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Usually I like to write my blog shortly after waking up. When we’re off the internet I usually don’t get to send it until 7:30am. This is because the 20m short wave radio band opens up around this time for use. Longer bands are open earlier but they interfere with on board equipment unless I go down to the lowest power setting. This works in some cases but it’s usually harder to find a working station. Hence 7:30am is my time for email sending and receiving. This includes all our downloaded text weather forecasts from NOAA. Helen will be awake by this time so we’ll discuss the weather together and make any decisions based on what we receive. Incidentally, our recent westward travel is now having a noticeable effect on the propagation chart that helps me plan which stations and frequencies to use when using the sideband radio. It lists the stations by order of distance from our current location. Stations are now beginning to reorder quite obviously and I’m beginning to see real differences in the effectiveness of some stations.

When we received the weather yesterday the recent story of decreasing winds was reinforced. Yesterday was the last day forecast around 15 knots with today expected to have 10-12 knots. So far, we’ve managed to pick the low wind days for our longer passages and sat out or short hopped the stronger wind days, more out of timing rather than planning. We were getting fed up with this as we like to sail in the stronger winds.

So the decision yesterday was to have our planned conversation with Jackster, go for a walk across the sandy spit joining the two Caya de Agua islands then head of for Aves de Barlovento.

We had an interesting chat with Jackster. We shared what we’d learned about their spare part and made decisions based on that. We learned they had had 20+ knots of wind off the beam sailing up from Tortuga (as opposed to our 10-12 from right behind) which made us quite jealous. They’d been persuaded to leave earlier than they wanted and had to reef right down to keep their speed down to 5 knots. They had come with a group of boats. One of them, a veteran cruising couple looking to end their cruise very soon in the ABCs, entered Sebastopol at 6:30am. Jackster passed on our warnings about the need to have good light but they were confident they could find their way in at that time.

They had ran aground.

So I chatted with Jackster about what we did with Alofa and they had similar plans to help out once they’d safely made it through the boca.

After this welcome chat we swam ashore for our walk. After swimming with fins its always a bit of a surprise how much extra effort swimming without them is. But this was a good work out. We then walked east to where the land dipped beneath the sea surface and waded across the spit. This turned out to be harder than expected. The water was hip deep at times and waves came at us from left and right sometimes converging with a high splash. We made it over and walked the beach on the far side. The sand appeared to be made of aero. It was spongy and full of bubbles. Out feet would sink in several inches on each step. It was a nice feeling but tiring. We were able to avoid this by walking in the surf or climbing up to the dry sand.

We eventually ran out of beach and didn’t relish clambering over the dead coral in our bare feet so we headed back. The tide was a little higher by the time we recrossed the spit, at least it seemed so.

Back on the boat we immediately prepped and set sail for the Aves. As luck would have it the wind was again right from our stern. On the main and head sail we could only jibe our way to our destination. The head sail loses the wind when the apparent wind is much less than 45 degrees off the stern so our progress would be slow unless we pulled out the Code Zero. So out this came and we we made good time. The wind couldn’t quite make up it’s mind where it was coming from forcing us to jibe a couple of times. Jibing on the Code Zero requires us to furl it then reopen it on the opposite tack. On one tack the wind was up to about 17 knots. We tried jibing without using the motors to reduce the wind pressure for a while and totally failed. Once I’d received a couple of burns across my finger from slipped lines we decided to make it easier with a push from the motors to ease the apparent wind. (When the sail is half furled, the boat speed drops bringing additional pressure on the sail making the halfway point the hardest point to furl). It was much, much easier.

We arrived in Aves de Barlovento shortly after 3pm with the sun nice and high. The waters at the turn into the lee of the reefs were crystal clear although once in, the waters lost a little of their clarity. The Aves are named due to the very many birds that roost in the mangroves here and fly above. We weren’t disappointed in this respect.

We navigated our way through the reefs to our desired anchorage which was deserted. After our first attempt I checked the anchor only to find we’d hooked some coral and the chain was laying right between two patches. I decided this could easily destroy the patches around us so we up anchored and found a new spot a little further in. Although the bottom is mainly sandy, their are patches of coral all over. Our new spot was much better than the first.

We did a little binocular scanning of the nearby mangroves and spotted very many roosting birds. We plan to take the dinghy out today to get a little nearer and take some pictures. We expect to stay here at least another day relaxing before heading to Bonaire on Thursday or Friday. There’s an inviting anchorage right on the reef which looks clear to leave to the west at night which looks like a good last night here. Yesterday evening someone was anchored there but if they move off we may occupy the spot.

