With the excitement of Omar behind us we headed into Willemstad and Curacao Marine to be hauled out for the annual bottom job. The haulout was well and professionally done. By the following Fri we had new bottom paint and the hulls had been compounded and polished. Linda had polished the salon top and cockpit area as well. The old girl looks better than she has since we bought her. By fri afternoon we were back in the water and headed back to Spanish Waters. We had about three days to get organized again and then we would need to head back to Bonaire to meet friends flying in from CA.

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As we sat calmly at anchor thinking of the trip to Fl for Fantasy Fest with our friends the Pirates fate was brewing a little surprise for us of a not so pleasant nature. About 150 miles north of us a low pressure system was being born and it would rapidly become a tropical depression and then a tropical storm. It would drift south toward us instead of going north as is common. By the next day when we were supposed to move the boat to the yard to be hauled out we had experienced a complete wind reversal and it was blowing 35 to 40 knots from the west onto the normally protected side of the island. With waves breaking onto the lee shore at 10 to 12 ft it was obvious that we weren't going to be moving the boat out of it's protected anchorage any time soon. While we were protected from the waves, the wind was a different story, especially when blowing from the west. We had no problems the first day and night, though little sleep. However, in the middle of the second day our anchor broke loose and we began to drag toward other boats. We immediately fired up the engines and got her under control while barely avoiding a collision. Realizing there were just too many boats in the anchorage for this type of situation we headed for the far side of Spanish Waters that is not commonly used for anchoring. In the end four boats moved to the wide open area on the east side and reset anchors to ride out the worst that was yet to come. The day light hours aren't so bad as you can at least see what's going on around you and with you boat. Then comes the night and a whole new and scary scenario develops around you. The comes horizontally and in sheets too dense to see through. The wind howls through your rigging until sounds like a freight train is bearing down on you. There will be no sleep this night. As the wind peaks at 2am at velocities between 50 and 60 kts you start your engines and and let them idle so that if your anchor surrenders to the blast you will be one step closer to saving your boat (and yourselves). The night wears on endlessly until finally the eastern horizon begins to lighten and the wind begins to slacken ever so slowly. As Hurricane Omar finally begins to move off to the northeast with increasing speed we realized we had ridden out our first tropical storm and survived with the boat and ourselves intact. It is not an experience I would ever care to repeat.

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Well, once that first cheeseburger was behind us it was time for the real action. As I've said diving is Bonaires life blood and we were going to help it keep pumping. We had purchased 50 air fills and were bound to use them up if we could! This is the only place we've been that rivals the Bahamas for water clarity. It is not unusual to have visibility in excess of 100ft. One of the really cool circumstances about diving here is you don't have to hire a local dive shop to take you out like in so many places in the eastern caribbean. Here you can jump in your dinghy and head out to one of a hundred sites with friends or just the two of you. You do your dive and come up for a cold beer and head back to the boat. You've just saved $100 or more. The fish are tame by most standards and a close up view is the norm. There are turtles at nearly every site and they will swim close to you for a look at the strange fish invading their habitat. So our days went, a dive in the morning and cocktails on one boat or another in the evenings. We were expecting company in Bonaire, but not for a few weeks yet. So we decided to head for Curacao as we had plans to fly out of there to Fl for Fantasy Fest, one of the worlds great bachannals. Little did we know!!!!!

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