This is because all the turtles were eaten and killed by pirates and buccaneers over the last four hundred years. Buccaneers and whalers passing through in the 17th and 18th centuries carried off thousands of these defenceless beasts — for food. The islands had lain undiscovered for millennia. But once man discovered  how to navigate the high seas, they came across the Galapagos and the turtles. Many of these turtles were hundreds of years old. They were taken away, turned into soup, turned into pots, decimated in a couple of centuries. Now there are only a few hundred left alive, and these live in a well protected park on Santa Cruz island. There are others being reared at a centre on Isabella, and some being rehabilitated on Floreana too. When turtles are born they are tiny and have soft shells. They have soft shells for over a year. They can only mate when they are twenty-five. They take decades to mature let alone thrive. The sailors took away these ancient beasts and it will take hundreds of years to rear them back.

I asked a park guide what would happen if an evil millionaire paid a group of pirates to seize a turtle or two today — and were caught. Ahhh, we would shoot them, he replied.

Only a few hundred turtles and only a few hundred penguins too. But the sea and much of San Cristobel island is alive with seals.

There is  a huge seal colony there and seals everywhere ad they follow you along the street. They are cute and look affable and playful, a bit like a labrador;  but they are wild and they bite and so its best not to get too close. At dusk they huddle in throngs on the beach......I saw a seal chasing a kid up a climbing frame, I saw them asleep outside the bank. They are everywhere, huffing and snuffling into the sand. They are slow on the land but very fast in the sea.

Best day? Swimming in La Isla de Lobos with my personal park guide, Javier. In the water, pretty reef fish, and iguanas, all over the bottom and swimming along the top of the sea. And seals (lobos) swimming beside us, darting up to us to play, curious and funny, sticking their noses in our masks. Above, in the sky, frigate birds, with their breasts puffed into red balloons, on the rocks boobies with blue feet. I felt the presence of God that day, which is ironic given Darwin came here and developed his Origin of the Species.

The great whale enthusiast Herman Melville visited these islands too, also known as The Encantadas, the enchanted isles. He hated them and thought they were hideous and vile, and wrote:

Nothing can better suggest the aspect of once living things malignly crumbled from ruddiness to ashes. Apples of Sodom, after touching them, seems these isles.

I couldn’t disagree more. I came back enchanted.

I am writing this post from my bed in Trinidad, where I lie with my left leg in a surgical stocking, hoisted up on a pile of pillows. I have had a serious accident on my  travels, dear reader, first a broken toe (thrown from wind surfer in rough sea) in el Yacque, Margarita  - and now the Bunk Bed Injury.

Having left Cartagena on 11th February on a rather rusty but nevertheless stable yacht, the Ildiki, we met high seas. Waves like blue mountains, black tip sharks leaping from them. We sailed all night — and then all day — and then all night again through rough waters. There were seven passengers on board, all allocated bunks with edges to ensure safe sleeping. I was allocated a smaller bunk, no safety net or ledge. It was by the engine, right in front of the hatch. The fist night I was flung out in high seas. Bruises but nothing else. But I was maybe a little heavy of heart, maybe not quite myself on this trip — and so did not pay enough attention to this lethal bunk bed.

Night Two I was thrown heavily out of the same bunk, landing on a mysterious pointed object, gouging my flesh to the bone. It happened at 3am. Konny, the skipper, hearing my yelps,  came flying down form the cockpit; another grown man fainted at the sight of the gash. Despite this debacle, the skipper managed to dress and bandage the wound and the next day I was sailed to the nearest clinic. Fortunately, we were approaching the San Blas islands, a tiny archipelago of islands off the coast of Panama.

The clinic was a ramshackle affair, but nevertheless I was expertly stitched up by two women, both of the Kuna tribe. I was weeping as they stitched me — and the male nurse held my hand. I was touched — even when his mobile phone rang during the small procedure and I found myself weeping while he spoke loudly in Spanish to his son.

The wound is ghastly, like a massive chicken has stamped its foot on my leg. It was ghastly, but looked healthy once stitched. I got back on the Ildiki and sailed onwards to Panama. We ate a barbecue on the beach, met with Kuna Indians who cooked us a huge fish, sailed on to Puerto Lindo, a tiny port on the Panama Coast. I made a friend, Theo. We ate on the seafront that night with a young Australian couple on the boat....everyone was affected by what had happened. Accidents have a psychic impact on others, they spread bad karma.