Finally, we’ve decided we’ve lost a good deal of the stored curries and English breakfasts laid down during our recent trip to the UK and South Africa. All the recent exercise must be working.

At 8am (7:30am Chavez time) we listened in to the coconut telegraph. We were delighted to hear our friends on Jackster and Inspiration Lady sign in for the first time. When we signed in we requested contact with Jackster after the net. We agreed a frequency and after the net had closed we had a nice long catch up. It turns out they were in Tortuga and planning a night passage, along with Inspiration Lady, to Los Roques. We were able to share our experiences with them and perhaps influenced their itinerary. Even though they’re close by it looks like we won’t be able to meet up in Los Roques. Our stay in Bonaire will be long enough for them to catch up. We learned that they needed a spare part for their generator. They had no email setup yet on their boat so were unable to get to work on this. I offered to help out. After we finished talking I sent a couple of emails off. Big thanks to Paul for identifying the dealer in Bonaire for us. I also requested a quote for the spare to be Fed Ex’d in.

After Helen had finished preparing her latest batch of yogurt, we decided to go ashore for a walk. In the dinghy we had to pick our way through a reef to reach the shore. We climbed over the dunes to the south side of the island. At this point the south shore was all broken coral. It was possible to walk over. The coral turned rock had a metallic clink to it as we walked over the pieces of varying sizes carefully watching our steps as each piece was loose. Close to the shore the pieces were smaller which made them easier to walk on.

As we walked we hoped to catch sight of some pink flamingos. We had seen three flying off while sailing towards the island the previous day. They were the brightest pink flamingos we’d ever seen, almost bordering on orange. But no such luck. We soon came upon some mangroves which forced us to follow a track slightly inland to go round. The ground was now sandy but covered in two types of plant. One being a mat with bulbous leaves, presumably to retain water. The other plant was keen to transfer spike burs into our shoes and feet. Every now and then we had to stop to pick them out.

After our short detour we could see ahead of us what looked like a perfect beach. And it was. It was clean, empty, surrounded by turquoise waters, had an interesting reef nearby and best of all, it looked to be a great anchorage. We decided there and then that we’d move the boat around as soon as we were back on. We continued along the beach to the west end of the island. A sandy strip, in some places awash, connected us to the next small island on which a lighthouse was placed. We figured we could carry on the trek after we’d moved the boat.

Carrying on round to the northerly side of the island we again came upon the regular trash washed upon the shoreline. They say diamonds are forever. They’re wrong – it’s plastic bottles. We eventually reached the dinghy and returned to Dignity. I had planned on switching the primary fuel filter as the engine had given a couple of coughs the day before. It was only a short way around to the south side so I decided to delay this work until after the trip.

Once we were motoring I began to regret this decision. The genset fully stopped about three times before we thought to switch fuel tanks after which all was fine. In some ways it’s not too big an issue. There is no loss of propulsion as the batteries supply the current while the genset is restarted. We ease off on the propulsion while restarting to conserve the charge but beyond that the resiliency of the system is pretty good. The worry now is that we picked up some dodgy fuel in Margarita. The odd thing is is that the tank which caused the problems is the one that needed a small top off. The one that received the most fuel was the one the genset ran ok on. A puzzle to ponder over the next few weeks.

Rounding the island with the lighthouse and heading towards our destination we discovered, to our dismay, that the perfect beach was now occupied by holiday makers arriving, D-Day style, in small motor boats. A beach can’t be perfect and secret.

We anchored a little further away from the beach than we would have wanted. It turned out to have a bit of a swell from the side so we vowed to move in closer when all the boats and holiday makers had departed.

I replaced the primary fuel filter. It was a bit dirty so a new one should help. However, they should last 200 hours, not 50. Not good. I can’t be sure if it’s the fuel in Margarita that’s dirty or the fuel we picked up in Petit Martinique. I’m not sure what we can do bar letting the filters strain out the crud.

We spent the afternoon reading. I’ve also restarted my Spanish studies putting in an hour or two for the last couple of days. After most of the visitors had left the shore we did move in towards the beach by about 250ft and anchored in 7ft of water. I snorkeled the nearby reef. While the visible reef was mainly dead, in deeper water the reef was living including plenty of elk horn coral which is nice to see. Out on the far side of the reef I saw a large barracuda and wondered for a while if I should later go out in the dinghy and fish for it.

