We are in, and have been in for the past 16 days, the Venezuelan islands of Los Roques. We left our picture perfect anchorage in Barlovento, Las Aves, much sooner than we would have liked to avoid any unpleasant weather that tropical storm Joyce might have had in store. We motor-sailed overnight to the Venezuelan mainland and arrived the next morning in the very protected waters of Morrocoy National Park after winding our way through miles of mangrove channels to the anchorage. We spent the next three days there, exploring the mangroves from the dinghy and watching all those scarlet ibis flying in and out each day. We finally got to spend some money after having racked up a couple of weeks’ worth of “zero dollar days” since leaving Curacao. We purchased gasoline for the dinghy outboard at $0.34 per gallon. Talk about price-gouging, just because we’re in a national park! (I hear it only costs about $0.25 a gallon in Margarita.) Oh well, it’s good to be in a major OPEC country. Even though there was no diesel available we did hear that we would be able to get some in Gran Roque. We received a weather forecast that predicted favorable winds for sailing back out to the islands so we left Morrocoy the afternoon of October 3 for the western-most island of Los Roques, Cayo de Agua. Unfortunately, the ESE winds were actually quite a bit north of east and so we ended up motor-beating all night. It was a bit surrealistic as we slogged up and down that night listening to the first Bush-Gore debate on the Armed Forces radio.

The next day, about 14 miles away from our intended destination, the engine died. Oops, out of fuel! So, we changed our course a bit to make wider tacks so we could sail the rest of the way in. It took a long time but we finally made it and dropped the anchor in a VERY beautiful and secluded spot. After taking a fuel inventory we determined that we had about five gallons in a jerry jug and a few more in the starboard fuel tank. Being that Gran Roque was about 20 upwind, airline-miles away and there were several anchorages we would want to visit between here and there, we figured that we’d just take our time and make the necessary tacks back and forth to each anchorage, using our fuel only for getting in and out of the reef-strewn passages and keeping the batteries charged up. This strategy has served us quite well for the past two weeks as we’ve spent this time making short hops from one beautiful island to another and finding some of the best snorkeling reefs we have ever seen anywhere!

Well, we finally made it to the island of Gran Roque this past Wednesday. It is the only island in all the Roques with a village. It is supplied entirely by small cargo boats that come from the mainland several times a month. When we arrived there was no diesel available but I was eventually told that the supply boat “Mariyumeli” would arrive “mañana”. Sure enough the next morning “Mariyumeli” arrived and even anchored right next to us. As soon as they were settled in I went over in the dinghy.

“Yo necesita gasoil. Tiene gasoil?”
“No gasoil, sólo gasolina!”

Another oops. No diesel, only gasoline. Maybe mañana. So, today being mañana I planned to visit the other yachts in the anchorage and see if I could maybe get just a little from several of them. We noticed this morning that several airplanes landed at the little airstrip here in succession. A little later, passengers were being ferried to the other sailboats. The next thing we knew EVERY STINKING ONE OF THEM sailed away on their weekend charters! The only boats left in the entire anchorage are us and “Mariyumeli”!

Oh well, we’ll see what happens MAÑANA!

David and Claudia
aboard Ma’alahi
10/20/2000 1700 AST