Isla Tortuga Our Position 10.59.45N 65.22.88W
Chaser 2
Yvonne Chapman
Thu 22 Nov 2007 21:14
|
Soon after arriving back at Puerto de La Cruz,
Chris and Tony flew off to New York to see family, so we decided to sail away to
IslaTortuga position 10.59.45N 65.22.88W , about 60 miles from PLC, an easy day
sail as we didn't have to wait for 'Waylander' to keep up, especially
now we have a clean bottom!. There are several anchorages around this small
island and surrounding islets. We arrived at the nearest protected anchorage,
Playa Caldera, around 1500hrs. It looked beautiful although the water wasn't too
clear, probably because the pure white flour like sand gets stirred up near the
beach.
The following day we dinghied ashore for a look
round, there isn't a lot to see, although some people do now live here, about
ten I think. There are a couple of shacks on the beach used seasonally by
fishermen and a small posada (guest house) run by a woman, the only woman on the
Island together with a couple of lads, maybe her sons. It is a small Posada, and
if the family sleep inside, I don't think there is much space for guests. They
do have a bar and kitchen, although the kitchen wasn't working because they had
a fault with their generator. The bar was open and we had a beer, our barlady
said the fridge wasn't working so the beer is a little warm, so she put ice in
it! Yuk!! and at 6000 Bolivars each didn't encourage us to go back for more.
Alongside the beach is a dirt airstrip, many light planes come here at the
weekend for a day on the beach, (there appears to be a lot of rich Venezuelans
in this socialist state).We went further along the beach for a walk and had a
chat with a local fisherman, it's a strange life living here with nothing
around, there were no children or animals, but there were lobsters, he showed us
some he caught earlier. I though we maybe able to trade one or two, and I was
right, he wanted to trade for money. The price was 50000 per kilo and the
one I chose was a lovely 2 kilo monster. We took it back wriggling to the dinghy
and ferried it back to Chaser.
Next step was to get the 'Cruisers Guide to
fishing' book out for instructions and recipe. This lobster was a good one
and we didn't want to spoil it, also we didn't have a pot big enough to boil it
whole. Page 156 said, First you need to kill it, break off one of its long
spikey barbed antennas, next, shove it up its arse in a clockwise motion, then
pull it out with the inner gunge attached. Well, call me an old softy, but I
couldn't do that to poor old Pinchy, so I chopped its head off with me knife! It
had a similar effect, I'm sure he would have liked it that way, I know I
would.
Yvonne took off all its legs, cracked them and got
a surprising amount of meat from them. She made some beautiful Lobster soup,
enough for two days, just with the leg meat. The main part we cut up the middle
and griddled it with garlic butter, it was quite a good evening, blue waters,
sunset, Cuba Libres, a nice bottle of 'El Gato' vino plonko, Lobster soup
followed by grilled lobster with cous cous, yeah, cous cous, we wanted to be
half vegetarian. Its a shame Chris and Tony weren't here to enjoy it, nevermind
they have MacDonalds!
We decided to move on to Cayo Herradura, a small
horseshoe shaped islet. We could anchor behind the reef for protection. There
was a lot of wind so plenty of 'wigglies' in me batteries from the wind genny.
The water was much clearer here, and the beach was beautiful too although
nothing ashore. There were a 3 or 4 other cruisers in the large bay, plenty of
room, although we did have one cat come and anchor right next to us. I just
can't believe these people, they come all this way to a desolate island to be my
neighbour. I did comment to him with words like 'you have all this space ****of
somewhere else, he replied but I don't speak the lingo, and he obviously didn't
parlais vous English. Git! So I decided to move. Most people are respectful of
others privacy, its not a question of being unsociable, because you can always
dinghy over and have a chat, which we always do and swap stories and sometimes a
beer. Everyones dream is to go into a a beautiful blue bay on a deserted
island, and while that isn't always possible, with a few yards distance between
all boats it feels like you're there. Some people are well known to almost
tie up alongside you, you feel you need fenders! Enough!
Although the water here was clear and beautiful,
snorkelling wasn't too rich, there was no coral, very few fishes, only the boney
b******* types. There were some weed patches and although nothing of interest,
there were some Conch. You know the big shells that you can hear the ocean
in or use as a trumpet. Well, we've eaten Conch or 'Lambi' as the meat is
often known as in curries, rotis, and it is delicious. So I dove down and
collected a few. Out came the book on how to extract the animal inside, god,
what a performance, you have to break a hole in the end of the shell at a
precise point, slide in a sharp knife and cut a very strong muscle, then you can
grab its 'Claw' from the other side of the shell and pull the animal out. What
an ugly looking spud! Then you have to cut off all the nasty bits, and take the
skin off holding the claw as a handle. It may sound easy but the first one took
us an hour, to reveal the lump of solid white meat. This meat is quite tough so
it needs tenderising. I got a suitable lump off wood and bashed the crap out of
it for 5 mins, job done! The other four we managed to do in less time than the
first. We cut up the meat of the four, bagged it and put it in the freezer and
the first Yvonne made some pattie type things mixed with corn and chillies, yum
yum!
After being here for a few days we have decided to
return a day early, Eric, our short-wave weatherman, tells us there is a storm
surge heading down the Caribbean, nothing serious, but it will mean a big
northerly swell and these anchorages are good in all swells except the rare
northerly, so we decided to leave.
That's all from Isla Tortuga. We departed at
0615hrs and arrived back at the marina in PLC at 1615hrs anchored, sail away
boat washed, water tank filled. We had a great sail in 20knots of wind 50
degrees off the bow and average 7'5 knots over the 60 mile trip. Good
one!!
|
