The best time to sail Venezuelan waters is during the hurricane season, we don’t get hurricane conditions here. It is the wet season so one needs to consider that, mainly some afternoon showers. The winter is dry but the winds can pick up and depending what direction you sail can be pleasant or ‘orrible! We sailed to Los Roques in late November and Dominican Republic in February – Wrong.

Our plans to venture inland have gone on hold until next year, our work on Chaser took a little longer and Yvonne missed the companionway steps and broke (we think ) her little toe, a week later while walking on deck carefully avoiding striking the little piggy, she hit the one on the other foot. You have to laugh! Well she didn’t exactly laugh. As a consequence wearing shoes and socks, and walking the  mountains of Peru and Bolivia was a no no.

We met our friends Jaco and Christelle from S/V Songerie when we arrived in Puerto La Cruz,  and we decided to take a sail to our favourite island of Tortuga together. We stocked up with food from the local market, drinks and prepared our fishing tackle. Songerie departed at 0300hrs and Chaser a couple of hours later, we’re a little faster. As always we like to arrive at an anchorage in daylight, here especially because our electronic charts are not quite accurate in their positioning of the islands.  The wind was light so motor sailing it was, shortly after passing Isla Boracha we caught a small but nice Dolphin fish or Dorado. They are good eating and there was plenty for 4. During our sail we caught another 2 and a couple of small Tuna. At this time Jaco hadn’t caught anything, by now Songerie was behind us and we’d spoken on the VHF. We later saw his sails let go, which we assumed to slow his boat, 15 minutes later he was on the radio boasting of a huge Wahoo, his biggest ever catch, I think around 17Kg.. We had a lot of fish!

Because we made good time, we decided to continue on past Tortuga Island to Cayo Herradura, another couple of hours, we were sailing now which always brings our speed up a bit. We anchored about 1500hrs, there was one other sailboat in the anchorage, beautiful! S/V Songerie came in soon after and anchored about 150 metres away. This anchorage is large, enough space for 100 boats to have a football pitch size spot. It was Christeles birthday, Jaco invited us for dinner, we brought some salad and fresh strawberries and cream together with a bottle of Champagne. Jaco nd Christelle supplied homemade bread and other assortments and barbequed the fish. We also took along some fish, of course, but Jaco had plenty, he kept ours to smoke later. We had a good evening, the sky was clear, the moon was full, food excellent, with wine and rum what more did we need. The wind was still blowing when we returned to Chaser, maybe 15-20knots, but the sea was calm. Cayo Herradura is not much more than a reef, only about 3-6 feet above sea level. So the wind blows over but the sea and waves are held back on windward side.

Next morning two catamarans entered the anchorage, one went 150 metres in front of us, the other anchored right alongside Chaser, can you believe it I said, why??????????? I was going to, satirically  put fenders out. They had to be French, sorry,  don’t like to generalise but nobody else would anchor that close when it’s not necessary, and they were. We considered moving, but our anchor was in good so we decided to wait and see if they demonstrated the art of pissing into wind while we are dining that the French seem to have perfected. This couple however were more respectable, in fact we never saw much of them, unlike their accompanying boat. The crew of two, again so typical, wearing hat, coat, shorts, shoes and socks whilst sailing with nobody else around, stripped off on arrival to hang their arses over the transom, bon appetite, I shouted! It’s always the French, we meet good and bad in all nationalities but so many of the French like to specialise in exposing themselves, but only when others are looking. Maybe it’s their uninhibited ways or our British prudishness, but I don’t think so. So we stayed where we were, alongside our close French neighbours that used their ‘onboard’ toilets.

