On Friday, June 21st,
we woke in the darkness, hoping to get an early start on the 400 mile sail from
Grenada to Bonaire. There is a
superstition among sailors that you should never begin a voyage on a Friday. We’re not superstitious, but after a rough
beginning to this passage, we began to reconsider.
It started when Andrew realized
that he hadn’t checked the fuel filter the night before. He went down to inspect it and found it was half
full of water. This happens occasionally
because the fuel tank vent hose runs into the cockpit in a less than ideal
spot. If a wave fills the cockpit while we
are heeled over hard to port, seawater can flow down the hose and into the tank. We drained the water, topped it up with
clean fuel, and started the engine.
We were running later than
planned when Andrew hoisted the main sail and untied the mooring lines. Careful not to foul the prop, we drifted for
a while, waiting to get clear of the mooring ball and lines before putting the
engine in gear. About thirty seconds
later, there was no sign of the mooring float, and we started looking around
the boat. It was nowhere to be seen,
meaning that it either disappeared in the middle of the night (we weren’t tied
directly to the mooring ball, but to the same line it was tied to) or it was
caught on something under the boat. The
only way to know for sure was to put on the mask and snorkel and get in the
water.
Di took a quick swim around the
boat and found no signs of the mooring float or any other lines, so we were finally
able to motor-sail out of the harbor.
The course out of Phare Bleu Bay was directly into the seas that
morning, so we pounded our way out. Once
clear of the reefs, we fell off onto a slightly more comfortable course just as
a small wave jumped over Saviah’s quarter and drenched us in the cockpit.
A few miles later, Di noticed the
engine RPM’s had declined with no adjustments to the throttle. This seemed strange, and ten minutes later,
the engine died altogether. Thankfully,
we were clear of all hazards and had enough wind to sail slowly. We surmised that the fuel filter was probably
clogged, so Andrew set about replacing it, but quickly realized that he forgot
to open the fuel supply lines after draining and filling up the filter earlier
that day. Should we just turn back, we
wondered.
This was a frustrating way to
start a passage, but a few miles off the coast of Grenada, the wind filled in
at 12 knots out of the NNE, and we sailed along with the main and genoa. The winds remained light for the first two
days, but we had a little boost from the current that helped us average 5.5
knots. Rather than steer a direct course
to Bonaire, we headed a bit further to the north. Over the last 20+ years there have been
countless attacks on cruisers and even local fishing boats by Venezuelan
pirates, so we decided to play it safe and put a few extra miles between us and
the coast of Venezuela.
Late on day three, the winds
picked up to 18 knots, gusting to 25. They
were right behind us, and we doused the main to sail with just the poled out
genoa. Around 11 pm that night, we got
the gust that finally finished off our favorite sail. The genoa ripped twice horizontally in the
middle of the sail all the way from luff to leach. Andrew was on watch and started pulling it
down, as Di rushed up on deck, still groggy from sleep. While it was flogging, it wrapped around the
spinnaker halyard and ended up in a tangled mess aloft. We had to let the spinnaker halyard fly to
get it off the furler. This worked to
get the genoa down, but then spinnaker halyard wrapped around something on the
top of the mast that we couldn’t see in the darkness of night. Until we sorted that out, we couldn’t hoist
our smaller jib, so we sailed with just a reefed main for the rest of the
evening.
This was the third sail we lost
in the last four months and the last of our big headsails that get Saviah
moving downwind in light to moderate winds.
We bought the sail second hand before leaving Seattle, and it got us
most of the way around the world, although we had to patch it countless times
and re-stitch most of the seams. Our
only other jib is small, heavy and flat, which is going to make for some slow
passages the rest of the way home.
Once the sun rose, we sorted out
the halyard and hoisted our small jib. A
few hours later, the low lying island of Bonaire was in our sights. We sailed around the south end of the island
and into the calm seas on the leeward east side. All of the waters around Bonaire are part of
a marine park, and no anchoring is permitted.
The park has installed forty mooring buoys along the main town and
capital of Kralendijk, where visiting yachts can overnight for a daily fee of
$10. We tied off to one of the mooring
buoys and jumped in the water to inspect it.
