Finally - a decent weather window in which to head east! Winds were expected to fall to 15 knots, although the seas were predicted to be quite "lumpy". So at 7:00am, (1 hour later than our planned start), we left behind our friends in the anchorage of Kralendijk and enjoyed a beautiful close-hauled sail alongside the shoreline of Bonaire. Hilary, our friend on "Miss Charlotte", saw us raising our sails and hailed us on our VHF radio to wish us well. Then, shortly after lamenting there were no pink flamingos accompanying us on our sail, two flew by overhead as if to say goodbye! What a great start to our trip!
After an hour's sail we "turned left" into the wind, furled our genoa and motored due east to the island of Aves de Sotavento. The 6' seas were much milder than anticipated, allowing us to make the 45-mile trip from Bonaire to Aves de Sotavento in about 9 hours. On familiar ground now, we navigated our way inside the reef-enclosed bay, threading our way over and around shoals, and dropped our hook in a big sandy patch just off the main reef.
What a beautiful anchorage: all around us we see waves crashing onto the reef which completely encompass our anchorage. We passed a few boats anchored outside of the reef system, but we're all alone in here. (Does that bring to mind any Far Side cartoons...like maybe they know something we don't? Naaaah....) We enjoy a glass of wine watching the sun fade away, and are later rocked to sleep by the gentle motion of the sea, with the roaring surf audible in the distance. Paradise!
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Well, we're sportin' our new Doyle sails, the hull's all spiffy, and the brightwork is glistening...but here we still sit in Bonaire waiting for a good "weather window" to make our 4+ day crossing. Weather windows are one of the more common topics among cruisers, although in popularity they still rank well after sailing stories, boat systems, and mechanical problems. In the Caribbean, this magical window describes a short period of time when the steady trades and seas are predicted to mellow a bit, allowing sailors to make their journey to the next island without (ideally) getting trashed in the process. But unlike the hearty sailors of years' past, we don't just look out our "window" to check the weather. We, like many cruisers in the Caribbean, regularly listen to the "Weather God", Chris Parker, on our single sideband (SSB) radio. Chris gathers data from a myriad of sources: satellite imagry, weather models, grib files, etc., combines that with a healthy dose of weather-witchcraft, and usually comes up with an amazingly-accurate forecast, 3 to 5 days out. If you pay a couple hundred bucks a year, you can even call him on your SSB, tell him your starting point and destination, and he'll give you specific wind forecasts and sea conditions for your trip. We're pretty spoiled out here!
So every morning at 8:30am we tune into Chris' weather report, and then listen to boats calling him from as far north as the Bahamas and as far south as Columbia. Yesterday we asked him for "wind and sea states" from Bonaire to the island of St Croix or St Martin - about 450 miles directly upwind from us. Chris wisely suggested we change our destination to the south coast of Puerto Rico, allowing us a better point of sail (it's a bit further west) and giving us shelter from the predicted "North Swell" that's due to arrive in these parts on Thursday. Sounds good, except that we really don't want to "get stuck" in Puerto Rico with tons of civilization around as we wait for the next weather window to continue on our way. We're really ready for some peace and solitude right now! So we've decided to instead head to Los Aves, a beautiful set of desolate Venezuelan islands about a 10-hour trip east (yes, upwind and against the current), where we can really have some R&R! So now we're waiting for that weather window to arrive...
p.s. The photo above is from Carnival in Curacao...looks like we missed that one in our blog! What a spectacular event - hundreds of elaborately costumed people paraded down the main street accompanied by local marching bands and intricately decorated floats. It took them 4 to 5 hours to walk then length of the parade route. We heard that the average participant spends an average of one month's salary on their Carnival costume each year! Needless to say, it's a pretty big deal on the islands.
