forget the soup,
stick to champagne
For the first few days of a liveaboard trip off a Venezuelan archipelago, things looked bleak. Then the Antares Dancer moved into clearer waters, and Brendan O'Brien cheered up
Out in the dark blue of the open ocean, I saw a series of subdued silver flashes. As I allowed the current to carry me away from the reef wall, these flickers became more frequent.
My eyes soon started to focus on a giant ball of busy horse-eye jacks. Each jack pirouetted around an invisible axis, as if the giant fish ball possessed one synchronous mind. The gathering moved closer and, for a few seconds, I become engulfed in the jacks' commotion.
Abruptly, and with another perfectly choreographed move, they changed direction and headed down towards the extreme blue of deeper water.
I watched the ball grow smaller until, with a final flash of muted silver, it disappeared from view. The excitement of the feeding frenzy over, I stopped to collect my feelings. This brief interaction with the collective energy from those jacks had left me breathless - and it was for that sort of experience that I had journeyed to Los Roques. It had seemed a long time coming.
While Bonaire gets most of the diving press, Los Roques is its quieter and lesser-known neighbour. Part of Venezuela, the 850 square mile archipelago is 90 miles north of its capital city, Caracas, and 80 miles east of Bonaire. The whole area is what appears to be a well-managed marine park with allowances made for local fishermen.
But by day three of a one-week trip on the Peter Hughes liveaboard Antares Dancer, I had been ready to write off Los Roques. Prior to the fish-ball spectacular, it had looked like a destination to avoid.
KLM Airlines and its ability to lose luggage ("No, it's not lost, sir, it's in Amsterdam where you took off from") resulted in me arriving onboard a day late. I had missed the first day's diving off the main island of El Gran Roque, but arrived in time to view the day's experiences captured on video.
What I saw was a disheartening collection of plain-looking corals and dull-looking fish, swimming though a haze of fine sediment. It did nothing to arouse my diving juices.
Next day we set sail for Islas Dos Mosquises, two picturesque desert islands on the edge of Los Roques archipelago. Perhaps the diving here would be worth the long journey, I thought.
It wasn't. Our first dive was on a slope made up of an uninspiring jumble of hard and soft corals. Only 10 minutes into the dive I wanted to return to the surface. I was bored by the lack of marine life in the soupy 3m visibility and turned off by the vapidity of the stale-looking corals.
Neil, the only other UK diver aboard, from Under Pressure BSAC in Reading, described it as "just like a dive off the Dorset coast." He was being gracious; a dive off the Dorset coast would have been far more pleasurable.
The only thing that kept me under water was the variety of Christmas tree worms that seemed to thrive in these conditions. To hold my interest I set myself a goal for the day - I would see how many different-coloured worms I could photograph.
The next two dives around the islands were equally dreary. All I had to show for a day's diving was a collection of Christmas tree worm photographs. Visibility, it seemed, was invariably dodgy at these sites, though my question: "Why bother?" went unanswered.
The Antares Dancer is one of the latest additions to the Peter Hughes franchise of liveaboards. If other boats in the fleet are likened to five-star hotels, this one is a comfy bed and breakfast. All the Peter Hughes standard provisions such as food and wine served at the table are present but the vessel lacked any sense of luxury.
Some of the frequent Peter Hughes divers aboard seemed to prefer this: one commented that the other boats in the fleet were "too stuffy - this one is more laid-back". Food was of a high quality, though the crew had a little difficulty in providing a vegetarian selection. Six cabins with air conditioning provided for a maximum of 12 divers but they and the lounge area were small compared with those of other liveaboards of that class.
All the diving was from a tender, which took 12 divers comfortably. E6 film processing was available, though I'm afraid I wasn't confident enough in the crew's abilities to entrust my film to them.
Day four found us anchoring in the murky waters of a lagoon, by a long strip of barren land called Cayo Sal. Juan, our divemaster, tried to raise our hopes by telling us about a mini-wall we would be visiting on the other side of the island at a depth of 38m. He ended the briefing by telling us we should expect to see "corals, sponges, lots of fish and, who knows, maybe some surprises - a shark, ray or turtle." Visibility at Cayo Sal was, we were told, normally about 30m.
Juan's briefing was, it turned out, spot on. In the space of a few minutes, Los Roques had redeemed itself. On the wall were an abundance of healthy black gorgonians and bright orange elephant ear sponges. Weaving in and out of them were the contrasting colours of queen and French angelfish. And all around us were shoals of reef fish, flowing like fast-running streams over the contours of coral-covered rock.
At the end of the wall we inadvertently disturbed a hawksbill turtle resting among the fronds of a soft coral. It was the icing on the cake for what had been a much more spectacular dive.
Our second dive was a little further along Cayo Sal's reef. In 24m we visited several small caves along another mini-wall. Their entrances weren't that wide and to get inside required careful buoyancy control. Once inside we had the opportunity to gaze out onto the reef past a thick pelmet of black gorgonians and a window box of orange elephant ear sponges. Out in the distance, reef fish chased each other over a coral forest.
The next day, Juan gave us a choice of dive sites in the same area. Unanimously we voted to repeat the dives from the previous day, and soon after sunrise descended onto the mini-wall. But this time there seemed to be little to entertain us. At about 45m a large sting ray lay still against a sandy patch and out in the blue an eagle ray glided slowly by, but there was little else to be seen. The reef seemed still to be asleep.
