Nice rest stop on our hike to Seru Largu

Cactus hedges/fences are very common

Very dry area with lots and lots of cactus

A little touch of Holland at the flamingo reserve

Brian inside one of the slave huts

Restored slave huts, about 6 ft by 6 ft

Bonaire

We have been in Bonaire just over a week now.  It is a nice clean relatively quite place.   We took our bikes off the boat for a cycle down to the South end of the island, and then a circle route back up the East coast.  There is active salt making going on here, with huge piles of salt waiting to be loaded on ships.  At the far end of the island we saw many flamingos on the ponds here.  The island is very dry with lots of cactus around. All their drinking water comes from a desalination plant.

       At the extreme South end of island we stopped for a rest and sat on the steps of the lighthouse that had guided us around the island in the dark while we sailed in.  Further up the East coast we stopped at Sourobon for cool well deserved refreshments. Lots of wind surfing and boarding going on here.  We were very tired when we finally got back because of the heat and being a bit out of shape sitting on boat.  We had done about 21 miles total which is more than we thought it would be.

     I was disappointed a bit in the Bonairian's because in the Netherlands which own this island, there is a huge amount of cycling and cycle routes.  But here you rarely see a bike even though they have a perfect environment for cycling, no hills, good weather, short distances to everything, and reasonable roads. Many of the people here drive large SUV's  and seldom walk anywhere. Come on Bonairian's get of your arse's.  

   When we got back from our cycle we found our dinghy flooded with water and the engine flooded.  It looked like the dinghy might have got under the dock and filled when a big power boat went by, though there was also a lot of kids playing on the dock.  This is the dock a half kilometre North of the dock with the bar on it, and it was the weekend.  A local lady helped us get the dingy ashore and bailed out and then another yachty gave us a tow out to our boat.  I cleaned out engine, removed spark plug and carburetor and dismantled it. I could see water spurt out of spark plug hole when I turned engine over.  But when all back together the engine was fine, no damage done.  

      Another day we did a 3 hour round trip walk up to the top of a hill (Seru Largu on map) for a great view of the island.  We started out from Village Harbor marina where we left our dinghy.  But when we got back, we could not get to our dinghy which was tied just up from the fuel pumps.  They had locked the place up for their two hour lunch which had just started.  I looked up at the coils of razor wire along the top of the fence, that would not go.  So I walked down abit and saw an old gate about 6 feet high and climbed over it  and then over a smaller gate and was at the dinghy which I took around and picked up Dorothy.  We probably should have tied dinghy on cafe side of marina.

    We have also done quite a bit of snorkeling around the island, using their little tourist map as a guide.  There is lots of fish, but we figure the guides over rate the snorkeling a bit.  It is nice being in cool clear water, just to cool off and also get clean as there is no showers here, unless your in the marina.

       In another week or so we will head on to the next island of Curacao.

Customs House Bonaire.

Downtown Kralendijk Bonaire

New dinghy unfolded

Notice new dinghy folded on deck for passage

A beautiful sail to Bonaire

After a few days in Grenada we decided it was time to move on to new places.  Bonaire was our next stop and there was several reasons we went to Grenada first rather than go direct from Trinidad.  Main reason is you would spent less time in Venezuelan waters, secondly Grenada had a few groceries that we liked that Trinidad did not have (Trinidad has better and cheaper produce) and thirdly we would now be a bit closer to Bonaire.

  Venezuela use to be a popular cruiser destination, but the last few years it has gone downhill due to bad government.  There are many violent robberies on yachts and it recommended to stay at least 30 miles from any of its shores. 

     We left Grenada just after 4 in the morning to make sure we did the 395 miles with only 3 nights out at sea.   There was not wind for the first 2 or 3 hours and then a easterly wind filled in as we left Grenada behind and we shut the engine off.  The wind remained a bit light all day though we sailed along at 4 to 5 knots.  While we came out of St Georges harbour in the black of night we could see a ship coming up the coast and the AIS showed he might come very close, and we did not know if he would turn into the harbour here or not.  So I called him up on the radio and he asked us to pass behind him, so this set us back 30 minutes.

