Leaving the Roques

Its' been over two years since we met Irene und Otto on Ottifant and for the two days in Casqui we spent a lot of time catching up with them and met their friends Ines and Peppi on Captain Morgan, she's from Brazil and he's from Spain so between the six of us we spoke pretty much anything from Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swiss German and English, it was fun. We had a wonderful rack of lamb dinner on Ottifant, met on the beach for cocktails while cooling off in the water on noodles with a floating bar with champagne and beer and went for long walks along the beach. Sid and I had the feeling that we should move from Crasqui on the weekend but since we waited along with Ottifant for the fuel guy to arrive from Caracas we staid. Should have listened to our inner voices as the authorities check the islands around Grand Roque for new arrivals on Weekends and knocked on our boat to tell us to check in the following day. So early the next morning we pulled anchor and hoisted the sails and instead of sailing west to meet John we had to first sail to Grand Roques about 7 miles away. Check in procedure took about two hours as we had to walk to the very end of town to the Port Captain, he told us that we are a vessel in transit and can not stay in the Roques, power boats get one day and sail boats two. I guess they changed the law as the last boat we knew to be here left 3 weeks ago and were able to staid one month. It was a huge disappointment that we shared with a captain of a much bigger boat with 12 guests onboard who just arrived from along trip from Grenada to enjoy the Roques, they were also given one day. There were 3 more places to check in before we had to go back to him again and leave the paperwork with him. Then we rushed through the town to find a store for some fruits and veggies which we did. The produce was a bit on the wilted side but they did have flour and eggs which in PLC I could not find regularly. Then we hit the only Internet here which was very new but the connection very slow, it took me 46 minutes to open 3 of 136 emails. (With that all of you who are sending us forwarding emails and jokes, pleeeease hold them until we have Internet again, only 5 of the 136 emails were not jokes or forwarding things).
With the thought of visiting Grand Roque last I didn't bring my camera, should have listened to my inner voice again. This place is really cute, very clean with narrow paths of sandy ground, just charming. After we got all done we races back to the boat, pulled anchor and hoisted sails again and headed towards the west side of the Roques. We arrived mid afternoon in Cayo de Agua one of the two most SW island in the Roques where John on Tazzady arrived one hour prior to us. Another good reunion and Paradise is stocked up again with lots of fruits and vegetables including more Rum for Sid. Gustav unfortunately couldn't make it but he sent us lots of papayas and limes from his garden and some wonderful German sausages, thank you Gustav. Jim on Three Keys sent along a good bottle of Casique for Sid as well, thank you Jim.
So here we are in Cayo de Agua for one day before we will leave the Roques for the Aves.
Anybody who is thinking to coming to the Roques should have a National Zarpe from the Port Captain from wherever they leave, but you cannot check out of Venezuela from the Roques so you have to go back to check out.