Well, here we at Los Testigos, a small group of islands belonging to
Venezuela, about 85 miles from Grenada. We were supposed to leave just after
dark but eventually left at 2.00am Monday night and had a glorious sail over,
arriving late afternoon. There were a few other yachts around so we anchored
nearby, and listened to music from the beach, certainly not Caribbean, more
Latin.
Wednesday, we cleared our stay with the coastguard, a delightfully helpful
person and then went to anchor off a white sandy beach, where there is just a
narrow strip of land between us and the ocean. The sea is a weird green colour,
with loads of tiny plankton and several degrees colder than in Grenada. Swimming
is still a delight, with fish and coral again, the one thing that I did miss in
Prickly Bay was being able to snorkel off the back of the boat. There are also
loads of birds, pelicans, frigates, boobies and noddys.
Then on Wednesday night, there was a total eclipse of the moon, which was
worth staying up for. It was a full moon, incredibly bright, and slowly it
disappeared and became a red globe in the sky – not as dark as no moon, but much
darker than before. Fortunately it came back and we could go to bed, to awake to
yet another day in this glorious place.
The islands are covered with cacti, the sea is green-blue and the people (all
160 of them) are friendly in that they wave and smile, but sadly we don’t speak
enough Spanish for a real conversation. There main occupation it would appear is
fishing, with about 15 boats around.
There’s no telephone or internet except by satellite, it feels pretty
isolated, with small dwellings scattered along the shoreline, and yet, it’s only
30 miles from the mainland and apparently the inhabitants go there by open boat
to do the shopping. We can stay here for 3 days and then move on to Margarita,
another of the Venezuelan islands. We’ll let you know when we get
there!
