This blog will be a bit different, more detailed about navigation, distances, anchorages etc. that’s due to that very few people go to Los Roques, they do not think it is safe, hopefully I can encourage some more cruisers to go there as it is a true paradise, that maybe contributed by that very few are there. Anyhow I must say we felt super safe all the time, we never locked the boat or the dinghy for the whole time we spent in Los Roques. We have heard cruisers close to Los Roques get panicking when they see a fishing boat with AIS! heading towards them, they have changed course and steamed away as fast they could. We also saw a fishing boat on AIS heading towards us, we kept course and speed, a bit later they passed ca 200 m astern of us no drama. I do not think pirates or general crocks do announce their presence by AIS.

If you think it’s too boring reading all the text, just scroll down and see some amazing views.

2006 we took a 4 week long winter holiday with the family and some friends. For two weeks we were on a blue water boat, cruising part of the Venezuelan coast including Los Roques. The captain wanted to fill up on his cruising kitty and thus took paying crew. During the trip we visited many amazing places, and the most fantastic was without doubt Los Roques. Since then much has happened in Venezuela, it is considered to be a very dangerous country to visit and has long been a no-go area. I must admit we did not felt safe on several places we visited during 2006.

Sailing Los Roques 2006

Anyhow Kerstin and I had a desire to visit Los Roques again and we have some friend who had visited Los Roques a few years ago, so it cannot be too dangerous we thought.

As we now were on the Caribbean again and Los Roques was in our path, we decided to see how the security situation was, by looking into YouTube to see other who have visited Los Roques and some other sources, we found it to be safe enough for us.

One of the sources was Alejandro (You reach him on WhatsApp +58 412 212 6051) who work as an agent and facilitate check in and clarence. We contacted him, he confirmed that Los Roques is very safe, he sounded very reliable, and also several other cruisers had used and praised him, so we had no reason not to believed in him, so he became our agent.

He is not cheap, but take care of all matters, we are not very demanding customers, so we did not use many of his services, except for clearing in and out and have our passports collected when we were on the fare west side of Los Roques, thus we did not need to go back to Grand Roques where the place for customs and immigration is.

The allow maximum stay is two weeks, and total cost for the stay including park and agent fee was a bit north of 1500 USD, rather expensive even though we got discount for being senior citizen, sometimes it’s a benefit to be senior citizen, but not too often. We transferred money to Alejandro before we set sail for Los Roques. So, when we got there the process was very swift. We must say the visit made it worth every penny.

Where is Los Roques?

Los Roques is a bit over 60 Nm north of main land Venezuela and ca 90 N east of Bonaire, so relatively isolated.

Los Roques is a rather small area which also is a national park.

From East to west ca 25 Nm, and from South to North ca 13 Nm, but a large part of the southern part is not navigable for any type of cursing boat, only minor shallow draft type boats, as coral reefs all over the place.

On our way towards Gran Roques

We left Portsmouth, Dominica an early morning to sail the ca 380 Nm to Gran Roques, it took us ca 58 h and most of the time under sail (28 Nm under engine)

On the picture above you can se a reed arrow, that the anchoring area at Grand Roques, watch the clip and see us approaching Los Roques again after longing back for many years.

Gran Roques anchorage, very few and only local boats

This is a photo from 2006, unfortunately we had very murky weather, so difficult to see, but the anchorage was almost full, and we had to search a long time to find a place to anchor that time.

You land your dinghy at the beach and just stroll around, further down….

In under the grass roof, we meet Alejandro who had arranged our arrival, it took maybe 10 minutes for him to get our passports stamped and the clearing process was done. On Navionics he showed us nice anchorages, and gave some advice concerning navigation, restaurants, and eventual contacts with local fishermen. He also sent routs that we could follow from anchorage to anchorage, but still eyeball navigation is necessary, one cannot follow them blindly.

One of the first things one notice when in Los Roques and especially on Gran Roques is the large number of Pelicans, very fascinating.

Pelicans now and below from 2006

Could almost be the same boat!

Navigation in Los Roques

Gran Roques seen in Northwest.

As you can see there are a lot of shallow areas, luckily between them it is often good depth with margin, not uncommon with +/-15 meter. In calm water you easily see the bottom at 10 meters depth.

