Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Having eaten an early lunch at Carenero we left the lagoon on the batteries and set sail. We shook out the first reef as the wind had dropped to nearer 15 knots. We had to jibe a couple of times as our destination was almost dead down wind. The timing of our jibes was forces on us by approaching reefs. We entered the shallows north of Cayo de Agua from the west side furling our headsail as we turned into the wind. During this final mile, due to some inattentiveness, we managed to scrape a coral head. I was very displeased with ourselves for this mistake. We had enough clues to have been giving the level of vigilance required to avoid this but we weren’t. Another lesson learned. More nice new paint removed from our keel (fortunately not much and no damage to the boat). Having struck the coral head it was full attention, head north out of the shallows we were in, drop the main and make it safely to anchor.

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.

We motored over here around 9:30am and anchored in the lagoon with a couple of motor boats and a couple of yachts. We’ve had a snorkel and are not overly impressed with the place. It is idyllic in many ways but a pile of trash on the beach is an eyesore. We’re going to have an early lunch and press on to Cayo de Agua.

We managed to spend our remaining bolivars in the supermarket in Grand Roque. Without really bothering with prices we just picked up things that we fancied. At the till we figured out what we had left then added three bottles of wine and a cloth and were down to less than a bolivar.

Back on the boat we were keen to leave as the anchorage was quite choppy. We left in 20 knots of wind with one reef in the main. Even though it was a short trip we made a lot of energy as we went, probably making up for the few minutes we were under motor. At times we were making 1.5kW on the regen.

I put out one handline using a surface lure. About 2/3 of the way, having just decided our meal plan for the day, we picked up a barracuda. I hauled it in and sprayed it’s gills with rum. This was the first time we used a vaporizer that we’d bought in a garden section of a store in Grenada. It worked very well – perhaps also because Helen had stuck some of our Rivers Rum in their – 71% alcohol by volume. The cuda went out like a light. I cut the arteries behind it’s fins but there was no bleeding.

As there was not much time left we dumped the fish into a bowl and made for our anchorage. We anchored in about 25 knots of wind all on the electric. Our anchor dragged back towards some other boats before biting hard with enough distance to keep us all safe. Then it was preparing the fish for the grill: descaling, gutting and head/tail removal. The meat left weighed 2lb which was more than enough for a big meal. Onto the grill it went and 20 minutes later we had a delicious lunch.

The afternoon went to pattern. We rested then snorkeled. The nearby reef wasn’t too spectacular and was also rather shallow. We did see some midnight parrot fish for the first time which thrilled us both.

The evening went by with reading, a light supper and watching a show on the computer.

Around 10am yesterday we took to the dinghy to go for a snorkel. We headed for the lagoon between the two easterly Francisqui islands. On the eastern edge of the lagoon the water became extremely shallow. We could see beyond the shallows a deeper pool with a ridge of reef protecting the pool from the chop further out. This looked promising. We found a sandy patch close to some mangroves and anchored the dinghy. We swam to the pool in about a foot or less of 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.