08/15/2008, Venezuela
We just spent a week away from the marina at anchor with Chuck and Barb on Tusen Takk II. Have I told you that Tusen Takk means a thousand thanks in Norwegian? Tusen Takk II is a beautiful trawler and a great platform for watching sunsets and sharing meals. A thousand thanks!
We anchored at El Oculto for three nights, went to Mochima for a night and returned to El Oculto for another two nights.
Oculto, means hidden or secret, and indeed this anchorage is a hidden treasure.
Early the first morning we took a hike to the ridge above our anchorage and as we walked through the thorny arid scrub land we felt like we were back in south Texas. After our 3 hike we returned to our boats to drink a few quarts of water and to pick the thorns and spines from our shoes and shins. It was a hot prickly hike, but quite wonderful. In this photo you can see both Arctic Tern and Tusen Takk II.
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08/13/2008, El Oculto
Photo:
We borrowed Chuck and Barb's kayaks and paddled around the area. In the back ground you can see a fishing camp. We could see fish and coral beneath the kayaks through the remarkably clear water.
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08/11/2008, El Oculto
We went snorkeling on our first day and we were so impressed with the abundance and diversity of coral, sponges, anemones, fish and other sea creatures we decided to take out our tanks and diving gear and go SCUBA diving. I can't list all of the things we saw, but one thing that sticks in my mind is the octopus's garden. There was a hole in the sand bordered by shells- pretty pink scallop shells, tortoise pattern clan shells a conch shell that would fit in the palm of your hand and many other treasures and bits. This "common octopus" is reddish brown and has arms 3-4 times the length of his body.
When we returned to El Oculto we snorkeled again and this time Hunter brought his octopus lure. Using the shiny mylar from a discarded box wine (there is a bog inside of the box), he made a lure with eyes. The eyes were the little button like things that you put in the holes of Crocs. Write to me if you need more detail on that. The lure had a weight and a line. Hunter dropped the lure in front of the octopus's hole and jigged it. In short time the octopus could not resist and sent a few arms out to grab the shiny object. We could not draw the octopus entirely out of its hole, but we did see a few arms and the head and the octopus took the weight home.
One of the remarkable things about the underwater life was the number and colors of Christmas Tree Worms. These colorful tube worms live on coral and look like tiny bottle brushes or christmas trees. When they sense motion they close and retract in to their tubes.
Orange Spotted File fish is in the background of this photo.
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08/10/2008, Under the sea
Yes, I took this photo to see if the flash was working
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08/08/2008, Venezuela
We left El Oculto to check out Mochima National Park. We went ashore at the town of Mochima and had a big seafood lunch and found a nice secluded place to anchor. Although only a few miles away from arid El Oculto, this area had lush vegetation and offered us quite a symphony of bird songs in the evening and morning. I hate to admit this but I was stumped by most of the bird calls. In the middle of the night a nightjar gave a loud distinct multi note call and in the morning I dutifully looked up the call in my bird book and I am still stumped. I guess we need to return and do further exploration.
We were treated to a spectacular dolphin display on the trip from Mochima back to El Oculto. This photo was taken from the bow of Arctic Tern.
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08/02/2008, Canaima National Park
I have wanted to visit Angel Falls since my first trip to Venezuela in 1980. At that time we could not afford the airfare and the tour service, so we settled for a wild trip in a rented car to the end of a road and a hike up a Tepui (I will tell you more about tepuis later). That was a grand adventure, but I still wanted to see Angel Falls.
To get to Angel Falls one must take a motor canoe from Canaima 25 miles up the Rios Carrao and Churum and then walk to a location to see the falls. Canaima is accessible only by air. No roads lead to Canaima and the rivers are guarded by huge rapids and a reservoir, so that leaves only air access. The most popular place to fly out of is Ciudad Bolivar which is about 150 miles north of Canaima. Ciudad Bolivar is about 165 miles south of our current location. Okay, now I will rewind and start from the beginning.
I will write our adventures in a six blog postings. Keep scrolling down...
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08/05/2008 | Brooke (bjackson_ att hotmail dott com)
I so enjoy reading about your travels. For those of us bottled up in the City, along with the heat, etc. thanks for sharing, it provides a great adventure for us.
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08/06/2008 | Michael Friedenberg (mfriedenberg att corasworks)
Wow - what a beautiful picture - best
Michael |
08/01/2008, Venezuela
We took a well deserved break from boat chores (well, we think we deserved the break) to join our friends Barb and Chuck (on Tusen Takk II) on a trip to Angel Falls. Early Monday morning we met Jaime, our travel agent at the gate of the marina and we were whisked off to the bus station. Our bus tickets had seat numbers and being well trained we looked for our seats which, if we could locate them, would have been scattered all over the bus. We settled into our seats for a five hour bus ride in a first class bus. We were warned that the first class busses were air conditioned and were very cold so we should be prepared with a sweater and long pants. It did not take long to figure out that the bus was air conditioned, but only to about 80°, which is pretty warm when the air movement is limited. We passed the time reading and sweating.
