07/29/2010, Kralendijk, Bonaire
After a month in the wilderness we needed time to catch up on boat chores, answer email, do laundry, take care of business and restock the boat with food and supplies. After checking into customs and immigration our first mission was to explore the town of Kralendijk and find the pizza place. Barb and I were eager to have a meal that we had not cooked and the fish pizza with spinach, artichokes, mozzarella and capers was not a disappointment.
Bonaire is a small island, only 112 sq miles (compared to Rhode Island at 1,045 sq miles) with about 1,500 residents. It is relatively flat and does not collect much rain, so the vegetation is mostly xeric. Bonaire's first inhabitants were the Caiquetios, a branch of the Arawak Indians who sailed across from what is now Venezuela around 1000 AD. The first Europeans came to Bonaire in 1499, when Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci arrived and claimed it for Spain. Finding little of commercial value and seeing no future for large-scale agriculture, the Spanish decided not to develop the island. Instead, they unceremoniously enslaved the Indians and moved them off to work in the plantations on the Island of Hispanolia, effectively leaving the island unpopulated.
In 1633, the Dutch, having lost the island of St. Maarten to the Spanish, retaliated by capturing Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba. While Curacao emerged as a center of the slave trade, Bonaire became a plantation of the Dutch West India Company. A small number of African slaves were put to work cultivating dyewood and maize and harvesting solar salt. Salt was a precious commodity and was used for preserving meat and fish. Until 1816, ownership of Bonaire changed hands a number of times, finally being returned that year to the Dutch as a result of the Treaty of Paris.
Until recently the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, Saba and Eustatius were considered the Netherland Antilles. Recently Aruba changed it status to country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This October Curacao and St. Maarten will Aruba's lead. Bonaire, Saba and Eustatius will become "public entities" of the Netherlands. The Netherland Antilles will be no more and at that point the official currency will change from the Gilder to the US Dollar.
The official language is Dutch, but many folks speak Papiamentu, a Creole language described as 60% Iberian roots, 25% Dutch and 15% an eclectic mix of Arawak Indian, French and English. In Papiamentu Bon Bini means welcome.
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07/18/2010, Bonaire
It has been a wonderful 4 weeks in the wilderness of the Venezuelan out islands. I promise to write about it, but for now you can see Arctic Tern at anchor in Bonaire on this web cam.
http://www.bonairewebcams.com/YellowSubPierCam.php
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07/03/2010, Aves de Barlovento
The local fisherman came by asking for cigarettes and for one pack of cigarettes they gave me 4 lobsters.
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07/02/2010, Aves de Barlovento
We explored Isla del Sur on foot and burned trash. There is a line of cairns made of coral rubble. I enhanced one of the carins.
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07/01/2010, Aves de Barlovento
Morning in Las Aves...It is noisy and it has been noisy all night. We are anchored about ΒΌ mile from the mangroves which are full of birds, mostly boobies with a few pelican tossed in for variety. There are brown and red footed boobies and they squawk and squabble all night. The brown boobies are naturally curios and playful, they land on our boat, pushing each other into the air. They are so busy claiming the spot on our bow rail that I was able to reach out and grab a booby with both hands. They look sort of cross eyed when they look at you down their long beak.
On the way here from Los Roques we had two lines out hoping to catch some fish. Friends of our caught a yellow fin tuna and a wahoo on the way here, so we thought we would give it a try. We had no luck. As we approached the island that we were going to visit in the Aves group we were greeted by a huge flock of brown boobies. The boobies have become accustomed to the fishing boats that are cleaning their catch on the way in that assumed there would be treats coming from our boat. They spotted our lures- pink and green squid and started chasing and playing with them. We got the first line in without incident, but snagged a booby on the second. We netted him, tossed an old t shirt over his head to calm him and extracted the fish hook from his wing. I bet he was sore, but lived to tell the tale
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06/30/2010, Cayo de Agua
Hunter tried climbing the lone coconut tree with not much result.