The water was incredibly clear,
and we were pleasantly surprised to find what appeared to be a very good
mooring system. There were three two-ton
concrete blocks held together with steel cables, and two independent nylon
lines connected to them. The concrete
blocks sit near the edge of a shallow shelf that stretches 50 yards from the
island and then drops off abruptly. When
we were swinging on the mooring, our bow was over water 20 feet deep and the
stern was over water 50 to 80 feet deep.
This steep wall was a haven for
fish, and it was all right under the boat.
Bonaire is one of six islands in
what was previously the country of the Netherlands Antilles. Three of these islands are just south of the
Virgin Islands, in the Windward group, and the other three, Aruba, Bonaire and
Curacao (ABC’s), are in the Leeward group, just north of Venezuela. Our plan was to visit all three of the
Leeward Islands on our way west.
These islands were colonized in
the 17th century and later united into an autonomous country within
the Kingdom of the Netherlands about 60 years ago. That country was officially dissolved in
2010, but the islands remain part of the kingdom under varying legal status. Aruba and Curacao are their own countries
within the kingdom, and Bonaire is a special municipality of the Netherlands.
After securing Saviah, we lowered
the dinghy and rowed into town to complete the clearance formalities. The customs/immigration office was nearby,
charged no fees and the process only took about ten minutes. We thought we needed to find an ATM to pull
out some Netherlands Antillean guilders, but learned that Bonaire switched to
the US Dollar in 2010.
After a short walk around, we knew it would be a good stay
in Bonaire. There are only 16,000 people
living on the island, which is 24 miles long and seven miles wide. Small Dutch cottages in a variety of pastel
colors lined the long waterfront where the moorings are located. It is probably a different place when the
cruise ships arrive, but when we were, there it was very quiet. We would often look from the boat into the
main city of Kralendijk and not see a single person walking around.
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| capital city of Kralendijk near the mooring field |
We could have stayed in Bonaire for a long time, not only
because it was a lovely island, but it was a convenient place to cruise. There is a marina close by where we could
pull alongside to take on fresh water periodically. We had free wi-fi at the boat from one of the
shore side restaurants. We could get
cheap fresh produce from the Venezuelan vendors, who have an outdoor market on
the waterfront. There was also a very
large Dutch grocery store a 20 minute walk away. It was the best grocery store we had been to
in a while, although it was a bit of a guessing game at times since the labels
were mostly in Dutch.
Although Dutch is the official language here, most of the
people in the ABC’s speak Papiamento, which is a creole language that comes
from Portuguese and West African languages as well as some Dutch and
Spanish. The people on the island were
generally multilingual, and could also get by in Spanish, English and Dutch.
During our stay, we spent a
couple of days exploring the island via scooter. It was a really nice ride on the narrow,
often single lane roads with very little traffic. We made a few trips around the island,
following the coastal roads and stopping along the way to see some of the
sites. The island is very flat and arid
with lots of cactus.
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| cactus fence, Willemstoren Lighthouse, Seru Largu lookout |
We wanted to get some exercise
and see some wildlife, so our first stop was the Washington Slagbaai National
Park at the north end of the island. Off-road
vehicles are required to drive the park road, but several hiking trails start at
the park entrance. We did two of them,
including the short hike up to the highest point on the island, Mount Brandaris,
at only 784 ft. There are many lizards
and iguanas, as well as several hundred bird species in the park. We saw quite a few parrots feeding atop the
cacti, as well as pink flamingos in the shallow brackish water, where they feed
on the shrimp.
That afternoon, we rode southeast
to see Lac Bay, a windsurfer’s paradise.
The lagoon is protected by a reef, so it has no swell, but still has the
full benefit of the trade winds. At only
a few feet deep, it is the ideal place to learn. There were probably fifty windsurfers flying
about the lagoon on the windy day we visited.
We had never windsurfed before, so we talked to the instructors at Jibe
City and came back a few days later for lessons. It was a lot of fun, and they gave us big
boards and small sails, which made it easier.
