Cousins

We are on our way to Columbia. We had a wonderful week with Mark and Lucy. It is amazing how family traits appear in cousins who were not raised together. Lucy has a healthy appetite that I have observed in most Langes. They love games and are good at them, Lucy is a fierce Scrabble player and the Ipad got a workout while she was here. Mark joined in the games in the evening, they taught us "chicken feet" a game with Dominoes which Barry enjoyed.  We also played some hotly contested games of dice, I wonder how many countries we have played that game in. 

One day we dinghied over to the island that we had seen the boat loads of people going back and forth to. We walked about 500 meters through the mangroves and discovered a resort beach.  On the leeward side of Aruba they had made some protected beaches, there were large sea water areas which had big boulders enclosing a swimming area. None of us had brought our cameras but the next day we sailed past it and took a shot. There was a couple of bars and a workout area as well as a beach tennis court. We felt like real tourists as we lounged on the chaises after a cocktail and a swim.  There were some gorgeous blue lizards as well as large green iguanas. We saw some flamingos that you could feed but by the time we came back and bought some food they had been put to bed for the night. 

The next day we motored about five miles south on the inside of the resort island, past the airport and the smelly , burning garbage dump to a great snorkelling spot.  Lucy, Mark and I jumped off the boat and saw some lovely coral and some great fish, meanwhile Barry was tending to the boat as we were unable to anchor in the coral. We tried to get in the southern entrance but it looked a little dicey so we sailed back to the airport anchorage for lunch. That evening Lucy and I made pizzas proving to Barry that our galley really is a two person galley. 

Here we are mid assembly, the finished pictures are on Mark's camera. It was wonderful to have some company aboard. We enjoyed the conversations, the sharing of family stories and our guests enthusiasm. Barry has never been very keen to have people on board, he feels the boat is too small and he values his privacy. The four of us get along well together and there was space to have a bit of quiet time if needed. We also managed to get through the week without opening the door to the head on anyone. 

The day Lucy and Mark checked into their timeshare we all took a taxi there. They got a lovely suite on the quiet, sunny side of the building, I had a jacuzzi tub and a shower using more water than all of us had used all week, what a luxury. We did our laundry, then Mark and Lucy treated us to a delicious dinner in the complex. We visited the casino later and managed to come out $2.25 ahead using our tried and true method of quitting while we were ahead.  It was a great spot and it would have been fun to visit and play bocce ball or ping pong but Columbia and Panama are calling so we left this morning. 

Aruba

Barry's first cousins n Lucy and her husband Mark are on board with us. They arrived last Thursday and we have been having a great visit ever since.  We anchored at the north end of the airport and the day they arrived we walked the half hour to the airport to meet them. It is a very busy anchorage with planes coming and going all day.  We have seen two planes pull up on final approach and flyby to return for another pass a few minutes later. There is also an island just to the southwest of us where tourist go to snorkel, zip line and eat and drink.  It is very busy at the end of the day with the boats taking the tourists back to the cruise ships. 

Lucy and Mark have been busy with their camera so we have not taken many shots ourselves. The day fester they arrived we sailed up to the north end of the island, about seven miles away and snorkelled on a wreck up there.  The marine life is not nearly as varied as it was in Bonaire. Mark and Lucy enjoyed the R and R and soaked up the heat and the sunshine.  Yesterday we took a taxi to the grocery store and when we returned there was not much room left in the dinghy so Barry took the supplies onboard while Lucy and I went for a walk down the beach. Barry had the inspired idea of having a picnic ashore so we had BBQ'd chicken with the trimmings on the beach and then went for a swim afterwards. 

Our good friends Jeremy and Kathy on Sal Darago showed up shortly after we returned to the boat. We knew they were n the area but did not think they would show up until today. Sundowners were consumed by all and the stories of four old salts flew around the cockpit. Jeremy and Cathy are on their way to San Francisco to visit their son who is living and working there.  

Lucy and Mark will be onboard until Friday when they have a timeshare. They have promised that we can come and have a big long hot shower once they are moved in.  I guess our new bigger shower bowl just does not cut the mustard. We will be heading to Columbia once we have a good weather window. 

Curaçao

We are currently resident in the lagoon called Spaanse Water in Curaçao. It is a lovely protected anchorage, which is a good thing because the wind just howls most of the time.  We had to enter through a narrow passage way from the ocean and then it opened up into an amoeba shaped lagoon which has numerous shallow spots.  There are four different area for boats to anchor so there is lots of room.  During the day, wind surfers and sailors on little sunfish shoot around the area having a whale of a time and provided much viewing pleasure for us.  

The downtown area is a World Unesco Site so all the old buildings are protected and they are painted these beautiful lively colours.  The main harbour divides the island almost in two and the first bridge is a floating footbridge. When tankers come in the footbridge opens , it has it 's own locomoti n built into th end of the bridge. 

