I woke up in the pre-dawn grey to the sound of two boats getting underway this morning. The sports fisher closer to the reef and the large motor yacht, Valkyrie, were both getting ready to exit the reef at the south entrance. Today was our day to explore Los Roques but a lazy breakfast was in order first.

Once underway we motored into the wind along the middle reef. The water is often 80 feet or deeper in the dark blue channel just feet away from where the reef breaks the surface. There are channels between the middle reef and the mangroves as well but they are more intricate and some don't run all the way through.

We saw some fly fishermen out in the flats, perhaps bonefishing. I wondered if my old friend and fishing buff Andrew Bassett was out there. It looked like a relaxing way to spend the day.

There are a couple of good sized wrecks on the outer reef that are good warnings for those who would consider approaching in restricted visibility. We wouldn't have time to dive on the reefs here but I imagine it would be fantastic.

Once we cleared the outer reef we killed the motor and sailed over to Grand Roque. It was a wonderful if short 9-10 knot sail. There are lots of boats in the anchorage, many of which are the traditional Venezuelan fishing boats. There are also some dive boats and motor yachts along with an interesting mix of cruisers.

We went ashore to try to pay the park fees but it was Sunday and we had no luck finding anyone to pay. We did however find a lovely little beach front caf� that served a perfect lunch. Grand Roque was certainly the quaintest island town we had run across in Venezuela. There are many small shops, basic services, like a bank and store, lots of restaurants, a dive shop, and several cute little hotels.

After a relaxing lunch we dinghied back to the big boat for a run to the far west side of the Los Roques. Like many areas in South and Central America you should probably only traverse these areas in good light the first time out because the charts are not perfect by any means. We were moving quickly so that we would have good enough light to get safely tucked into our selected anchorage.

We selected the anchorage between Ebert and Bequeve mostly because it looked fairly straight forward to get into and out of and because it was on the far west side giving us a good jump off to the Aves. I would not recommend this anchorage. It is beautiful like the rest of the Los Roques but it is also tricky to pick your way into the anchorage. There are many reefy areas inside the water delineated by the surrounding islands. Once in the general anchoring area it is hard to find enough water to get to the sandy areas. The area is pretty exposed to the wind, and it was honking on this particular evening. Once set it was a pleasurable spot with some nice white sand beach areas and a lovely sunset.