By the end of the hour, we got the hang of tacking and were ready for
some slightly bigger sails.
From Lac Bay, we continued south along
the windward coast and down to the salt ponds.
These huge salt pans were vivid colors of blue, pink and green, depending
on the level of evaporation. There were
tractors loading the salt onto trucks, which take it over to a conveyer belt,
which then loads it onto the freighters in the bay.
The salt pans are an important
industry on the island that has been active for hundreds of years. As we made our way to the south side of the
island, you could see the obelisks on the shore, which were used to guide the
ships into the proper loading stations.
Salt production was also the reason for bringing slaves to the island,
and they still have the old slave quarters on the beach. It is hard to imagine, but each of these tiny
shelters housed four people. The doors
were small enough that you would have to crawl in, and I’m not sure it was
possible to even stand up inside one of them.
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| slave quarters and obelisk used for guiding ships in |
The highlight of our stay in
Bonaire was definitely the snorkeling, all of which was done right from the
boat. The complete coastline and the
surrounding waters out to the 200ft depth contour are a marine park. They have done a great job of preserving
their reefs, and the island is known as one of the best diving locations in the
world, with nearly 100 dive sites. The
marine park has installed buoys at these sites that are free to use for up to
two hours at a time. They are located up
and down the west coast of the island, as well as around the small nearby
island called Klein Bonaire, just one mile from the mainland. We visited ten of these sites and found
incredible snorkeling. The locations
around Klein Bonaire were our favorite, and we saw eels, barracuda, turtles,
squid, rays, sharks and many colorful fish dwelling among the healthy
coral.
During our stay in Bonaire, we continued to be diligent
about checking the weather. A direct hit
from a hurricane was unlikely, since the ABC’s are outside the hurricane belt
and have been hit only four times in the last 150 years. But, it’s still possible and who knows when
the next rare hurricane will stray south or come close enough to affect the
local weather and sea state. The
moorings on the west side of Bonaire are protected from the typical NE to SE
trade winds, but any westerly quadrant winds would make it untenable.
Two weeks into our stay, tropical storm Chantal formed east
of the Windward Islands. These storm
tracks are difficult to forecast, and we were not out of reach. We kept a close eye on it, weighing our
options if the unexpected were to happen.
There is a well-protected marina in Bonaire, which would be better than
staying on one of the moorings, or we would have to make the sail to Curacao to
a hurricane hole there. Fortunately, Chantal
stayed far north of us, and we started to breathe a little easier a few days
later.
After three weeks on the island,
it was time to keep moving. Bonaire was
one of our favorite islands in the Caribbean, and we could have easily stayed
for months. But, there are other places
we wanted to see, so early on July 14th we slipped the mooring lines
and made the 35 mile sail to Curacao.
The wind was ESE at 15 knots, and
Saviah made good time on a broad reach at 6 knots. After rounding the south end of Curacao, we
sailed wing-on-wing toward the Spanish Water harbor entrance. This well-protected bay has a very narrow
entrance, only 50 feet wide. On our
approach, we furled the jib and proceeded to sail through the channel under
single-reefed main.
We threaded our way through the
twists and turns of the waterways until reaching the designated
anchorages. It was crowded as other
cruisers had warned us it would be, but we managed to find a spot in 18 feet
with good protection from the easterly winds.
Unfortunately, this was not close to any of the marinas or other places
to land the dinghy, and we really wished our outboard was working.
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| Spanish Water |
Clearance formalities must be
completed in the capital of Willemstad, further north on the west coast of
Curacao. The process is quite an ordeal
here, so we decided to just hang out for the night and get an early start the
next day. Our first stop the next
morning was at a nearby marina, where they said it was no problem to leave the
dinghy, but busses didn’t run to that part of the island, and we would have to
walk a long way to find one. So, back in
the dinghy, we rowed in the other direction and found a windsurfing school that
said we could leave the dinghy on their beach.
From there it was only a ten minute walk to the bus stop, which had
busses that run every hour into the city.
