Aves De Barlavento,

Venezuela
11.56.777N
67.25.919W

38.1 miles
5.6 Avg.
7.3 Max

We lifted anchors at 8 am, exited our anchorage behind Isla Carenero, turned into the wind and unfurled the main sail. We steered the Palace onto our course toward Aves de Barlavento and discovered that what winds we had (blowing 12-15 kts) were directly behind us. Once they died below 10 kts, Dale conceded and we dug into the big red bag that has been stuffed in the forward head since Puerto Rico and pulled the cruising chute out through the forward hatch. You may recall that the last time we flew our chute, it landed in the drink when the halyard severed.

It takes some time to rig the chute but with the Palace on an even keel in light winds, Dale had all of the lines run back and forth along the decks and around the rolled genoa in no time. Once he gave the signal, I hoisted the snuffed chute until Dale have the sign to stop. He tugged on the ropes that slipped the sock skyward and the giant sail billowed out with a big whomp.

Sailing just slightly off wind would raise our speed to over 7 kts but as we were going almost dead downwind, we had to be content with a more conservative 4.5-5 kts. The winds continued to moderate and a couple of hours later, we were doing no more than 3.5-4 kts. Not enough to make our anchorage with the sun high enough to dodge coral heads clearly.

We doused the chute, coiled the sheets, and dropped the whole apparatus back down the hatch and into the big red bag again. As we secured the halyard, we noticed that once again, the line had been chafed severely. We are baffled as to what is causing the chafing and certainly the line needs to be respliced before another use.

We turned on the “iron wind” and made the southern tip of the Aves de Sotavento by 2:30pm; we rounded into our anchorage by 3 and dropped the hook.

Moon Goddess, Excalabar, and Island Dreaming, boats we had met previously in our journeys were already here and had, in fact, moved from the next island over from us in Los Roques to here the day before. Joe & Diane from Moon Goddess were just coming in from snorkeling on the reef and dropped by to say hi. They told us about the garbage burn later in the evening and said that everyone was meeting there to leave behind a decorated stone with our boat names on them. They pointed out the reefs they had already explored and suggested mangrove routes that provided good views of the nesting birds. We promised to meet up with everyone later on the beach.

Once settled, we lowered the dinks and took off to explore a little. We ended up at the designated mangrove route that led to a tiny landing spot and walked the rest of the way to the beach.

We introduced Gerry & Nicky to everyone and joined the gathering on the beach to burn garbage. We’d thrown ours out on the garbage scowl the day before but tagged along to decorate the stones.

I am no artist but I left my childish drawing of a sailboat with our names and the date on a smooth stone with the others piled by the pit where the trash was burned.