Curacao N.A.

Pronounced…Cur – a – sow… The Bonaire customs guys showed up with the shotgun about 6:45am Saturday May 16th and we were ready to go! We had a wonderful sail…7-8 knots…and the seas were not too bad! Of course the main got caught in the mast again so we had to take it down manually, then raise it again…This is the southern end of the island of Curacao...AND…once inside the protected multiple Spaanse Water Bay in our search for a good signal for internet while blowing 20 plus knots…the windlass QUIT…yes, I said QUIT!!! For a boat that drops anchor and lifts anchor by windlass…this WAS quite an event!! I even got to drive the boat in a stressful situation!!! Spare anchor down (Paul always keeps a second anchor on the second anchor roller and 50 feet of chain and lots of line just for this type of unexpected event)…all was well.P&J saw us on the way back to Delphinus and swung by to say hi! So good to see them…we went out with them to a little shack right off of the fishermen’s dingy dock to have rotis for dinner…um..um good! Sunday afternoon P&J came over for our last “snake tournament” (as they call it)…and Paul’s tortillas (Phils favorites)! Joanna is flying out Monday back to the States and Phil has crew flying in Wednesday for hopeful departure date of Thursday. Delphinus will begin her passage back to the states. We will truly miss having them to buddy boat with. Paul has waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) for four years for Phil to get Delphinus back out into the waters of the Caribbean! There does seem to be some sort of beer/rum/sailing bond between the two. It has been great fun…we do thank them so much...both Phil and Joanna...for their very special company on this part of the journey...wish them the best... including calm winds and following seas for their summer adventure on the Chesapeake Bay.

We waited until Monday morning to take the bus in to Willemstad, Curacao for official check in. Everyone here is so very nice and helpful!After customs check in.... Paul waited at the ferry dock for me to cross the inlet and go to immigration and the Port Authority. The longest floating bridge was broken again...this is the floating bridge open against the immigration side (versus the customs side where Paul was waiting)...This is the bridge that I had to walk down to and then under to get to the immigration office... Both were quite a walk from the ferry dock. The above map kept me from getting too lost...along with having read P&J's Delphinus blog the night before where she had pictures posted (thank you J!)!!We stopped at the floating market on the way back to the bus stop and bought some onions, limes, tomatoes, and green peppers and then waited for the bus to take us back.This is why they call it the floating market...the actual market is on the pier...the boats are floating behind ...Only $3.20 Guilders for both of us to go into town one way on the bus! Pretty cheap as the exchange rate is around $1 u.s.d. to $2.75 Guilders. Paul had announced on the morning cruisers net that he had the 250 feet of chain (has been bow ballast since Baltimore) and Little Bit (the little dingy that has served us so well since November 2008) for sale.…we’ll see what happens! We will be busy as we have sail repairs and now windlass repairs to attend to before we leave for Roatan...

Bonaire Diving

When I was here in October one place that I didn’t dive was Klein Bonaire. It would have been a LONG and bumpy dingy ride for Paul so I made arrangements with WannaDive to go on their Klein Bonaire boat dive first thing Wednesday morning while Paul went to the internet for necessary internet stuff. The wind had been down for a couple of days…not gone but down…I got buddied up with an instructor from Holland with his video camera…oh, brother…not such a good buddy…but I did enjoy the dive and managed to get some good shots…this Yellow Pencil Coral is very fragile, Lobed Star Coral around it…the large Barracuda was just hanging around…Basket Star…this is the coral that opens up and feeds at night…Giant Sea Anemone and Pederson Cleaning Shrimp…Sea Plume and Yellow Pencil Coral…Hawksbill Turtle…Paul and I went on a dive from the dingy on the northern part of Bonaire in the afternoon! So here are some pictures of that…Buoyancy Poster Boy and the BEST dive buddy (ha ha ha)…French Angelfish…Turtle…I’ve seen a little one on every dive so far…Giant Sea Anemone and Pederson Cleaning Shrimp…Schoolmaster with Brain Coral, Star Coral and Creole Wrasse in the background…Queen Angelfish…Scrawled Cowfish…Smooth Trunkfish…Trumpetfish…Yellow Goatfish… Spotted Drum and Blackbar Soldierfish...

Mountains of Coral...
More Lobed Star Coral....
These guys are everywhere...Smooth Trunkfish...

More coral....

Giant Sea Anemone and Star Coral...

Scrawled Filefish....

Brown Chromis and Scrawled Filefish...