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06/29/2010, Cayo de Agua, Los Roques
Knocking down coconuts worked better and we had fresh coconut water and coconut meat
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06/29/2010, Cayo de Agua
The birding is terrific. There are several sea birds that nest on the island as well as many birds passing through. Some of the nesters are: bridled terns, brown noddys, brown boobys and laughing gulls. The least terns, black crowned night herons, green herons and several other shore birds may well be nesting but we did not find their nests or chicks. The laughing gulls dominate the island and immediately check you out as you make your entry into the anchorage. They make periodic stops on the boat and dingy and are shameless about asking for scraps (which we do not toss to them). There are 12 pink flamingos on a nearby coral island. We have not seen where they go to roost at night, but the coral island appears to provide them with a good source of food. This is a photo of a bridled tern.
Chuck took the really good photos of birds and you can see them on Tusen Takk II travel logs: http://www.tusentakk2.com/
The water is turquoise and the snorkeling is quite good. The fish are so bright and large. The entire group of Los Roques is a national park and there is some degree of protection for the fish. You cannot use a spear gun and you have to get a permit to use a rod and reel, so you can only easily use a hand line and there is no commercial fishing allowed (though it clearly does occur). The snorkeling has been very good. We have seen huge parrot fish- the largest we have ever seen. One day Barb and I were out snorkeling and we saw rainbow parrot fish that seemed huge- as large as our fins. We each took off a fin and slowly swam up to the fish and indeed they were fin sized
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06/29/2010, Cayo de Agua, Los Roques, Venezuela
Cayo de Agua got its name from the lens of fresh water that has been used by sea traveler of centuries. Hunter dug for water and came up with brackish water and in a pinch you could use it.
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06/28/2010, Cayo de Agua, Los Roques
Cayo de Agua is really a little archipelago consisting of four islands, some connected by sand spits and others by shallow grass and coral banks.
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06/27/2010, Los Roques
We had a good passage from Cayo Herradura, Islas Tortugas to Cayo de Agua, Los Roques. The wind had been behind us from the east since leaving Union Island and now we would be going NW we hoped for wind on our beam, but not to be. The wind turned to the SE and once again we had wind behind us. The passage was about 110 miles and since we could not make it in one day light period we started in the evening and sailed all night and got into our new anchorage at Cayo de Agua at 09:00 with bright sun overhead to help us navigate the entry around coral heads. Tusen Takk II left a few hours later so that we would arrive about the same time, but he wind gods were kind and we made batter than predicted speed and entered the anchorage a few hours in advance of them.
The sail was lovely. The seas were low and mostly behind us. We had our jib poled out on one side and the main on the other (wing on wing) and that keeps the boat relatively flat. We had a full moon and the Southern Cross constellation for company. We saw little boat traffic and generally had an uneventful night except for a few sail adjustments.
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06/25/2010, Isla Tortuga
As I said the anchorage was almost empty when we got there on a Monday, but Thursday morning the powerboat starting arriving from Caracas for the long weekend of Simon Bolivar's birthday. A quick count came up with 120 boats, each packed with families. After worrying about pirates on the way to Margarita and to a lesser degree to Las Tortugas we felt so safe surrounded by families. We were tempted to leave the crowd behind and go to the Roques, but decided to stay put and enjoy the family weekend. Most of boats were not anchored, they were parked stern first to the beach. People had set up tents and sun shelters, grills and boom boxes. The guys liked the thong watching. We watched the crowds depart on Sunday and we sailed to Los Roques.
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06/25/2010, Isla Tortgua
The fishermen have a small shire with a virgin inside. When we got there candles were burning and the shrine was well tended. Fishing can be a dangerous business and clearly she was there to protect the fisherman.
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06/23/2010, Isla Tortgua
Cayo Herradura is a one mile horseshoe shaped island. When we arrived there were two Venezuelan motor yachts and about 5 or 6 fishing boats. There are several shacks that house fisherman and many pangas (wooden open motor boats about 15 - 20 feet) that serve as tenders to the larger fishing boats. By the time we got the anchor set and took a swim to check the anchor it was time to have a glass of wine (or beer) and relax and think about dinner. We had a rainy night and woke to clouds and rain and we both did chores and projects that have been languishing on the "to do" list for months.
We explored "land" the next day. We walked to the lighthouse and past the fisherman's camp. The lighthouses in Los Roques are prefab red and white striped and made of fiberglass. They make a nice contrast to the turquoise water and white sand.