    A rain squall came through late in the afternoon and wind piped up to about 20 knots for a few minutes  followed by 20 minutes of heavy rain and then all was back to normal, this was the only squall we got on this passage.  The wind picked up for a few hours after dark and then eased again making the first 24 hours a slow passage of only 100 miles done and making us wonder if we were going to do this in 3 days. 

   We angled slightly North of the rhumb line so we would give  Venezuala's offshore island all a clearance of about 30 miles except for the furthest west island we gave a clearance of about 16 miles. Doing this only added about 8 miles to the overall distance.  The wind picked up a bit more the 2nd day out and then we also started to notice some current with us for a few hours we had up to 2 to 2.5 knots of current pushing us as we were hitting 8 knots and more in the moderate winds.  Later the current seemed to disappear or be .5 to 1 knot.  During our 2nd night out the wind picked up to a steady 25 to 28 knots for a few hours along with a rough sea.  We did not get a much sleep this night on our off watches.  Later in night wind eased and we sailed along nicely.  The last day and night were very pleasant with moderate seas and good sailing, and a slight current with us.  The last 24hour run was 142 miles, our best ever.  

     Each day we saw 3 or 4 ships go by but only had to alter course slightly for one.   Probably less shipping on this more Northerly route we took, also saw only 1 or 2 fish boats  far in the distance.   As the 3/4 moon set late in our last night at sea, I could see some lights on Bonaire.  We rounded the South end of Bonaire in the dark and this end of island has no lights except for a navigation light that flashes every 9 seconds, so I kept a close eye on this and our chart plotter as we rounded the island. I checked the chart and the radar together to see if it was accurate and it appeared to be fine, as we know from experience some countries are poorly charted and off up to a mile or more.

     We had to slow the boat down a bit the last couple of hours so we would not arrive before daylight. The wind stayed with us all the way in, we motored that last mile just to run the engine a bit and charge batteries as had not used engine at all on passage.   We could see a line of yachts off the town of Kralendijk and we went up and picked a vacant mooring.  You are not allowed to anchor anywhere here and must use a mooring or go into the marina.

      After some breakfast we launched the dinghy and went ashore to clear in with customs and then visit the town.  Bonaire is a small island, about 5 miles wide and 20 miles long, with a population of only 17,000 people.  It is now part of the Netherlands and English seems to be widely spoken.  It is pleasant out here on the moorings, a nice breeze all the time and small tropical fish swimming under the boat in clear clean water.  We will probably stay out here for a couple of weeks before moving on.

INFO

-left Grenada Oct 12 2013

-Mooring we tied to is at 12 09.42N   68 16.83W on West coast of Bonaire. There is suppose to be 40 moorings here and there were a number of empty ones when we arrived,  though some seemed to be a bit close to each other, but one thing about here is you seldom ever seem to swing.  On our 4th day here a swell from SW, but no wind,  came in during night and for 4 or 5 hours boats were rocking quite a bit. Then it disappeared.

-No charges for checking in with customs and immigration, both in the same office now which is the customs building.   The tourist office is just up and round the corner from customs office, they gave us little map and could tell us where everything is.  Customs is just a couple minutes South of dinghy dock, at waterfront.

-The grocery store selection is very good, can get most anything you saw in Grenada or Trinidad and more.  The prices though are often a bit cheaper especially the US canned goods.  Other prices are about the same as Grenada.  The fresh produce is a more than Trinidad or about the same as Grenada and not as big a selection, is more like Grenada. liquor prices seem very cheap here, beer a wee bit cheaper.  Meat is cheaper here as well.  We so far have walked to three different grocery stores, the first is about a 10 minute walk and the other about a 20 walk, and the third a couple of minutes further. This last one is the largest and is like a dutch store with a lot of dutch products and not in english, and it had more produce here.   A sim card for my smart phone for 2 weeks and 1 gig of data was $14.00 with Digicel. 

-They use the US dollar for currency now and if you go to a ATM you get US dollars out.  

- The dinghy dock situation is strange.  The country put in 40 moorings for yachts, but did nothing for us to get ashore.  Most people are using the dock that has a bar on it and the bar people do not seem to mind. But the dinghy  some times goes under the dock which is not good even though only a 1 foot tide here and there is not room here for many dinghy's.  There is another dock a bit further North you can use which about where we are moored  but then you are a bit more of a distance from town.  The main transient yacht marina is Harbor village marina  a bit further north of us.  There rates not too bad at about .80 cents a foot when we checked.