When we first planed to departure we saw on Predict wind that it should be very windy in Los Roques, it is very protected to waves, but not to fun to be there when wind is 25 kn gusting 30+ Kn. So we decide to postpone our departure, which we are very happy we did. We did had wind sometimes 20+ kn and most of the time 10-15 kn, but some day it was calm, and then it become a very hot place. So before you go lock carefully at the weather forecast. You also need to have relatively clear sky to be able to do eye-ball navigation. Alejandro recommended only to navigate between 10:00 and 14:00 hours. We found this not to be totally accurate we thought after 11 was better and no problem to navigate until 16:00 or even 17:00 hours as long as sun is behind you.

The charts are not very accurate, we used several sources, but Navionics with satellite overlay works very well.

Navionics with no overlay, rather useless, but with overlay

Slowly sailing in a narrow channel below you see how it looks on Navionics, on the video clip you can see how close we are to the reef, later when we gained more confidence navigating the area, we were sometimes much closer.

But Google satellite map if you are online (we have Starlink) is also a very good complement.

The two photos and the video clip is more or less from the same spot.

Sebastopol our two first anchorages

We had a very gentle sail to Sebastopol ca 12 Nm south of Gran Roques, it was little nervous in the beginning when we entered the very narrow straits between the reefs, but after a while we realised that with eye-ball navigation, google satellite map and Navionics with overlay we could safely navigate around not much drama as long as the sun was shining. It is a relief that usually it is very deep between the shallow parts, but not always!

The two red arrows are the two places we anchored at I think both of them are in the area of Sebastopol, it’s ca 4 Nm between them.

Kerpa at the south anchorage above see how well the reef protect us from the swell but the wind kept us relatively comfortable, but with wind 25 kn+ and gusts 30 kn+ would not have been to fun to explore or snorkling as current sometimes got rather strong, we guess mainly due to wind.

Kerpa at anchor Sebastopol at the north arrow.

Looking south

A nice drone clip showing the beauty.

2006 we were fascinated by this wreck, but now 18 years later no trace of the wreck.

At Sebastopol we had our first snorkelling trip, and it did not make us disappointed.

Snorkelling in Los Roques

When we were in Los Roques 2006, we were shocked by all the dead corals we saw, very little colour at all, so now we were very pleased to the wast improvement.

Click on the video and seethe crystal clear water with abundance of fish

Bocca del Medio

Distances are short in Los Roques, next anchorage was just 4 Nm north.

Bocca del Medio anchorage

Again Kerpa securely anchored inside the reef while the trade wind keeping us relatively “cool”.

Protected anchorage inside the reef

Soyoqui

Next anchorage was of a little bit different anchorage, we had a private island with a small private beach for our self. As you might have noticed you do not see any other boats around, and no difference at this place.

Again, only short sail this time 5 Nm to Soyoqui, a bit trickier to reach than the previous places

Soyoqui

Clip on us having a smal but beautiful island and beach for out self

Saki Saki

Our confidence navigating around the shallow areas increased and after a look at the chart, we decided to go to Saki Saki also called Cayo Los Viejos, only 3 Nm this time, but this time it was not always very deep between the very shallow areas, and we was well rewarded a fantastic anchorage.

Saki Saki Aproach

Kerpa approaching the narrow and shallow entrance to the anchorage at Saki Saki

From Saki Saki we took a dinghy trip to Francisqui and on the way back it looked as if Kerpa was anchored a long way from the shore

Francisqui

Fracisqui is very close to Gran Roques and one of the most popular anchorages for mainland Venezuelan visitors. They come with rather large motor yachts, Diesel is very cheep in Venezuela it is 0,004 $/liter!!!! i.e nothing so to take a large motor cruiser the +60 Nm to Los Roques is extremely cheap. It was now Easter Holiday so extra many boats did probably come.

Gran Roques at the blue arrow, and Francisqui at the yellow, and Kerpa at red arrow.

Us in the dinghy, you can see the motor yachts in the background.

A lot of Venezuelan tourists are coming by airplane there is a small airport at Gran Roques.

A very typical sight in the western part of Los Roques, Several tourists rent a day tripper boat and these shadows are then set up at the beach. Los Roques seams to be a paradise for kite surfers, on areas closer to Gran Roques one se many of them on day trips out to some remote island.

We relaxed with a beer looking at the people, we had not seen many people the last days, so it was nice to sit down relax and have a cold one.

Crasqui

9 Nm west of Saki Saki, we have Crasqui, a place we came to love last time we were here, we celebrated New Years eve 2005/2006 in Crasqui.

we had a magic beautiful start of the very calm day leaving Saki Saki.

On the short way to Crasqui we decided to try to catch a fish and we were lucky.

Interestingly, we caught a Wahoo last time as well, they are very tasty.

