I first learned of Los Roques shortly after Google Earth was released. I was using it to explore places we may possibly go and by luck I found Los Roques. Here was a place in the middle of nowhere that I’d never heard of. It stuck in my mind and I always wondered if it would be a place we would visit.
Well, here we are. We have arrived. We’ve just spent our first night truly and utterly alone at anchor. The only other boat in sight is a wreck that’s been on the reef for years. The area is strewn with reefs, deep pool, channels of varying depth, sandy and rocky bottoms and clear, clear water. Complete with stunning blue skies the result is a collection of as many blues and greens as you can imagine.
The sail here was stunning. The humidity recently (perhaps it’s true all the time round here) has been a lot lower than we’ve been used to. Apart from cooler evenings and greater comfort this means the night skies are absolutely stunning. At sea, with a new moon, you can see everything. The shape and texture of the milky way is very clear. Shooting stars are numerous. Standing night watch is quite a pleasure.
As you know from my previous rant I messed up the departure time. That meant we spent about 8 hours giving Dignity a little extra push from the electric motors. This equated to just over 2 hours genset running which is not bad.
We also had the excitement of the catch along the way. We had been up front changing the shackle on the anchor. The one we’ve been using was lent to us by Where II. We finally found a stainless steel replacement in South Africa for next to nothing – it seems they don’t rip off sailors as much there. When returning to the stern I saw the bungee on one of our lines stretched out. Sometimes this means we’ve snagged a plastic bag or something but this quickly felt a bit more. With the line half way in I realized I had something round rather than long. It had the glisten of a fish so I realized we may have only part of a fish. When I hauled the head aboard it was having it’s final twitches and the blood was still draining. It’s demise must have been recent – perhaps as I was hauling it in. From the size of the head the fish must have been quite large. We’ll never know of course. It’s interesting to wonder what took the tuna – some sort of shark probably. Before prepping the head (removing gills and trailing guts) to eat, I put the lure back in the water. I ended up with something else on it for a short while but whatever it was, it escaped. I’d sharpened the hooks very recently. Looks like I’ll need to sharpen them every time.
The fish noodles Helen drummed up was very tasty. The head had a little shoulder attached so we did have some meat as well as broth.
No more fish were caught along the way. We arrived at our anchorage, just north of Boca de Sebastopol, around 3:30pm. This stop is our rest stop just to recover from the trip. Today we’ll begin our exploration of the area. We have a timetable which we’re using only as a guide. We had planned on staying here for 9 days. We’ve arrived 4 days early so we’ll be around hear for at least a week – probably more.
Apart from a couple of brief bursts, we’ve been off the internet since we left Grenada. This is the longest I’ve been unconnected since well before the www went mainstream. I’m getting used to this.