The ABCs are the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, which lie 500 miles west of the Windward Islands, off the north coast of Venezuela. Until recently, the ABCs belonged to the Netherlands but they now have their independence and are three separate countries, although they retain strong ties with Holland. Venezuela is now a no go country and boats that stray too close are open to being boarded by pirates. Not long before Christmas, a catamaran anchored off a small island belonging to Venezuela, was boarded, resulting in a fight. The skipper managed to throw the man overboard, lift the anchor and motor into a rough sea, leaving the pirate boat behind. Other than Los Roques, a group of tiny islands and sandbars, which is extremely expensive to visit, working out at around US$850 for up to a week's stay, there is nowhere safe to land. Long passages are not my favourite part of sailing, so I wasn't particularly looking forward to making this 500 trip. If we managed 5.5 mph, it would take us 4 days and 4 nights to reach Bonaire. It takes me a good while to get into the rhythm of 3 hour watches, so I end up tired and irritable.
On Monday the 30th December, having checked the weather again, we decided to depart Bequia on New Year's Eve, meaning we would miss the festivities and fireworks. It was a shame but a smoother passage would be worth it. The forecast was favourable and waiting another day may mean we encountered strong winds and rain on approach to the ABCs. We filled up with diesel, petrol for the dinghy, provisioned for the final time and did the rounds to say our goodbyes to all the people we had met in Bequia. First stop was Rendez Vous bar, for a final beer with Maro and Tita. Having spoken to Chase, now in Curacao, who said the beer there was expensive, we went to the beer warehouse and purchased 48 bottles (2 crates) of Hairoun. John, of John and Darcie, was there, so we exchanged hugs with him. At 4pm, we headed to Open Deck, for happy hour, bidding farewell to Sam & Adrian, John, Nick and Debbie, before returning to the boat for a quick swim and a shower. Our final stop was Laura's for dinner, our favourite restaurant in Bequia and probably in the Caribbean. We had a glass of wine too many, enjoying sitting at the bar, chatting with the barman, waitress and the owner, before saying bye. On the dinghy dock, outside the Plantation, we encountered an English couple who couldn't get their engine started, so we towed the back to their boat. Back at Muirgen, I climbed out of the dinghy before a large swell came side on, tipping Pete backwards into the sea. He climbed out via the swim ladder and then promptly fell in again while retrieving our waterproof bag. Apparently, it was all my fault! We set the alarm and went to bed, sleeping the sleep of the just (or the slightly drunk).
Customs and Immigration open at 8.30am, so we were in town by 0815 to clear out. I left Pete in the short queue and went to dispose of the rubbish. When I returned, the grills were up but the desks weren't open. A French skipper was complaining, so the staff turned away and carried on chatting, delaying opening for another 5 minutes. By 9am we were done and returned to the boat to lift and secure the dinghy and engine and complete our preparations for departure. At 0948 hours we started the engine, then lifted the anchor and motored out of the anchorage, passing by Nessa V to wave goodbye to Sara and Nigel. Bang on 10am, the foresail was out and the engine was switched off. Once we cleared the headlands of Bequia, the swell settled down and we had a pleasant, downwind sail for 3 hours, with 14 to 16 knots of wind from the ENE and averaged 6mph. The weather was partly cloudy, so it wasn't too hot either. The wind started to drop and come directly behind us, so we poled out the gib on the port side and raised the cruising shute on the starboard side for a few hours. Just before dark, we snubbed the cruising shute and removed the whisker pole from the gib, as we were going to need to motor for a while to keep the speed up and the batteries charged. The wind turbine is less effective when sailing downwind, especially in light airs and the solar panels don't operate so well with cloud. The you have to factor in the increased hours of darkness, at this latitude, compared to the UK and Europe. Unfortunately, while rolling away the gib, Pete caught his best Italian Dematsu watch on the guardrail and it popped off and into the 2800 metre deep water. We now picture a giant octopus trying to remember which tentacle he is wearing it on.
We settled into a routine of eating samosas for lunch, pork in some form or other for dinner, Callilou soup during the night and anything we could grab for breakfast, interspersed with hard boiled eggs or ginger biscuits for snacks. Pete had a couple of small beers each day, while I had a G&T before going to bed, ahead of my first watch. We had agreed that I would do my night watches from 10pm to 1pm and then 4am to 7am, as I wanted to see the sun rise, so I went to bed at around 8pm, to try and catch forty winks. With a rolling sea, the swell having picked up and the engine on, I didn't do more then rest my eyes and I was up and ready for my watch at 2140 hours. We turned the engine off and deployed the gib before Pete went to bed. We had a bottle of prosecco in the fridge, as it was New Year's Eve but decided that the conditions weren't appropriate for drinking it at midnight. My first night watch was uneventful. There was no moon but I could determine the horizon in all directions, except behind me, as there was light pollution from Grenada to the south, which reflected off the clouds. Every 15 minutes, I completed a 360 degree check for navigation lights on other vessels but saw nothing at all. Pete took over at 1am, we said 'happy new year' and after filling in the log book, I went to bed, where I dozed on and off. Pete left me in bed for an extra 90 minutes, as he said I was actually asleep at 4am. A bit earlier, he had come down below to investigate a bang, followed by strange noises. He thought something had fallen onto the floor and put his hand out to feel around. He was surprised to come into contact with a wriggling, flying fish which had evidently managed to fly in through the starboard side window, hit the cupboard opposite and land on the galley floor. I must have been sleeping as I missed this event. I am glad the fish didn't come from a slightly different direction, or it would have been with me in my bunk.