Crasqui 2006, you see only a few sailboats, but it was plenty full at that time, the anchorage is very large.

About the same view as before but from our drone, now only one foreign sailboat, Kerpa, we only saw two foreign sailboats during our two weeks stay and that was on large distance, only by AIS we could determine their nationality.

In the distance we can again se Gran Roques. In a rather small area you can find many amazing anchorages

Now a few motorboats at anchor and remember it is Easter holiday.

We walking the beach 2024

And walking the beach 2006.

Noronqui

Noronqui at the white arrow, only a very short (4Nm)  distance from Carsqui.

Another boat at the anchorage and some day-tripper, but they did not stayed long

Noronqui beach clip with a few day tourists

Sarqui

Another 5 Nm and we are at anchor at Sarqui.

Again, we had a whole beach for our self.

We took a walk and enjoyed the surrounding. and the pelicans

Checking our footwear after the trip

Glad I did not go barefoot

In the morning, we were visited by some fishermen

They offered us some langoustes.

As they only spoke Spanish and we not, it was difficult to understand what they wanted in return, I started first with money, but that was not it, no beer either, but after a while we understood, they wanted a few soft drinks and some t-shirts, which we happily gave them, we also paid them as we assume they live a rather harsh life.

Carnero

Only 3 Nm this time took us to Carnero another amazing anchorage.

Now it was time to enjoy the Langoustes.

Guess what we had New Years eve 2005/2006?

It tasted divine both times.

And again we had great snorkelling look at the clip and see

Over at the read arrow, we have heard that a fisherman had a very small restaurant, he was also the one to bring our passports back to Gran Roques for the exit stamp.

La Casa De Pain, was the name of the restaurant.

The open-air kitchen.

Look at the clip showing the fishing home with a very small restaurant, only two tables.

We were the only guests

The fish was fantastic, one of the best ever, and then we are spoiled with extremely high-quality fish in Portugal, where we live when not sailing. They had not much to offer when it comes to drink, just lukewarm beer, we assumed that would be the case so we had brought our own chilled white vine. If you go there strongly recommend a visit but do not forget to bring your own vine.

La Casa De Pain from above and flying towards Kerpa anchorage.

Dos Mosquitos

Dos Mosquitos anchorage, as you can see, we are now almost as fare west one can come, there are a few anchorage just a bit west, but as the wind and wave picked up they would have been very uncomfortable, it was a bit scary to navigate as we had to pass some shallow patches with potential depth around 2 meters, and as wind picked up to 20+ kn one has to be careful, but if I remember right we were never below 4 m of depth. This time we made a ”long” trip 8 Nm.

Dos Mosquitos Anchorage

They had a turtle sanctuary, they collected/protected eggs and made sure they were hatched, so no seagulls or other predators could take the eggs or newly hatched turtles. They showed turtles at different ages, Kerstin hesitate a little bit to hold the turtle, but the guide insisted, we were not sure if the turtles liked to be hold,

It was a very beautiful anchorage with a few mainland tourists, they were as surprised we had sailed from Sweden as they were from, that we were staying 14 days at Los Roques, obviously they also think the park fee is very expensive.

Avec de Vorleant or Bird Island.

Bird Island is also a part of the national park even though it is ca 30m Nm west of the main coral reef.

It was a bit windy and some shallow patches to pass.

It is no understatement that Kerstins hates the times I ask her to stand at the bow and look out for shallow patches, especially under strong wind and waves as seen in the Clip

Kerstin recovering from near hart attack when looking out! now the puls is on its way down

We took a dinghy trip into the mangrove admiring the surroundings and birds

Kerpas Last anchorage in Los Roques.

One is only allowed to stay one night at the bird island, do not know why, but maybe for not disturbing the birds, very few people stop at Bird Island, we had already overstayed at Los Roques, we stayed 17 days in total so we did not want to push it more so we made this our last stop, there is another group of Islands ca 10 Nm further west Aves De Sotavento, It’s the place were the Coast guard have a very small base. We thought it best to stay away.

We are very happy we did this trip and hope this blog encourage other cruisers to vist, they inhabitant living in Los Roques are poor and are dependant on turists, so even if one think the park fee is expensive, we can at least see that the corals now looks much healthier now than 18 years ago, so obviously the park rangers taking care of the area and make a difference.

If you decide to visit , you can contact us and I can send the tracks from Los Roques, I think they are better than the routs that Alejandro gives you.

Kerpas last anchorage before we head off for the ca 60 Nm to Bonair, but that is another blog, thank you for reading this fare.

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