Category Archives: Venezuela

Cubagua, Dolphins, Isla Margarita, Los Testigos, Venezuela

Goodbye, Venezuela

Leave a comment

I just re-read the last letter we sent out and realize that I’ve left you all hanging, with great anticipation I’m sure, regarding our attempts to secure diesel fuel for our continued windward passage through the Venezuelan islands. Well, be assured that we did indeed procure 50 gallons from the supply boat “Luciano” the very next day and were able to fill one of our two thirsty fuel tanks.

We left Gran Roque immediately but spent another three nights in a couple of beautiful and secluded anchorages before deciding it was time to make our way to Isla de Margarita, via Isla Tortuga. The deciding factor was being very low on provisions (we learned a long time ago to appreciate, but not depend on, the bounty of the sea) and, even more scary, being critically low on beer. It was an overnight sail to Tortuga, arriving the next morning. After six weeks in the beautiful Aves and Roques, Tortuga doesn’t have much to offer (however, for those traveling east to west, coming from Trinidad and Margarita, I’m sure it looks like paradise).

We spent a restful night at Cayo Herradura and the next morning traveled along the north coast to the eastern end of Tortuga at Playa Caldera. We found the huge crescent beach as lovely as advertised but the anchorage was crowded and rolley. After listening to the weather that afternoon and hearing that these relatively calm conditions would soon disappear we decided that we would rather handle another overnight passage than be stuck here for several days. It was just getting dark as we pulled up the anchor and headed back out to sea. As most of our destinations since leaving Curacao have been directly upwind, and especially since running low of fuel, we have gotten quite used to making long tacks and actually sailing the required zig-zag course to our goal. This night was no exception and we actually had a fast and gentle sail all night long. However, when the sun came up the wind died down and we motored the remaining 30 miles to the small island of Cubagua on an increasingly flat sea.

About 14 miles out we were visted by old friends that we hadn’t seen for a long time, a large group of dolphins. They swam with our boat and played at our bow for quite awhile and we watched them in the bluest and clearest water we’d ever seen any of them in. A few miles later, as we neared Margarita, we must have crossed some line and the clear blue water became murky, semi-clear, more-green-than-blue water. We’d seen Venezuela’s best and for us it was over (for now) but our dwindling supplies carried us on. We overnighted at Cubagua, a tiny sister-island just off Margarita’s south coast, and next day sailed another upwind, zig-zag course to Porlamar, Margarita’s largest and busiest town.

P0001814We were pleased to find our Texas friends, Bob and Susan from “Sunrise”, who we hadn’t seen since leaving Martinique in the spring. They’d been in Margarita for about two months and were ready to leave for points west and south but we had their company for a couple of days and got to take advantage of their local knowledge. Porlamar is certainly a different and interesting place. It is a duty-free zone and the most popular holiday destination for Venezuelans which accounts for the many high-rise condos and the many opportunities for all kinds of shopping, which is a definite plus when one’s stores are as low as ours had become. Eating out has seldom been more enjoyable and inexpensive (the latter foretells the former when on a cruising budget!), especially the local dishes of fish, plantains, arepas, empanadas, etc. One of our favorite spots was the 4D Heladera Italiano. I’m not sure the significance of “Italiano” but the helados (ice cream) is muy bueno! The grocery stores here are among the largest and best stocked we’ve seen anywhere, including the U.S.

Our friends, Al and Runa from “Runal”, are back in Trinidad and had been planning on meeting us here in Margarita and we’d then go explore the mainland’s Golfo de Cariaco before we both headed north back to the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and then Florida. But, Al got word from his son that he and his wife will be flying to the Virgins in mid-December for a visit so that schedule has changed our plans. We left Margarita Thursday morning (yesterday) and made it to Los Testigos last night. We plan to leave here in the morning for the 120 airline-mile (it will be more like 180 zig-zag miles) trip to Union Island in the Grenadines. “Runal” plans to leave Trinidad in the morning for the same destination, so we’re looking forward to getting back together with them while we make our way slowly back to the U.S.

