Los Roques

Friday 22nd August
We anchored the dinghy well off the beach and snorkeled for about half an hour, there was not a lot to see so we decided to search for another spot, climbing back into the dinghy we continued around the bay between the islands. While crossing over to another small island and paying attention to the fish and beautiful coral beneath us we ran into some rocks. The water here between the islands is very shallow with areas of coral and rock that are deceptive in their distance beneath the surface, you really have to pay close attention while maneuvering around. We slowly approached a large area of mangroves and spotted a beautiful secluded little beach through a small archway, Bob headed the dinghy carefully through the shallow water attempting to reach the little beach, as we passed through the opening in the mangroves that lead to the beach we were all paying careful attention to the water for signs of raised coral or rocks under the surface, none of us were paying any attention to the mangroves that we were quite innocently entering, and as we eased our way through there was a slight audible buzzing in the air, that, had we been paying attention to would have recognized it as “dinner is served,” we were under attack, on all sides from millions of mosquito’s, swarms of them, it was like a scene from the movie “the birds” they were everywhere all over us, the air was black with them, it was terrifying.

Trapped in the small confines of the bay with coral and rocks beneath him, and two frantically screaming women alongside, Bob was unable to perform the miracle 180 degree turn or to reverse out at the required speed. In desperation Danni flung herself into the water and with super human powers up-ended the dinghy and dropped it down with the bow now pointing in the right direction. Bob and stood in the dinghy, open mouthed with Danni screaming at us to “go go go”. I hauled her back aboard as Bob gunned the dinghy out through the same opening we had so gingerly picked our way through just a couple of minutes earlier, trailing what seemed like half the worlds population of mosquito’s in our wake. We were frantically waving our arms, screaming profanities, and crazily beating the insects off each other with towels. Two local fishermen watching us with wide-eyed astonishment from their boat, must of found the spectacle highly amusing. In hindsight, we should have realized that with the dozens of people around we were the only ones on that part of the island and obviously it was because they all know what we now know, that, that particular island’s mangroves are a breeding ground for mosquito’s. The minute we got back to the boat we showered and covered ourselves with calamine lotion, We were covered in bites, everywhere, from our faces down to our toes.