After officially checking out of Trinidad we motored over to Chacachacare, an island belonging to Trinidad and Tobago which used to be a leper colony. We poked around the decrepit buildings, abandoned only about 30 years ago and still filled with medical papers, pills, and medicines. We had planned to hike up to the prominent lighthouse, but it rained heavily in mid-afternoon, making us wonder if we ought to delay our planned passage. But the skies cleared, the seas calmed, and at 8:30, we and Kajsa lifted anchor and headed off into the night.
In fact conditions had calmed a little too much, and the first part of the trip was all motoring. We first headed straight away from the Venezuelan coast, as this area is the one where various "pirate" incidents have occured (which is one reason we traveled in company), then turned just north of west toward the Venezuelan islands called Los Testigos ("The Witnesses"). Since the wind was just south of east, this made it a straight downwind run, which is almost as bad as going straight into it as far as comfort and speed are concerned. We didn't have enough wind to sail until 3 a.m., and because it was dead behind us we could only put up the jib, since we were uncomfortable at the prospect of dealing with the whisker pole in the dark. The jib flogged around and made noises and wouldn't have been enough to make us go fast enough were it not for the honking 2-knot northwest current. Finally, just at dawn, Britt woke me and we poled out the jib to port and rigged the preventer on the main way out to starboard. I then went back to bed and it was much easier sleeping, much less rolling and banging with our downwind rig all tightly set. If you're going to be going downwind in open water (as opposed to in a protected bay that doesn't throw up big rolling waves) some kind of downwind setup is a necessity, we think. We are happy with our whisker pole / preventer rig, which gives us good speed and is easy on the boat and equipment.
There were lots of little fishing pirogues out, amazing considering they are tiny open boats and we were still 30 miles from any land. When Britt spotted one heading for us he deliberately slowed down to allow Kajsa to get closer. The men aboard admired the tuna he'd caught and hung over the transom, then asked for cigarettes and sodas. This is the kind of thing that was a prelude to the most recent pirate incident we had heard of, so Britt was a little nervous. They didn't make any attempt to latch onto the boat, though, and they saw him talking with me below (I'd just woken up) and with Kajsa on the VHF. We tossed them a bottle of Coke and they smiled hugely, thanked us and waved as they headed off. So we guess they were just exactly what they seemed to be, local fishermen way out in their little uncomfortable boat, after a long night of fishing, happy for a cold soda from a yacht.
We had great sailing all morning. On my watch I caught two small tuna, one which I added to the two which Britt had caught (the other was a "little tunny" which is not as tasty and since we already had three fish I tossed it back). This was my first ever "solo" fish-catching and I felt quite proud when Britt woke up and came into the cockpit and saw my fish hanging by its tail over the transom! Then we caught and released another little tunny. Shortly after noon, we arrived and anchored in front of the little village on Isla Iguana.
Islas Los Testigos are a small group of islands about 40 miles off the mainland Venezuelan coast. The population is around 150, fishermen and their families and a few Coast Guard officials. The small Guardacosta station primarily exists, we guessed, to patrol against unauthorized commercial fishing operations; yachts have to register on arrival, but it's not an official port of entry, and people who have come directly from another country (like us) are only given three days before we have to go to a real port of entry to check in. Shortly after we registered and returned to our boats, a Guardacosta launch came out and three men boarded Kajsa. We immediately called to make sure everything was ok; it turned out that they were conducting some sort of safety inspection, and we were next. We offered them cold orange juice, graciously accepted as they were in black jumpsuit-uniforms despite the tropical heat, and we went through their checklist in a combination of English and Spanish. After telling them how many lifejackets, VHF radios, fire extinguishers and bathrooms (not sure exactly how that is a safety issue!) we had on board and showing them a flare for verification of the expiration date, they handed us a copy of their form and told us it was good for six months, as proof we'd been inspected. Then they headed off to inspect the next boat, and we prepared to enjoy our allotted three days.