10/01/2008
We left the Aves early right after breakfast and as always we put the fishing lines out. We organized the spinaker, the wind was light . About 2 miles out, John noticed that we had a fish on. Hurray! He got the gloves and started to pull it in. A tuna was the kids first guess but I was not so sure. Usually tunas dive down and you can't see them until they get close to the boat. Mahimahis fight like crazy and they keep jumping out of the water. This one was unusual...The closer it got we could make out the white skin on the bottom, and the black fins... then we could see that its mouth was on the bottom and not forward like most fish. Shark! I said but John did not want to believe until it got close enough and then what to do with it. We talked to "Meggie" and they had no idea. I had eating some shark steak at a restaurant before so I told John to keep it. He was not keen on bringing it on the boat until it was surely dead, so we dragged it for a while. Then John cleaned it and we had some beautiful shark steak for dinner.
|
Comments [0]
09/30/2008
I got up in the morning, Mom made a quick breakfast while I organized the snorkeling gear, 4 sets of fins, 4 snorkel and masks, gloves and weight belts. Papa filled up the gas for the dinghy. We zoomed out to the reef with "Meggie" another boat travelling with us. Mike and Papa had slings while Mom had a snare and Kylie and I share the other. A snare is a type of lasso hoop around the end of a fishing rod. Now we had to dive and look under each coral rock to see if we could find lobsters. The spears were better or easier tools but mom managed to get one with her snare. It was very exciting and we spend 6 hours in the water, we were quite pickled when we got back. We did it 2 days in a row and had a great sea pot luck dinner with "Meggie". I am becoming a better snorkeler and diver now and so is Theo.
|
09/26/2008
Los Roques is a group of islands on the central coast of Venezuela. The first place that we anchored was by Buchiyaco Island. Soon after sun down, we were attacked by thousands of blood thirsty mosquitos. We dashed out the next morning in search of an anchorage without mangroves and therefore mosquitos. We found Bajo de la Cabecera, a reef with lots of fish on the eastern side of Roques. It was strange to anchor in the middle of the ocean with no land around except for a small sand island where Papa flew his kiteboard and Simi, Mom and I made a sand city with a mountain and a fortress. At the end of the day we went snorkeling out on the reef, it was awesome. Papa, Simi and I went to the 200 foot shipwreck that crashed on the reef a long time ago while Mom stayed and snorkeled some more. She saw a nurse shark swim by.
Then we went to Gran Roque for some provisioning. That evening we went to Francisquis. Before dinner, we watched someone kiteboard, he jumped 20 feet high right behind our boat.
The next day, we went back to Gran Roque to try to find out if we could get some water and also to buy ski passes for the coming snow season. After getting the run around town, Mom and Papa dropped us back at the boat and went to investigate north of town by the water tanks. They came back to the boat, we pulled up the anchor and repark the boat really close to shore where we could run a hose to the water supply tanks. We refilled and were able to stay longer than anticipated.
Noronsquis was our next stop. It was totally enclose by some reef. "Meggie" some friends boat touch down on the reef and everybody was quite nervous for a while but fortunately no damage was done.
The next day, we went to Sarqui, where we had a pot luck with "Gypsy Blues", 'Spy Glass", "Meggie", "and "Mustang Sally". Our next stop on the chart was at Cayo de Agua, which was our last place in Los Roques. It was also the funnest because it was very good snorkeling at Flamingo Island, where we saw flamingos of course and in the water, we saw a queen triggerfish, snappers, lobsters walking out on the open, midnight parrotfish, a grouper and almost every type of fish in our identification book. There was also surf on the other side of the island where we caught a few waves. We had another pot luck dinner, this time it was on "Mustang Sally"s boat and "Serendipity" came too. The morning we left, we went to scavenge a few coconuts on the lone palm tree.
This is our story in Roques!!!
|
09/25/2008
Venezuela, a beautiful country in a bit of a turmoil. The non-official exchange rate seems to change radically daily. Unfortunately our timing was not so good when the exchange rate was at its worst and with the inflation sky rocketing, Venezuela did not seem as cheap as it used to be.
We were a bit undecisive about getting work done in the country, but after spending a few days in Puerto La Cruz which was one place we could get hauled out, we opted to postpone and go to Curacao where the price of haul out is about the same but the price of labour is more but also maybe the quality standard is higher.
The situation in the country increases the crime level and security is an issue. We did not feel at ease anywhere on the main land. We needed to lock everything on the boat, including ourselves in at night. We made sure our flare guns and gaseline spray bottle were ready. We did not have to used them thankfully. We decided that it was not worth staying any longer on the main land and risking the boat or our lives, so we sailed to the outer islands.
Los Roques and Aves are groups of islands far enough from the coast and from crime. We felt totally safe there and spend a wonderful month cruising in their waters.
|
08/21/2008
We got up early to hike up to the light beacon on top of Testigo Grande. The hiking up was good, a bit warm but we made it up to the top to catch some great views. We also did a few laps of rock climbing right at the top.
The island is dry with lots of cacti along the path, on the way down I managed to fall down and land my face on some cactus. It was very painful especially when Mom was pulling the prickles out of my cheek. Dad carried me down a lot of the way back. As we got closer to the fishing village a parrot flew at Mom's head and landed on the branches close by. She picked it up and it stayed with us until we got back to the dinghy. There some locals were having mangos and it was pretty happy to stay to feast on some fruit. We went back to the boat to treat my injuries and by the end of the day, I had forgotten about the whole ordeal.
|
Les ouragans peuvent-il être un problème dans votre région ?
ciao,
Mario, Diane et Carl
Sounds like you are having a wonderful time. Wish we could see you guys again.
The boys look good. Shadow, the cat says to say Hi.
Maybe we will meet again in the future.
Until then, Happy Sailing
Robin and Cheryl
Aboard just Imagine...
08/21/2008
Two days ago we pulled into Los Testigos, a beautiful group of islands between Grenada and Margarita, Venezuela. It had the some of the clearest water on the trip through the Caribbean but it was also the coldest.
We hiked up some sand dunes to get to the windward side of the Testigo Grande. Finally a surf break, so I got to go boogieboarding and body surfing.
|
