Is this our favorite island to visit so far??!
Like all good ocean passages, we did a lot of prep before we headed west to Bonaire. Food provisioning, weather watching, routing preparation, detailed boat checks, and mentally preparing for the longest passage that we have done to date. In our passage from Grenada to St Lucia a few weeks prior, we had broken our main sail traveller, a piece of very expensive kit (BOAT - ‘Bring Out Another Thousand’ - a common term for most nautical things - we work in BOAT units here a LOT) that holds enormous force when the main sail is up. It was one of the few remaining pieces of kit on the boat that we hadn’t replaced, so it was due to go. However, when something goes wrong here, it is often the case that we need to get parts imported from the US or Europe as the local Marine Chandleries, as good as they can be, don’t always keep the relevant parts in stock. Once we finally received the part we had imported, and several frustrating hours later, with tools broken or lost overboard, we finally managed to remove the old damaged parts that had seemingly welded themselves to the boat, and replace the new parts. Off we headed, finally with our compass heading almost due west!
It was a really calm passage - 467 nautical miles, keeping around 100 miles off the Venezualan coast as we headed towards Bonaire, the first in the chain of islands that make up this part of the Dutch Caribbean, known as the ABC’s (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao). The winds were not as strong as we had anticipated so we ended up motoring a lot. We also lost our main sail after 24 hours when the webbing at the top of it failed (we were planning on getting a new main when we get to Panama and were hoping this original-to-the-boat one would last till then). However we had the spinnaker up as much as we could, and kept the boat between 5 and 7 knots. It was lovely to have the calm swell behind us for this passage, and not on our beam as it has been for most of the Caribbean.
We kept to our standard watch schedule, taking turns during the day and then for night shifts, Annabelle and Oscar doing 8pm - 12 midnight, Pete 12 - 4am and then Heather coming on from 4am. We had quite a big moon for most of the night but when that disappeared around 2 - 3am, the stars in the sky were just incredible, and the sky was full of shooting stars as well. Quite mesmerizing to while away the hours watching it all.
The first night is always rough as you get used to being up at funny times, so for all of us the second and third nights of the passage were more settled as our bodies got into a better pattern. Day 2 we flew the drone off the boat for the first time whilst moving, got some great footage then sadly lost the drone as its software crashed and we couldn’t get it to come back to the boat. The effects that the drone takes as you manipulate it are really quite special……makes you feel very small though. We had a fishing line out for 3 days straight and didn’t get one bite! Sushi and poke bowls will just have to wait……
As Day 3 dawned, it was a lot rougher for the final few hours as we spotted land on the radar (the southern end of Bonaire is so low lying due to the salt flats, we didn’t see land there till we were quite close)! We read a lot on passage, played Lego, watched some downloaded movies and enjoyed the peaceful scenery and amazing . Amazingly, about 10 miles from land, we had a flock of flamingoes fly past us which was so exciting!
As I write this, we are now 6 weeks into staying in Bonaire. We have to be on a mooring ball which is an expense of course, but our mooring ball is directly over the drop off of the reef - one side of the boat sits in 20 ft of water, the other drops quite sharply to 200 ft and an almost sheer wall of coral descends into the deep water. The fish life and coral underwater is just amazing. We are snorkeling around the boat and into shore a couple of times a day, Annabelle and I did 2 scuba dives with an instructor and it is some of the best quality and most beautiful reef that I have ever dived in. Oscar took 3 days out of school and completed his Junior (as he is under 12) PADI Open Water course with a local dive school, he just loved it. We have finally invested in a second set of scuba kit (BCD/ Regulator set etc.) and excitedly, got 4 new Dive tanks that the dive store had just imported into the country in time for us to pick them up - then for the first time we could do Scuba dives on our own rather than always with a dive shop. It will also be very useful when we are cleaning the bottom of the boat or changing the zinc anodes on our propellers (otherwise it is a ‘hold your breath and get as much done as you can in one go’ kind of job…..)!
We have got our main sail temporarily fixed with a local sailmaker on the island - he has replaced the webbing - no mean feat manhandling such an enormous (60ft ish tall!) sail off the boat and into his truck but we managed it! We can dinghy right into the little town here, and although most days there is a cruise ship that comes in, it doesn’t feel like the town gets overrun. Amusingly, the locals cheer as the cruise ships leave in the evening (they are gone by about 6pm out to sea so never around for the evenings which is nice!). As Bonaire is part of the Dutch Caribbean, is has a really nice feel to it, and is definitely much less Americanized than some of the islands - it feels very European - a promenade along the front of the water, a market square where the kids skateboard and play in the evening after an ice cream. Locals are taught Dutch and Papiamento at school (the local language) and there is a cool mix of Dutch, local islander, South American and even Indonesian (due to the Dutch links there) influenced foods here. Starlink is the only negative whilst we are here - Bonaire has banned Starlink from working, which is the first time we haven’t been able to use it for 18 months in all the countries we have been to, so we are back to buying local data Sim cards and inserting them into our PepLink on board which then acts as our wifi link……..(the first time we have had to do this our entire journey, but how everyone used to do it before Starlink!)
We rented a car for a few days to explore the island, from the old slave huts where slaves spent the week after working on the salt flats before they walked 7 hours home for the weekend to Rincon; to the Flamingo reserve in the salt flats, then up to the north of the island and Rincon. We stopped along the way and snorkeled and also dived in pairs which was fantastic. There is one dive site called the Salt Pier where cargo ships come in to pick up a haul of Bonaire salt - very industrial above the water whilst under the metal legs of the pier, the reef has come to take its natural environment back however, and there are some amazing coral bombies around and turtles everywhere! It is quite spooky in a way diving under the pier, as the water gets extremely dark under the legs, and as the drop off disappears it gets very black down there….!
We also visited a donkey sanctuary - there are nearly 2000 donkeys on the island, and about 800 of them have ended up in a sanctuary here. Frankly it was the strangest hour we have spent for a long time. A drive through donkey sanctuary with donkeys simply everywhere - licking the windows standing in front of our rental truck, it was a hilarious time that we won’t forget in a hurry as it was so surreal.
We were thrilled to be (literally) flying the flag here for the Eagles SuperBowl victory recently!!! We saw a golden eagle on the bow of that days’ cruise ship which we took to mean a positive sign before the game!
We will probably be here a few more weeks as Pete has to travel to the cold, cold US next week, but also one of our Lithium batteries is not taking a charge - we think it is because the BMS (Battery Management System) has died so are awaiting the shipment of a new one here. In the meantime we will continue our snorkeling adventures and making the most of the clearest water around us.
We are starting to plan ahead though because we have decided after a short stop in Aruba we will head to Colombia! Much more adventuring to come then soon……