Back on the boat, with the solar panels no longer producing any power, we fired up the genset fed from the tank that appeared to cause the problems earlier, for a wash. It ran for 45 minutes without a murmer so the filter change had improved things.

The incident with the genset impressed me in terms of the systems resiliency. Many boats with one engine install parallel fuel filters so they can instantly switch to a clean one in situations like this. We don’t need this as we’ll always have the time to motor to safety on the electrics or at least change the filter in time. With a self priming genset, changing a filter is not time consuming nor difficult.

However, we do tend to tap the drive bank to cover our energy debt during the day. Now that we’re running the freezer again we never make enough on the solar. We cross charge to make up the deficit and rely on a combination of regeneration and genset running (when motoring or doing the wash) to recharge the drive batteries. This means, though, we’re using our motoring contingency to supplement house use.

This thought process is finally tipping me in favour of supplementing our solar energy with a wind generator. We may be leaving the strong trades for a while soon but every little helps. Our large capacity house bank permits a lot of give and take so I think this would work well.

Our thinking as of last night is, despite the tourists, to stay here another day. We have the place to ourselves for many hours in the day which is priceless. Not often we’re somewhere so nice and so secluded. We’ll walk (wade) over to the lighthouse this morning then play the rest of the day by ear. At 8am we have agreed to chat on the shortwave with Jackster to share what we’ve learned. I now have a quote for the part to be shipped in but no contact with the genset dealer yet. They may be close enough for VHF contact.

My charts for Caya de Agua are a little off although they were good for the rest of Los Roques. Not sure how accurate google maps are but here’s our position.

We did not go ashore or go for a swim in the afternoon knowing that we intended to stay here for a couple of days. The land is a little different than the other cays in that it is not entirely flat. It also has a little cluster of palm trees plus another wind swept palm all on it’s own. Cayo de Agua get it’s name from the fact that fresh (or only slightly brackish) water can be found by digging down. It was used in the past as a fresh water source by the Amerindians who frequented these islands.

In the evening we had dinner followed by an hour of watching a show on the computer. While watching the show we heard a manual signal horn being blown by someone on one of the four nearby boats. As it was dark I had to use my binoculars to see what was happening. I could see a woman blowing the horn in our direction. A signal horn at night is a sign of distress. I tried hailing them on the VHF but received no response. We therefore lowered the dinghy and with headlamp and hand held VHF in hand I dinghied over to offer assistance.

It turned out it was a bunch of Frenchies having a party and the woman was blowing the signal horn for fun. They were polite enough to thank me for coming to their assistance but I made the point that blowing the horn should only be used for distress purposes only. I headed back to Helen cross that people think it could be fun to blow horns in a quiet anchorage and can be so oblivious to the cost of using distress signals frivolously. Given my two recent experiences with French boats I could see why Britain has the better naval history (forgetting at that moment our own errors of the day)

This morning we plan to explore ashore taking our face masks and snorkels in case we see anywhere interesting in the water.

Once at the pool we were in for a treat. The water dropped off to about 10 feet with an edge of coral though sadly mostly dead. However this created a haven for a multitude of largely tame fish. As we swam round the edge of the pool we were followed by several large reef fish. My guess is they’ve become used to being fed by swimmers and were hanging around in case we had something for them.

Having swum the perimeter of the pool we swam back to the dinghy and returned to Dignity. We then headed off about 2.5nm to Grand Roque under motor, this time with the genset running to juice up the batteries as it’s been a little cloudy the last couple of days.

Again we arrived around noon so we had lunch. I was keen to find an internet connection so shortly after lunch we headed to the pier by the coast guard to check in. They were closed til 2pm (Helen gave me a few told you sos). We walked towards the main population area along a sandy track. We didn’t go all the way into the center of things and what we saw reminded us of a spaghetti western town albeit with a little more colour. Everything was closed until 2pm and given that it was quite hot with the sun high we headed back to the pier where we’d tied the dinghy. Getting in and out of the dinghy here was not so pleasant as the pier was very run down and a favourite perch of sea birds, including the massive pelicans they have round here. You can guess what I mean by it being unpleasant.