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Yesterday we got the very sad news that our friend, Lars Holbek, died from an aggressive cancer he was diagnosed with last fall. Lars and Louis grew up in the same town and went to Boy Scouts together, although their friendship was really formed as they each discovered kayaking in the rivers of the Sierras. As anyone involved in kayaking knows, Lars was an incredible whitewater pioneer and leaves behind a legacy of exploration and adventure for generations to come. Thanks to our dear friends Phil and Mary, we had the good fortune to spend our vacation in Ecuador a few years back with Lars and his partner Nancy Wiley. We all shared many laughs and more than a few Pisco Sours as we kayaked the wonderful rivers of Ecuador, and we feel grateful to have shared that time with them. Our heart goes out to Nancy, Lars' brother Suren, and to all those who are touched by Lars' life and passing.
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One of the really cool things about Bonaire is the abundant sea life living on the reef that rings the entire island. Marine life is thriving here due to the creation of the Bonaire National Marine Park back in 1979, protecting the waters of Bonaire from the destruction many other islands in the Eastern Caribbean islands have faced. Anchoring is not allowed anywhere on Bonaire, as anchors can ravage coral beds if not carefully placed. Instead, all boats must be kept on designated moorings. Snorkelers and divers cannot wear gloves, as touching coral can also do damage the reef, and dive sites are monitored and temporarily removed from public dive maps if they appear to be suffering from "overuse". These and other rules make Bonaire one of the top diving spots in the Caribbean.
So today, after puzzling a bit over how to put our gear together, we jumped off the boat, dropped down about 40 feet, and explored the abundant sea life below. We saw all sorts of cool and unusual fish, like the "scrawled filefish" pictured above, an "odd-shaped swimmer", according to our fish book. We also saw a bunch of the fish from the "big lips, large bodies" section of the book...although I think the fishes might object to that description. But, by far, the coolest encounter of the day was the sighting of 2 octopusses - make that octopi - toward the end of our dive. Louis initially spotted them - he always points out cool stuff that I've somehow missed. (I'm about as observant underwater as I am walking past the full garbage cans at home that need to be taken out....I swear, I just don't see stuff!) Anyway, we watched them slither along the bottom and then saw their bodies morph from long, tubular (man) bodies to the blobby, gangly things we all know as octopuses. Or octopi. Whatever they're called, they were very cool!
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Louis woke up this morning up eager to get word of our part. He looked around for the cell phone and, having no luck, nudged me awake. "Do you know where the phone is", he asks, a bit of tension in his voice. I grumpily tell him I have no idea, more concerned with finding a cup of coffee than the cell phone. But, as I adjust to a state of awakeness, I realized that, as Louis suspected, I had left the phone at the video store the night before. And they don't open until 4:30 this afternon. Ooops. The word "pendejo" comes to mind! (Other words come to Louis' mind, no doubt!)
The rest of the day is a cacophony of mishaps: we place a call from the boat via our computer to Eric, the hydraulic guy, but we're cut off mid-call due to Skype's bad connection. Then the computer crashes. Meanwhile, minutes on our internet card tick away. The computer slowly re-boots, but the card is now expired! We head to town to see if we can get the part locally; alas, the parts store is closed for lunch. We can't reach Eric, so we place a call from town to a neighboring island to order the part from there. They can't hear me well enough to take down the info, and their internet is down so I can't email them the order. With the fedex deadline minutes away, I sprint down the waterfront to use the internet-phone service on the other side of town and place the order...let's hope it's in time.
We try to send an email to Erik so he doesn't order a duplicate part, but realize his email address is back on the boat. So....back to boat to call Erik using our phone card. Ooops...we forgot to close the hatches when we left. It rained into the boat and, of course, the phone cards are sitting in one of the 2 spots that got wet. Bummer. Wouldn't you know it - scratch off codes don't scratch off when they're wet! Luckily we bought more internet cards when we were in town, so we reach Erik via Skype and let him know the part is ordered.
