Where in the World are Sue and Mike: Las Aves--December 7-15

The next islands we visited, approximately 30 miles west of Los Roques, was Las Aves. These are two islands, Barlovento and Sotavento, that are beautiful with crystal clear water, great white sand beaches, and wonderful reefs to snorkel. We traveled not only with YOLO, but with some new friends, Tom and Rose on s/v Sojourn from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their refrigeration had gone out so they divvied up their food between YOLO and us until we could reach Bonaire where hopefully they would be able to repair or replace their refrigerator.
We had been advised by some long-term sailors we met in Barlovento, Barry and Candy on s/v Syrius from Cape Town, South Africa, that the coast guard would check us in by radio in the Aves. Sure enough, as we rounded the corner into the Aves waters, we got a call asking us our name and our intentions. They were very nice and that was that, we thought. However, the next day we all got in our dinghies and went to a tiny island about a mile away where we were planning to snorkel. As we strolled around the island, we noticed a boat coming our way with six uniformed men aboard. They motioned to us. Sure enough, it was the coast guard and they wanted to do an inspection on each of our boats then. We quickly understood that we couldn’t do it later when we got back, so off we went back to our boats. It turned out that they indeed were very nice, but went through a long list checking off what we had aboard such as medical kit, flares, weapons (of course, none) etc. They went away happy.

Later that day we all got together on our boat for dinner and games! Tom is a big gamer so we played Sequence and Dominoes--Mexican Train, a very popular game with sailors. Though not our thing, we really did have a nice evening although the dinghy ride to and from was a wet one for YOLO and Sojourn.

Sojourn left a day ahead of us in order to get to Bonaire on a Saturday instead of a Sunday. The other four of us spent our time on Saturday, snorkeling looking for lobster and fish. Voila! Indeed we found them--i.e. Jason and Karen. Jason stalked a lobster and managed to spear it with his trident.