Now I was able to get the above Pederson Cleaning Shrimp as Paul kept pointing to one of the two of these things…and signing for me to take a picture…so the first time…I looked and didn’t see anything…looked again very close…and saw the Pederson Cleaning Shrimp…got some pictures. Then on the second one…he motioned again…so here is his picture with what he recognized as HUGE pistons…used as anchors for the fishing boats in years past. The pictures of the next dives all got jumbled in together…Smooth Flower Coral with Sea Anemone and Pederson Cleaning Shrimp…fish…coral…more fish…are you are tired of all of the pictures yet?? I'm tired of posting them for today anyway....and, the question for me is will I tire of taking the pictures??? Paul had been hurting pretty good after the last couple of day’s activity and dingy rides…so when Kathryn and Enrique searched us out at the internet shop and asked if I would go on two dives with them on Friday morning (May 15th – by the way Happy Birthday Joe and Anne!!) …well, we checked weather and Saturday was suppose to be just as good as sailing on Friday. Neither of them had been diving in 10 (or maybe even more than 10) years…they rented their stuff from WannaDive (I really recommend this dive shop)…I made sure they could both clear their masks (after the Los Roques experience) and told them I was their dive “buddy”…not their instructor…then proceeded to update them both on safety stuff and my hand signals (as my buddies…their safety is my safety)! We had two wonderful dives…after the first one they both were so very excited that they are now talking about adding this sport to their “list” along with sail-boarding and trying to meet up with us in Belize! As we surfaced after the second dive…we saw a pod of dolphins coming close to where we had just been…so I missed my chance to swim with dolphins in the wild. Then we were set adrift…that story will be part of my memoirs…with more dive pictures of course!!!I got back to the boat…we went into town to get bread...checked out of Bonaire…and tomorrow, Saturday, May 16th on to Curacao after Customs delivers the shotgun at 6:30am!!

Bonaire Tour...

Kathryn and Enrique made arrangements to have a truck for us to tour the island for the day. We started out at the marina…early…9ish…and drove up the coastline past some of the dive sites that I remembered from October when I was here. I have heard that these sites were hit especially hard by Omar. One of the dive operators said that one site that I dove last year before Omar...when he dove on it after Omar...he cried! When we got to the oil storage tanks (maybe a refinery as well?) we turned inland. First stop was a lake and some of the Caribbean Flamingo…through Rincon (one of the original settlement areas)…and into the entrance of Washington Slagbaai National Park. What did we find there but... WHALE BONES!!! I’m going to print a picture and see if Paul and Phil still want to pee on them for good luck?? Ha ha! We went through the museum and found some interesting facts about the island. Bonaire is not a volcanic island…it is from tectonic forces. Over 70 million years ago the sea floor bucked and rose forcing post-volcanic strata to the surface…these became the mountains of Mount Brandaris and Seru Mangel, Bonaire’s highest points. Tropical coral reefs developed around the mountains and when the sea floor rose again…the first dead reef layer…again…the second dead reef layer…again…the last dead reef layer (the one we were walking on). The dead reefs result in Limestone that is vulnerable to natural erosion and continually exposes marine fossils! Cacti fences and dirt roads was the name of our four hour tour (just kidding about the four hour tour…we didn’t get back to the boat until 6:00pm – the dirt roads and the Cacti fences and Cacti everywhere…well, that it true). So…first on our trip…the windward side…being able to look at the reef layers exposed …these little guys were everywhere, they were beautifully colored…and more than a little brave! There are beautiful little beaches etched out of the limestone…and everywhere you walk reminds you of coral…The lighthouse at Malmok is the northern point of Bonaire. We drove up to a walking trail that wasn’t too long and walked into Put Bronswinkel…a natural algae covered fresh water well. The ancestors of the first Bonaireans were Amerindian about 3400 years ago and used this site for their drinking water. Beautiful birds and.... HUGE iguana’s were along this trail…one was thinking we were friendly?? The remains of another lighthouse that also use to be a research station…Then the beaches of a more leeward side of the island. Somehow this four hour tour was taking us a lot longer…we stopped for a late lunch at Boka Slagbaai…the original bay used as a shipping port for goats, sheep and donkeys as well as aloe. Livestock was exported but also slaughtered hence the name of the bay (Slaughter Bay).

There were old salt pans here as well and a lot more flamingos! After lunch we went over Juwa Pass…caught a few parrots having their cactus lunch…and out of the Park! We then drove up to Lac…the bay on the windward side of the island…K&E had rode their bikes over the day before and had taken sailboard lessons! Off to the southern most lighthouse on the island, more dive sites, and Red Slave…where the slave huts were for the workers of the salt ponds…

the current salt industry here (Paul really wants to get some Bonaire salt…but none of us were willing to go past the gates and dig into the salt piles and get some for him)…to the warehouse supermarket…and back to the boat! What a wonderful day tour we had…It truly is a beautiful DRY island and the way it was formed just fascinates me! We all thought many times of the beauty of dry Arizona as we (Enrique did all the driving – special thank you!) were driving through! Tomorrow…Bonaire UNDER the waterline!!!