We left Trinidad on the evening of 10 August, sailed out through Boca de Monos, and re-entered the Caribbean Sea. The easterly counter-current running along the coasts of Trinidad and Venezuela kicked up some choppy seas, but we soon escaped the counter-current and the seas smoothed out. The moon was two days past first quarter, and we enjoyed the light from a gibbous moon for most of our night's sail.
Even before arriving in Venezuela we started making new friends. Just at dusk "Parrothead", another boat heading to Los Testigos, called us on the radio. We sailed the whole night with their running lights in view just a few miles off our stern, chatting on the radio every few hours.
Cathy and the crew of Marysol
On our first evening
in Los Testigos we had a potluck dinner on the beach, with two large tunas
that Parrothead had caught as the main course. There we met the crew
from three other cruising boats as we grilled the fish and sipped cervesas.
The next day we met the crew of "Marysol", a small Venezuelan fishing boat
whose anchorage we were sharing. They offered us two beautiful red
snapper and gave us a taste of their stew of lobster and octopus.
We gave them a few cervesas and our gratitude. The next day they
called us over and presented us with four beautiful silvery tuna, and Cathy
gave them some homemade bread.
Dunes of Los Testigos
The following day,
the fishermen of "Marysol" asked us to come by at "cinco tardes" (5:00
PM) in our dinghy to go fishing. At the appointed time, we took the
dinghy over to their fishing boat. Jose, one of the crew, jumped
into the dinghy with a basket, a stick, and two hand lines for fishing.
He directed us along the coast of the island and deployed a fishing line
for each of us. We motored in a large oval off the tip of a shoal
extending out from the island, and soon felt the pull of fish on our lines.
We hauled in the hand lines. Jose removed the hook from the mouth
of each fish, rapped it on the head with the stick, and tossed it into
the basket. We hauled in fish after fish, smiling with the simple
pleasure of our excitement as the fish raced on the ends of their lines,
flopped aboard, and jumped around in the basket. An hour later we
had over a dozen foot-long tuna in the basket. Jose filleted four
of the tuna for us and gave us one of the hand lines.
Almost every day the fishermen have given us gifts of seafood. In return, though they don't seem to expect it, Cathy has given them the products of our galley: freshly baked wheat bread, banana bread, and chocolate cake. One afternoon we provided the fish for another pot luck dinner on the beach. In fact, I think we have eaten fresh seafood every day since our arrival here.
One night we had the four crew of "Marysol" aboard Sovereign for cervesas and snacks. We talked for long hours in our fledgling Spanish, making much use of our Spanish-English dictionary. The patience of the fishermen with our attempts at their language is amazing. We find that even though we know so few Spanish words, we can get across a surprisingly large number of concepts by judicious arrangement of those words and the occasional foray into the dictionary. Even so, it can take quite some time to answer a simple question, like how long it took us to get here.
The fishermen make no attempt to communicate in English, or learn English words. We appreciate this, as it forces us to learn the language, which we wouldn't be as inclined to do if they spoke English. But with all our contact, there is one word (that we apparently use a lot) that they have picked up: "Wow". When they explain that they have 7000 kilos of fish in the hold, or that they have no navigational equipment aboard, our first word is usually "wow". So when we explain how the two of us sailed watch-and-watch for seven and a half days to Bermuda, and another seven to the Virgin Islands, they now say "wow".
Yesterday was perhaps the most interesting part of our trip so far: I got to go out on "Marysol" for a day of fishing. At 0600 Cathy took me in the dinghy to "Marysol" and dropped me off. We headed off towards the west-southwest just as the sun was rising above the clouds on the horizon.
Marysol
Several miles out
we stopped at a red float and the fishermen started pulling on the line
attached to it. After a few minutes a fish trap appeared. The
fish traps in the Caribbean are about eight feet across, made of saplings
lashed together and covered with chicken wire. They are shaped like
a hexagonal pie with two pieces of pie missing. At the apex of the
pie is a cone of chicken wire through which the fish can enter, but can't
exit. The trap was full of red snapper (which they call "pargo")
like those we were given the first night we met the fishermen. Then
I discovered what the tuna we caught with the hand lines were for:
a cluster of about eight smaller tuna were wired together into the trap
as bait! A string of about eight traps is attached to one float.
Each of the traps on a string was hauled up, emptied, and rebaited, and
stored on deck. Then the string of traps was dumped back overboard,
and we moved on to another string.
Around mid-morning a line of squalls went through, bringing clouds and heavy rain. We motored slowly in place for about two hours, waiting for the weather to clear enough to see the islands. During this time we did no fishing, and I couldn't understand why. Prior to this point the crew had been active constantly, with no wasted movement. Even though we seemed to be doing nothing, the crew wasn't lounging around, they were all intently scanning the horizon. I wondered if perhaps they were looking for signs of schools of fish on the water. Finally the clouds lifted enough to see the islands, and we got underway for about ten minutes. They threw a weighted grappling hook over the side, and the boat proceeded along. I tried to ask what was going on, but the only explanation I could understand was that there were many lobsters here. I couldn't figure out what a grappling hook had to do with lobsters. After a while, they pulled up the grappling hook, moved to another spot and tried again. This time, something snagged the hook, and everyone pulled furiously. After a while, a trap like the ones that were hauled earlier appeared. I asked why there was no float on the trap, and it was as if I had been suddenly let in on a joke. They all started laughing then explained that a boat's propeller had cut the float off the traps. I was amazed. The captain had found this string of traps, which was about a quarter of a mile long, lying ten to fifteen miles off the islands, with absolutely no navigational equipment: no GPS, depth sounder, knot meter, not even a compass. Simply by looking at the shape of the islands on the horizon, he was able to find his way back to the location of a string of traps. Wow!
There were no lobsters in that string, but there were plenty of pargo, and they filled a large basket with the fish from that string. Motoring back, we stopped to fish with hand lines, similar to the ones we had used from our dinghy only bigger, and caught more pargo. We arrived back at about 4:30 PM, tired and sunburned.
Ramon shows us how to make arepas
Last night after
dinner we had the fisherman aboard Sovereign again. We drank cervesas
in the cockpit and talked in Spanish. They were telling Cathy what
we had for lunch on the fishing boat, explaining the pancake-like arepas
that went with the meal. When we started asking questions about how
they were made, instead of explaining, they got some fine corn flour from
their boat, came back to Sovereign and the captain cooked a batch for us!
Wow!
Without a doubt, we have received the warmest welcome here of anyplace we have been. Prior to coming, we had heard many stories about crime on the Venezuelan mainland, but few about how nice the people are. All we have seen so far of Venezuela is this little chain of islands called Los Testigos. But the water here is cool and clear. There are sandy beaches and wonderful fishing. And the people here are as friendly as you will find anywhere. There is only one word I can think of to describe it all: Wow!
Smooth sailing,
Jim and Cathy