Los Roques is a scatter of islands and reefs directly in between Margarita and Aruba and is one of Venezeula's totally undeveloped national parks. It has the most beautiful coloured water we've ever seen anywhere in the world, especially good for windsurfing and snorkling.

Cribby grinning in paradise

"Underwater I realised that amoungst the pink awkwardness of humans, flapping around like a Dali bodge-job of defunct limbs, was a shoal of giant, sleek baracudas, who's silvery length and shape pointed towards huge mouthfuls of crooked teeth. They were hanging around as casual as clouds in the sky, suspended like prize fish trophies, each about four foot long. They were eyeballing us like we were unwanted visitors to an underwater secret saloon bar."

Refreshing shallow reefs and turquoise waters

Small swells from the trade winds of Margarita followed us downwind to Los Roches and crashed helplessly into coral reefs and soft landing sandbars. A waist high wave jacked up to a chest high face then swamped the corals, rushing amoungst them in sandy gullies. There wasn't much size but the power and excitment of wave-riding was all there. The reef tangled colours rushing beneath me in bottom turns, then sucked dry ahead with towers of coral piercing skyward as I cut back. Timing was everything and I was late as usual, sailing too far over the wrong reef at the wrong time into a critical decision position with the reef glistening beneath me.

Between my virtualiy naked body and this organic bed of nails is my brand new wave board and about three foot of wave. The wave will disperse into the gullies in the time it takes me to evaluate my situation, the board is my only protection and so I have two choices; trash the board, or trash myself. As a sponsored sailor the decision was so instant it was merely a reaction. With all my power I drove the board forwards, tearing accross the coral as my flesh might have, and kept pushing to prevent a catapult. Then I threw the rig forwards and run accross it to escape to the sand beyond. A perfectly selfish decision.

Small waves of Los Roques

For the whole duration of this mad trip, which at this point was far from finishing, fish had been jumping continuously. Literally everywhere I looked, there had been fish of all kinds soaring infront and alongside, escaping the mysterious clatter of a scuttling windsurfer. At one time some huge fish jumped right infront of me before becoming a shoal of black shadows bolting chaotically between me and the torquise sand below. If a blue whale had jumped or a swordfish shot through my sail, I would hardly have blinked.