Los Testigos, Venezuela

Hola de Venezuela - double click on any picture to enlarge it.


First Happy Birthday to Kim's niece Jennifer - love you and miss you - hope you had the best birthday and that Seth and Alexandra are taking care of you :) Happy Birthday to Alexandra too...give her a hug and kiss for me and make sure you show her and Seth pictures so they know us when we see them again :))....


We are in Bahia Redonda Marina, Venezuela. We will be here through November of this year, doing some maintenance work on the boat and going through our wish list of projects. We will show you photos as we complete them.

We left St. George, Grenada on June 24, 2006 at 5:30 PM (17:30) for an overnight sail to Los Testigos, Venezuela. We arrived at 9:00 AM. Los Testigos (The Witnesses) are a group of islands with about 160 inhabitants who live by fishing. They were some of the nicest people we have met so far. They were very tolerant that we knew only a little (um poco) spanish and helped us figure it out. They are on the island year round and have a school and church. Cruisers are among the very few outsiders that the locals see and they enjoy our visiting. For shopping and holidays they go over to Carupano about 41 miles away on the mainland of Venezuela in their pirogues (boats). The water was slightly chilly compared to the Caribbean, very refreshing and crystal clear.

There are cinco (5) islas (islands) and several anchorages in the Testigos. There is a small coastguard outpost on Isla Iguana where you have to check in. One guardia spoke fair english and we managed to get permission to stay for 3 days. We anchored at Playa Tamarindo on Isla Langoleta. There was a lighthouse on a hill 817 feet up that we climbed up for an incredible view. There were also sand dunes on this isla on the other side that we hiked to, we didn't bring the camera for that one.

There was a restaurant/bar there - just an outside patio with a small kitchen attached were we met the owner Chucha, here husband and kids. They had great fish there and cold, cold beers. Chucha did not speak english but we communicated very well - she even sat down and played dominoes with us one day and bocci ball another day. She had a monkey that she kept in a tree next to the restaurant and a dog without hair (that breed of dog does not have hair). They also captured some baby turtles when they hatched and were raising them to release once they were big enough.

Here's a picture of a sunset at Los Testigos - these islas were very beautiful and we wished we could of stayed longer - but you can only stay a maximum of 3 days and we had to go with our weather window.









Adios! Nos mantendremos en contacto! Miguel and Kim