I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Our Christmas started out like most Christmases do when you have an immature kid onboard. In this case, that immature kid was my mother, waking up early and putting on the Christmas music loud, lighting up the Christmas lights at six in the morning to illuminate the wrapped presents on the table waiting to be free of their packaging.
When Paul finally woke up we started off doing a little routine, with Paul opening one present first, then Mum, then me. Eventually we all got bored of this and started tearing off the paper to any present that had our names on.
In the afternoon, we had some friends from a couple of other boats arrive. They had dinner with us and we all played a game of Cranium together, boys vs. girls. The girls should have won, of course, but the boys clearly used a bristle (one of those historical "loaded" dice that show any number a thrower wanted - or colour, in this case) and got all the "fast tracks".
Before our game, we ate a beautiful, 100% vegetarian Christmas dinner, consisting of Mum's special nut roast, mashed and roast potatoes, a selection of vegetables including sprouts, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and glasses of bubbly. It was a wonderful evening of sitting and chatting, and eating Mum's delicious homemade mince pies that you'd pay a fortune for in Marks and Spenser's.
New Year's Eve was a little different. A few days before, we had been invited to our friends Liz and Rob's apartment for a few drinks and a banquet of nibbles. All the while, there were fireworks booming outside, clearly preparing for 12:00am, January 1st, 2017. Well, Sadie, Liz and Rob's small dog, did not like the fireworks one bit, shivering at every bang. This was why I was hired by Liz and Rob to spend the night with Sadie while they went out, so she could be comforted when the fireworks went off. That was my evening sorted.
On New Year's Eve, we hired a car and took it out for the day with Anna and Daniel from the boat Noomi, and Liz, Rob, Sadie and their close friend Brett. After picking up some food and fuel, we drove to a limestone beach. Walking on the bumpy rock made you think of the moon's surface.
Next, we went to see a few caves, one in which we saw bats, another in which we saw a hole that showed a specific star on a specific day (I can't remember which), and a third in which we saw red inscriptions printed on the limestone wall by the Arawak Indians around the 14th century.
Our final destination before heading back to the boat was the national park. We drove past hundreds and hundreds of cacti, seeing plenty of iguanas and lizards along the way. And we passed a couple of large lakes and saw beautiful flamingos wading gracefully through the shallow waters. We made a couple of stops throughout our visit in the national park: one at a freshwater spring, and one at a snorkelling beach. It had been hot all day, so it was heaven to go for a dip in the cool, refreshing water and see lots of beautiful fish and corals and marine plants, especially since we were in Bonaire, diver's paradise!
It was an all-around amazing day :)
For me and little Sadie in Liz and Rob's apartment, New Year's Eve evening wasn't exactly quiet. The fireworks exploded frequently, letting off a bang that made you nearly jump out of your skin even when you're expecting it.
Or is that just me? I'm not very good with sudden loud noises.
It was a relief after New Year's Day began after midnight and the fireworks started dying down. I think Sadie was glad about that, too.
The next evening was New Year's Day Dinghy Drift, organized by a few cruisers in Bonaire. It's where a bunch of dinghies are brought to a motor boat and tied up together. People bring their own dishes to share out with everyone, and after half an hour the dinghy attached to the motor boat is untied, setting all the dinghies adrift together.
Does that make sense? Please let me know if it doesn't!
When we first arrived in Bonaire on 6th December, we had planned to stay in Bonaire for a week. Yet here we still were. The date we left was 3rd January. From there, we set off on a three-day passage for Colombia. In the next week's blog, I'll start talking about the first mainland we've arrived in on boat in sixteen months, and the first country in South America.
See you then!