With Theo, I travelled on two buses to Panama City, regatone booming, the countryside flashing past. I checked into the famous Hotel Parador, ate at Manolo’s, sank into a deep sleep. I knew by then that my wound was looking a lot worse, not better. The skin was dying not healing.

It was only the next day, when I went to see a plastic surgeon at a private clinic in the city, that I realised that my leg was now serious. Infection had set in,  the surgeon wanted to operate immediately, cut the wound, graft skin from my arse onto it. I panicked and said ‘not here, I am  a stranger to this city. I am only two hours away from home. I don’t speak Spanish’......and got on the next plane and flew home,  where I saw the good Victor Blackburn, who has said I may still be able to avoid surgery. The skin is not entirely dead — yet.

So I am here, dear reder, leg up, stockings on, reading Lord of the Flies and editing the pages of my new novel, Archipelago. On Monday I will take off the stocking and see if the skin has declared itself fully dead — and if so — then the skin draft and surgery and a nasty hole in my once pretty leg.

Accidents happen when you travel. I have been angry with the non– existent health and safety precautions on the Ildiki. I have been angry with a certain careless email I received before I left on my travels. If you leave for foreign lands with a heavy heart, you are not centred or stable in yourself — maybe if I had been stronger I would have been more alert, more on the ball re the bunk bed.

BUT at the end of the day, accidents happen. And when they do, they are present and now and whatever the factors are that contributed to the accident, it has happened. This has happened. I am in bed, leg up. In future, my legs will look different.

Here are a couple of pics of the San Blas islands: they are very small, topped with a crush of coconut palms. They are inhabited by the Kuna tribe of indians who live today as they did 300 years ago. I will leave for the Panama Canal and the Galapagos islands when I can walk again.

Onwards.

San Blas

San Blas

Mon and Dee and Turtles

In those weeks, I sailed 300 miles in blue open water in a 37ft Hallberg Rassy yacht, travelled by catamaran, small boats and pirogues. Snorkelled in mangrove swamps, swam with Hawksbill turtles in Bonaire, danced with dolphins in Curacao. I also windsurfed and broke my toe in El Yaque, Margarita.

There were planes too. I flew in tiny planes with 6 seats, sometimes 12 seats; once I even found myself in Caracas. These aircrafts had names like Air Chappi and Laser Airlines. On one airstrip, in Los Roques, my flight was delayed when a dog ran off with a traffic cone.

Then there was a trip to a huge brothel, Campo Allegre and a day Quad-biking through the deserts of eastern Curacao. A night cruise in Spanish Water an evening stroll in Otrabunda. A visit to the salt pans and slave huts in southern Bonaire.

Mon and Manequinn

For now, I am laying low in Trinidad, writing and plotting. Part Two starts 5th February, when I head for the Galapagos via Panama and the San Blas islands.

Love and peace,

Monique

Aruba, Arashi Beach and Renaissance Marina

I’m in Aruba. People in Boniare and Curacao said I would not like this place — too many casinos, too much Americana.

Well, I have found that I like Aruba quite a lot. It is very like the other Dutch islands, rough seas and desert in the north, calm seas and sandy beaches in the south. Crazy cartoon like Dutch gable buildings, and yes  a few more casinos and lots more designer shops and yes Taco Bell and Dunkin’ Donuts and a few supersize yachts in the marina. But also, I note that in the marina are lots of tiny pirogues with names like SEA FLY spray painted on them, so its very upmarket and downtown too in there. And there is still that demented Pappiamiento in the air, and calypso jamming from shops and people here are very friendly. Today a taxi picked me up, and when I told him how much I liked the blues he was playing, he handed me the CD from his player. Oranjestad, the capital, just like the towns on other Caribbean islands, is a cultural creole mix, it’s own place.

The marina, by the way, is crawling with lizards. Fat beefy bastards, these ones pictures are babies.

Aruba, Arashi Beach and Renaissance Marina

An example of Curaçao Baroque

There are many things that Bonaire and Curaçao have in common: terraces of coral stone, candle cactus, iguanas, wild goats, casinos, huge cruise ships, like floating cities, legal prostitution — and rain!

