Los Roques: Francisquis

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

011-56.880 N
066-39.000 W

I'm sitting in the cockpit typing this watching the sun rise over the reef. Tons of hot pink and bright orange. WOW! What a way to wake up.

The sail from Buchiyaco to Francisquis was an absolute joy. The winds were blowing 10-15 kts on the beam and I just put up the jib (in case I needed to dump the sails quickly), but I still did 4-5 kts. On the port side there was an almost continuous reef known as the "middle dividing reef" which separated the channel that we were in from the inner channel and the occasional islands further in. Navigating these reefs is no problem as they show up as bright blue against the dark 40-60' water that makes up the channel.

We pulled into Francisquis at around 13:30. The anchorage is surrounded on 3 sides by island or reef making it very well protected. Grand Roque, which from what I can tell is the only island here that contains people, is about 3 miles from here. It's obviously a popular destination as planes regularly fly in & out of here and small boats regularly ferried people between the two islands. Francisquis has some beautiful white sand beaches, but the reef near the anchorage is mostly dead.

Spent the evening aboard Stormy Petrel and had too much wine, but a great time was had by all.

Today it's on to either Crasqui or Sarqui, which are small islands in the Roques.
Log ID: 119