Thinking our crap-o day is behind us, we go for a swim and then into town for a drink and dinner. On the way to town, the submerged line of a fishing boat gets caught in the prop of the dinghy. Louis untangles the line, but when we get to the dock it starts to rain. We realize we forgot to close the hatches (again!...Pendejos!), so, it's back to the boat to close the hatches. After dinner on shore I go to the video store because, while there was someone there this afternoon who kindly gave me our cell phone back, they weren't techincally "open" yet, so they couldn't take the video back. Go figure. Anyway, I walk to the video store, but, you guessed it - now they're closed and I'll owe a late fee. I think this "sorry, we're closed and have no drop box" policy is the key to their profitability!
To complete our wonderful day, when we get back to the boat I try to connect to the internet to finish some business from this afternoon. But the 6-hour internet card we just purchased has now expired with only 20 minutes of use.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.
Now we know why cruisers drink so much...and here we thought it was because they had so much leisure time!
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The anchorage got quite a bit rollier in the middle of the night, and we both woke up feeling a bit pukey. We were off to Bonaire by 9:00am with TWO flocks of pink flamingos flying by us as we motored east, and later, a few dolphins surfed in our bow wake! Looks like everyone's headed to Bonaire!
We motor-sailed east for 4 hours with the main reefed so as not to put too much stress on our jury-rigged backstay. Heading into the town of Kralendijk we saw many familiar faces: there's Miss Charlotte (Tony and Hilary who we met here last year and later visited in Italy), Meow (the couple we "showered with" in our "Strange Sightings" entry); and Feisty, Cloud Nine and Sojourner (friends from the boatyard). It feels like old home week! We grabbed a mooring, checked in at Customs, and stopped by the "cruiser happy hour" where we ran into Bob and Barbara, the previous owners of Scappatella (then Enkidu). Bonaire seems like a good place to be "stuck" as we wait for our part.
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The dawn of a new day, and still no word from our hydraulic guy. With no way to call out, I decide to swim around to the boats anchored at Klein Curacao, hoping to beg a few minutes of air time on a neighbor's cell phone. I was in luck! The boat next to us has a cell phone, knows the guy we're looking for (Erik), and speaks Dutch, to boot! He places the call for us, we speak to Erik, and are assured we can continue on to Bonaire and he can help us from there. Yahoo!!
While sitting on our neighbor's boat a beautiful flock of pink flamingos flies by, and later we see a big ol' turtle swimming by Scappatella...what great omens! The sun sets and leaves behind a dusty pink and blue sky in its wake. Things are looking up!
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03/03/2009, Klein Curacao
Sometimes the "bad news" is actually the "good news" in disguise. Huh? Well, yesterday Louis discovered a bunch of diesel on the aft deck. Strange...why the heck is our fuel leaking out? And from where? And how much diesel did we dump out on our sail over here (we have no accurate fuel gauge). Well, it turns out it's not diesel. In retrospect, a diesel leak would have been the "good news". The true bad news is that it's actually fluid from our hydraulic back-stay tensioner, which means we blew a seal. The backstay - along with the forestay and a few other stays - keep the mast from flopping around. With a blown seal, we can't adequately tension the mast. Imagine sailing in 20-knot winds for 5 days with a floppy mast! At best, we'd create undue stress on our rigging. At worst...well, let's not go there.
Unfortunately, to fix the tensioner we need a particular part (the gasket) and someone who services hydraulics. So, that likely means back to - you guessed it - the recirculating eddy of Curacao Marine, aka "Velcro Harbor". Nooooooooooooooo!!!! We did come up with a "plan B", which is to go on to Bonaire and send our part back to Curacao to be fixed. At least then we'd be hanging out somewhere fun, with beautiful diving and an incredible Italian restaurant! To see if our plan B would work, Louis picked up the cell phone to call Eric, the hydraulic/engine/tranny/prop guy in Curacao (we know him well by now!), and actually got a signal! But just as he was about to relay our part number to Eric, we ran out of time on the cell phone. Unfortunately Eric didn't think to call us back. Bummer.....
