Our 450 mile sail to Bonaire was an enjoyable 3 days and nights of down wind sailing, using our new genoa pole. We enjoyed the company of our Swedish friends and feasted on Swedish foody items and tested out on Sweden's Hans Roslings' Factfulness questionnaire. Our only real concern was looking out for possible Venezuelan pirates. One evening we had a scare from an unidentifiable boat that seemed to be bearing down on us. We turned off all our lights and broadcast AIS system, and were thankful when the boat veered away into the distance.


As we neared Bonaire the light house, then the industrial mountains of salt, and clusters of kennel like old "slave houses" came into view. The coral coast line of Bonaire is fiercely maintained with a requirement to either check into the small marina or take a mooring ball. We had amazing luck in finding an empty mooring ball in a prime position on arrival.



Bonaire Arrival

We stayed in Bonaire for 2 weeks - and would happily have stayed longer - but for the need to press on to Curacao to pack the boat up for the season. We will remember Bonaire for some great days out with new friends. Highlights included our jeep trip into the national park, weaving amongst the giant cacti,


Bonaire Jeep Tour


pausing to watch the sea blowholes, spotting parrots and other brightly coloured birds in the scrub, and swimming/snorkelling off some beautiful beaches in turquoise seas and with wonderful coral and fish.


Bonaire Seascapes

Bonaire is a municipality of the Netherlands;-and whilst much of the culture is very Dutch-European, (so very different from our experiences of the last several months) with quality supermarkets, ice cream parlours (these were a memorable special treat for us - as ice cream was a very rare treat in the Windward Islands), and infrastructure, there is an flourishing culture running alongside that speaks Papiementu (a derivative of native Indian, African tribal (from slaves), Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English and French) - which we were able to get a flavour of at a cultural day held at the Islands' museum.

The salt industry is still important here and the tiny slave houses for the salt slave workers are an iconic reminder of bad days past. More happily, the salt, together with the many shallow lakes attracts in large populations of wonderful pink tinged flamingos.


Salt Industry

Bonaire has a great reputation for fabulous diving opportunities. Whilst I enjoyed just being able to jump off the stern of the boat with my snorkel and mask and look for parrot fish, stingrays and huge variety of other colourful fish species, Andy took advantage of his new PADI qualification and enjoyed diving with the local dive school and with friends.


Andy Diving off Bonaire

The only down side of Bonaire was the dusty wind that covered everything in fine sand. Our lovely white decks turned an immutable orange. A small price to pay for a fabulously fun fortnight.