Francisquis,
Los Roques,
Venezuela
11.57.342N
66.39.027W

Thank heavens each time we had to dance with a freighter in our path last night, Dale was on watch at the time. The first time, I woke up hearing Nicky on the radio telling Dale that from her perspective, a freighter was heading straight for us. Seconds later, Dale turned on the engine and I was scrambling out of bed and grabbing my life jacket. Apparently, the big guy had decided to go between the two sailboats.

The second time, Dale had been watching the approaching lights for about 30 minutes and knew, through the old adage about Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range, that we were in his way. That time, he rounded up and sailed behind the freighter as it passed in front of us.
On my watches, I was content to study the stars and with a cheat sheet in hand, was able to determine the various constellations; including the Southern Cross and the false cross. The first constellation I remember being taught as a child was the Big Dipper. Tonight as falling stars came streaking to Earth, I watched the Big Dipper reach down and touch the water just when it was Dale’s turn to come up.

On my morning watch, I saw several fish traveling with us, so . . . Feeling lucky, I tossed in a line. A while later, we saw a flock of birds and several dolphins directly ahead of us. We had no sooner gone through the birds when the line took off with a zing! I tightened the tension on the line and watched as the rod bent under the load. By this time, Dale was up and helped me get the rod out of the holder and into my lap as I sat on the back deck. About 5 minutes later, I landed a nice sized tuna. Dale leaned over and grabbed it with a gaff, while I ran for a camera. In the meantime, the dang thing splattered blood from one side of the boat to the other.

With the pictures taken, Dale pithed the fish through the eyes and blood spurted everywhere; I about lost my lunch; not from the blood but from the smell. I watched as he cut off the head and gutted the fish but it got to the point where I wanted as far away from that smell as I possibly could get. To his credit, he sliced about 5 good sized steaks rather quickly and sealed them in 3 bags (one inside the other) to keep the smell down. We hailed Orpailleur and informed them that fresh tuna steaks were on the menu for dinner later in the evening.

We made landfall about 11am and found the narrow entrance that separated the reefs we would be traveling between. Los Roques is a group of about 50 small islands over a 14 by 25 mile cruising area. The cruising guide calls the area “reef studded,” I’d call it a reef with navigable waters running through it and mangroves holding enough sand to create the occasional island. Of the first 4 boats we saw, only 1 was anchored; the other 3 (good sized ships) were permanent reminders of what could go wrong.

With Dale on the bow, we maneuvered through the blue-green shallow areas and followed the dark blue water along a path between 2 long reefs that led us north about 10 miles. It reminded us of the ICW in places; deep in the middle but outside of the channel meant certain grounding.

The northeast corner of this collection of islands holds the 4-5 islands that constitute the vacation area for the Venezuelans who come here in their private planes and motor yachts. We passed little islands that were no more than sand bars, covered in brightly colored sun umbrellas. We were surprised to see several Hunter sailboats, all of which were Venezuelan flagged.

We made our way to the anchorage behind Francisquis island and joined more than a dozen other boats. We chose a spot in front of a picnic area that looked like a cul-de-sac in the surrounding reefs. We dropped our anchor in 18’ of water close to the shore and backed into the cul-de-sac of water. We were just settling in when the local water taxis starting buzzing by us. We had anchored in the middle of their short cut. Since it was Sunday, we figured that it was weekend traffic and decided not to move.

As promised, we had tuna steaks for dinner. I made the side dishes ahead of time, then cleared out of the galley while Dale was kind enough to prep and grill the fish, then clean and rinse the galley to the point where all odor was eliminated. I stayed topside and upwind during the process. However, at dinner, I was right there with everyone else and helped gobble down the grilled fish.

Of course, our dinnertime conversation was about catching "the fish". There are those, who shall remain nameless, who have yet to land a fish. Nicky throws out her line from time to time and has gotten bites that have left teeth in her cedar plug and today something actually took the whole plug. Still she is rather disappointed in not having caught a fish herself.

The other problem is, who would clean it? Gerry faints if he gets more than 3 injections and adamantly states that he will not pith or gut a fish. However, he says that he will fillet a fish and has a sharp knife with which to do it. He says they have a strict ‘fillet and release’ policy on Orpailleur. Nicky is afraid that if they ever do catch a fish, she will have to do the cleaning because Gerry will be snorting an ammonia ampule at the first sight of blood (Sight! Wait till he smells it!!)

In any event, we’d love to be around when they do catch their first fish; I’m sure the event would keep us in stitches for weeks.