- The above marina seems to be the only source to buy drinking water which is by the fuel pumps  and the office in the marina basin. We will buy our water here when we need some as the rates are cheap at 10 cents a gallon.

-We have seen no mosquitoes and leave the ports open with no nets at night, even when the breeze gets a bit light.  We read of another yacht that had been here about 4 months ago and said they were very bad at dark. So maybe different season?? 

 

Back into the water at last

Brian at work!!  At Powerboats yard Chagaramas

Back to Grenada

  The heat here seems to be getting worse as we near the end of the wet season.   We did a few last minute chores on boat, filled water tank and some last minutes painting.  Then we got put back in the water on Oct 8.   It felt great to be floating again but as we went out in the anchorage we found it to be very full and all the moorings were being used.  Tryed anchored a couple of time near outer edges but could not get anchor to hold,  This area is known for bad holding, as it has been dredged.  Finally we decided to motor over to Scotland bay 2 miles away. We spent a nice night there though there is lots of 30 second wind gusts that come down on anchorage every few minutes.

      Early next morning we motored back to Chagaramus to clear customs and do a last load of laundry and get a couple of grocery items, and say some goodbyes to friends.  Again we had trouble anchoring but then the Mojombos found a buoy that had just emtyed and Gary held it for us with his dinghy will we got our anchor up and motored over to it.   That is better as we could now both go ashore.

      We decided we would leave about 4pm in afternoon to do the 80 miles to Grenada as an overnight sail.  Yesterday we heard another story of a robbery  by some  Venezualan pirates in a small pirogue that stopped a yacht on there way to Bonaire.  This was apparently just last week, the yacht went 40 miles North and then started to turn west and I  believe this is went they were stopped by armed men in a small boat.   So we plotted a course that took us a bit further East of normal route to Granada and several miles to the East of the Hibiscus oil rig.

     We left right on schedule and had the current with us as we motored out of the pass and leaving Trinidad behind.  There was no wind and we motored for a bit more than a hour and then the wind started, a few minutes later we shut off the engine and were sailing along nicely.  the wind picked up a bit more and we but 2 reefs in main and then had then rolled the genoa half way in.   Then we never touched the sails again all the way to Granada, perfect.

  After dark we saw unusually bright phosphorescence in the sea.  The white caps were brilliant in the darkness  and helped make for a beautiful night.  The sky was clear  and a quarter moon out and we were sailing along  briskly in a somewhat rough sea with the wind just a tad forward of beam.  The course was a bit better as we turned a couple of degrees after passing the Hibiscus oil field rig.   There was a number of fish boats and ships visible on the radar.   We kept our lights off until we were about 15 miles from Granada, which means you have to keep a better watch.  We scanned with the radar every 20 minutes or so and we lucked out that we never had to adjust course  to avoid a boat, they just seemed to all be a mile or 2 either side of our course.  The passage turned into the best passage we have had in the Caribbean.

     The wind died when we were about 3 or 4 miles from Granada and came around to on the nose.  The sun was also just coming up and we motored the last few miles into St Georges harbor on the SE cornor of Granada.  We dropped anchor just before 8am in about 22 ft of water and the it was so clear we could see the anchor on the bottom.

    We put our new dinghy in the water to goto customs and immigration.  Just before we left Trinidad our new dinghy had  arrived.  I was fed up with deflatables so bought a porta- bote which is made of some kind of thick hi teck plastic and folds up so that it is about the size of a surfboard.  The new dinghy works great, it is a bit faster that our old inflatable with the 5hp engine.  Its 10ft long  and very roomy.

     

 

 

Info

-Scotland bay 2 miles from Chagaramas,  Trinidad anchored in 51 ft at 10 42.03N   61 39.88W.   This is not the best spot but the inner bay was full of boats.

-See old blog posts for previous visit to Grenada earlier this year.  Now anchored in 21 ft at  12 02.55N   61 45.46W  water nice and clear