On both islands I have seen shrimp pink flamingos, turquoise seas and listened to the unique creole langauge of Papimientu, a language spoken nowhere else in the world but on these islands.

I have noted that Mr Chavez is here on the islands. The Venezuelan state rents a huge oil refinery from the Curacao government, also they use a deep port in north Bonaire to export refined oil. There is talk that one day Mr Chavez might come and take these islands for himself — causing a huge international incident. Now that would be trouble, for so.

Both islands, for now, use the Dutch Guilder and the American Dollar (soon to banish the Guilder). Of course there would be similarities, these islands are so close and share a history.

But what is unique in Curacao, is that there is a large and historical Caribbean city here, Wilemstad, so important and historic that UNESCO have made a contribution to saving it. Wilemstad was founded by The Dutch West India company in 1634. It was taken from the Spanish who were here but who did not care too much about the island. The Dutch company wanted it as a trading post between New York (once Dutch) and their colonies in South America. So, for quite some time, Wilemstad was built and owned and run by a multi-national company, a trading company. They built a fort to protect the natural harbour and traded here for over 150 years. Curacao, like Bonaire, was not a sugar producing plantation island: it was an island for trading with the other islands. Everything was traded here, including slaves.

Some of the slaves brought here stayed. They more or less built Wilemstad, out of coral stone. The buildings mostly went up in the 1700s, in a style known as ‘Curacao Baroque’, Dutch gabled with swirly curlique-ed finishes. The houses have long gelleries too, and wind windows with wooden shutters, and what they call kuras, which are walled courtyards. Yesterday I walked around Otabanda with Michael Newton, a guide and architect. He pointed out many of the homes and shops built in the 1700s; while some are occupied, many are either derelict, being buttressed by struts or on the point of collapse. I was reminded of Havanna, Cuba. But there, there is a different reason for massive archictectural neglect: embragos/communism.

Here, in Wilenstad, the New World, people live precariously and without much thought, amongst the remains of abandoned  houses and homes built by an empire of the Old World. These great buildings were built by slaves for the white man; now they lay decaying, no one caring much for them at all. While there is a restoration and renewal project in place, to restore this city needs ten times the amount of work and money being invested. But the will to do so is what is most lacking. As a homeless person, myself, it seems a great waste to see so many houses empty and abandoned. This city is crumbling into the dust. It reminds me of Port of Spain, where Honda show rooms and glittering high rises are rising up to replace what was: the New World is much more interested in being new than old.

Bonaire; sidewalks, mangroves, salt plains, and slave huts

Spent the weekend exploring Bonaire by land. First the south of the island, today the north. A woman called Petrie Hausmann has been my guide and driver, who arrived here in the 60s to dive. As she said, Boanire is an islands of contrasts. The south is arid, they make salt there naturally, pumping it off the sea with windmills, collecting it in great mountains to be taken either to the US (used to soften water) or to Trinidad — for domestic use. These days the process is mechanised, though loosely. 500 years ago, it was done my slaves, a nasty job, working on those salt pans in 90 plus heat. Today some of the old huts still exist, where the slaves survived. During the week they lived in these huts. Once a week they walked several miles north, to Rincon, the first Spanish town ever established, to be with their families. The south of the island is bleak, wild, empty, eerie, most of it Ramessar wetland, where flamingos and egrets wander about undisturbed.

The east coast is rough, rugged. There is a big mangrove swamp and an inland cove, though, with a natural lagoon, transparent waters, two feet deep, with a wind which blows inland, perfect for windsurfers. But I’ve had enough windsurfing, for now. The north of the island is greener, everywhere there is Kapata plants (castor oil is made from the seeds) and wild donkeys, still here since they were brought by the Spanish, and giant cactus and goats and huge iguanas. There are mountains here too, and big lake, Lake Goto. And up north there are bat caves and huge natural terraces where the land has shifted on the ocean bed, sending the land upwards in shelves. We visited the village of Rincon and drank sangria and I ate something which we call a pastelle in Trinidad.

In Boaire prostitution is legal, as in the Netherlands, the women come from Columbia and the Dominican republic. I was taken to Pachi’s ‘gentlemans club’, an enigmatic door with a sign above saying Paradise Inn. I was assured I would not be let in.

But I hear there is a prostitute’s compound in neighburing Curacao, where I am heading tomorrow.

Watch this space.