I didn't really see the sun rise on New Year's Day, as it was hidden by low cloud but at least it started to get daylight early in my watch. I left Pete to sleep for as long as he liked. At 0825 an oil tanker appeared on the horizon and on AIS, name of Montestina, heading to Vejot. I put on our AIS transmitter, previously switched off so we couldn't be seen by pirates but I wanted this ship to know we were there. It was the first ship we had seen and it passed behind us, almost a mile away, heading south. I pointed it out to Pete when he surfaced half an hour later. Our speed had dropped overnight but the winds freshened with the rising sun and we were soon up to 6.5 mph. After 24 hours, we had covered 135.2 miles, averaging 5.63 mph, so we were on schedule so far.
I hadn't been in bed long when Pete called me up to the cockpit as we had dolphins alongside the boat, which is always a magical experience. They like to play in the bow wave but we weren't going fast enough so they soon lost interest. They returned again about 45 minutes later, just for a few minutes. Other than that, day 2 was uneventful, with no ships and no surprises until we put the engine on in the early evening. It ran for a short while and then the overheating alarm went off. Pete checked the engine while I kept watch. Clouds of dark steam came out of the engine box when he removed the companionway stairs and there was antifreeze in the bilge. He topped it up and ran the engine, in neutral, on low revs so the fan would cool the engine down. When he was happy, we started to motorsail again, just for an hour, touching speeds of 7.8 mph. I went to bed. Suddenly, Pete came down below and said, 'We have company' and he turned off our navigation lights and proceeded to watch the other vessel through the binoculars. It wasn't yet close enough to be picked up by AIS. I went up to the cockpit, concerned at the potential danger. As the vessel came closer, we could see lighted windows but these were obscuring the navigation lights. Eventually I determined that it was either a small cruise ship or a large private motor yacht, so I put our navigation lights back on, along with the AIS transmitter, until the ship had passed. At 10pm, when I came on watch, we brought in the sail and put the engine back on, as the voltage in the batteries was dropping again. Pete pointed out that we had a feathered friend catching a ride on the solar panels. Tonight, I had the smallest slither of a new moon. Under engine and with a big following sea, I felt like I was on a rollercoaster, as did the bird, which eventually fell off with a disgruntled croak. It tried to land again but couldn't. Its underbelly glowed white in the light from our stern light and it was quite a large bird. As it flew low, I could see it was dark coloured on the upper side of its wings, so it was probably a booby. During my watch, I had up to 3 boobies landing on the spreaders and then a pair of terns landed on the A frame. One slid off and ended up hanging onto the backstay and all the while they chattered to each other, or was it to me? I had an on and off conversation with them, which passed some of the time. It can get lonely, doing a 3 hour watch, alone in the dark. At 1am, Pete came on watch and I handed over the relationship with the terns. Back on my watch, we put out the gib again to sail. The birds had all left us, having taken their rest. The wind and swell was building and around 6am I registered 9.9 mph, speed over the ground (SOG), as we surfed down a big roller and at 0630 we were hit by a squally shower, which was mercifully short. At just before 7.30am, we had to gibe the foresail, putting the sail on the starboard side, as we were pointing too high, with the wind coming round to the ESE. Usually we would be slower with the sail on this side but the wind gradually picked up to 20 mph and our speed increased with it.
By 1000 hours, with 48 hours of the passage completed, we had covered 290.3 miles, an average of 6mph, so we were comfortably ahead of schedule. If we maintained this average, we would arrive 8 hours early, in the dark. However, it was too soon to think about slowing down, with another 200 miles to cover. We were aiming for Curacao but had the option to stop in at Bonaire, 30 or so miles closer and pick up a mooring buoy, if we were early. We might even manage that in the dark.
