Wednesday, August 9, 2000
Kralendijk, Bonaire

So, you may wonder, what have we been up to for the past several weeks? We wonder the same about you! The lines are open.

We’ve seen a heck of a lot of Bonaire, both above and below the water. We’ve spent time with old friends, met new friends and enjoyed a ten day visit from our son, Randy, and his new wife, Karen. I’ve spent several days in air-conditioned comfort surfing the internet and setting up, then updating our new web site at http://communities.msn.com/TravelsofMaalahi. We went to the movie theater for the matinee one Sunday afternoon. The name of the movie escapes both of us now but it was entertaining and a nice diversion.

Bonaire is a generally very flat, arid desert island. Taking advantage of the “flat” part of this description we got the bicycles off the boat one day and took off to see what we could find. We knew we could get to the salt pans and slave huts just a few miles away and combine a little exercise with the possibility of sighting one of Bonaire’s many pink flamingos. We rode past the airport and made our way to the solar salt works. Bonaire has long harvested salt for commercial use from seawater, evaporated in a large series of shallow ponds or “pans”. It is an unusual sight to see the bright pink colored water against a backdrop of white salt mountains ready for processing. The water can actually be different colors depending on the stage of biological decay as the seawater evaporates.

It wasn’t long before we spotted a solitary flamingo wading through the water of a drainage ditch right beside the road. A little further down the road we came to the first group of slave huts. These are very tiny one-room concrete dwellings that were once used to house the slaves that labored in the salt works. Instead of turning around there to go back, as we originally planned, we decided to continue on for awhile. We spotted a couple more flamingos and the next group of slave huts. Claudia had read that there was a lighthouse on down the road a bit more and suggested that we go at least that far … and we did. However, by this time we had run out of water, it was the hottest part of the afternoon and we discovered that the nearest location of liquid refreshment would be found by continuing our circuitous route around the southern half of the island! And we did. There is a commercial establishment at a beach at Lac Bay where you can rent wind-surfers or swim in the shallow waters of the bay. We found the beach bar where we rehydrated with cold drinks and refilled our water bottles before pedaling our way back to Kralendijk. When we made it back to the boat I looked at a map and calculated that our cycling tour had covered 23 miles. Keep in mind that these bicycles of ours aren’t 18-speed mountain bikes but little, folding bikes … kinda like the ones that clowns ride in a circus! We decided that we’d better slow the pace down a bit and wait for Randy and Karen to arrive before we toured the rest of the island.

They arrived in Curacao on the afternoon of July 21 with tickets for the 9pm flight to Bonaire, but they would be on standby for either the 3pm or the 7pm flight. It was decided that if they made either of the earlier flights they should take a taxi from the airport to the “Green Submarine” dive shop. We are moored directly in front of it and we would be able to see their arrival and go collect them in the dinghy. If they had to take the later flight they were to have the taxi drop them at Karel’s Beach Bar (where the dinghy dock is) and we would meet them there (since it would be too dark to notice them at Green Submarine). Well, they didn’t show after either of the early flights so at 9:20 when we saw the plane from Curacao land, we headed over to Karel’s to wait. The first indication that this simple plan might not go smoothly was that it was Friday night. We’d never been to town on Friday night and quickly discovered that EVERYBODY goes to or cruises the strip in front of Karel’s on Friday night. Still, it shouldn’t be a problem because it’s a narrow one-way street and we can’t miss them getting out of a taxi with their luggage and all.

However, we waited and waited but they never came. Eleven o’clock came and we decided that we needed to call the airport. We crossed the street and asked about using the phone in one of the restaurants. A guy in there said that the last flight from Curacao had arrived over an hour ago and the airport is closed and that ALM airlines is not only notorious for losing luggage, they tend to lose passengers as well. If our guests hadn’t arrived by now we should come back tomorrow morning. I wasn’t ready to buy that yet. We decided that Claudia should go back to the boat and wait and I would take a taxi to the airport just to make sure they hadn’t got stranded
there or find someone there who knew what happened. My taxi driver said that there was also a flight that arrived at 11:20 and maybe they had been on that. If that was the case I was concerned that we’d be passing each other in different taxis since it was now about midnight. The airport was empty except for the security guards who confirmed that there was nobody left from that last flight. So back to Karel’s to look for them one more time but they still were not there. Assuming that for whatever reason they hadn’t made the flight from Curacao the only thing to do was go home and check email since that would be the only way Randy could communicate with us. I called Claudia on the handheld radio to come pick me up at the little dock not far from our boat, then started walking toward it. No sooner had I put the radio away than a van stopped in front of me. The door opened up and Randy stuck his head out and said “Hey, Dad!”. I quickly called Claudia back and let her know they had been found.

