10/15/2008
We arrived at Spanish Waters just in time to experience Omar. just as well because it was much better then in Bonaire. Or was it!
The waterfront in Bonaire got destroyed with waves crashing over the buildings. Most docks suffered major damages and some have totally disappeared. Fortunately all the boats on moorings are welcome in the marina when a storm comes along. Amazingly enough all the boats were crammed in and safely tied to the docks or other boats. Life on Bonaire is not quite the same but slowly they are cleaning up all the coral that has washed up on the beaches and waterfront. The underwater world will be affected for a long time as a lot of the coral is dying from the sand coverage suffocating it. Going diving after the storm was like waking up the morning after the first snowfall of the winter. Fortunately for Bonaire being such a dive mecca, a few of the sites were not affected by Omar and are still prestine.
Omar in Spanish Waters was quite a bit different. The anchorage is a perfect hurricane hole except that... how many boats can you fit in a confined area.
Spanish Waters is a large lagoon, big enough to accomodate hundreds of boats but the port authority restricts the anchorage to only a few areas where the holding is not very good. When the wind came up during the night, it always starts in the dark, it did not take long to have boats dodging each other including us. Our anchor did not hold and one minute we were in bed, the next we had the finger on the engine starter button and full throttle ahead avoiding a crash into a beautiful classic 80' sloop. Setting the anchor in the dark amongst many boats in the full monsooning rain is not much fun. Stomach cramps!!! We did not sleep much that night and we had the engines on. The morning came, the winds stayed. We dragged again...so we decided to move to a different part of the lagoon. The eastern part of Spanish Waters have mangroves and muddy bottom where we heard the holding was better. Along with 4 other boats, we set 2 anchors and waited it out. Two days later, and many gallons of water caught, the sky broke up and the sun was shining again.
Since we hadn't checked in the country yet, we moved back to the crowded area, the internet access and the proximity to the bus. We went to town to get legal.
Omar was gone!
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10/12/2008
I finally convinced John to take on Open Water Course so we can buddy up and go diving. He was quite lucky to have a one on one course with Carolyn from the Yellow Submarine and finished it in record time. Our first dive, we did with Derek from Idyll Island (named after Idle Island by SaltSpring...small world). He was great and patient with us. We went down to the "Cliff" a nice site with lots of corals and lots of different fish. We saw some big tarpons, any fish that big is quite impressive. The second dive, we did on our own. We went to a place we had gone snorkeling a few days prior. We saw a sea horse, a drum fish, lots of french angelfish, squirrelfish, and parrotfish. It was good, no problem with equalizing and buoyancy. Today we got out with Derek again and we will go check out a wreck site. Should be fun!
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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.
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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.
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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!!!
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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.
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