The ABC Islands

Kralendijk, Bonaire, from our mooring

I regret to report we took no photos at all of Aruba, our first landfall after leaving Panama.  We had no chart of the islands, and we had a waypoint somewhere off the coast, but we arrived at 0300, in the dark, facing a coastline that was wall to wall lights!!  Not at all what Dave had expected.  The date was March 18th, we had left Panama on
March 15th, and had motor sailed most of the way as the winds were light to moderate, but directly at us. 

We anchored in 20ft of water but it felt like mid ocean because we seemed to be so far from the coast, and decided to wait for daybreak.  In the morning we discovered a buoy off our port side - later we discovered it marked a wreck!!  

Aruba turned out to be a busy, tourist-oriented island, specialising in watersports, with all the major hotels one after the other along the beach opposite the anchorage.   It is not an island catering to cruising yachts, and it is expensive, but nevertheless we really enjoyed it!!  After two days of beach combing and walking, we took the boat to the main town Oranjestad, got a berth in the marina and checked in.  We spent four nights hooked up to dock electricity, equalized the batteries and ran the air conditioner constantly - it was lovely!!  We got free use of the hotel pools too.

Supermarket food is pretty expensive, it is not a place to provision the boat, but there are several large shops that stock everything you would want, and I mostly needed fresh fruit and vegetables.  It was possible to buy fish from a local sport fishing boat, if you got there before the restaurants!!  I was not lucky although one fishing boat took pity on me and gave me a bag of bonito.  I didn't have the heart to refuse it, and have frozen it, but I fear it will end up back in the sea since neither of us are keen on such dark rich fish!!

The marina is well run and clean, fuel is horribly expensive!!  We were intrigued to see so many iguanas, they roam around all over the rocks at the water's edge and around the bushes, they seem to be completely at ease with people gawping at them all the time!!

We sailed to Curacao on March 25th, an overnight sail which was one of the most pleasant trips yet!  The boat roared along, upwind, in moderate to light wind and fairly flat seas.  I should mention, every time we go to sea now Dave uses a sealant on all the hatches!!  This time, we had no leaks, but then we had no seas over the deck.

We only spent one night at Spanish Water, the inland protected anchorage towards the southern end of the island, had supper at Sarifundy's, the local cruisers' bar/restaurant, watched CNN news about Iraq  and left the next morning for Bonaire. 

Bonaire, Kralendijk, March 31st

Now I can include some photos of this island.  We rented a scooter today and toured much of the island. 

           
Wild donkeys roam the island                                              Pink flamingoes in the wetlands

Bonaire has the clearest water I have seen yet.  No wonder it is so famous for diving.  It is also a marine park, so no boats are allowed to anchor.  We are on a mooring, right off the beach in 20ft of water, but the boat sits right on the edge of the shelf, which drops dramatically to over 200ft.  There are lots of fish.  I am looking forward to snorkeling around the island opposite the anchorage.

Slave huts                                                                                  Salt works, the flats on right are pink! Not shown well in photo

We have had two mishaps recently.  On Friday night Dave decided to put the life raft down the forward hatch to stow in the shower room.   He forgot it was tied to the mast; I was down below ready to "catch" it, when it suddenly started inflating!  The only reason it half inflated is that there was no more room for it!!  It is back in its bag, but much larger than before, and in need of proper repacking!! 

The second mishap is me - on Saturday I managed to damage my shin as I was getting out of the dinghy, hit it hard on the edge of the swim step.  So now I am hobbling around, although it is much improved and I managed the trip today on the scooter.  We are hoping to check out tomorrow for the first of the offshore Venezuelan islands that lie east of Bonaire.

A lake, full of flamingoes, part of the National Park