David and Claudia
aboard “Ma’alahi”
November 17, 2000

Los Roques, Venezuela

Los Roques

Leave a comment

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, P0001781the 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 P0001798Wednesday. 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

Las Aves, Venezuela

Fish Feathers

Leave a comment

We spent two weeks enjoying several different anchorages in Las Aves de Sortavento. Even though there were up to a total of eight other boats around we were all so spread out that we really felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. We had our own little desert P0001748isle that we were anchored behind and spent Claudia’s birthday ashore on the beach under the lone palm tree … just like in a cartoon. A couple of days were spent anchored in Mangrove Bay where we could dinghy across the crystal clear water and snorkel an unlimited number of coral reefs. The last week we were anchored in the open behind the outer reef where the water was actually the calmest of all the anchorages. We did have a little luck in the fishing department on the way out of Mangrove Bay when I managed to catch a nice Yellowtail Snapper, just big enough for that evening’s meal. On the way to the outer reef we hooked a much bigger fish although I assumed it to be just a barracuda. However, when I got him up beside the boat I could tell by his broad body that it was something else … just before he shook the lure out and swam away. When we got anchored we got the dinghy down and I went back to same spot hoping to re-catch and even land him this time. Sure enough, I got him (or one of his good friends) again but the exact same bad luck reoccurred and off he went. Well! We decided to stop wasting dinghy gas with such vain attempts (since we’re 100 miles away from the nearest filling station) but a couple of days later I had to try one more time. So off we went, trolling in the dinghy again, and this time I actually landed him.

“Gee, he looks like some kind of jack; a horse-eye jack I think. I don’t think they’re good to eat so let’s go back to the boat and look at the fish book.”

We put him in a five gallon bucket (well, half of him in, half of him out) and went back to the mother ship where we found his exact match in our fish book … a horse-eye jack (Caranx latus) “… like its cousin the crevalle jack, the horse-eye jack is not much good for anything except to make a nuisance of itself, getting hooked when an angler is fishing for something else … the fish is undesirable for food”. So we dumped him back into the water and had grilled pork chops for dinner that night.

A few days later we were ready for a change of scenery (only because we hear that it keeps getting better as you go east). The Barlovento Aves is only about 20 miles to windward and we made it in two easy tacks. The largest island in this group, Isla Sur, is known for its birds and there are thousands of them there, mostly various species of boobies. Even though we’d been trolling the whole way, the reels remained silent until we were almost there. As we approached Isla Sur the port-side reel started humming. However, my visions of tuna-on-the-grill quickly vanished when I turned around and saw this incredibly stupid booby bird flying around with my lure hooked in his mouth. And to top that there were several other boobies trying to steal it from him! I called for Claudia to bring me the pliers as I started slowly reeling in the bird. In retrospect I wish I had asked her to bring the camera instead. I brought him on in and he made a perfect two-point landing on the poop deck. Luckily, only one of the six barbs on the two treble hooks had hooked him and I was able to remove it with no problem. He just stood there looking around for awhile before waddling over to the rail and taking off again. I quickly brought the other line in and started trying to remember what we had left in the freezer.

Yes, it is even more beautiful farther east! After zig-zagging our way around the shoal coral reefs we dropped the anchor in twenty of the most clear and blue feet of water that we’ve seen in a long time. We probably won’t leave this spot until hunger forces us toward civilization. Which reminds me that since we left Curacao we haven’t spent a penny because there has been nowhere to spend it which has P0001772been very good on our budget. Since we’ve been here it has been demonstrated yet another way to save money. The Canadian couple on the only other boat anchored here apparently does not spend any money on laundry … they stay quite naked.

We listen daily to weather reports and have been following the path of hurricane/tropical storm Joyce. Twice a day we hear the forecast about how she will turn toward the north but she isn’t paying any attention to those forecasts and continues to bear 270 degrees west. After hearing the 11 am advisory from the hurricane center this afternoon we decided that it’s time to move to protected waters, so while the light was still good to do the zig-zag thing again we left our beautiful swimming pool and are now anchored at the western end of Isla Sur. We will leave this evening for an overnight sail to Morrocoy National Park on the mainland of Venezuela. So next time you hear from us, we should be on the South American continent (well, hopefully anchored just off of it).

