Bonaire - 27th June - 1st July

Bonaire is part of Netherlands Antilles, with its sister islands Curacao and Aruba a little to the west (often known as the ABC islands). It is located north of the Venezuelan mainland. It is a charming quiet and extremely clean island with a population of around 11,000. The main town is attractive, with pastel coloured buildings and red tiled roofs. One of the main attractions is that it has some of the Caribbean’s clearest water and best diving.

Bonaire’s two main industries are salt and tourism, especially diving and eco-tourism. The attractions for tourists are snorkeling, scuba diving, windsurfing and bird watching. It was interesting now seeing the Dutch and Spanish influence.

There is a no-anchoring policy on the whole island. To protect its fringing coral reefs there are about 40 moorings set up by the National Marine Park along the waterfront of the capital Kralendijk. There is reef right along the coast – so the front of the boat is in say 20 feet and the back in 60 feet! – there is great snorkeling right off the boat, where we saw massive parrotfish and angelfish the size of a dinner plate!

Jimmy, Steve and I went scuba diving. We took the dive boat out to Klein Bonaire, although a lot of the diving can be done direct from the shore. The whole coast is a line of dive sites! Although we never could figure where one ended and the next began!

One day we rented a car and explored the island. It was amazing how different the other side of the island was, with many cactus trees - you could have thought you were in Arizona. Charlotte loved the donkey sanctuary, especially when the donkeys put their head through the car window. At one stage there were 3 donkey heads in the same car window, looking at Charlotte:

We also saw pink flamingos,

the slave huts

and the massive saltpans.

We caught up with some other cruiser friends in Bonaire – Steve, Kim, Mike and Tim on North Star, who are now staying in Bonaire for 4 months, and Jackie and Adrian on Oceans Dreams. We celebrated our wedding anniversary at a Pizza Place with a romantic dinner for 9!

Bonaire was a very pleasant dry island. Since leaving wet Grenada, we have still not had a drop of rain! The decks are dusty!! We could have stayed a lot longer but all too soon we had to leave to head to Curacao. Time is running out on us – the boat is being hauled this coming Tuesday 6^th July, so on Thursday 1^st July we dropped the mooring, turned the boat, raised the spinnaker and set sail the 35 miles to Curacao. Again a great downwind spinnaker sail. Our last long sail before we say good bye to Heat Wave…..

Heat Wave under spinnaker sail courtesy of North Star who followed us out on their dingy to take pictures:

On the cruise to Curacao, Charlotte painted her nails red, white and blue in preparation for the July 4^th party this Sunday! A few cruisers we know are already in Curacao and so we already have the social calendar arranged! Charlotte is looking forward to play dates with Zinnia on Pacific Bliss again.