Snorkelling Klein Bonaire, Woodwind

The whole island of Bonaire is a conservation park. You  have to pay $10 US to put your toe in the water. Nothing like it anywhere in the world, a whole country that is a marine park. Klein Bonaire, just off the main town is a wetland reserve ‘for eternity’, bought for 3.3 million by a gang of locals and excellent people off the private owner. It will be unspoiled forever. It was saved from Ivana Trump and other horrors who wanted to turn it inot a casino  park.

Today I went snorkelling there and found, to my delight that the woman leading the trip was a fellow Trinidadian  called Dedrie Pedersen. She is a dive master and free diver and took the C team, beginners team out to see the fish. Too often, recently, I have done things that I am a beginner at — and found myself in the advanced group.

Here is a list of things I saw today: Blue tangs, tiger groupers, eagle rays, basket starfish, honeycomb cowfish, barracuda, purple tube sponges, Queen angel fish, French angel fish, octopus, peacock flounders, snapper, schools of white spotted file fish, midnight parrot fish, green turtles, hawksbill turtles, sand divers, West Indian sea eggs, purple finger anenomes, Christmas tree worms, trumpet fish, sea cucumbers.......and yes......nuts here.

Going out for more.

If you are ever thinking of coming to Bonaire, go see the fish with Dee and her team on the Woodwind.

300-miles blue water sail plus Bonaire arrival

I arrived safely in Bonaire yesterday, about  2pm, right into the harbour at Kralendijk,( pronounced Kra-len-deck.). Afraid to say I was in a sorry state, dear reader, and it has taken a full 24 hours to regain my senses. For a beginner to go on a blue water sail of 300 miles with a total stranger is a mad thing to do. I now realise that. While I have sailed as a passenger many times in Trinidad, mostly afternoon cruises ‘down the islands’, mostly easy sailing, and while I even did (ok barely passed) an RYA basic sailing course back in 2004, neither were adequate preparation for this trip. Add to that, I have the sea legs of a small hippo.

I never left the cockpit of the boat. Going up on deck in even mildly rocking sea when all there is around you is sea and more sea, is intimidating to say the least. I was scant help to the skipper of the boat. I was sick for the first 24 hours and scared for the next 48 hours. Night watches on AIS and GPS, hours of sailing at night, hours of sailing in the day, cooking in rocking sea, using the head in rocking sea, dining off maccy cheese and chillie dogs. The odd Carib beer at sunset did help.

It was difficult, but, there were dolphins, and flying fish and pink dawns and silver seas, and arriving finally into the turquoise waters of Bonaire all made sense, finally.

Today, I am in Bonaire, a huge cruise ship is in. The loclas sell them salt, and dolls and fine jewellery. Bonaire is famous for its salt......first dug up by slaves, more of that later. For now„ safe and sound.

Painted Houses, Los Roques

An archipelago is a cluster of islands formed tectonically, or volcanically. Arkhi in Greek means chief and pelagos means sea.....there are some countries on earth which are archipelagos; Japan, The Philippines, New Zealand.

I’m just back from one off the coast of Venezuela, Los Roques, a half hour flight from Caracas.

Los Roques reminds me of Tobago, 20 years ago: amazingly beautiful, turquoise waters, quiet, hard to get to, and unreliable electricity. Also bad sandflies, called ‘poori poori’ out there. Luckily, the archipelago is protected and so it is very difficult to visit about 80 per cent of the islands and there are still sea forests under the sea and big species fish I’m told. But the  20 per cent of the islands, the few that  I saw, have been visited a lot by humans in the last 15 years and they have brought their cats and dogs which have disturbed wild life. Most of the coral is now broken and bleached and on the shore, which is terrible.

While still beautiful, and while Gran Roques is picturesque with its tiny colourful posadas, locals fear any more human intervention. I met a nice man who runs a Pizzeria called Pedro who has a sausage dog called Leo. He has been there 15 years, and worries that Los Roques will go like the Galapagos.

My flight was cancelled when I tried to leave, because only two of us were trying to get off the island....it took me a day to get back to Trinidad. But I’m here now, still itching and still thinking about Los Roques, and knowing I’ll be back — with lots of insect repellent.

Studio on La Tortuga, Los Roques

Today I leave Port of Spain on a boat called Further, heading for Bonaire. Watch this space.