The Strangest Anchorage to Date

We are back in Venezuela and anchored (or we should say "tied") in Monjes del Sur (Monks of the South). This has to be the strangest place we've ever anchored. Monjes is a group of islands - well really rocks - about 60 miles west of Aruba. The Monjes del Sur are the southernmost rocks and it appears to be two rocks from a distance. As you approach - you see that the rocks are now connected by a rock dam/wall. You circle the rock and enter on the western side and into a little bay. Inside the bay, you go up towards the rock wall and there is a line (rope) in the water. Each end of the rope is attached to one of the rocks - and that's what you "anchor" on. They claim there is room for about six boats (it would be mighty tight). Tumshi, the catamaran we are traveling with, and Astarte will call the rope home for the night.

As we came into the area (near the eastern Monjes), we called the Coast Guard station to check in with them. Good thing Barbara's been studying her Spanish so diligently - she needed to put it to full use. Lots of questions were asked and information secured. All was good (we think).

There is a lighthouse on the top of one rock and a Guarda Costa (Coast Guard) station here. It is Venezuelan territory. The station is an interesting little pod of a building - something out of the 70s. Michael and Friedel went in to do the paperwork and came back with five Venezuelan Coast Guardsmen. They wanted to inspect the boat - and get a beer! So all the cold cervezas we had for tonight got drunk. They were friendly and it was another good chance to practice more Spanish. They looked through a few lockers, checked the radio licenses and checked out the engine room. It took long enough to eat a few snacks, drink a beer and then off they went. Now we are cleared to go to the shore as well as stay here for a few days if we'd like.

We left on Sunday afternoon around 1600 from Santa Cruz and had a good sail the entire way. The seas were quite confused - so sleeping and moving about the boat was a bit of a challenge. We started with the genoa - and made good time with that sail - but without a good whisker pole - it started to slap around too much in the big seas as the wind settled a bit. So we opted for the mainsail with preventer. It was more stable and we still made good time. Astarte was much faster than Tumshi so we ended up reefing the main for the overnight sail. At 0300 we unreefed it as the wind died and we slowed too much. There were lots of ships throughout the night - the AIS system really is helpful. (AIS explained: All boats over a certain length must carry a transponder similar to that on aircraft. The AIS on our boat is a receiver that gets all this transponder info -so we can know the name of the ship, where it is headed, how fast, how big, the closest point we'll be to it, etc. It provides great information that helps make it less tense when you see those giant ships coming at you. You can also call them more easily because you have a name. Last night it came in particularly handy because there were lots of large tankers at anchor - and it would have been hard to know that without the AIS).

We arrived at Monjes and were all tied up by 1108. Hope the rope holds!