Turns out they had made the 7 pm flight but their luggage had not. They were told it would probably be on the 9 pm flight so they waited at the airport for it to show, which it didn’t. By the time they had waited for all the luggage to come off the plane and waited in line for a taxi, it was only another 15 minutes before the 11 pm flight arrived so they decided to wait for that one. Still no luggage, but at least we found them and finally got to meet Karen. Next morning I took them back to the airport in the dinghy (no problem in the daylight) and sure enough, their luggage had arrived.

The Venezuelan islands of Las Aves are about a 40 mile upwind trip from here. Randy had expressed an interest in going there for a few days. We had heard how clear the waters are and of the excellent fishing and snorkeling. We told them that it would be a long and uncomfortable trip going there, since we would be beating into the wind and waves, but the trip back would be faster and pleasant. We decided to give it a try and set sail early in the morning on the 25th. We had barely made it around the lee of Bonaire when poor Karen went green. She held the rail and made continuous contributions to the sea but still expressed to Randy her willingness to goon. I reminded Randy that it would still be another 10 to 12 hours to Las Aves and that we would find plenty to do in Bonaire so we all agreed
to turn around and go back, which we did.

It was decided that we should break Karen in to sailing a little easier with a day sail around the protected waters of Klein Bonaire, the tiny, flat, undeveloped island just across from Kralendijk and our mooring. Randy and I could even work in a couple of dives and make a whole day of it. We sailed to the dive mooring over the wreck of the “Hilma Hooker”, a merchant ship that was mysteriously and intentionally sunk awhile back after a cargo of marijuana was discovered aboard and confiscated. We were able to enter the ship and pass thru the hold from one end to the other. It makes a great dive. Claudia and I were reminded what fun sailing can be when you’re not
passage-making and have no particular place to go. Late in the afternoon we picked up another dive mooring and Randy and I made a 2nd dive. Bonaire is a diving Mecca. I’ve never seen so many different species of fish in one place.

Another must-do in Bonaire is a visit to the Washington/Slagbaai National Park. We rented a minivan and drove to the park at the north end of Bonaire. Before we even entered the park we saw our first large flock of pink flamingos; there would be more inside. Another thing we noticed immediately was all the cactus trees. Surely this must be Bonaire’s national tree! We spent the whole day here, driving slowly along the unpaved roads, stopping to get close-up views of the beautiful, rugged windward coast, feeding the multitude of lizards that scurried up to us looking for the expected handout, climbing to the top of an old, concrete lighthouse, snorkeling in the calm, clear water back on the leeward side after a picnic lunch on the beach at Slagbaai, and taking lots of pictures of the huge flocks of those strange, large, pink birds.

After we said good-bye to Randy and Karen I signed up for another week of internet access in order to upload more pictures and our newsletters to the web site. I took a break from that routine on Wednesday so that Claudia and I could take our new friends, Glenn and Iris (divers from Austin, Texas, here on a diving vacation), on a day sail around Klein Bonaire. (We’re trying to get all the “fun” sailing in that we can before we start beating our way across the coast of Venezuela next month!)

Our cruising friends, Bob and Kathy on “Briana”, asked us if we wanted to make a dive with them the next day. They wanted to show us the rare frog fish they had seen at a particular dive site. Claudia wanted to make the dive, too, so off we went Thursday afternoon. Claudia has long suffered from sinus problems that tend to make clearing her ears at depth difficult. This day was no exception. We descended slowly, came back up, tried again and again. We told Bob and Kathy to go on without us and we’d keep trying. We did make it to a depth of 55 feet but Claudia still had not been able to equalize the pressure in her ears. When I noticed her nose-bleed we aborted the dive. As far as the frog fish it was just as well, he had gone. It’s now a week later and Claudia’s ears have still not completely cleared back up but she’s noticed an improvement the past 2 days. I made another dive yesterday with Bob and Kathy at another site where Glenn and Iris had seen a frog fish the week before. Kathy had directions from someone to the location of a particular orange sponge where this 2-inch fish was reported to live. I didn’t know that I was looking at the wrong sponge but apparently the frog fish didn’t know either because it was there I found him, almost invisible in his orange camouflage. Bob took pictures with his underwater camera and I hope to be able to get one onto the web site so you can see what an unusual looking animal this is!

Looks like we’ll get to meet some more new friends tonight. As I was typing this there was a knock on the side of the boat. It was Lourae from “Pizazz”, a cruising sailboat with a couple on board that we’ve never met, inviting us over this evening for an hors d’oeuvres potluck with others in the anchorage. I’m sure a good time will be had by all.

We plan to leave Bonaire early next week and sail the 30+ downwind miles to Curacao where we’ll spend a few weeks before pointing east and beginning our windward passages to the Venezuelan islands.

Till next time,

David and Claudia
aboard “Ma’alahi”
8/10/2000