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Published: December 4th 2005
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Last you heard from us we were taking a 7 hour flight from Chile up to Venezuela for a little “holiday” within our big holiday.
First stop, Los Roques. An archipelago of picture postcard coral islands in the Caribbean sea off the northern coast of Venezuela.
To get there you take a small plane to the main island of Gran Roque where we spent our first two nights before Bonnie and Steve arrived from London. Los Roques is hugely expensive so we booked into Dona Carmen one of the cheapest posadas on the island and signed up for a day of diving.
The diving was amazing, in the morning we braved the currents off the west of Gran Roque and explored a great coral wall where the highlights were seeing an octopus and a turtle. The afternoon dive bought more colourful corals and fish. We still can’t get over how badly the dive instructors treat the corals though, general carelessness with fins and actually encouraging divers to hold on to the corals in the currents.
On Monday morning we got up bright and early to meet Bonnie and Steve at the airport, (better described as a crumbling
strip of tarmac lined with some of the oldest prop planes I have ever seen). After 30 mins of gazing into the skies to spot their plane there was a tap on our shoulder and there they stood! We had completely missed their arrival.
Hugs all round and with no time to waste we are whisked off by El Capitan Juan Carlos to El Chaiten our yacht for the next six days.
Now Bonnie and Steve as many of you know are no strangers to sailing having won 7 out of 10 of their races in their class this year. Luckily for us this meant Bonnie was perfectly at home in the galley fixing the worlds biggest Bloody Mary´s which got us off to a flying start before lunch. Equally at home in the galley was our cook Alexander who feed us to bursting with great food all week and Juan Carlos who fixed us up with passion fruit cocktails before dinner and coffee, rum and sugar slammers earning Simon the title of “Señor del Ron”.
Over the next six days we steadily made our way around the islands, big and small. The snorkeling was great. We
saw a puffer fish and a stingray off Cayo agua and barracuda off Fransiski. We also visted the turtle sanctuary on “Dos Mosquitos” (wish there were only 2 mosquitos - see later!)
It would have been heavenly but for two things. MOSQUITOS and the weather. When I say the mossies were bad, I mean they were awful, the worst ever. The first night we were munched to death. And they were eeevil, they bit so hard they woke you up. We had all bathed in DEET and Simon and I covered ourselves with a sheet in the cabin but they bit our faces and then our hands where we tried to cover our faces. It was lucky for us all that I had asked Bonnie to bring out a handy little sucker kit which allegedly sucks out the venom and takes the sting away. I’m not sure it does but it was a worthy diversion from the itch anyway even though the sucky thingy left you looking like a drug addict instead!
And the weather, well in the place that it allegedly never rains it rained every day and more than just the odd tropical shower. Gran Roque
was water logged and the main “street” a river. I’m not sure if it was the rain that made the mossies worse but we have heard tales of people camping on the islands being found by fishermen in the sea with only their noses poking out of the water to avoid the mossies!
All in all Gran Roque is a funny old place. Most people are full board in their posadas which leaves limited food options for those who are not. The shops when we were there were bereft of food because 2 out of 3 supply ships were out of order and the gasoline was almost gone (hang on this is Venezuela!) and because this is Venezuela the concept of “service” is non-existent. That said the diving in Los Roques was great and staying on the boat made all the difference.
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Pat/Mom
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At Last
Hi both, I have only just been able to read all about your adventure on board the yacht with Steve and Bonnie, for some reason I never received this TravelBlog the normal way, good reading, such a shame about the coral and what ever happened to the weather? Love Mom/Pat