written and photographed by Mary L. Peachin
May 1998, Vol. 2 No. 8
After logging more than 100 dives, I was looking for a dive site that would surprise me, but wouldn’t necessitate days of travel. I found one in Archipelago Los Roques, Venezuela’s refreshingly different Caribbean dive destination. Wonderful chalk-white sand reef walls, incredible varieties of fish and sea creatures, and lots of soft coral made Los Roques’ beauty stand out. And I could reach it with just a three-hour flight from Miami.
Los Roques is a 40-minute flight north of Caracas, Venezuela. I had booked a trip with live-aboard dive operation Antares III, which is associated with the land-based Sesto Continente, located on the main island of El Gran Roque. Together, these two companies offer some of the best diving in the Caribbean.
The archipelago, which is environmentally protected by the Venezuelan government, boasts a variety of undersea settings including walls, pinnacles, caves, and incredible coral gardens. All of these can be accessed by beginning and intermediate divers, who are treated to gentle, easy drift diving.
The main island in the archipelago, El Gran Rogue, is colorful and charming, home to about 150 people. When the Venezuelan government banned fishing in the archipelago, the local fishermen colorfully painted their casistas and converted them to guest posadas, which serve the tourists who visit for fishing and diving. Several catamarans offer daily tours with lunch and snorkeling (nice for non-divers). LTA (Linea Turistica Aereotuy) has a central kitchen that provides good food for the posadas, day dive boats, and catamarans.
For those who have been spoiled by the big schools of fish and pelagics of the South Pacific, the Cocos, Papua New Guinea, or Indonesia, scuba diving in Los Roques requires an attitude adjustment. This is not “big stuff” diving-during the week I spent there, only two nurse sharks and one school of five spotted eagle rays were sighted. (One northwestern island in the archipelago is said to offer some shark diving, but the island is usually inaccessible. Don’t count on it!)
Rather, the pleasures of Los Roques are small and numerous. There are many varieties of grouper, snapper, angelfish, butterfly fish. We saw schools of horse-eye jacks, African pomano, Spanish mackerel, grunts, damselfish. There were green, spotted, and viper eels. Huge parrotfish-midnight, blue, and rainbow-passed us, as did a wide variety of trunkfish and filefish. We saw blenny, goby, porcupine fish, hogfish, hind, and even several great barracuda. About the only local undersea fauna we missed were turtles.
Underwater, we signaled the presence of juvenile or adult spotted drums with “beating drum” hand signals. At one site, three juveniles hovered in front of a huge moray eel, while an arrow crab looked on. I even saw bonefish. The Venezuelan government issues catch-and-release licenses for the outer islands of the archipelago to bonefish and tarpon anglers, who have been keeping the paradise of Los Roques a fisherman’s secret.
The stationary life we saw matched the variety of fish. We saw sponges including orange, yellow, olive, branching tube, stovepipe, azure vases, netted barrel, black and orange ball, plus encrusting and calcareous coral. Giant anemones housed Pederson’s cleaning shrimp instead of the more usual clown triggers. We saw many colored worms including feather dusters, Christmas tree, and spaghetti worms. Coral types included fire, sea fan, feather plumes, black, whips, staghorn, elkhorn, yellow pencil, star, brain, lettuce, and saucer coral.
The crustaceans were numerous, and seemed unafraid of divers. We saw huge Caribbean spiny lobsters, averaging four to eight pounds each, and several species of octopus. They were joined by a variety of crabs, from the small yellowline arrow to the Florida stone crab. The shells included queen conch, flamingo tongues, and murex; we were lucky to observe one murex eating an oyster. Finally, there were fiery orange fileclams; winged oysters; black, white, and combined white-black long spiny urchins; plus some crinoids, tunicates, and a few sea cucumbers.
The incredible variety of sightings was matched by the professionalism and warmth we found in our dive guides, the crew of the Antares III. In 8 days, we made more than 25 dives, three of them night dives. Our route, which took us from El Gran Roque to Punta Salina, Dos Mosquises, Casqui, Carenero, and Boca de Cote, was smooth, with almost no current and only occasional wave action-most of that on the 10-minute boat ride to each dive site.