Day 3 was a day with stronger winds and bigger seas and we were sailing at 7.2 to 7.6 mph and were getting excited about the small possibility of arriving in Bonaire on day 4, even if it was in the dark. We needed to maintain our speed, . It was another uneventful day, with no sightings of ships or other sailboats, just endless, rolling waves, flying fish and mostly cloudy skies. Then, at 1915, just after starting the engine, the alarm went off again, as I was settling down in bed. I returned to the cockpit to keep watch while Pete investigated the engine issue. He topped up the coolant again. He could see that the water from the inlet valve wasn't moving i.e. it wasn't travelling through the system. Perhaps there was a blockage in the inlet pipe. There was no way that Pete could go over the side and under the boat, with mask and snorkel to check, as it was dark and the waves were running at around 3 metres. Pete closed the valve and disconnected the hose to the engine and cut a piece of hose to back-pressure the filter, to try to blow out whatever might be blocking the pipe. Pete put his mouth over the pipe to blow, while I opened the valve and then quickly closed it again when he ran out of puff. We repeated the exercise several time, before reconnecting the hoses. The chamber filled with water but it still wasn't moving. The batteries were too low to continue to run the autohelm, so we would need to steer the boat manually all night, taking an hour at a time each. It would be stressful and tiring, with such big waves behind us and sailing at over 7mph. Pete would go first as it was his watch, so I returned to my bunk. I was hyped up on adrenalin, so wasn't going to be able to sleep. 20 minutes later, as I lay overthinking the issue, Pete had a Eureka moment; could it be the impeller? Out of bed again, to assist. The engine was still hot, so care was needed to remove the metal cap and the o-ring from the impeller. We shone the head torch into the small space and 'bingo' the impeller was pretty much shredded. Pete cleaned out all the debris and used some washing up liquid to help push the new impeller into place, followed by the o-ring, then the cap. I went to start the engine, on low revs initially and then up to 1600 rpm and everything was fine. We were both very relieved. It was now 2030 hours and I hadn't had my rest, so we rescheduled the 3 hour watches to start now and I returned to my bunk. I still couldn't sleep, so at 11pm I took over the watch from Pete, turning off the engine, to sail. The moon was ever so slightly fuller tonight although well on its way to setting. The sky was clear and filled with a million stars and there was phosphorescence sparkling in the waves breaking against the side of the boat. It was absolutely beautiful; the best night sailing I have had. As I did my 360 degree lookouts, I saw many shooting stars, so I wished for no more untoward events in the remainder of our passage. Unfortunately I had to put the engine back on after an hour, which somewhat spoiled the experience. For the last 30 minutes of my watch, I turned the engine off, so I could have the beautiful peace before going to bed. At 2am I went down to fill in the log and Pete was gently snoring, so I returned to the cockpit for another 30 minutes. If only every night watch was like this one. Pete took over the watch at 0230 hours and I slept, at last. The boat wasn't rolling in the swell and there was no engine noise and I felt content. When I rose, the daylight was coming, although the sun hadn't risen. Pete said he had seen one ship and that there may also be a yacht or other small boat in the distance behind us. At 0750 hours, I spotted a sail on the horizon behind us but slightly to the south. It seemed to be slowly catching us but then turned north and slowly disappeared. We were slowing down, as the wind had dropped and Pete suggested poling out the gib and letting out the cruising shute. He was up on the foredeck and ready to go when I noticed that the dark clouds that had been more to the south were now coming up behind us, so we aborted the manoeuvre and Pete returned to the cockpit. Within minutes, the wind picked up, being pushed by the rain and at 10am we were hit by a torrential downpour and winds up to 30 mph. Pete stayed in the cockpit, under the sprayhood and I went below to keep dry. With the wind behind us, we had to put the washboards in and it became uncomfortably hot in the saloon. I was overheating and feeling light-headed. When the rain eased, I had to go up for air and it took a while to cool down and recover. The other yacht had presumably decided to head north to avoid the squall but it probably still caught it. At 10am, after 3 days of sailing, we had covered 450 miles and were well on course to arrive in Bonaire before dark, having decided to head straight there, via the south of the island, as we would definitely have arrived in Curacao under darkness. We had been continually gybing, as the wind was directly behind us and so we decided, at 1145 hours, to motorsail the remaining way to Bonaire. We could see land to the north but not the flat lands on the south of the island but eventually we could make out the light on the end. We could also see the other yacht, heading towards us from the north. The swell really picked up as we approached the end of the island and the depths changed rapidly from over 500m to 180 metres but it settled quickly as we came in shelter of the reefs by the kite-surfing area. It was time to have a shower and wash my hair and get the salt spray off. We slowed to let a catamaran pass and then ambled along while we showered in the cockpit. Once clean and dry, we rounded the southwest point and headed north towards Klein Bonaire and Kralendjik, where the mooring buoys are. We reefed the foresail, as we approached a wind line and then put the sail away as the Swedish yacht motored by. At 1615, we picked up a white buoy, just north of Pier Dos, a bar / restaurant that overlooks the sea. With everything switched off, Pete corked the bottle of prosecco and we celebrated the New Year and the end of our passage. We had covered 477.2 miles (in a straight line, so probably more like 500) in 76 hours, averaging 6.28mph. Then Peter, from Ocean Deva, who we had met last year, came over in his dinghy to tell us we were on a private mooring and needed to move to one of the moorings with 2 red and white buoys attached. Even with a glass of prosecco inside us, we managed it first time. We were so close to Pier Dos now that we could have shouted an order across the water. However, we were staying on the buoy overnight under the yellow flag, so could not go ashore. We finished the prosecco and had instant pasta carbonara for tea, sharing a bottle of red wine. It stayed light until 7pm, an hour later than in the Windies, which was lovely and then there were fireworks. At 8pm we went to bed and slept soundly all night. The boat barely rocked. About 0230 hours we could hear the Dutch singing drinking songs in a bar but it didn't keep us awake for long. At first light, we would be away to Curacao.