On the evening of June 26th, 1933, Villanueva and his crew of 60 sailed the waters north of Venezuela, having a productive time claiming reef fish. The fleet of ships slowly cruised along the waters, roughly 75 miles (120 km) north of Venezuela. Villanueva had been watching the weather closely, as signs of a major storm was approaching, but the reef fishing was very successful, and Villanueva was willing to risk it to completely fill all five ships.

The morning of June 27th, 1933, unknown by Villanueva, a tropical depression had developed 1,250 miles east of Trinidad. An established deep-layered high pressure system forced the depression westward, where it became a Tropical Storm. The storm's westward momentum increased, and the low level circulation was able to strengthen with favorable upper level outflow. That afternoon the storm peaked at 60 mph winds, and retained that strength until passing over Trinidad and Tobago. Over the Caribbean Sea, conditions were favorable for the storm to re-intensify. The storm brought heavy rainfall, amounting to as much as 13.3 inches of rain in some locations. The capital city of Caracas, Venezuela experienced nearly 6 inches of rain, with fairly strong wind gusts of 50-60 mph. Because of this, severe mudslides were seen. 10,000 homes were destroyed from the mudslides in Venezuela, killing 173 people and causing $25 million in damage.

The storm forced Villanueva and his crew to seek shelter, they pulled in their nets, raised anchors and left north heading away from the storm. As the storm gained on the fishing fleet, Villianueva commanded his vessels to turn northwest, to head away from the approaching storm. Villanueva and his crew sailed until they spotted a small island in the distance. The fishing vessels decided to sail on the northern side of the island, a decision that saved their lives. Upon approaching close to the northern side of the island, one of the men spotted an inlet. Villanueva immediately turned and ordered his vessels to anchor inside the inlet, hoping it would provide protection from the approaching storm.

The Aftermath »