Friday May 29, 1999 - Arrival at Los Roques
Good morning folks,
day two of our passage to Panama. We are currently rolling along just south off the coast of a group of Islands called Los Roques.
The archipelago Los Roques is about 150 km off the north central coast of Venezuela. It is about 36km long and consists of about 40 named islands and another 250 islets and sandbars. Los Roques was made a national park in 1972 and on one of the islands, ‘Dos Mosquises’ has a biological station, which we hope to visit.
We have to make a quick technical stop today and so are currently looking for a safe place to anchor - this is proving somewhat of a problem because the swell is quite large at the moment and most of the islands are surrounded by coral reefs.
The islands are very low and flat. From the water all you can see is a thin line of gleaming white beach, topped by a little ‘hat’ of pale green vegetation, and palm trees sticking up like giant matchsticks.
The islands are sparsely inhabited, mainly by fishermen who have moved in from other nearby island groups to take advantage of the abundant fish and lobsters. Hopefully we’ll be seeing some of these this afternoon when we get into the water.
One of the most beautiful things about this place is the crystal clear water which shows just about every colour in the blue spectrum and a few more - from pale jade, through brilliant turquoise to deep aquamarine and violet - all the colours of an artists pallet, intricately patched together depending on the depth of water.
Lunchtime, and we have found a safe anchor in a small bay off Carenero Island in the west of Los Roques.
The first thing that happened was a visit from
the Venezuelan coast guard, they had spotted a predominantly " battleship grey"
boat, which, since we didn’t answer their radio messages, they assumed was an
‘unfriendly vessel’. They arrived to find us in the middle of lunch, dressed
in our T-shirts and shorts and looking anything but a crack SEAL or SAS invasion
team, so after a few friendly greetings they took off again.
Laughing Gulls on the beach
The afternoon was spent investigating both marine and terrestrial wildlife. We snorkeled around the bay, and although the reefs are not particularly well developed in this bay, which is mainly coral sand, what there is, is healthy and there is plenty to see provided one is prepared to get in close and look carefully.
The corals are mainly brain corals, which really do live up to their name and form smooth, low, flattened or hemispherical domes, with intricately folded and ribbed surfaces.
We spotted black spiny rock-boring urchins and
beautiful orange cushion sea stars. The shallows were full of huge schools of
tiny dwarf herring (less than 7cm long). Blue heads, aptly named as they really
do have a vibrant blue head and small blue and yellow angelfish flitted in and
out between the corals. At one point we were encircled by a school of glittering
silver barracuda that after a quick look swam off into deeper water.
Brown Pelican in flight
The rest of the afternoon was spent on land bird watching, plenty of brown pelicans, laughing gulls, brown boobies and terns (more on those tomorrow and other wildlife as we spot it).
That’s all for today
Janet