11/08/2008
Once again, we came back to Bonaire to swim in its beautiful crystal clear water. We are moored in 20 feet of water and see the wildlife swim underneat us. A spotted eagle ray and a moray eel are frequent visitors. After Mamie's departure, we waited a couple of days for some other friends to join us. Steve and Angie from Jasper flew in from Curacao, John and the boys go to pick them up. They walked across the street from the airport and jumped into the dinghy with all their luggage to get back to Tyee. I spent the afternoon in company of Derek ("Idyll Island" their boat named after an island off SaltSpring Island where we used to live) and Frank ("Anomos"). We had a dive off Klein Bonaire that was fantastic, the best that I had so far. Our agenda was quite full! We had to get ready for Halloween, we were invited at the chief customs officer's house for a party. The kids had a blast. Nydia and Eddy had organized a bunch of games for them, they were great hosts.
The following day, we then invited Eddy, Nydia and their son Ethan for a day sail around Bonaire. It was a gorgeous day and we stopped at Klein's beach for an afternoon swim on the way back.
We had to get back to Curacao for the haul out, so we headed for Klein Curacao. We spent 2 nights there. Steve and John had a blast with the kiteboards and I was quite happy snorkeling and chasing fish. Our holiday was coming to an end and it was a bit difficult to head back to civilization.
We had a great sail back to Spanish Waters, unfortunately the fishing was not so good. We anchored once again beside our Canadian friends "Meggie". We met with Steve and Angie's travelling buddies, Monica and Stu and organized a day sail for the next day, to go to Curacao Marine.
The next day, we left Spanish Waters with a full crew. It was like a day charter...John, the boys and I, Steve and Angie, Monica and Stu and Kylie and Mike from Meggie joined us to. We sail to Willemstad, Steve popped the cork out of a champagne bottle for Tyee's last voyage of the season. It was sad to tie up at the dock and wait for the tractor to pull us out but...another adventure awaits us back home.
Tyee is now at Curacao Marine until our return mid March.
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10/26/2008
We survive Omar and got ready to greet Mamie. We rented a car and decided to get some provisioning done before picking her up from the airport. She flew from Burlington to New York, to Aruba, to Curacao. After a long day, she was pretty happy to see us waiting for her. We went back to Spanish Waters and had a wonderful dinner at anchor. The next day, we went on a tour of the island. We drove to the northern tip, toured to the National Park and drove back to Willemstad. The following day was spend in town, sightseeing and shopping. We went back to the anchorage for a cocktail party with "Meggie" and "Cooee" and organized our departure for Klein Curacao and Bonaire.
Our sail to Klein was great, a bit bumpy, but nothing drugs can fix... Mamie had good sea legs and we were quite amazed by her. The last few miles as we approched Klein, we hooked 2 mahi mahis. John grabbed the rod and started reeling it in as I took care of the sails and boat. We told Theo to bring in the hand line but he said it was to hard and that is when we realized that there was a fish on that line as well. Theo not being strong enough to pull it in, let go and unfortunately we lost that one. We still had a great dinner with fresh fish.
The next day, we left for a long sail upwind to Bonaire. The weather was not all that great and we encountered a few squalls and lots of rain. We still made it there by late afternoon without anyone being sick. Mamie was a trooper, she took us out to dinner and we had a quiet night on a mooring.
The next day, again we rented a car and toured Bonaire. We saw the salt mines, the National Park and lots of flamingos.
A week goes by so quickly and I hope that next time Mamie can stay longer.
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10/15/2008
We arrived at Spanish Waters just in time to experience Omar. just as well because it was much better then in Bonaire. Or was it!
The waterfront in Bonaire got destroyed with waves crashing over the buildings. Most docks suffered major damages and some have totally disappeared. Fortunately all the boats on moorings are welcome in the marina when a storm comes along. Amazingly enough all the boats were crammed in and safely tied to the docks or other boats. Life on Bonaire is not quite the same but slowly they are cleaning up all the coral that has washed up on the beaches and waterfront. The underwater world will be affected for a long time as a lot of the coral is dying from the sand coverage suffocating it. Going diving after the storm was like waking up the morning after the first snowfall of the winter. Fortunately for Bonaire being such a dive mecca, a few of the sites were not affected by Omar and are still prestine.
Omar in Spanish Waters was quite a bit different. The anchorage is a perfect hurricane hole except that... how many boats can you fit in a confined area.
Spanish Waters is a large lagoon, big enough to accomodate hundreds of boats but the port authority restricts the anchorage to only a few areas where the holding is not very good. When the wind came up during the night, it always starts in the dark, it did not take long to have boats dodging each other including us. Our anchor did not hold and one minute we were in bed, the next we had the finger on the engine starter button and full throttle ahead avoiding a crash into a beautiful classic 80' sloop. Setting the anchor in the dark amongst many boats in the full monsooning rain is not much fun. Stomach cramps!!! We did not sleep much that night and we had the engines on. The morning came, the winds stayed. We dragged again...so we decided to move to a different part of the lagoon. The eastern part of Spanish Waters have mangroves and muddy bottom where we heard the holding was better. Along with 4 other boats, we set 2 anchors and waited it out. Two days later, and many gallons of water caught, the sky broke up and the sun was shining again.
Since we hadn't checked in the country yet, we moved back to the crowded area, the internet access and the proximity to the bus. We went to town to get legal.
Omar was gone!
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10/12/2008
I finally convinced John to take on Open Water Course so we can buddy up and go diving. He was quite lucky to have a one on one course with Carolyn from the Yellow Submarine and finished it in record time. Our first dive, we did with Derek from Idyll Island (named after Idle Island by SaltSpring...small world). He was great and patient with us. We went down to the "Cliff" a nice site with lots of corals and lots of different fish. We saw some big tarpons, any fish that big is quite impressive. The second dive, we did on our own. We went to a place we had gone snorkeling a few days prior. We saw a sea horse, a drum fish, lots of french angelfish, squirrelfish, and parrotfish. It was good, no problem with equalizing and buoyancy. Today we got out with Derek again and we will go check out a wreck site. Should be fun!
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10/01/2008
We left the Aves early right after breakfast and as always we put the fishing lines out. We organized the spinaker, the wind was light . About 2 miles out, John noticed that we had a fish on. Hurray! He got the gloves and started to pull it in. A tuna was the kids first guess but I was not so sure. Usually tunas dive down and you can't see them until they get close to the boat. Mahimahis fight like crazy and they keep jumping out of the water. This one was unusual...The closer it got we could make out the white skin on the bottom, and the black fins... then we could see that its mouth was on the bottom and not forward like most fish. Shark! I said but John did not want to believe until it got close enough and then what to do with it. We talked to "Meggie" and they had no idea. I had eating some shark steak at a restaurant before so I told John to keep it. He was not keen on bringing it on the boat until it was surely dead, so we dragged it for a while. Then John cleaned it and we had some beautiful shark steak for dinner.
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09/30/2008
I got up in the morning, Mom made a quick breakfast while I organized the snorkeling gear, 4 sets of fins, 4 snorkel and masks, gloves and weight belts. Papa filled up the gas for the dinghy. We zoomed out to the reef with "Meggie" another boat travelling with us. Mike and Papa had slings while Mom had a snare and Kylie and I share the other. A snare is a type of lasso hoop around the end of a fishing rod. Now we had to dive and look under each coral rock to see if we could find lobsters. The spears were better or easier tools but mom managed to get one with her snare. It was very exciting and we spend 6 hours in the water, we were quite pickled when we got back. We did it 2 days in a row and had a great sea pot luck dinner with "Meggie". I am becoming a better snorkeler and diver now and so is Theo.
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