IMAGE: READY TO GO DIVING
BONAIRE:-The B in the Dutch Antilles ABC group of Islands. We sailed directly west to Bonaire from Grenada, leaving Grenada at midday on Boxing Day 26th and arriving at first light on Monday 29th - 400 miles in 68 hours -a great run. Our good friends Willem & Elli from our EMYR rally in the Middle East flew in here to join us here. As the live in Amsterdam for the winters - the direct flight to here and return from Curacao worked well for the logistics for this short break. It was lovely to have them on-board and enjoy each others company again. The appeal of Bonaire for us was to do some Scuba Diving. The whole island is a reef-lined coast of National Park. The beaches are mostly slivers of rocky sand, several take on a pink hue from ground coral washed ashore. Beautiful pink flamingos are found throughout the salt flats and mangroves. The whole island of Bonaire is only populated by 17,000 people, so its pretty quiet and sleepy, and has a real community feel - but all is not well in paradise! We saw some political signs displayed on the governments buildings - apparently in 2008 Bonaireians voted to leave the 3 country ABC alliance and returned to direct Dutch rule as a rather far-flung municipality of The Netherlands, with many 'white' European Dutch coming in the run the islands government and public services. The local Afro-Caribbean's have not taken well to being told how their little island should be run from Europe - and now want Independence like their fellow islands Aruba and Curacao. It was interesting to see and hear the debates and displays of this political struggle. Due to the National Park status of the whole island we were required to take up a mooring off Kralendijk the capital. The charge was $10US plus 6% tax per night- and no other facilities like a decent dingy dock, fresh water supply or internet were provided - so in cruising terms really a poor service for the fee. The little one street town of Karelendijk is full of diving /snorkelling associated businesses, tourist shops, bars and cafes. Bonaire is on the Caribbean cruise ship route and the town and island is overrun during daylight hours with up to 5,000 visitors each day. We tried to keep out of the town at the peak tourist hours, and deliberately planned our car hire day on a non-cruise ship day. THE big thing here is diving, and there are 63 officially named and marked sites strung along the on the western side of the island, plus another 24 A to Z named sights off the adjacent sand island of Klein Bonaire. Plane loads of Europeans fly in all year round to dive here. This has been the only island so far in the Caribbean where we have been allowed to dive independently - ie with no formal and expensive dive school or company - BUT to dive we had to have a permit costing US$25 per person . If we had purchased the permit in late December when we arrived it would only have been valid until mid January! - so we purchased ours on 1st January, value for the whole of 2015. Tank refills were $6 per fill - thankfully we have our compressor and could be truly independent and cost effective. We found the diving OK - I personally think we have been very spoilt with the other diving and snorkelling experiences we have had in Israel & Egypt in previous years. We enjoyed the shallow waters snorkelling with Willem & Elli, and enjoyed the up-close and personal experience with a good variety and number of fish. The long-term Dutch cruisers love coming here - it feels like home to them , as Dutch is spoken as the second official language after Papiamento and the food shopping for Dutch products is excellent. The local supermarket Van De Tweel provided a twice weekly free shopping bus service from the marina and town dock for the cruising sailors to their supermarket - we made good use of the excellent service - and yes the choice of products and quality of the store was amazing for the Caribbean. The Customs & Immigration office was conveniently located in walking distance from the town moorings on the main dock. There were no fees charged for our check-in/check-out and their procedures were simple, competently and courtesly carried out - even getting W & E on our crew list after their flight in was not a problem. The marina bar became a great happy-hour and internet hangout place for us. On New Year Eve we were invited for later evening drinks with Dennis & Anneka on their yacht Bodyguard. We had a real international group - Martin & Betty from Blues(Dutch) Miriam & Pat from Skye(Canadian) Edie & Mark from Cheers (USA)- all good company. From the moorings we had a great view back over the town and whole bay -the fireworks all around us from the various waterfront dive resorts and hotels went on for well over 1 hour. Thankfully there was no loud music bars in our area and we could get a good nights rest. During the 1st week of January before W & E arrival we did a dive every day at a different site - Cliff number 26; Something Special number 32; Forest site number N on Klein Bonaire. All the dives were different and interesting. Our other achievement this week was to have our SSB (short wave radio) given a look over by Dennis from Bodyguard. Dennis is a specialist in this field and was a great help in improving our transmission signal. We chat at least twice a week with other boats on an agreed frequency at an agreed time - and the others now report that our signal is greatly improved.
Willem & Elli arrived at the Marina as arranged at 5pm on 6th January - so now we were all in full holiday mode for the next week on Bonaire. Together we wandered the town and managed to give all the shops and art galleries a look over, had dinner out a few nights and enjoyed each others company. We had a jeep Hire Car for one day to drive the island. In the morning we headed to the National Park covering the northwest portion of the island - an interesting drive, the terrain mostly tropical desert like conditions and dirt roads - hence the need for a 4wheel drive vehicle. This island was not typical of the western Caribbean as there were lots of tall cactus plants, rather than tall palms. We saw the odd Iguana, and flocks of very bright pink flamingos at Gotomeer Lake - but they were too far off for any good photos with our basic cameras. We had a picnic lunch by the northern beach at Boka Slgbaai before heading back out of the park and south to Lac Bay to watch the windsurfers playing in the beautiful, clear aqua protected waters behind the reef. We drove to the south end of the island which was flat, arid and dominated by the salt pans. The water in the evaporation ponds was a vibrant pink, due to the tiny sea organisms that the flamingos graze on. The prepared salt was stored in several stunning tall white pyramids. Along the coast we saw several small concrete huts - relics of the 19th century slave history of Bonaire. We managed to do some very enjoyable snorkelling with W & E at site number 22 - Andrea 1 - great shallow snorkelling with loads of fish, and on another day at a more northern spot - number 25 Small Wall, which had loads of lovely fish. We had only one dive day out - and took Dennis & Martin with us too. We took our boat south to site number 42 -The Lake - an interesting double reef dive, and Dennis and Martin explored further to find a sunken wreck. W & E could snorkel in the shallow areas whilst we were on our dive. Sadly our time in Bonaire was coming to an end. On Sunday 11th after some morning snorkelling we all headed to the Customs and Immigration office to officially put W & E on our crew list and checkout from Bonaire. That afternoon we had farewell drinks on La Aventura with Dennis and Anneka our guests this time- they are good company. We had an early night after putting the dingy away and prepared boat for our AM departure for the nearest island - Curacao. All-in-all we enjoyed Bonaire, and given the opportunity would return there again...maybe.