Caribbean Coast

Venezuela's Caribbean coastline runs 2,800 km from the Colombian border in the west to the Gulf of Paria in the east, backed for much of its length by the Coastal Cordillera — a mountain wall that rises abruptly from the sea and shapes one of the most compressed coastal geographies in South America. La Guaira, the country's main port, sits on a coastal strip barely 500 m wide between the Caribbean and the Ávila massif, with Caracas 25 km away and 1,000 m above. The tidal regime along Venezuela's Caribbean coast is microtidal: spring range 0.3–0.4 m, mixed semidiurnal with diurnal inequality that can produce one dominant high and one dominant low per day. Trade winds from the northeast dominate the climate; the upwelling they drive along the eastern coast makes waters off the Paria Peninsula and around Isla Margarita among the most productive fishing grounds in the Caribbean. Isla Margarita, 30 km offshore in the eastern section of the coast, was the centre of the pearl fishery that funded early Spanish colonialism in the Americas. Today it is Venezuela's main beach resort island and a duty-free commercial hub. The Mochima National Park, east of Puerto La Cruz, is an archipelago of small islands and coves accessible only by boat — coral reefs, clear water, and a fishing culture that predates the oil economy by centuries.