So we jotted off a quick email to Eric and here we sit, waiting for him to hopefully check his email and call us. Or email us. Or something, so we can decide whether to return to Curacao (waaah) or go to Bonaire. Meanwhile, we're hanging in the pretty, but rolly, anchorage of Klein Curacao.
Stay tuned...
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03/02/2009, Klein Curacao
We finally made it! We've left Curacao and are now at "Klein Curacao" (that means "Little Curacao"). Yahoo!! Ok, so we're only 20 miles from Curacao and can see it in the distance, but still..it's progress! We left Monday morning around 9:00am and got here about 5:00pm. What we thought was going to be a 4 to 5 hour trip took us closer to 8. I could walk 20 miles faster than that! But it is good to have left the boatyard finally. I was jumping up and down in the cockpit as we sailed by the picturesque little Dutch town of Willemstad on our way out of the harbor...it felt exhilarating just to be going somewhere!
We tried out our new sails and got Scappatella cruising along at 7 - 8+ knots beating into the wind, and that was without spending much time trimming the sails! It will be fun to see what we can get out of them when we have more energy. We went way out of our way tacking (as Klein Curacao lay directly into the wind from where we started) but eventually just decided to motor into the wind so we could get here before dark. We both took seasick meds, but I was still a bit nauseas and VERY tired. I slept almost the whole way. That's definitely the worst part of this whole adventure for both of us: feeling sick, having to take meds, and, for me, being so tired and lethargic from them. They don't affect Louis as much; probably being bigger helps. Maybe I just need to eat more?
Anyway, we're here and it's a picturesque little Caribbean island. We watched our 1st sunset last night, had a bite to eat, and then went straight to bed. We both slept for 12 hours straight! I guess we're a bit tired :
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If you speak even a little Spanish you're probably familiar with the word "pendejo". It can be used in that friendly, guy-insulting-guy way as in, "Hey, Pendejo, how's it going?" Or, it could be directed at someone who just did something really stupid, like backing out of their parking space without looking and almost running you over...."you stupid Pendejo (kind of redundant, but you get the jist).
Well, last year during our very fun visit with Dave and Lilka aboard Scappatella, we had an unforgettable "pendejo" moment. We had left our favorite little bar in Culebra, Mamacita's, and were riding back in the dinghy at night, with no light. I briefly saw something in the water and yelled, "hey, what the...". This was immediately followed by a loud CRUNCH and then several "Oh Shit's". We had run the dinghy aground, right into the rocks off of Point Something-or-Other. I can't remember what the official name of the point was, but after that experience we all jokingly referred to it as "Punta Pendejo". Louis, being the Captain of the dinghy that evening, was the object of that affectionate but insulting term, loosely translated to "Point of the Stupid Idiot Driving the Dinghy"....although, as Lilka pointed out, we were all the "pendejos" that evening! Since then, Punta Pendejo has become a sort-of code phrase among the four of us to describe something really stupid one or the other has done.
Well, a few nights ago we were at a farewell party for our Venezuelan friend, Julio, who's finally leaving Curacao after 3 months, 14 days, and 6 hours. (He had a rough time in the yard). Anyway, a friend Moss asks about the use of the word "Pendejo". She was told it meant pubic hair, and wanted confirmation of its meaning. (us yachties have many such high-falutin' conversations). She was immediately corrected by several people who threw around other meanings like "asshole", "stupid idiot", and "dumb-ass". Louis hears all of these definitions and looks up at me with disbelief in his eyes. "Pendejo?" he says softly. "No....not pendejo....that means dangerous, doesn't it?"
I just about spewed my wine all over the cockpit, I began laughing so hard! It seems Louis had conveniently forgotten the meaning of "pendejo" that Lilka had clearly explained in the dinghy - "No, it's not just an idiot...more like a STUPID idiot" - and apparently confused it with the word "peligro", meaning "danger". So all this time "Punta Pendejo" has meant "Dangerous Point" to Louis, instead of "Point of the Stupid Idiot"!
Amazing what the mind is capable of!
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