Playa Caldera,
La Tortuga,
Venezuela
10.57.328N
65.13.642W

We got a good night’s sleep and hoisted anchor at 6am bound for La Tortuga. The winds were cranking 20+kts and within minutes of securing the anchor, the engine was cut, the sails were trimmed and we were flying at 7-8 kts. The seas were a kindly 3-4’ with the occasional 6’ thrown in to keep you on your toes, so the 66 miles were going by quickly. By 10am though, the predicted 12-15 kts settled in and we were cruising a respectable 6kts.

Dale started a new book, so I tweaked the sails and autopilot for most of the day. It was a very pleasant sail. Except for Orpailleur, we saw only 3 other boats all day. We heard the Venezuelan Navy hail motor vessels and ask them to identify themselves a few times, but never saw the “warship” they were on.

Throughout the day, however, the winds continued to diminish and by 2pm, the 7-9 kts weren’t going to get us into our anchorage before dark, so we were forced to once again, turn on the engine.

LaTortuga, is another low lying desert island which has miles of white sandy beaches. The eastern most tip has an airstrip with a couple of hangers and a few fishing shacks but that’s it. We chose Playa Caldera to anchor in as it provided a half moon bay and appeared to be sheltered even further by some reefs.

As we approached the entrance to the bay, the shell of a catamaran lay grounded on the beach; we steered an extra wide path to round up into the anchorage. We soon saw our depth meter rise from 50’ to 15’ rather quickly but continued on until we were in about 10’ and tucked up inside away from the swells rounding the point. There were only 2 other boats in the anchorage. Talk about getting away from it all.

We invited Gerry & Nicky over for dinner and as we ate, we were all astounded with the winds picking up again to well over 20 kts. It was howling and the Palace started dancing on her anchor chain. We feel that we are very secure having dropped our anchor in sand and felt its tug when it dug in to snap us around smartly. But when the wind starts whistling and the wind generator sounding like a DC10 winding up, it gets a bit unnerving. I’m sure transferring from the dinghy back to Orpailleur must have been a challenge for Gerry & Nicky but I’m glad that they were able to share dinner with us.

I think we’ll be staying here another day but I wouldn’t mind moving to another bay. Both Dale and Gerry spoke of seeing huge jelly fish in the water which already looks murky from the top and I was looking forward to the exceptional snorkeling I’ve read about.