Beaches. Beaches. Beaches.

Los Roques, Venezuela

Los Roques was one of the reasons we decided to go to Venezuela. I had been there in 1990, with my dad father on the Irish Rover, and swore that Los Roques had the best beaches in the Caribbean. As you can see from the pictures in this blog entry, and the many others in the Los Roques photo gallery, not only are there stunning beaches, but the water colors are amazingly vibrant and beautiful.

We spent nine days in Los Roques visiting nine different islands / anchorages, and it was not long enough. The anchorages varied from being harbors where we were surrounded by white sand beaches, to places tucked behind the reef wide open to the Caribbean Sea. Sometimes we were near a few other cruising boats and locals from the Venezuela mainland and other times, we were the only boat for miles.

Los Roques is an archipelago of hundreds of islands and sand keys spread across 25 miles of ocean, approximately 75 miles North of the coast of Venezuela. Gran Roques, the largest and only island that is over 20 feet above sea level, has a nice quant town with sand streets, which had not changed much since I was here 20 years ago.

Gran Rouque has a small airport that provides a way for some Venezuelans to visit the islands. Most spend their days with an umbrella, beach chair and cooler on one of the remote sand keys enjoying the pristine beaches. The sand on some of the beaches is so soft it feels like talcum powder.

While in the Roques we anchored at Gran Roque, Isal Vapor, Fracisquis, Soyoqui, Crasqui, Sarqui, Isla Carenero, Noronsquis. While each anchorage was beautiful, the beaches on Cayo de Auga and Sarqui were, in our humble opinion, the best in the Roques (and the Caribbean).

Caya de Agua

Sarqui

Oh and how could we not include a picture of another beautiful sunset over these great islands.

I don’t suspect this is a good time to explain how difficult this cruising lifestyle is, with constant boat repairs, long tough passages, too much sun and difficulty speaking the local language, so I won’t bore you with all of that, but we do expect you to feel sorry for us.