David and Claudia
aboard Ma’alahi
Saturday, September 30, 2000

Curacao, Las Aves, Venezuela

Our Computer

Leave a comment

P0001752We are currently at Islas de Las Aves, Venezuela. I am hoping to get this message typed up and out before the computer crashes and burns completely. The keyboard has gone goofy and you wouldn’t believe the gyrations I’m going through to make this work at all. Pointing and clicking seems to be working fine but a few of the keys don’t work at all and 3 or 4 of them are giving 2 for 1 (letters for keystrokes) and I’m having to go back and take the extra ones out. The display screen has been turning into vertical lines every few days … I have about 18 red, blue and green pixel-width solid lines down the screen … only 1006 left to go! Anyway, each message I send from now on may be the last. When that does happen I’ll contact someone via the radio and ask them to send an email to Jim explaining that we’ve gone back to the dark ages (it would be SO 20th century to be out here without a computer!)

Now back to what we’ve been up to: We left Bonaire on the 15th of August and had an easy sail over to Curacao. We had never intended to go that far west but we’re both glad that we did. Curacao has been an amazing combination of laid-back cruising and modern civilization. Most cruising boats hang out in the extremely well Spanish_Waterprotected natural harbor of Spanish Water. We met up with Neil and Rosie from “Dreamcatcher Mariposa” and Rob and Deb from “Cavu” and met several other new and interesting folks as well. We quickly figured out the public bus system and were able to get around pretty well for 70 cents each. One afternoon we went to downtown Willemstad to the movie theatre and saw “The Perfect Storm”. We were as impressed with the modern 6-plex theatre and we were with the movie which we both thought was an excellent interpretation of the book. We’ve enjoyed eating out at Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Burger King, The Green Mill (a restaurant chain from Minnesota similar to Chili’s and TGI Fridays) and, most of all, Baskin-Robbins. However, we did make an amazingly incredible, super-duper blunder one night. We accepted an invite from Bob and Kathy on “Briana” to go to an Indonesian restaurant along with 3 single-hander cruising guys. There is some Dutch name for the restaurant’s specialty but interpreted in English it’s “rice table” and it consists of a big plate of rice and about 20 different meats, sauces, spices, etc., that they spread out and you put as much of as many as you want on your rice and that all sounded kinda neat and different and it was very nice and all tasted very good and we all had a great time … and then we got the bill. Now, Bob and Kathy had eaten here before and had really liked it and had wanted to share the experience with us and so when we had all arrived she simply asked if we all wanted the “rice table” thing and we all said “sure”. BIG MISTAKE. Should have looked at menu. Didn’t. Bottom line: $50 … U.S. … each. OUCH!!!!! Bob and Kathy are and remain dear friends but it was too late when we discovered that they sail on a much different budget than any of the rest of us. We spent our remaining time in Curacao contemplating things like “how many trips to Baskin-Robbins could we have made for the cost of that dinner”.

Our greatest success while in Curacao was when we completed painting the cove stripe on our boat. Yep, it’s the same color on both sides now! You may remember that we started this project way back in Trinidad, got half way done and decided that we would rather paint it gray instead of dark blue and have been sailing around for the past 6 months with a half blue and half gray boat. Sure glad to have that done!

P0001714We decided last week that it was time to get on the move so we cleared out with Immigration on Thursday and weighed anchor on Friday with plans to go only as far as Klein Curacao (“Little Curacao”) and continue the next day on to Las Aves. Since we had relatively calm winds and seas (a big advantage when you’re going to be sailing against them) we decided that we’d only stop at Klein Curacao long enough to fix and eat dinner and then continue on overnight … and that’s what we did. We dropped the anchor behind Isla Palmeras in the Sotavento archipelago of Las Aves the next day P0001718(yesterday) a little after noon. WOW, what a place! We haven’t seen such beautiful combinations of blue and turquoise waters and little sandy islands and vast areas of coral since the Bahamas. Fifteen miles to the east is the Barlovento group. We hope to spend as much time as we can (at least until our supplies run low) exploring these areas and test-driving all the anchorages. The fishing and lobstering are reported to be excellent here which should extend our supplies to some degree anyhow.

Well, that’s all for now. Even if the computer keyboard quits entirely we can still RECEIVE email so how about dropping us a note and letting us know what’s going on back there!

David and Claudia
aboard “Ma’alahi”
9/17/2000 1815