We were back at the caves by mid-morning, by which time the reef had woken up. I spent my time looking for small creatures. Armed with a torch, I saw some unusual nudibranchs and plenty of banded shrimps. As we carefully wove our way out of the caves through the thick clumps of black gorgonians, I started to wonder how long these delicate structures would last if Los Roques ever became a big diving attraction.
We headed over to our next anchor site, at the opposite end of Cayo Sal, and I gazed out onto the vast lagoon. Since leaving Dos Mosquises I had seen no other boat traffic, and later discovered that even the fishermen tended to leave this area alone, because of the distance from the island of El Gran Roque, where most of Los Roques' several hundred inhabitants live.
We arrived in time to squeeze in one more dive, on the outer edge of Cayo Sal. It was late afternoon and the reef fish were almost throbbing with energy. A river of creole wrasse flowed over the top of the reef. From deeper water a waterfall of bright blue boga streamed towards the surface, chased by a shoal of yellowtail snapper, trying to avoid capture by making sharp changes in direction. Each time they did so, they made a noise as their tails snapped the water.
Small groups of horse-eye jacks made swift, mostly unsuccessful passes at the reef fish. From under a ledge a grouper burst out and snatched at a straggler.
It seemed that every fish was either hunting or being hunted; I felt as if I was in a wildlife documentary.
The next morning's first dive was at a site called Green Paradise. Juan had told us to watch out for sharks in the open water off the wall. We dropped down to 39m and saw the shape of an unknown shark resting on the reef in what must have been 50m-plus. It was too deep to investigate, so I started to ascend.
As I did so I began to notice the abundance of soft corals and sponges at this site. In the early morning light this thick undergrowth had an ethereal appearance, and I tried to capture the mood with my camera. Neil saw what I was doing and later accused me of being "arty".
As we began to surface I was pulled back to reality by Juan, as he pointed out a white-tipped reef shark cruising below us at about 30m. It turned and meandered back to a point below us before wandering off into the open ocean. Once again, the dive had been made complete by one of those "icing on the cake" sightings.
The three or four dives a day started to blend into each other, as all the dive sites along Cayo Sal seemed to be pretty much the same - a reef at about 5m leading to a gentle drop-off with mini-walls, caves and ledges. There were no wrecks and those looking for variety would have to find it among the profusion of marine life and close observation of its behaviour.
In the morning the reef would appear quiet; in the afternoon it got wild. If the fish weren't trying to eat each other, they were busy procreating. A regular sighting was of porcupinefish in threesomes. In open water, two males would show off in front of a female. One would speed towards the female, spinning around at the last minute. Then the other would take his turn.
The female would make her selection, swimming off to the top of the reef with the victor and leaving a rather dejected-looking male behind. Now you know what that cute look on the face of a porcupinefish really means!
As we surfaced, we looked under the coral ledges, where we would see a few solitary nurse sharks hiding. Outside, on top of the coral heads, we observed frustration in the queues of fish at the cleaning stations. At times the waiting became intolerable for the creole wrasse, who would resort to chasing each other away, even if it meant losing their places.
The time soon came for our last dive before we set off back to Gran Roque. As we would be no deeper than 18m I decided to go solo. Descending on to the reef, I had that feeling that I was back in a wildlife documentary again.
Just below the boat, trumpetfish hid in the soft corals, waiting for an opportunity to strike. I saw one of them arch its spine before firing itself like an arrow at a school of chromis.
It made several attempts, succeeding only in scattering the school in all directions. Barracuda patrolled the undergrowth of coral like cats creeping up on birds in a garden, while porcupinefish continued being frisky with each other.
Out in the blue, I saw another ball of horse-eye jacks. While I watched them, five African pompano appeared above the top of the wall in tight formation. They circled a shoal of chromis and, remaining in formation, dropped back down over the wall. Almost at once they reappeared to strike at the shoal. Within seconds the attack was over and they returned to deep water.
After all this excitement I rested and allowed the current to carry me along and above the reef. After a few minutes of floating aimlessly I saw a small shoal of horse-eye jacks moving towards me. I held my breath to halt the flow of exhaust bubbles and waited for the current to carry me towards them.
As they approached, they split formation and swam either side of me, like the Red Arrows performing an aerobatic display. I began to surface, believing I had exhausted the dive of experiences, and six African pompano sped past, the silver of their threadlike fins trailing behind them.
On the surface, I couldn't help checking the reef below one last time. Los Roques had finally exceeded my expectations for a Caribbean dive destination. The Dorset coast was no longer its closest competitor.
FACTFILE
GETTING THERE: Fly from the UK to Caracas via Amsterdam with KLM, connecting with the Linea Turistica Aereotuy (LTA) turboprop for Los Roques. The connection in Caracas is tight, so consider going a day early to guarantee arriving in time. To its credit KLM did provide an overnight stop at the Caracas Hilton because of the "lost" luggage, with free meals, taxi connection and, unusually, drinks! Flights costs £615 per person.
DIVING: The diving is easy, with little current. Seven nights' full board on the Antares Dancer, including up to five dives a day for five days, costs from £985 to £1110, depending on the type of cabin taken. Transfers and port tax are included.
WHEN TO GO: Los Roques is advertised as an all-year-round destination, although visitors are taking a gamble during the hurricane season.
FURTHER INFORMATION: Divequest (01254 826322) can arrange the full package of flights and diving.
Appeared in DIVER - July 2000
