There are countless anchoring possibilities within the Los Roques archipelageo, but we didn’t travel more than a couple of miles from the main island of Grande Roques as there were some wonderful restaurants there and so cheap. With main meals at around £3.50 – £5.00 for fresh fish and beer at 46p it made sense to have lunch out.  We found one small supermarket which didn’t have much in it, apparently the government control what goods are made available and there were many shelves empty. Fresh produce was minimal, we found tomatoes and avocados on one day and then some mangos on another but none in a very good state, but ridiculously cheap.  We discovered the freezer at the back of the shop yesterday, and a small chicken cost us 85 bolivars which is about 56 pence!!  The bar owner told us that the government had removed tinned tomatoes from availability recently, and he remembered a time when bottled mineral water had also been impossible to get hold of.  They have a desalination plant on the island, but wouldn’t recommend drinking it as many people end up sick.

This was our view from Joy anchored off Francis Cay, just east of Grand Roques, the building you can see is a small restaurant and bar open during the day.

An unwanted visitor to the anchorage

We have had fun watching Bruno, Sue and their friend Jason kite-surfing, they have endless energy and have worn us out just watching them.  We took some Barracuda over to dinner with them a few nights ago, Jason put some garlic, onion and lime juice over it and barbequed it in some foil and it was absolutely delicious.  We have all been watching the weather forecasts closely as Thursday 28^th Nov has opened up as a weather window for us to head north so we went back into town today to check out and do some last minute shopping.  Sue had told me about a tiny boutique along the path towards the supermarket who were selling shorts at very cheap prices, yesterday we bought me some Roxy shorts at £6.50 and Billabong boardshorts for Jez at £7.90!!  Needless to say, after a gorgeous lunch of traditional Venezuelan food plus beers for only £6.30 equivalent, we went back to the boutique to use the rest of our bolivars and bought us both some more shorts.  This place is so cheap!!

Bruno and Sue enjoying the windy conditions

Getting ready now for the 3-4 day bash North, really would like to make the Spanish Virgin Islands but who knows, the wind may take us further west to Puerto Rico.