On each Antares III trip, divers make a minimum of three daily dives, supported by an incredibly attentive staff. Divemaster Ron Hoogesteyn and his crew change divers’ gear after each dive and wash all equipment, including wetsuits, nightly-service that can spoil a diver quickly.
Ron led all dives, carrying a line laden with floating buoy so the penero can follow the drift. We entered the water with a backwards roll; after each dive, we handed up our gear, then climbed a ladder into the penero. few times that there was a lot of wave action, Ron asked us to put on our tanks in calm water en route to the dive site.
During our trip, in mid-March, the water temperature averaged 77 F with a low of 75; in the summer, water temperature can climb into the 90s. Those fabulous white walls, when stirred by wind or wave action, can reduce visibility to 40-50 feet, down from an average of 60-100 feet.
The Antares III, a 76-foot yacht, is a converted trawler with six cabins, each with two beds and a private bath. The décor of the main salon, with its beautiful lacquered Kartan wood floors, cactus arrangements, artwork, library, and shell collection, is evidence of the care that the family-owned operation puts into everything. Captain Dominque not only navigates the boat, but shares the cooking responsibilities with his wife Marina. When Marina is not cooking in the galley, she teaches the children, Eloise, 8, and Alan, 10. The oldest son, Cedric, 18, bakes bread daily and operates the penero. Carlos and Nicholas, the other crewmen, help watch the children, clean the boat, work in the kitchen, and fill and load dive tanks.
While the individual cabin space is well thought out, there is a significant difference between the two spacious cabins on the main deck and the four cabins on the lower deck. The main deck cabins have windows in both the bedroom and bath, and doors to the salon and outside deck. The air conditioning, available only in the cabins, is turned off when the boat is running; this makes the lower deck cabins warmer and mustier. When the boat is anchored, the portholes in the lower cabins are opened, providing adequate cross-ventilation. Meanwhile, cool e winds breeze through the main salon, where meals are served family-style. The Antares III lacks some luxury amenities, and the dive deck is small, but don’t let that deter you from a pleasant and beautiful trip.
If you enjoy eating fish (tell the tour bookers in advance if you don’t), you’ll enjoy the Antares’ meal service. Fish and occasionally chicken are served at both lunch and dinner. Breakfast is cornflakes or eggs cooked to order, fresh fruit, and homemade bread. Salads, usually served as a first course, were tasty and creative. The homemade desserts, including Marina’s rum raisin or passionfruit ice cream and a delicious chocolate mousse, were excellent. Lobster can be ordered in advance (before departure from Los Roques), but is pricey at $23.00. There is a full bar; rum or beer is $2.00 and bottles of wine $23.00.
While Los Roques is restful and charming, there is little to do in the area besides dive-making it a destination primarily for divers or bonefishing anglers. But for the serious diver who wants a unique experience, the quality of ocean life, the beautiful scenery, and the hospitable crew of the Antares III makes a trip to Los Roques well worth it.
Jungle Visits to Arekuna and Canaima
When we called about visiting Arekuna and Canaima, the Linea Turistica Aereotuy (LTA) ticket agent gave us an abrupt warning: “It’s a two-hour flight and there’s no bathroom on the plane.” We thanked her for her foresight and booked a trip on a single-engine, 12-passenger Cessna Caravan, leaving from Margarita Island’s Palomar Airport. Our destination was a dirt strip near the Pemon Indian village of Arekuna, in the Gran Sabana of the southern Venezuelan Guiana Highlands.
The flight itself was not for the faint-hearted: as the pilot made his approach over the Caroni River, he turned to enter downwind, sending our stomachs to quiver. The scenic flight had taken us from the Caribbean inland over the Guri Dam, en route to the mountainous jungle terrain of our destination. We arrived intact, however, and were soon on our way to our first stop, Camp Arekuna.