After reading for a while I headed back on my own to clear in. First stop was the coast guard again. Here I ran into my first complication. We had been of the impression that we could stay in Los Roques for up to two weeks with a permit even without clearance papers for Venezuela (which you get on the mainland or in Margarita). The coast guard said we had to move on immediately. I told him that I’d asked the embassy in Grenada if we could do this and they said yes and showed him our visa. I showed him our plans for the next fives days and asked for clearance just for those five days. Given that the last three days will be on the far west of the park he made an ‘excepcion’ for us and granted us two days leave in the park. I believe he meant it would be ok for us to stay in the far west. We know from other cruisers that noone checks your presence out there so we should be ok.

I was then given a form which I had to take to the park office, the national guard and finally the airport office. I had to find these all myself having been given instructions in Spanish which is still all Greek to me.

This trek took me through the nicer part of the ‘town’. It is a tourist area but there were some very nice looking hacienda style houses and restaurants. There was also a ‘town square’ area with some bars and pizza restaurants and a bank. The streets everywhere were all sand. All very pretty.

My final stop at the airport was where we had to pay for our entrance. As we went through the formalities I learned our fee would be about 600 bolivars. When they learned we were in transit everything changed including the fee. They dropped it. We didn’t have to pay a thing.

Now we have an interesting problem. We have less than 24 hours in Grand Roque. It’s the last place we can spend bolivars and we had been advised to bring about $200 worth of them.

I immediately bought a hat at the tourist stand figuring it’s going to be hard to blow the lot. $10 gone. On the way back to the dinghy I bought a dozen eggs – we have had none since we forgot to buy some in Grenada. Another $2 gone. Back on Dignity I explained the situation to Helen and suggested we head ashore to look around, especially seeing as she hadn’t seen the nicer side of things.

We very soon bumped into Brice and Oud from Olafa who insisted they bought us a drink for all the help we’d given them. We agreed to this and ended up paying for a round ourselves as well of very nice rum punches. We agreed to meet up later for dinner as they’d left the remainder of their cash on the boat to prevent themselves from buying too much.

Helen and I wondered around town some more including going back to the supermarket where I bought the eggs to check prices – generally a bit expensive. With half an hour to spare we had drinks at a beach bar then headed off to our rendezvous point. It turned out most of the restaurants catered only for their own guests as they were more full board hotels (don’t know why they said restaurant). Maybe it was because we were dressed as cruisers and they didn’t want us in – who knows. There was one place that would take us but they needed an hours notice so we ended up at one of the pizza places in the square – the same one we had the rum punches earlier.

Here we dined and shared a couple of bottles of wine. The food and drink here is not cheap so we managed to blow a few of our bolivars that way.

This morning we still have a fair few bolivars to spend. We’ll go ashore and see what we can get in the morning. Our last bolivars will go on booze no doubt once we’ve run out of other ideas.

Our plans as communicated to the coast guard are to head to the anchorage on Sarqui today, Carenero tomorrow and then on to Cayo de Agua for about three days which we’ve consistently heard is delightful. We’ll then head off to Bonaire probably stopping off at one of the Ave’s – groups of islands between Los Roques and Bonaire.

We never did find the place that sells wireless time so no photos uploaded. That will all have to wait until we’re in Bonaire.

We arrived in Caya Francisqui in time for lunch. When arriving somewhere I logged our position via SSB. (NOTE: for some folks this means receiving an email letting us know we’ve moved. If you want to be on this list, feel free to contact me).

We had intended to snorkel the area as it is supposed to be very good. In the end we didn’t feel like it. I finished my book and decided to catch up on some preventative checks. This time they included examining all the battery banks. Everything looked perfect and it looks like no water has gassed although I’m sure some must have. I know these are new batteries but the difference in quality is vast. It’s very reassuring.

Helen and I did eventually swim ashore and have a walk around after most of the tourists have left. The beach near us seems to be a day stop for folks vacationing in Grand Roque. Water taxis are continually ferrying people to and fro. Once they’ve gone it’s especially nice.

This morning we probably will do the snorkel we missed. This will been dinghying round to the other side of the island and finding a good spot. Later today we’ll head over to Grand Roque and check in. If we have any Bolivars left over we’ll spend them. I can already see pay for internet connections so that may be one purchase so we can pay off credit cards, catch up on regular email and upload photos.

Olafa soon arrived at the same spot. We knew they were heading here too but were glad of the company. We hailed them and invited them over for drinks after dinner to which they agreed.

