practising gybes. So every time on the inside I went in with loads of power, tried to sheet in hard - and ended up crashing and burning time after time. On the outside I was making about 50% and the board did seem to go round quicker - but before I had been making 90% on the outside and about 30% on the inside. Now, I was down to 50% on the outside and 0% on the inside!!!! But, hey, I kept trying.

I crashed so many times and luckily didn't do much damage to myself - apart from an ankle bracelet induced injury can you believe. I must have trapped my foot one crash and my ankle bracelet (only made from thread) dug into my ankle and broke the skin. Oh no, another injury requiring our rapidly decreasing supply of waterproof plasters. I think I will have to approach all the guests who are leaving and instead of offering to buy their unwanted Bolivars offer to buy any unwanted plasters!!! 
 
The following day - after all the previous day's crashes with virtually no injury - I managed to bang my hand on the mast - and within minutes my hand was huge!! I spent the next 48 hours icing it for 20 minutes at a time - and that really seemed to help. I wore my glove too and kept my hand up as much as possible - so that was Ice, Compression and Elevation - the only bit I was missing from the recommended (RICE) treatment was Rest - and somehow I just couldn't bring myself to stop windsurfing (as it didn't hurt when I was windsurfing) but I did make the sacrifice of letting Dave carry all the bags back and forth ;0)
 
Dave's injured foot - after 24 days - is still healing. What started out as a scrape of the skin got deeper and deeper and is now back to about the size of a 5p piece. Since I got my ankle bracelet injury, we have both been going out in matching ankle bandages - talk about his and hers kit!!  Dave's bruised ribs (which he got from an encounter with the boom during a gybe) are now much better and before the wind dropped on Monday he was really getting back to his full form on the water. The only problem he had was getting in and out of bed as it is a sort of bunk arrangement with a ladder and quite tricky to negotiate with sore ribs!!
 
Our wildlife encounters continue... On our return to our room last Wednesday, I was hanging out the kit to dry whilst Dave went into the room to do the important job of getting the beers. I heard a shout which I thought was 'Hey, we've got a kettle in our room' to which I replied 'Great!' as we could really do with one. Dave came out saying 'What do you mean, great - I think we should get it out'. It turns out he said 'Gecko' not 'kettle'. There on the wall was, indeed, quite a big gecko and despite my earlier plans of having a resident insect eating gecko I thought it was not fair to keep him in as we have the mosquito plug on at night and I don't think it would be good for him. We have a large ornamental bundle of sticks in our room - you know the sort of think you get from habitat - so I put that near him and he scuttled in there and I took him outside and encouraged him into some bushes. Meanwhile, Dave was busy... pouring the drinks. The following day as the sun went down we were sitting by the pool and went back to fetch something from the room, to find the gecko just peeking into our door which was slightly ajar. We closed the door and he retreated to a watching position on the wall outside our window, but I swear he was just waiting for his chance to get in. What is it that is so appealing about our room???

A couple of days ago we were having our usual drinks by the pool at the end of the day and I went to refill the glasses, came out of the room and thought, quite matter of factly, 'mustn't tread on that snake' - 'hey, wait a minute!! THAT'S a SNAKE!!! '. It is strange how used to the new wildlife I am getting - at first it really was just a 'mind the snake' moment until thought, hang on!!.... It was only a small snake - about 18 inches long and as thick as my finger and he did a sidewinder action across the path and disappeared straight into some bushes. Needless to say I didn't have the camera to hand to capture the moment.

We have been having a splendid time here - so much so that we have been looking at the options of buying a property out here. And yesterday morning we viewed two houses which are for sale. Let me tell you - they are both fantastic. If anyone is thinking of buying a holiday home this is the place for it!! So long as you like watersports and just taking it easy the rest of the time. One house is a really good business opportunity - with 4 rooms to let on the groundfloor - and an apartment for the owner on the first floor - in a beach front location, with space to build more rooms - either to let or as extra living space. The other house is just a fantastic property to live in - loads of space with the possibility of 3 rooms to let, fantastic views - but not beach front. 
 
So now we are thinking whether this would be a good winter option for us - summer in Borth, winter here. All we would need is people to come out and holiday here for a couple of weeks at a time (or longer). So if any of you would be interested, let me know :0) It might influence our decisions!!!
 
Sorry this mail got a bit long - a lot has happened in the last ten days - and this is only the edited highlights - honest!
 
Hope you are all well in what I believe to be a cold and snowy UK.
Bye for now
Sarah