Camp Arekuna consists of a hill called a tepuy, atop which rests 10 churuatas, or palm-thatched circular huts, and the camp dining room. (The elevation gives meals a bonus: a glorious view of the jungle and the Caroni River, which sparkles across the plain; during dinner one night, we could even see the reflection of the planet Venus shining in the river’s currents.)
Each of the churuatas, many of which also have views of the river, is divided into two separate units, separated by a half-. While this makes for little sound privacy, the half-wall allows cooling breeze to pass through the structure. Each unit has an entry/dressing area with a bathroom that includes a cold-water shower and toilet. Two steps down is the bedroom, with three comfortable mattresses set on concrete blocks. Colorful woven bedspreads with matching pillows cover alpaca blankets. An oversize hammock is strung decoratively across the room. While there is neither a fan nor air conditioning to move the air, the cool breeze is sufficient. Electricity is provided only from six to eleven in the evening.
In an unexpected bit of decoration, a relief of etched petroglyphs circles the room, a reference to the etchings left by the pre-Columbian Caribe tribes along the Caroni River. The interior design is charming, an unexpected contrast to the churuatas’ plain exteriors.
A sign in the room says, “Shake your clothes and check your shoes for centipedes, fire ants, and scorpions.” Arekuna is a camp for the adventure traveler.
Each day visitors to Arekuna take excursions to the surrounding area. Colorful, flat-top sandstone mesas, the many tepuys rise majestically and abruptly from the rainforest. Indigenous to this Guiana Highland region of Venezuela, they have been dated back as far as 3 1/2 million years.
One hike takes visitors a quarter mile up a tepuy, to a view of Angel Falls in the distance. The falls, located on the 270-square-mile Auyantepuy, is the highest waterfall in the world. It is 3212 feet (979 meters) high with an 2648-foot (807-meter) uninterrupted drop into the Churun River.
The falls were named after a North American pilot, Jimmy Angel, who landed his plane on the boggy tepuy in 1937 while searching for gold. The indigenous Pemon Indians call Auyantepuy “Mountain of the God of Evil.”
Another excursion allows guests to enter the Caroni River in a bongo (a Pemon dugout canoe) and paddle down to the Las Babas rapids, named for the small crocodiles that used to inhabit the river. We took this option, following it with a hike along the path that follows the river and leads down to a view of several pre-Columbian Caribe Indian petroglyphs. (More of these petroglyphs can be seen in the Bellas Artes museum in Caracas.) After our hike, we swam in a small bay along the river.
The following day we walked through the jungle to the Antabaras River. We were met at river’s edge by a guide in a bongo, who took us up river to view some more rapids before returning to the fork of the Caroni River. During this excursion we saw Guacamayo macaws, red-bodied with blue and green feathers. The canopy of the rainforest bloomed with colorful trees called Apamate (purple), Bucare (gold), and Araquaney (yellow). We then visited a small conuco-a Pemon farm site cleared in the jungle, where the farming family grew manioc, bananas, chilies, and sugar cane.
Next on our itinerary was a flight to Canaima, only ten minutes from Arekuna and the base camp for trips to Angel Falls. In Canaima, we stayed at Jungle Rudy’s Camp Ucaima on the Carroa River. Our excursions in Canaima were led by a young Pemon Indian named Priscilla, who took us first to Sapo Falls, where the hiking trail runs under the falls, drenching hikers and anything not put in a plastic bag brought by the guide.
We then took a bongo excursion up the Carroa to Orchid Island. Because we were visiting during the dry season (which runs from October to May), the river was too low to travel beyond the island. To get to Angel Falls, we then hiked another four hours upriver before a two-hour hike up to the Falls. This excursion, called Pozo de la Felicidad, stops at a pool with a small waterfall where we swam while our guides cooked barbecued chicken for our lunch.
Camp Ucaima, where we stayed that night, featured cabins facing the Carroa River. Although the décor is more basic than that of Arekuna, the food served on Ucaima’s outdoor patio is tastier. Be sure to verify that excursions are included in your visit before arriving at Camp Ucaima. Finally, on a practical note, take insect repellent to Canaima-jejen (gnat) bites itch like crazy.