After lunch, changing the water maker filters and a rest Helen and I went snorkeling. It wasn’t as excellent as our guide book suggested but still pretty good. We saw a turtle, a couple of large rays, a large barracuda and a couple of tuna along with many other smaller fish. The seafloor changes depth quite abruptly from a couple of feet to fifty within a short distance. Some of the interesting things were found on the margins.

Back on the boat we grilled chicken on the barbecue and cleaned up. With guests coming Helen forced me to tidy my desk – something that had been bugging her more than me for a while.

Oud and Brice stayed for a couple of hours and we had a good time. They were getting quite tired after their overnighter and ordeals of the day so we bid them farewell having exchanged/loaned each other a useful item each. Brice lent me some notes about sailing in Columbia and I lent him my contact cleaner to hopefully repair his laptop keyboard.

We finished the evening with a bit of stargazing. The objective was to spot the Andromeda nebula – the nearest major galaxy to our own. With the aid of Stellarium, fantastic free software, we were able to find it as it was just visible to the naked eye. With the astronomical binoculars the sight was awe inspiring. If I remember correctly it’s something like 2 million light years away and the furthest object that can be seen with the naked eye. Helen sloped off to bed and I spent a little longer gazing with the binoculars. I found a couple of star clusters and had a look at one of my favourites – Jupiter. I love seeing the four moons arranged in a line, different every time you look. You can use Stellarium to see how the positions of the moons vary even each hour.

Today we’re off to a group of islands called Francisquis. It’s heading into the touristy part of this park so we expect to lose the isolation. Olafa are probably following intending to stay there a few days.

Footnote. Horror of horrors. I discovered last night that the track memory on our chart plotter is full and it’s overwritten the earlier data. That means we’ve lost the tracks from when we returned to Dignity up until just as we entered Margarita. Bugger.

Unless things got desperate it would be foolhardy to bring another boat close to the reef so I offered to take our spare anchor/rode and help winch them off the reef. Gathering the anchor, our portable depth sounder, my facemask and snorkel and a hand held VHF I took off in the dinghy to assist in their getting off the reef. I left Helen to report the situation to the soon to be starting coconut telegraph just in case anyone else was nearby and could lend a hand if it was required.

Once I reached their boat, Alofa, I could see things could certainly be worse. They were upright and away from any swell which could push them into shallower water. On the other hand the wind had pushed them sideways a bit and there was no way back out. Using the anchor seemed the best bet. We set it at an angle to the boat and brought the line aboard and onto a winch. We winched the anchor in but unfortunately it didn’t hold. We tried again with same result. We realised we needed to get it lodged on a rock, despite the coral on it, and Brice then thought setting it more to the side to shift the boat sideways to create a clearer run backwards. Around this time I had managed to call Helen to check our chart plotter and see what the tides were doing. Fortunately the tide (all one foot of it) was coming in so we didn’t have to panic and rush.

This time the anchor set and we were able to move Alofa around a little. I made my second splash into the water to check around the boat. I was concerned that just behind the bow was rubbing on a rock. I was in favor of using their anchor to pull the boat off the rock and wait for the tide to rise a few inches. Brice was more concerned about the possibility of continued damage while remaining on the reef. His boat, his call. Rather than lose my anchor I asked them for a fender to tie to the end of the rode so we could retrieve it when they let go. I offered to stay in the water and give the signal to move when the rudder was off the reef and to check for a clear passage out. On the signal Brice gunned backwards. I had to swim out of the way and grab hold of our dinghy which was tie to their boat. He committed to the action which was a gamble as he missed a large rock by just a few feet which could have snapped the rudder if he hit it.

The good news is they got off the reef all ok. We agreed they would come over to where we were anchored and anchor themselves. Once there they checked there underside. The bottom of the keel and rudder is damaged but not badly. They’ll survive. We invited them over for coffee so they could unwind from their experience which they accepted.

What makes this story ever more interesting is that Los Roques is the location Brice had been dreaming of for a long time. This was *the* destination. They had arrived earlier than expected and in their eagerness sailed through the boca far earlier than they should. They were confused (perhaps complicated by lack of sleep) as to why they couldn’t see the middle reef. They found it all right. On our boat, with the sun higher, they could see the difference the light made – all those shades of blue. And brown. Brown is where you don’t go.

Right now we’ve moved further up the reef and Alofa are alongside us again. We’ll probably see them a few more times over the next few days.