In the top picture the bridge is halfway open and the operator of the bridge is in the little hut at the end.  I was surprised to see that they allow pedestrians to be on the bridge when they open it.  If you are on the bridge you have to wait for it to open, a tanker to go through and then for the bridge to close before getting off. They are very civilized though and offer a free ferry service but as soon as the bridge has reconnected itself the ferry service stops and you have to walk around.  We saw this all the first day we arrived when we found Customs is on one side of the harbour and Immigration is on the other. The Immigration office is hidden away in the commercial port and you have to get written permission to enter the port and then walk past a site where they are fixing the big piers, they are welding and using big equipment to repair the docks and we had to wander past all the workers. Usually Customs and Immigration are located quite close to one another, this was truly strange. 

Yesterday we went to the north part of the island and visited a Marine Education Centre.  The former King of Holland was very interested in marine ecology and gave a bequest to Foundation here is Curaçao. They have used the money to establish a research centre for studying the life on the coral reefs and how pollution and global warming has effected the coral reefs.  They have perfected a way in which they can regenerate coral and encourage new growth in areas that die.  They also had a interesting display about sharks . To get to the centre we had to take a bus downtown, which only comes once an hour, then go across the bridge, find the bus station for the northern half of the country and take another bus.  I wanted to go and visit a big national park which is almost on the northern tip of the country but cannot face the buses again.  The bus that goes to the national park only runs once every two hours, I am sure that W would spend a good part of the day waiting on benches in the hot sun, so I think I will explore the lagoon in my dinghy today. 

We are heade to Aruba on Monday nights get.  It is close to 70 nm so rather than try and do it during daylight holidays hours we will leave here at dusk on Monday and arrive in Aruba on the morn no on Tuesday. 

Touring the island

We took a tour of Bonaire the other day, and I discovered one of the reasons we feel so at home here. There are only 18,000 people on the whole island, just the size of Yellowknife. The population swells every day when the cruise ship docks sometimes there are even two. Bonaire is all about diving with the Marine Park surrounding the island. There is a dive shop on almost every corner and the dive boats head out twice daily. Since the island is steep to, you can walk in the water off the shore to the dive spots around the island.  There are yellow painted rocks along the shore line to let the divers know where the good spots are. We spotted this sign near a popular dive spot and our driver informed us that divers are so anxious to get in the after they often don't look both ways before crossing the street. 

There is a flamingo sanctuary on the island and we were lucky to get some pictures of the ones that were close to shore. These flamingoes are really pink, the algae and the shrimp here must be really colourful. At the south end of the island there is a salt mine , the water is collected in pans and it is gradually evaporated leaving the salt to be harvested. The pans that partially evaporated water have a pinkish hue caused by the same algae that makes the flamingoes such a gorgeous colour. 

The only other town on the island besides the capital Kralendijk, is Rincon. It is located in a valley where in the past the residences were hidden from the Pirates and safe from the big winds which can assault the island. Slavery exist d here until 863, and the slaves worked out N the salt mines and N the plantations near Rincon.  The slaves had to walk eight to nine hours from the salt mines to their homes in Rincon, they worked five days on and two days off and during those two days had to walk home and back. There was a stop in Rincon where you could taste Cactus liqueur. An enterprising Dutchman  has been brewing this as well as a different liqueur for each Dutch Island in the Caribbean. 

A slave house with the yellow rock indicating a dive site close by. 

 The former slave houses have been rebuilt to provide a reminder of what conditions were like 150 years ago. These small houses were built by the Dutch, once slavery became unpopular, to prove that they were treating their slaves well. These small dwellings were sleeping quarters for four adult men. Once slavery was abolished the slaves were given some land to farm, but the conditions for growing anything on the island are very poor. The soil is nonexistent on this island of coral and limestone. Eons ago the water level was higher as evidenced by this former coast line about two meters above the present one. 

We learned a lot about the flora and fauna on the island.  One of the local culinary specialities is iguana soup. The first inhabitants lived here in 1400 BC and they used everything that was available . The thorns of the acacia trees were used as nails and the insides of the tall cacti were used for rope. There are mesquite trees which are still being used to make charcoal. There are mostly small scrubby trees and bushes that make up the vegetation on the island.  

The Spaniards introduced goats and donkeys to the island and they are running wild all over the island now.  There are lots of lovely birds here and I was happy to see a hummingbird this afternoon. 

We have been on five dives since we arrived. The first was with the dive company and they took us to the salt mine pier.  The long pillars that were sunk for the dock projected up through the water and it felt like I wa in outer space.  There were fish above and below us and the coral attached to the pillars was unusual and different. We saw a barracuda there that was larger than Barry!  We took our first dives on our own , taking the dinghy to four different dive spots.  The first day we had all the gear plus four tanks and we found the dinghy was just too small, so the next day we did a dive in the morning, went back to the boat for lunch and exchanged tanks then did the second dive later in the day.  It was really special to be on our own, exploring underwater sites, we saw some spotted eagle rays gliding by and I had my Caribbean Reef Fish guide out trying to identify some of the unusual species we saw.  

Yesterday we rented bicycles and made our way down to a protected inland lake at the south east corner of the island.  The ocean waves crash on a protective reef so the shallow spot makes it perfect for wind surfing.  Apparently Bonaire has some of the top wind surfers in the world and we were impressed by one fellow who was attempting and completing 540 degree turns, a full 360 followed by a 180 so we went in the opposite direction that he came from, impressive. We will probably head for Curaçao on Monday. 

An effective fence!