Dos Mosquises are 2 pretty islands which have an extensive coral reef around them, the entered the anchorage between from the NW slowly working our way in avoiding coral heads and shallows with Incentive, once in the anchorage its a bit deeper and we anchored in front of Sur Mosquises and soon went ashore to explore.

 

We were greeted by Chico who didn't speak any English but was keen to show us the turtles, he is one of 3 men who live on the island and look after the turtles.

 

we were only shown one open sided building with turtles ages 12-14 months, I think there were at least one other area but Chico where I assume younger ones are? the room had about 10 tanks with turtles in each, they were much better tanks than the ones that we saw in Bequia, less crowded and deeper, they also has sea grass put in them which I though showed that Chico and his friends cared about them!

 

 

Rightly or wrongly Chico picked up a turtle and handed it to me, it was gorgeous but obviously wanted to get back in the tank with its friends.

       

Sanne was given a hawksbill turtle to hold.

 

After seeing the turtles Chico took us to see the site of the archaeological exploration where artefacts and remains from the pre-Hispanic settlers, people first landed and lived there 3-4000 years ago were found, there is nothing left on the island but posters about the dig, what was uncovered and who the ancient inhabitants were, the artifacts have all gone to a museum. Chico is obviously very proud of his island , he showed us the airstrip – a strip of tarmac the length on the island and then showed us his home and took us to meet his comrades Elloi and Lorenzo in their communal cooking / social hut,

Chico didn't want anything for the tour he had given us but when asked if we could give him anything he asked if we had any rum! We also had found out it was Lorenzo’s birthday that day so we promised to return later for a drink with them.

Chico’s home – he has lived on the island for 20 years.

After talking with them – or trying to – Lorenzo’s English was better than our Spanish, we set off with Rik and Sanne to walk around the island.

 

 

 

The water colours were stunning

 

 

 

When we walked past the end of the runway there was a rather poorly looking Booby

 

being the daughter of a vet I wanted to try and help the poor thing and managed to pick it up quite easily – it didn't appear to have an injury – wings and legs were OK and it certainly didn't like me holding it and began to peck my hand with its Very sharp beak – I wasn't left with much choice other than to put it down before my hand was shredded – it drew blood in quite a few paces! I did however feel very bad as I am sure it was quite poorly – hopefully it made it, I don't think I would have known what to do to help it if I had taken it back to the boat but would no doubt have stressed it.

 

Later that afternoon we returned with some cold beers, a bottle of rum and nibbles and had a very nice evening with Chico Ellio and Lorenzo, we learned more about the island, Los Roques and Venezuela, Rik was very good at drawing pictures in the sand to help them understand us. 

Steve , Chico, Rik, Lorenzo, Sanne and Ellio

another of the islands inhabitants! and a live queen conch – here too the seabed had a large number of good size conch.