Using the fish we had taken to Songerie the previous evening, Jaco cold smoked it. The result he brought to us later in the day, it takes about 6 hours and the result is amazing, we all sampled it with a cold beer, and we shared our Biltong. Where did we get the Biltong Jaco asked, Biltong being an African snack food that they yearn for. We made it, we informed them. Jaco and Christelle are from Namibia, born and bred, they are bush people, they love camping, living off the land, barbecuing Zebras and things. They even have a Landrover (poor sods) for safaris and charging Rhinos, chasing elephant. Biltong is their national snack, they even asked their sister to bring some when she visited. Then there is us, Englanders, whose national snack is chips; the Americans have popcorn, the French have pigs noses, (see my blog Tues January 2007) but the Africans have Biltong and we supplied it. Haha. For some reason, they don’t know why, but have never made Biltong onboard, in Africa always. They have since made their own.   So to explain, after the micky taking, Biltong is beef, ok it doesn’t look too good, but it is beef. Off cuts of  raw beef, salted for a few hours, cleaned, wiped with vinegar, then put in a polybag with herbs, chillie, pepper and shaken until it has stuck to the beef strips. Then hang it out to dry in the hot wind and shade, our cockpit is ideal. 3 days later you can eat it, it’s a chewy, firey, beefy snack, great with a beer, even better with 2 beers. A South African sailboat ‘Sunshine’ originally showed us. Together with our smoked fish sticks, we had good, healthy snack food for days, it keeps, it tastes good and saves waste.

Being bush people, Jaco and Christelle love ‘fire’, they suggested we collect some drift wood, make a camp and cook ‘something’. Steak was on the menu, had enough fish, need a break, so we decided a good vegetarian meal of cucumber, jacket potatoes, tomatoes with steak cooked on the camp fire. It was another beautiful evening only slighty spoilt by a visiting boat that came ashore informing us how dangerous Venezuela was. Have you had problems we asked, no they said, have you been here long we said, no they had not, have you travelled around much in Venezuela we asked, no they said. ----Dickheads! Venezuela is as safe and as dangerous as anywhere else. You see from our photos here, what is dangerous?, there is only us and a few fisherman. Of course this changes weekends when all the wealth of Venezuelan motor boats arrive, they don’t bother us, they anchor in close to the beach, some have their crew take tents, gazebos, barbecues to the beach, one boat had we assume his wife and children flown in by helicopter. Not all poor in Venezuela. But come Monday we have the island to ourselves again.

Part of our days we spent walking the beaches or just sitting on them admiring the spectacular waters. Other times we’d take the dinghy trolling for fish, or to go diving. The snorkelling is excellent on the windward side of Cayo Herradura, as you can see some beautiful fishes. Jaco loves to spearfish, and has been very successful, sometimes its necessary to sail to another anchorage, if the weather is calm where the coral is even better. A storm was brewing however, so nobody went anywhere that day, but it missed us. It was nothing dangerous, but it looked amazing as it was nearing sunset.

We’d been here a week now so on Tuesday we said adios to Songerie, and moved to another anchorage in order to leave just before dawn for Puerto La Cruz. We lifted our anchor at 5am, raised our mainsail and headed out into the big blue. It was a bit lumpy, always is here because the water is so shallow, around 10 metres deep for a few miles, then it drops off to 1000 metres or more. We put out the headsail as the wind picked up and sailed for the next 40 miles at around 7 knots, until the wind dropped to a breeze and we needed to start the iron sail to help the canvas ones. No fish this time! The biggest wind we had that day was about 18 kts, when was that? As we were entering the marina, typical, still we made it safely with the help of a few cruisers and marineros to fend us off the concrete slip.

We arrived back in PLC around 3pm where we’ll stay for a week or two. Our friends Peter and Sylvia arrive on the 27^th. Their boat, a Nic 32 is in Medregal Village Haulout yard. Our friend Paul has just arrived back aboard his sailboat ‘Decanter’ from Trinidad, he has a lovely house here in PLC and Peter and Sylvia will stay with him for a couple of nights, as we did on our return to Venezuela. Yvonne and I will meet them there and later drive them to Medregal Village in the Gulf of Cariaco. We’ll stay in our house for a few days while they prepared their boat for the water, then we’ll make our next plans.  If we or they want a short sail, maybe Tortuga again or the nearby islands of Puerto La Cruz, all weather dependant. Hopefully during the next couple of months our kids will visit too. At sometime we may all take a trip up the Orinoco by canoes and stay in the locals Indians houses, we’ll see, we’re told it is a good experience.

Until next time

These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google.

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