Los Roques, Venezuela

Author: Mark Turner

Having booked a trip to Margarita Island with four other couples I was looking forward to a relaxing week of cold cerveza's and sunshine and a few decent dives. Imagine my horror as the more I investigated the board and the net and found that diving in Margarita to put it bluntly sucks. I was almost to the point of putting my gear away when I got an email from the legendary Doc Vikingo saying don't give up yet! The good Doc, explained that I was less than an our away from some fantastic diving in a National Marine Park in Los Roques, just off the coast of Venezuela. Now the seed was planted and the most difficult part had to be accomplished. My dive mate Ed and I had to think of a way to convince our wives that this trip needed to be done. Amazingly we got the green light with only small cash bribes. We booked a one day dive trip with a stay over, and headed for the rack early for our adventure.

Day One:
The wake up call rings at 4:30 am for our pick up and drive to Porlamar the largest city in Margarita. Of course I am up all night with the dreaded colon flush but what the hell, there's diving to be done. We make our flight with LTA airlines, and they are right on schedule. We land in Los Roques 1 hr later, and I am blown away by this incredible place. Imagine a series of 100 plus little islands spread out in all directions, with virtually not a two story building in sight. In fact Grand Rogue has less than 60 families living there, a couple restaurants and bars. An absolutely pristine area, and had I not even dived it was worth the adventure. We grab our gear and head to the end of the town where the one and only dive operator is located, Sesto Continente. WE are greeted at the dive shop by the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life, a young gal named carolinita who is as friendly as she is beautiful. She tells us to grab a seat, as we won't be going out until nine about an hour off. We relax and start to wait as the other divers come in, in groups of ones and two's. Shortly, the divemaster arrives a pretty you gal from Canada, named also, carol. Man this trip is starting out good and I got a feeling it's only gonna get better!! We load up on the boat our group of 8 and head for a site off the point of the island. The first dive and excuse me, as I don't remember the Spanish names, is an 80 footer just off the shore on a rocky face of the island. We drop down to depth and are greeted by 65' vis. water temp mid 70's. I am wearing a shorty and quite comfortable. Upon my first 360 swivel I am amazed by the quantity and quality of the soft corrals. I feel like I am cruising just over a jungle. Amazing! We head off following the divemaster and see numerous species of marine life including one baby moray the size of a hot dog just poking his little head in and out. Later we spot a giant lobster and a huge Grouper. Our goal ahead is a giant rocky cavern that we must make and still have 1200psi before we head in. We arrive at the mouth right on schedule and head in a few feet. Suddenly I get this tremendous feeling, sound or sensation, that I have never experienced before. Kind of like flying in an airplane when you hit one of those space pockets where there is no air and you just drop! Combined with a tremendous rumbling. As I later learned on the boat we swam into a cavern that opened up on top like a huge chimney. The pressure we felt was the water level rising and dropping in the chimney. Very unusual, and very exciting. After some quick air checks we were directed to head out and back to the anchor line. Swimming against the current and getting a little concerned about air, we were suddenly rocketed out of the cavern by the downward thrust of the chimney and shout out (I would guess,) like your first born son. Back on the boat my mate and I marveled over this incredible dive and prepared for our boat bound surface interval. Surprise again!! When Sesto says they are taking you for a day of diving they ain't lying! We were taken to another island about 30 minute boat ride away and handed two coolers. Carol said she had some students to take out and she would see us in three hours. We walked up onto the beach and found a huge picnic pavilion. Shorty a catamaran showed up with a bunch of lovely ladies who had purchased only the bottom half of their bikinis. Wow, You gotta love this Place! We opened the cooler and looked smack into the face of the two biggest ##@!_)(*^% sandwiches I have ever seen that tasted better than any I've ever eaten. A little rest and we headed around the island where we snorkeled for an hour and found an incredible little mini wall with tons of fish! At 2:30 the boat showed up right on time and we headed off for our second dive another 75' footer around a beautiful rock pinnacle. The second dive the current was running strong and we had to hand over the anchor line to get to depth with out burning to much air. For our effort we were greeted by three jumbo Grouper bigger than their brother in laws we saw in November in Coz. Water was a little more stirred up but the corrals and diversity more that made up for it. After the dive our boat headed back to town where our gear was taken to a little guest house called a Posada. It had two little twin beds a bath with cold shower and flush toilet. It was heaven! We grabbed a couple grogs at the local cantina and went looking for a lobster dinner. We found a nice looking place with all the window flaps up and about thirty people inside, men, women, and children, eating giant lobsters and slamming cold Polar Beers. Wow, this was the place for Us! In our best Spanish we explained our needs and received some very unusual looks. We again did our best to reiterate our desire for some brews and lobs and received the same quizzical look. After a couple uneasy moments a gentlemen in his best English explained that we weren't in a restaurant, but his family reunion. We bowed in our best Chinese and left abruptly. As we turned around the corner of the house we heard a huge roar of laughter from inside and we broke out laughing to. We probably set back tourism ten years! Thanks Doc it was every bloody bit as good as you said it would be!!

Mark Turner