10 October 2000 Monjes del Sur, Venezuela 12d21.670N; 70d54.157
If
you are plotting our travels, you are going to need a very strong
magnifying glass to find our current location. Half the cruisers
can't remember the name and just call it "The Rock." Let me tell
you, we really feel like adventurers now.
But I get ahead of myself.
We also feel like we and TII are really getting the hang of this
downwind sailing stuff! We left Curacao before dawn in light conditions,
but two hours and one pod of dolphins later, the engine was off
and we were breezing westward to Aruba. I don't think the landlubbers
among you can fully appreciate the delight Don and I get from sailing
45 miles with no engine time!
Aruba has a huge refinery
on their eastern tip (Curacao had a huge bank of giant wind turbines
on their eastern point which I forgot to mention!) and a very industrial
looking coastline with upscale residential areas upwind of them!
Unfortunately, we arrived on a Sunday, and our good mood was a little
squashed by having to bring the boats (we are traveling in tandem
with our friends Mac & Sam of Sandy Lee) to a cruise ship dock to
do the formalities. The officers, as they trickled in, were quite
charming and friendly, and impressed with the boat, but we were
completely stumped by their insistence that we would have to return
to check out before our planned 0500 departure. Quite frankly we
didn't, and as we all have paperwork from Curacao to Cartagena,
there will be no issue. The only reason we stopped to check in was
that Sandy Lee needed to disembark Mac's visiting brother. We expected
a huge immigration snafu with that, but it turned out to be such
a nothing that the immigration officer actually gave Kenny a ride
to the airport hotel!
We
quickly learned why Aruba is not a big cruising destination...it
hasn't got much in the way of anchorages for pleasure boats. We
crept into the very shallow water of the "designated anchorage"
barely off the main channel and just off the international airport
runway. (When the first plane landed after sunset I was quick to
turn on the Masthead anchor light!) The wind was howling, and on
top of it all it was a Sunday afternoon, and the sea surface was
full of jet skiis and power boats, while, of course a band played
on show! Relaxing!
We and Sandy Lee were
underway again before sunrise. The dolphins were fewer but the wind
came up quicker. We set our whisker pole this time, and were off
like a rocket making 7-8 knots SOG (speed over ground, according
to the GPS.) Yes, yes, alot of that is current, but I gotta tell
you the boat was flying. The Aries even worked for a while. (We've
finally got the lines hooked up right, but it still goes off after
a few hours, a problem we haven't figured out yet, but we are making
progress.) AND, we caught fish. Two mahi!
OK. Back to "The Rock".
It's amazing. It is a butterfly-shaped, colourless pair of piles
of rock. There are several other stark little Monjes rocks nearby,
but this one has the lighthouse and radar on top, and about 15 Venezuelan
Guarda Costas. The industry of man has reinforced the land bridge
between the two piles behind which "dam" is the "anchorage," which
consists of a rock-lined basin about 150' wide across which stretches
a 3/4" rope, to which were already tied three sailboats when we
arrived! Those boats were supposed to have left the night before,
so there was a little consternation about where we would go, as
there is no place to put an anchor down but between the Guarda Costa
and the resourceful, communal-minded cruisers, everyone had shifted
around, added reinforcing lines, and generally made room for two
more! This acommodation put Tackless II on the end near the rocks
and directly under the 24-hour generator! Given this precarious
arrangement... not to mention the 20 knot winds, we slept surprisingly
well!
The
Lieutenant here, Antonio, met us with in shorts and a T-shirt to
welcome us to his island and to check us in to Venezuelan territory.
The help and gracious friendliness encountered here has been a highlight.
We'd been clued that he was interested in some digital photos of
the "crowd" in the harbor (six boats in the harbor was a record;
I imagine much of the year just one is an event) to send to the
commandant in hopes improving facilities. So, after formalities
I took the requested shots, after which we moved on to photograph
each room of the new residence facilites being finished up on the
hillside. We understand that when Hurricane Lenny passed last year,
waves were crashing through the old office which was perched only
about thirty feet above the water! After the photo session, we climbed
up to the lighthouse for a spectacular view...which included not
a speck of green. It rains here about four times a year!
The other four cruising
boats made their departure for the Colombian coast last night, three
at dusk, and the last at about four am. When we woke up, we were
alone on the rope! (Sandy Lee had been put on the dock). We warped
ourselves away from the rocks into the center of the basin before
breakfast. It seems no one is expected in today, and we plan to
leave tonight in the wake of the others. There is a large group
several days behind us, however, so it won't stay empty here long.
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