Pirate Alley
21 May 2010 | Trinidad to Venezuela
Benno
While we were on the hard at Power Boat Yard in Trinidad, Marlene and I decided to head over to Margarita, Venezuela for cheap diesel fuel, cheap beer, cheap everything, if you know what I mean. There are three different ways to take:
1. Pirate alley along the coast de Paria, a straight shot to Margarita.
2. Do a dog leg via the islands of Los Testigos.
3. Go up to Grenada and follow the 12th latitude west to the 64 longitude, then hit south to Margarita.
4. Or pack it in, sell the boat and buy a farm in Kansas!(haha)
Why? The stretch between Trinidad, the coast of the Peninsula de Paria, west of Punta Penas toward Margarita is very dangerous. It is pirate territory. Just in the beginning of April a yacht captain was shot dead. His wife was left alive and the boat was stripped of valuables. Happenings like this have been going on for years. In December of last year another boat was stripped and the crew got away with their lives. It is so bad now that boats don't want to go from Grenada to Trinidad. They are scared.
DD decided to do #1 straight shot at night. No running lights on, only when radar contact indicates a large ship, we would momentarily switch on the light. In case we think a pirate pinero is shadowing us, our plan would be to create a diversion by switching on the award winning police-ambulance-firetruck sirene with wail-yelp-pierce, which is mounted on the wheelhouse roof. Mounted next to it is an amber strobe light and a blue bezel is kept handy inside. For the run along pirate alley, I would exchange the amber bezel for the blue one.
We left Trinidad at 17:00 hrs and crossed the borderline to Venezuela at 19:00 hrs in the dark. We kept radar watch and switched off the running light. During the night we encountered two freighters and turned our lights on for a while. At 05:00 hrs, just before daylight came up, a pinero got nosy and closed in. I switched on the blue strobe and the pinero took off like a rocket. At noon time our anchor fell down in Porlamar, Margarita. We'd done it again.