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06/22/2010, Isla Tortuga,
We left Isla Margarita (after a last visit to the grocery store) and spent the night at Isla Cubagua. That shortened the passage for the next day between Margarita and Tortgua by a few hours. We left Cubagua at 04:00 and got to the east end of Isla Tortuga at about 13:30. Tusen Takk II was ahead of us and they anchored in Playa Caldera at the east end reported serious swell. They were willing to deploy their new flopper stoppers, but none of us wanted to spend a rolly night so we both moved west by about 10 miles to Cayo Herraduro. It was a long day and we were rewarded with a calm and scenic anchorage.
The winds had been light all day and from behind us, so we did not have good sailing conditions, but managed to sail for part of the day. We had our fishing lines out and caught 4 small tuna. Three of the tuna were in good shape and we decided to toss then back to give them time to get larger and hopefully reproduce. One of the tuna had become barracuda dinner and we reeled in only a head. We let the two barracuda go because it is not safe to eat the predatory reef fish as they can concentrate Ciguatera, is a toxin that gets magnified in the food chain and is very uncomfortable if you get the symptoms. A pod of dolphins swam beside us for quite a while.
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06/18/2010, Isla Margarita
We just made the 168 mile passage from Union Island to Isla Margarita and it was a perfect day and night for a trawler. The winds were very light and the little wind that we did have was from behind us. We were travelling with Chuck and Barb on the trawler Tusen Takk II and they appreciated the weather. We tried several sail configurations and had the jib poled out on both sides, but after and hour and a half of futzing with sails we turned on the motor.
There are about 15 boats in the Porlamar harbor. In June 2008 there were over 70 boats. This is a reflection of the increased crime rate and the unstable situation. We will be leaving tomorrow for the Venezuelan out islands (Tortuga and Los Roques) and Bonaire after that. We will likely be out of internet contact for the week or three that we will be in the out islands.
The photo was taken in 2008 as we were coming into Isla Margarita with the wind behind us.
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06/15/2010
Here we are in ths shadow of the Gros Piton
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06/13/2010, Pitons, St. Lucia
I just Love it here. We are on a mooring ball between the Pitons in Southern St. Lucia. It is crazy because the wind goes from 1 knot to 20 knots in a nano second and the tide flows mightily against the wind which makes the boat roll, but that is not why I love it here. The Pitons are two volcanic plugs rising out of the sea. Gros Piton is 2,619 feet and Petit Piton is 2,461 and we are in the bay between these peaks. This just feel like a special place.
We just did a scuba dive called Superman and I guess it is called that because once under the water it feels like you are flying along the reef. This is a protected area; a World Heritage Site and the protection shows. This is one of the most diverse and healthy reefs we have seen anywhere in the Caribbean.
This photo shows Tusen Takk II beside us in the shadow of the Petit Piton.
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06/01/2010, St. Martin
It was not our intention to hang around St. Martin this long, but things kept coming up that needed attention or purchasing, so here we are- still in St. Martin. I have never been a big fan of St. Martin for many reasons. In the winter time this is a destination for mega-yachts and the boat services are expensive, little is grown on the island so almost all of the fruits and vegetables are imported and St. Martin lacks the flavor and friendliness of the other islands. After a month I see a different scene- yes, everything is imported, but after the mega yachts leave for the Mediterranean and most of the cruisers head south there is a diverse international community of people living here and making their living providing services for cruisers. I have learned to avoid the big supermarkets in favor of the small Chinese grocery stores that are so common. In these small family owned stores you can buy some local vegetables and the prices are cheaper on other items.
It has been fun to catch up with our friends; Johness, Thomas, Dom and Alex on Springtime and Sparrow, and Rene and Cheryl on Gypsy Blues. It has been so handy to have Rene working in Island Waterworld to help us spent our money. Actually, Rene has been a huge help to us. It was also fun to see our Scottish friends on the boat Sea Warrior before they made the passage across the Atlantic to the Azores.
We have hiked most of the spine of the small mountain range in St. Martin and have been delighted to hike for hours without seeing a soul. Most of the hikes featured excellent views and a few novel signs.
The summer wind patterns and rains have started and the wind is blowing mostly from the southeast, so we are waiting for an east wind to help us head south.
St. Martin has begun to grow on me like the fuzz that grows on the anchor chain while anchored in the lagoon.
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05/24/2010, Pic Paradis, St. Martin
It was overcast this morning and there were lots of land snails out foraging for vegetation and doing whatever snails do.
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