Tuning into the weather yesterday morning, we received confirmation that the huge north swell which has been talked about for days has begun. As the swell builds and waves begin to break over the reef, our anchorage will likely morph into an uncomfortable, confused bay. We decide to depart at dawn for Los Roques, Venezuela, an 8 or 9 hour upwind trip.
So, I may have said that the sport of sailing has never been what's drawn me to this lifestyle. It's always been about the exploration and adventure for me; sailing as a sport in and of itself has not had much appeal. Part of this comes from its technical and mechanical nature, which I unfortunately have little aptitude for, and part is no doubt due to my ongoing battle with seasickness. (It's kind of hard to get excited about going sailing when you're either puking or drugged up on seasick meds!)
Well these past few days, the sailing has been incredibly FUN! Odd as it may sound, I think my favorite point of sail is heading upwind into big waves, the boat slamming down and spraying us with water as it crests one wave and then falls into the trough below. (Good thing, since most of our sailing seems to be upwind!) On the foredeck yesterday, I discovered a new "game": hanging onto the shrouds and jumping up into the air as we crest a big wave, my body suspended in midair as the boat falls away below me...it was truly exhilarating!
Today, we continued our eastward progress. As it was a short 12-mile trip, Louis and I decided to forego seasick meds (yes, he gets seasick too!) The waves were about 7' with the winds around 15 - 20 knots; we were heading upwind so we had to tack our way up to our destination. Again, the exhilaration of steering the boat up and over the waves overtook me, and involuntary yells of glee would come out of me as the boat would slam down a big wave or a particularly large wave would hit us, spray flying overhead.
Two very fun sails! And the best part? Neither of us puked - yahoo!
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We're finally "living the dream", anchored inside another incredibly beautiful barrier reef in Aves Borlavento, about 20 miles east of where we last wrote. A few hundred yards to our north is a very small, picturesque island: low-lying pinky-green grasses surrounded by a white sand beach, ringed by a small reef covered in turquoise-blue water. The wreck of an old fishing boat lies in the distance.
I snorkeled over to the island this afternoon to look for "sea treasures" to add to my little collection of shells & stuff, and to my delight discovered a small flock of nesting yellow-footed boobies in the grasses! (I sound like a real bird officianado saying that, don't I?) The baby boobies are quite young; some of them look as if they're only a week old. I walked up to one boobie who appeared to be sitting on her egg, but then I saw a little white ball of fuzz sticking out from under her. I plopped myself down on the thoughtfully placed viewing perch - a smooth driftwood log - and waited. A few moments later a little head peeped out, and then this gangly fuzzy white baby booby crawled out! Its wings were not yet fully formed and it was apparently quite hungry; it kept poking its mom's beak with its beak, looking for some food, I imagine. It was REALLY cute! I watched it for about 10 minutes, and then cruised around the rest of the island as far as I could without disturbing the boobies. There were baby boobies in all stages of development and, sadly, one dead little fuzzy white booby, lying there completely limp. A few boobies still appear to be sitting on their nests so hopefully we can go back tomorrow to see if any of these have hatched.
Update: Well, it's "tomorrow"; Louis and I dinghied back to the island today, camera and video-camera in tow (thank you Todd!). We didn't spot any recent hatchlings, but we were able to get a good view of a boobie egg as its Mom shifted around in her nest. It looks to be the size of a chicken egg, so I guess these little guys must be a bit older than I originally thought. And, a miracle has occurred: the little limp dead boobie has been resurrected! I guess it wasn't dead, just tuckered out and, for some reason, temporarily abandoned by its mom.
We then dinghied out to the far reef to hunt up some dinner (got skunked), and later motored over to the tiniest little island we've ever been on. It was just a little spit of sand out in the middle of the bay. It took 96 steps to walk around the waterline of the island. I searched for one special shell to bring home to remind me of this incredible day and the miniature island, and there it was, lying in the sand: a tiny, beautiful hinged pinky-white shell.
What a perfect day!
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There are few places left in the Caribbean where it is still legal to spearfish; the Aves is one of them. Louis has been spearfishing since our sailing days in Mexico, but hasn't had much practice of late. He does have all the "right stuff", though: the hunting prowess, which he developed as a kid with his father and brothers in the rice fields of the Sacramento valley; a beautiful speargun his sweetie bought him one year for his birthday; and most importantly, an incredible set of lungs!
Spearfishing is typically done while free-diving, so you really need to develop some lung capacity to successfully hunt your prey while hanging out underwater. Louis is a natural. The other day I was down around 15 or 20 feet and up comes this apparition from way down deep on the reef. It's Louis, calmly kicking his way to the surface from the depths of 50 or so feet! And, recently, he made it down to 70 feet - a new record for him! I call him "Acqualung".
Anyway, this morning Louis decides to head out in search of dinner. The sea-life around here isn't exactly prolific, as much of the coral has been ravaged by storms, man, and global warming, I imagine. He's optimistic, but not overly. About 30 or 45 minutes later I hear him calling, "Sweetie", in an excited voice. I run up top as he's struggling to lift this whoppin' 20lb snapper-looking fish over the side! I excitedly get the camera and the fish book, and we identify him as a "mullet snapper". Here comes the Russian Roulette part...
As it says in "The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing": "The majority of tropical cruising grounds are rife with opportunity to poison oneself from eating fish". Great. The toxin we're worried about, Ciguatera, is well-known in the Caribbean and typically found in reef-dwelling "piscivorous fish" (that would be your fish-eating fish variety). Like Snappers. Bummer. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell if a fish is "ciguatoxic". The toxicity of fish varies from one region to another, so the best method is to talk with local fishermen to see what they're eating, and what they're not. But we're all alone here. We've seen Snapper on the menu in Bonaire, but is it "mullet snapper"? The fish book suggests, "one strategy, in the unlikely event you have an expendable mammal on board, is to feed it some fish first..." Fortunately, we left all the obnoxious barking dogs behind in Curacao so we're all out of expendable mammals. (Ok, so we won't win any Greenpeace awards with that comment!) Another strategy, the one we're considering, is to eat just a little bit of the fish and see if it makes us sick...
But we're not just talking about an upset stomach here. A mild case of ciguatera includes "abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, numbness, and tingling of the mouth and limbs within three to five hours following ingestion". Severe cases include all of those symptoms PLUS what's behind door number two: profound exhaustion (we just got over that!), muscle pain, feelings of loose and painful teeth, visual disturbances, slow reflexes, skin disorders, loss of hair and nails, reversal of hot and cold sensations, muscular paralysis, coma, and in some cases, death. Assuming you don't die from ciguatera, recovery can take months, with some symptoms continuing for years. WOAH.........
So, needless to say, the fish is currently sitting in the freezer...on hold until we get some local knowledge, or come across an expendable mammal. Wait...sshhhh.....is that barking I hear in the distance?
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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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