10 degrees 57N, 65 degrees 14W
Meryon.bridges
Fri 29 Jan 2010 16:21
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Venezuela.
Having heard many tales of the dangers of the
Venezuelan coast we had originally planned to go straight from Grenada to the
Dutch Antilles, but a meeting with John and Ann-Louise, who had just come back
from 3 months of cruising around Venezuela, persuaded us to give it a go.
Accordingly we left Grenada on the evening of 25 Jan, heading for Los Testigos
(no smirking, please; it means The Witnesses). There was a full moon and
we ran without lights in the apprehension of an unwelcome encounter with a
Venezuelan fishing boat who might be after more than fish. The tension of
the night was suddenly intensified when we were startled, whilst enjoying dinner
in the cockpit, by a sudden "whump" and a colossal burst of spray just
100 yards away. We concluded that a whale had just breached but sadly
we didn't see it actually coming out.
Otherwise the night passed uneventfully, and next
morning we arrived at Los Testigos, a remote group of tiny islands occupied by
only a couple of hundred people who live by fishing, and by a Venezuelan Coast
Guard detachment. After checking in with the CG ashore and armed
detachment boarded us, and conducted a very cursory search of the
boat. They weren't very smiley but then they were obviously bored witless
and we had no words in common with them to crack the odd joke. Their main
interest seemed to be to "cadge" a couple of packets of Holden's cigarettes and
some of our pre-dinner nibbles. The islands themselves are simple but lovely:
very undeveloped and covered with arid scrub and cactus. One of them
has a huge bank of sand dunes with a lonely wave swept beach on the
windward side. Two tiny communities face eachother across a mile of water,
and everyone seems to have access to a 25ft pirogue with a couple of big
outboard motors on the back. After cruising round the group we anchored
off Testigo Grande, and in the evening there was evidently a big party at the
"beach bar" (6 broken chairs and a three-legged table)ashore starting with what
sounded like an exhortational speech by a very articulate chap (visitor or tapoe
who knows) and continuing with music ranging from Elvis to what sounded
like enthusiastic Karaoke.
On 27 Jan we set off in light winds for Porlamar on
Isla Margarita, a necessary stop to check in fomally with the Venezuelan
Imigration, Customs, etc. This proved to be a disappointment from all
aspects. We arranged to meet a charming man called Juan Baro who provides
a service of obtaining all the necessary clearances for yachties, but he advised
us that the new Port Captain had introduced so many obstacles in the name of
clamping down on corruption that this process could now take 2 weeks to achieve
and once strated you were comitted. Accordingly we decided to pursue our
way without the clearance and bluff our way if challenged. We then took a
taxi into the city. It was a very wet day and Parlomar was not
looking its best, but it rapidly became apparent that Parlomar's best wouldn't
look good on a fine day. It was dirty, run down,
tawdry, and showed evidence of commercial stagnation. Apart from a
reasonable lunch the only entertainment offered was Holden's purchase of a cheap
watch. The first one fell apart before he got out of the shop. After
a lengthy negotiation he emerged with his second choice, but half an hour later
it was showing a time half an hour behind ours, so he headed back for a further
altercation with the shopkeeper on the basis that this one wasn't
working . It transpired however that it was showing Venezuelan time, set
half an hour later than everywhere else in the time zone by Mr Chavez to
irritate the Americans!
After our sodden excursion ashore we set off in
late afternoon in almost continuous rain for our next island,
Tortuga. Pirates of the Carribean enthusiasts please note. The real
Tortuga is actually a low lying semi desert island populated by a handful of
fishermen on a seasonal basis. However Holden, as only he can,
managed to find a "cultural centre", run by a cheerful, Boston educated
young man from Isla Margarita. In the absence of any Bolivars
he persuaded this chap to exchange 2 beers for half a packet of fags.
Let us hope he does not fritter them all away like this - we may need more for
other coastguard boarding parties! We arrived at about 0900 in rather
watery sunshine. As with Los Testagos the accuracy of the electronic
chart, which had been great throughout the Leeward and Windward Islands, left a
lot to be desired and, according to our chartplotter, we are now anchored firmly
on dry land! This is a bit of a wake up call and confirms that we must not
approach these islands in the dark. Hopefully this will only apply to
Venezuela and we will find that the Dutch Antilles and Panama are where they
should be.
We will continue our voyage along the Venezuelan
Offshore Islands later today and will report again from Bonaire, the first
of the Dutch Antilles.
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