Our crossing to Bonaire was relatively straight forward with 15 to 20 knots of wind to give us a good downwind sail most of the way. We recommissioned the fishing rod. I'm not sure if we could describe it as successful or not. I bought some expensive lures before we left. My first 17 hole bubble trail was successful in catching something very tasty for supper but the knot tied to the hook let us down so we lost lure and fish. My next little bubble trail lure caught a huge Marlin, it was easily a meter long and was thrashing and leaping out of the water. There was no way we could have pulled him in but after a fight of no less of 30 seconds, if that,
he bit through the line. So in one day we lost £25 worth of lures! All we want is a meal on the table for two but alas it was not to be. Hopefully more luck next time.
We arrived in Bonaire after 73 hours so Skippers calculations were pretty good. We are on a mooring buoy along the seafront of Kralendijk (pronounced Crawlin-dike). It's an island belonging to the Netherlands so many Dutch living and working here but English widely spoken. Cruise ships are frequent visitors so the town centre is full of good restaurants and bars to while away the time. Our first few days were doing the formalities with customs and immigration and familiarising ourselves with the area.
Bonaire has been a marine conservation area for nearly 40 years so the island's waters are reputed to be one of the top 3 diving sites in the world.
The south of is flat and it was good to get the bikes out and explore the coastline a little to find a nice beach and snorkelling site. You can dive/snorkel virtually anywhere on the sheltered west side, the waters are beautifully clear and an abundance of fish, turtles and corals to see.
We hired a pick-up truck for three days as we particularly wanted to visit the Washington-Slagbaai National Park in the north.The park roads are dirt tracks winding their way through hilly cactus/tree forests, we now understood the need for a robust high vehicle truck. The National Park was definitely worth a visit, we managed to see the Caribbean Flamingo as well as other interesting wildlife.
Working donkeys were introduced to the island by the Spanish but by the 1930's they were abandoned and left to roam wild. Unfortunately with so many cars on the road donkeys are injured or killed or die through starvation that 25 years ago a Dutch couple dedicated their life to setting up a donkey sanctuary. We had to visit.
There are 700 donkeys in the sanctuary and as we drove through we were chased by what felt like all 700 looking for a carrot. I was afraid to get out of the truck at first but they were actually very gentle creatures. Just felt so sorry that our little bag of carrots couldn't feed them all. There are still over 400 donkeys in the wild, the sanctuary can't take them all but they do limit the breeding by castrating the males in their care.
Have a look at the gallery to see some of our photos, Bonaire is a lovely island and we have enjoyed our time here.