Beautiful Bonaire!

Bonaire was a wonderful stop!

We arrived early morning and were assisted on to our mooring by Bill of Dolce Vita.  Jeff occasionally checks in with the “Coconut Telegraph” and had done so during our passage from Grenada. It’s a group of cruisers that host a “net” each morning over the single side band radio,  boats from all over check in with their location.  It’s a good resource for meeting other boats and to know where many of your friends are. Although we never got a chance to connect with Bill while in Bonaire, we certainly appreciated his help that morning.

The clear in process was quite convenient and once complete we took a walk around town. It’s a Dutch island and the spoken languages are Dutch, English and Papiamento. The islanders are almost all quite fluent in English so things are easy. Curiously enough, the most frequently used currency is the US dollar. We stopped in to an ice cream shop that first afternoon and met a few other cruisers.  It was a great opportunity to learn about the island and enjoy some delicious gelato.  Robert and Carla of Moody Mistress invited us to join them for a dive in the morning.

A OK!

Bonaire is an amazing place for diving and has 63 dive sites listed on their map along with another 24 on nearby Klein Bonaire. Most of the sites can be reached from shore without any need to hire a dive company to take you out. There is no anchoring allowed and the moorings are in about 15 feet of water but the ocean floor quickly drops off to 100 feet with an amazing wall and a very healthy fish population.  All our dives were right off Echo.

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Robert and Carla of Moody Mistress

Diving with Robert and Carla was great, we were just a bit nervous – our 4th dive and on our own. We were able to go down to a sandy area about 15 ft deep by just following the mooring line.  There we were able work on our buoyancy before heading to deeper water. It was beautiful and a good confidence building experience. There’s a dive shop right nearby where you can refill your tanks and rinse and store your gear if you choose to do so.

An Octopus hiding

Over the next few days we did 5 more dives and quite a bit of snorkeling. All just off Echo. Unfortunately, Jeff ended up with a very bad cold during our stay. From then on we stuck to snorkeling which was amazing too.  The marine life is quite amazing!  We did have a report of seahorses in the area, we searched but no luck.  We’ll find them someday….

The area is controlled by the Bonaire National Marine Park since 1979.  Their mission is to protect and manage the island’s resources and they seem to have done a great job.  The water is crystal clear, the coral is healthy and there are hundreds of species of marine life to be seen.

Although Jeff wasn’t feeling the greatest we did rent a car and do some island exploring.    We headed around the southern end of the island where the salt industry continues in Bonaire.  There is also a very protected bay popular for windsurfing, Sorobon at Lac is apparently a world renown destination for windsurfing. Also, kite surfing is quite popular here too.

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We visited the Washington Slagbaai National Park at the Northwest end of the island. It’s a huge area with completely different terrain from the south end. Much of the island is low and flat but the northern end has hills, cliffs and caves.  The bird population is quite diverse as well, we saw many flamingos and quite a few Yellow-shouldered Amazon Parrots -Lora in Papiamento.  We also saw a Wara Wara.

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The only other drawback in Bonaire is the dust that accumulates on the boat.  There is almost no rain and the dust blows constantly, covering everything on the boat.  We were having problems with both power and our water maker, were reluctant to spare any water for deck washing, so we just lived with the dust until we arrived in Curacao at a marina.  We would have liked to stay longer in Bonaire but given the mounting boat problems we moved on to Curacao after only a week.

We made the journey with Rob and Rhian of Beyzano, a beautiful Beneteau 473.  We met them in Bonaire and will be traveling with them until April.  Robert and Carla of Moody Mistress are also amoung the boats we will be traveling with.

Last summer we met another Beneteau 473 in Grenada, Smart Move. Robyn and Barry on Smart Move told us of a rally that would explore parts of the western Caribbean and we were intrigued. Unfortunately, Smart Move was not able to join but we signed on and began to meet fellow rally boats in Bonaire.

The rally begins in Curacao. We move on to Aruba just after New Years, then to Columbia, San Blas, Colon, San Andres, Providencia, Guatemala and Belize. It’s an exciting itinerary and we are happy to be a part of the group!

The rally is organized by Suzanne and David of Suzie Too as part of the Ocean Cruising Club.  We joined OCC which requires an ocean passage of 1000 miles.  They accepted us as associate members as we have not yet made a 1000 mile passage.  OCC calculates the distance based on the “Rhumb Line”, that would be the most direct route from Point A to Point B.   Our our longest journey fell about 25 mlles short. You also need a member sponsor and Chris Conway was kind enough to act as our sponsor.

The fellow rally members we met in Bonaire are wonderful people and we look forward to meeting the rest of the group in Curacao.

One thing I overlooked on the Grenada post was meeting up with Mistress and Xanadu in Carriacou.  We first met Tutty and Muriel of Mistress in the Bahamas.  Jack and Linda of Xanadu arrived in Dominican Republic when we there in 2013.  Both are from Ontario and we were so happy to reconnect in Carriacou!

~ Jeff and Mary ~