Sunday, May 30 1999 - just left Los Roques

G’day fellow travelers,

today has been another busy day at Los Roques. We were out early this morning continuing our observations of the local wildlife, and have added Black Noddies to our list of birds - relatively small birds, almost completely dark coloured except for a white blaze on the front of the head.

We also had a closer look at the Queen Conch shells, which are piled up everywhere on the beach. These are fished for by the locals who sell them or eat them themselves. We have tried them is a restaurant in Trinidad - rather rubbery and tasteless I’m afraid - but perhaps they were not ideal specimens.


Cayo Felipe - Small mangrove island

Whilst out, we came across one of the coastguard we met yesterday. Today is of course Sunday and even here in paradise people get a day off! He was out fishing for bait and after some time spent trying to communicate in broken Spanish and by drawing pictures in the sand, he offered to take us over to his house for a look around.

He told us his name was Julian. He lives with his wife and son on a small island-come-sandbar about 1km away from here. They are the only inhabitants and do not have luxuries, like running water or electricity. Their house was rather delightful, consisting of a series of wooden structures each with a thatched palm roof. Each room of the house was a separate dwelling - they have a house for cooking, and a house for sleeping and a washhouse, all separate - the living room is simply a thatched verandah on the beach.

Julian introduced us to his wife and son and also another member of the family; a baby Brown Booby whose mother was killed and who they have adopted until it can care for itself. It was very tame and flapped about on the beach, peeting and waiting to be fed.

Brown Booby

Julian spent some time showing us how to throw the round nets that they use here for fishing - of course it is not as easy as it looks! You gather it up from the top in the left hand, hold one of the lead weights in your teeth, collect up a handful of the ‘skirt’ in your right hand, stagger out into the shallows looking for fish and then throw - its every bit as difficult to do as it is to describe!

The Fisherman Julian throwing the net

After several abortive attempts and much laughter from Julian I managed a reasonable cast and actually caught some fish immediately the baby booby was there fighting for his share with several tens of Laughing Gulls who flocked around picking up the fish. We now know why laughing gulls are so named; they have a really raucous, jeering cackle, which almost adds insult to injury as you bungle your firth cast in a row.

Julian and family also have a small group of Brown Pelicans who loiter on their stretch of beach hoping for any type of fishy tidbit. The poor pelicans certainly have a hard time with their jeering neighbors who even go so far as to perch on the their heads waiting for them to open their mouths and then snatch out the fish. (Photo of this on the coming science page)

We spent a couple of hours with them and then invited them back to the STARSHIP to collect water - water is of course a big problem here, any water that they have is brackish and so they were very pleased at the chance to fill up their water drums with fresh water. We have water in endless quantities onboard because we have two Village Marine desalinator - so it was not a problem for us to give them about six large barrels full.

Afternoon now, and we were hoping to have had the chance to visit the marine biology station on the nearby island of Dos Mosquises Sur. This was sadly not to be, since we are only permitted to remain here for a few more hours. I did however manage to talk to them on the radio. The marine biology station is manned by marine biologist ‘Rafael Tavaris,’ (from the University of Caracas) and three co-workers. Rafael told me that they are primarily involved in breeding specific marine species to be released back into the wild, for example, sea turtles; they breed and release up to 600 Hawksbill, Leatherhead and Leatherback turtles per year - these are three species which are still under threat. They have similar projects for Lobster and Queen conch (Also known as Pink Conch) which are similarly under threat from over fishing and through the slow but steady increase in tourism. They also breed and release bull sharks. The marine biology station is currently developing several projects, that are aimed at informing and educating both the local population and visitors to archipelago of the need to preserve the local wildlife and its habitat.

Just a final word on flora and fauna, the vegetation on the islands consists mainly of grasses, succulents such as mesembryanthemum, mangroves and an occasional coconut palm. The mangroves grow out across the coral sand beaches into the shallow water and provide an extra habitat for small reef creatures such as Blue Crabs and Two Claw Shrimp.

More news tomorrow

Janet