It was a thirty minute bus ride to the main bus terminal in
Willemstad, the capital of Curacao.
There are around 145,000 people on the island, which felt congested
after Bonaire, and it had a somewhat industrial feel, with an oil refinery
belching smoke near downtown. Right off
the bus on our way to the customs office, we passed by the outdoor produce
market. For centuries, the Venezuelan
fisherman and produce vendors have been coming to Curacao to sell their
goods. They dock their colorful boats
right at the market. This made it easy
to stock up on fruits and veggies anytime we came to town.
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| Venezuelan boats docked at the outdoor produce market |
The customs office on the
waterfront was our first stop for paperwork before heading over to
immigration. The immigration office is on
the other side of the Santa Anna Baai, which is a wide channel running through
the city, where the freighters come in and enter the main commercial harbor to
the north. To get to the other side, you
walk across the 220 feet long Queen Emma Bridge, which is a floating pontoon
built in 1888. This bridge swings open
to allow ships to enter or exit the harbor, so it is occasionally closed to foot
traffic for short periods of time. When
it is unavailable for longer periods of time, they have a free water taxi that
shuttles people back and forth.
The immigration office was a mile
walk from the floating bridge, and we stopped in to complete that part of the
process. The last stop was at the harbor
master’s office, which was right by the immigration office, but by this time
was closed for a few hours for lunch. We
headed back into town and came back later for the last part of the
paperwork. The officials were all very
pleasant, and it wasn’t very expensive, but this was definitely an all-day
event. We left the boat before 8 am and
got back after 5 pm that night. Of
course, we would have to repeat all of this again in a week when it was time to
go.
Generally speaking, we weren’t
crazy about Curacao, which was mostly because of the anchorage. Although it was well protected, the water was
murky and not appealing for swimming, a real bummer after growing accustomed to
swimming all the time in Bonaire. It
was also such a hassle to get around from our anchorage, which was removed from
everything. Blustery winds are the norm
there, which made the row to shore and back a wet endeavor. It took over 30 minutes to get back to the
boat in the afternoon, usually soaked by the time we arrived.
The next few days brought unusually
strong easterly winds, and we decided to just hang out on the boat. This gave us time to do some cleaning and work
on a few boat projects. After a few days
of this, the winds calmed down a little and we were getting cabin fever, so we took
the bus back to town to do some sight-seeing.
The city of Willemstad is a colorful and well-preserved
city that is a UNESCO world heritage site.
It is built around the entrance to the harbor, which was once the center
of the Caribbean slave trade. This
business was lucrative during colonial times, and the island became quite
wealthy because of it. There are some
very colorful mansions and other buildings in the Dutch and Spanish colonial
styles, as well as several forts that once protected the harbor. They have spent a lot of money restoring
these building over the last 30 years, and construction was still underway during
our visit.
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| Willemstad |
On one of our excursions into
town, we stopped at a dive shop and found that the costs of guided dives on the
island were about half the cost as in Bonaire, so we signed up for one. It had been two years since our last dive, so
after a quick refresher of the basics, we were in the water. Unlike the murky anchorage of Spanish Water,
the coastal waters of the island are crystal clear.
We did a drift dive, letting the
current take us north along the beautiful coral wall. After about thirty minutes we reached a small
tugboat, which had sunk in about 20 feet of water and has been overtaken by
coral and fish. The last stop was under
a pier where a large ferry has been docked for years, and many kinds of sponges
and other coral thrive in the low light environment. Not one of the most spectacular sites and
there weren’t many fish, but it was nice to be diving again.
After a week in Curacao, we were ready to go and had a good
window to make the sail to Aruba. We
spent a day retracing our steps in Willemstad for our exit papers, stocked up
on produce at the floating market and headed back to the boat. A direct trip from Spanish Water to Aruba is
too long for us to make during daylight hours, which we preferred since it is
only 35 miles off the coast of Venezuela. In order to avoid spending a night at sea, we made
the 26 mile sail to another anchorage in Santa Cruz Bay on the northwest end of
the island. This would set us up to make
the remaining 53 miles to Aruba the following day, which we could do during the
light of day, as long as we left really early.