We got into Ciudad Bolivar sometime around 1:30 and checked into our hotel and took a much appreciated shower. We had heard that the Paseo in Ciudad Bolivar is along the Orinoco River and quite scenic and that the old colonial town is interesting, so the four of us jumped into a taxi and walked along the Paseo. Ciudad Bolivar. The city lies at a spot where the Orinoco narrows to about 1 mile. There were great views of the wide muddy river that we got to know from our trips up the Macareo River (a branch of the Orinoco at the mouth of the river). We read the signs that interpreted the fish and river animals along the river and enjoyed a few hours in town. Back at the hotel we located a local chicken joint that had spit roasted chicken and a salad bar and had the first of a series of chicken dinners. We were very glad to find a restaurant out of the hotel and priced for the working person. Dinner was great and we were tired.
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07/31/2008, Canaima National Park
Early Tuesday morning we walked over to the airport to check in for our flight to Canaima. We went through some sort of security screening that seemed not to care about knives, but for some reason the guard took a bottle of wine out of Barb's duffel. The one liter box of wine in Hunter's bag and the bottle of rum in Chuck's bag passed though without notice. As we were loading onto the Cessna 207 a man came up to the baggage handler loading the plane and handed him a magazine wrapped around Barb's bottle of wine. We had a great hour flight into Canaima. It was exciting to see the waterfalls around Canaima and the tepuis.
This is a photo of Canaima Lagoon from the air.
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07/30/2008, Canaima National Park
A Tepui (or Tepuy) is a table-top mountain found only in the Guayana highlands of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana . The word tepui is from the native tongue of the Pemon, the indigenous people who inhabit the area. The present-day tepuis are believed to be remnants of the gigantic sandstone plateau which was selectively eroded after movements in the Earth's crust caused points of weakness which were exploited by the great rivers of the region. They are typically composed of sheer blocks of Precambrian sandstone or quartzite rocks rising abruptly thousands of feet from the jungle and savanna floor, giving rise to spectacular natural scenery. Tepuis tend to be found as isolated entities rather than in connected ranges, which makes them the host of endemic plant and animal species. Tepuis are said to one of the few remaining places on earth where 100% of the species are native.
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07/29/2008, Canaima National Park
After we landed in Canaima we were rounded up by our guide and taken to the Posada (guest house) and headquarters of Kavac Expeditions. Our guide told us to get ready for the canoe trip up the Rios Carrao and Churum to the rustic campo. Eleven of us donned swim suits and life jackets and filed into the long dugout canoe with a 45 hp Yamaha engine. After just a few minutes we pulled over on the side of the river so we could walk through the savanna and the canoe could go through the rapids without the weight of eleven people. At the end of the human portage we ate lunch and piled back into the canoe. We were very grateful to the person who suggested that we bring a cushion to sit on because the canoe seats were getting very hard after a short while.
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07/28/2008, Rios Carrao and Churum
Silly me, I thought I would be able to bird watch my way up river from the canoe. I envisioned a trip with binoculars around my neck and following the antics of swallows, swift and flycatcher. I was wrong. This was a wet, hold onto your seat kind of trip. Even in the flat stretches the canoe threw up an arc of water that douched up periodically when the driver made turns to avoid rocks. The river narrowed as we traveled up river after about four hours we turned onto a smaller tributary and the rapids became steeper and more frequent. The cook sat perched in the bow with a paddle and made small corrections and gave the driver hand signals for navigation.
The scenery was spectacular as we went up river. Tepuis rose vertically from the forest and patches of savanna. The water was a red brown color and had no mud or suspended material in it. It reminded me of a cup of rubios (bush) tea. The trip took five hours and traversed about 25 river miles
Angel Falls comes into view
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07/27/2008, Angel Falls- who is Angel?
Angel Falls is named for Jimmie Angel, an American bush pilot and gold-hunting adventurer, who discovered the falls in 1937. Jimmie Angel flew over the falls in November 1933 while searching for gold. In October 1937 he returned to the falls with the intention of landing. On board his Flamingo monoplane that day were his second wife Marie, and three friends. Jimmie attempted a landing but despite a successful touchdown, his aircraft nose-dived when it hit soft ground at the end of its landing run. The wheels sank in the mud making take-off impossible. The occupants were unharmed but had to trek across difficult terrain and with low food supplies for 11 days to make their way off the tepui and down to the nearest settlement at Kamarata.
Auyantepui is the source of Angel Falls, the world's tallest waterfall. The falls is 3,212 feet, with a clear drop of 2,647 feet.
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