Santa Cruz Bay turned out to be a really beautiful, quiet bay and a
complete contrast from Spanish Water.
Technically we shouldn’t have stopped there, since we had already
checked out of the country, but it seems to be a fairly common strategy. At one point, the Dutch Coast Guard came into
the bay and circled us, but they didn’t stop and check our papers.
The next morning we set sail from
Santa Cruz at 4:45 am and had E winds at 15-18 knots. It was a fairly pleasant sail, doing
wing-on-wing with our little jib and a single reef in the main. Saviah averaged six knots, and we made the
sail in just under nine hours. The
course took us around the south side of Aruba, a long narrow island about 20
miles long and six miles wide. Given the
strict clearance requirements in Aruba, we needed to arrive during business
hours to avoid overtime charges. We made
our way halfway up the west coast to Barcadera Harbor, an unpleasant commercial
harbor but the only port of clearance for visiting yachts.
As is generally the case,
Venezuelan fishing boats occupied most of the dock. The only space available was in the shallow
end, with a reef running parallel to it about 50 feet away. This didn’t give us much room to make a turn
in water only six feet deep, a few inches more than what we draw. We debated anchoring out and rowing in, but
since it wasn’t low tide, we figured we had a few extra inches of water under
us and decided to go for it. As we
approached and made our turn, Saviah didn’t come around like she usually does,
probably because we were bumping the sandy bottom, but fortunately one of the
Venezuelans ran over and helped us out.
We tied off to the tall concrete dock, and Andrew fended off as Di ran
in and completed the clearance formalities.
Thirty minutes later, we had our
clearance papers in hand and made our way to Oranjestad, the capital of Aruba. We had considered anchoring out, but the trade
winds blow very strong in Aruba, and other cruisers had told us about very unpleasant
stays in the anchorage. Since we were
planning on staying for only a few days, we decided to make it easy and just stay
in the marina. We contacted port control
and got permission to enter the harbor and pulled into the marina late that
afternoon.
The marina is in the heart of
Oranjestad, the capital of Aruba and where a third of the total population of
100,000 live. The city is like a mini
Las Vegas and definitely the most touristy place we’ve been. The vast majority of the economy is based on
tourism and almost 2 million people visit the island every year. The city seemed like one shopping mall after
another, and Andrew was ready to leave as soon as the weather was right.
Actually, the stop in Aruba was
more of a strategic one for us, breaking up the trip from Curacao to Colombia,
which is known to be one of the roughest passages in the world. The trade winds typically blow very strong,
and the seas can be big and steep due to the shallow depths that extend off the
Colombian coast. We checked the weather
every day, and rarely did the gribs show less than 25 knots of wind.
The weather was not cooperating
for a few days, so we decided to spend some time sightseeing. We hopped on one of the busses going north
along the west coast to see the California Lighthouse. Aruba is known for their pristine beaches and
on the way up we passed high-rise hotels lining the beach, one after another
for miles. Unfortunately, the lighthouse was not too
exciting, and it was crowded with at least twenty tour busses.
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| Renaissance Marina, California Lighthouse |
The marina is owned by the
Renaissance Aruba Resort and Casino, which has three hotels in close proximity. While there, we had access to all of the
resort amenities. We soon decided that
hanging out in Oranjestad and using these amenities was where it’s at. We took full advantage of this, making it
part of our daily routine to take a dip in the pool and get some exercise in the
gym. One of the hotels is located on an
island with a free ferry service that runs every 20 minutes for hotel
guests. So we spent the afternoon out
there too, where they had some nice beaches and photogenic flamingos.
After a week in Aruba, the
forecast showed slightly lighter winds at 20-25 knots and decreasing to 20
knots after the first day, and it seemed this was as good as it gets this time
of year. The marina manager told us if
we wanted lighter winds, we would need to wait another five months. The 300 mile passage would probably be rough,
so we strapped everything down well. On
the morning of July 29th, we made our way back to Barcadera Harbor
to clear out and set sail for Santa Marta, Colombia.