Sunday 22nd April

Kralendijk
Bonaire

12 09.387 N
68 16.822 W

Another one of those 08.00hr starts. We planned on arriving in Bonaire early afternoon so that we could pick up a mooring in daylight. Overnight the wind had died away to nothing so as we hauled up our anchor and began to motor away from our overnight anchorage we discussed tactics for the trip with Dale and Lorie. We all agreed that to get there we were going to have to motor sail. We hoisted our main sail and were managing 6 knots with it and the motor, it was just enough. Dale wanted to run his generator for a while so he tried to goose wing his sails and turned his motor off, the result was a slow and wallowing ride; he eventually hauled in the sails, turned off the generator and motored for most of the trip. Just for a laugh we threw the fishing line in the water again, we nearly had heart attacks when the peg flew off the rail and the last of the line vanished off the back end. Gerry said words which I can’t begin to repeat here but the gist of it was what were we going to do with more fish? He tugged on the line and said that there was something on it so he slowed the boat down and I began to haul in the line. As the lure came into view we both laughed and breathed a sigh of relief we had cleanly hooked a piece of rope! I dragged it up and unhooked it then released it back to the deep. We decided not to tempt fate any further and reeled the line in and packed it away for the rest of the trip. The wind was all over the place but not where we were – we motored for a while, flew the jib for a while and then when we finally turned around the southern bottom end of Bonaire we managed to fly both the jib and the main for the last hour and a half of the trip. As we went along the coast to Kralendijk we noticed the restored slave huts (restored for historic purposes) and the huge mountains of salt. Bonaire has 2 main industries – salt production and tourism. We could understand both, the salt flats are huge and the waters around Bonaire are to be seen to be believed, they are just magnificent – clear blue of every shade imaginable. We hauled our jib in and then dropped our main when we reached the commercial dock as the mooring field was just behind it. Bonaire has a huge mooring field and you aren’t allowed to anchor anywhere – you must use a mooring. We motored to a mooring and a couple of men in a dinghy helped us to tie on to it, it turned out they were our neighbours – from Denmark. Dale and Lorie moored a little way away from us and once we were all settled in we all dinked into the nearest bar for a drink followed by an early dinner. Conversation was a bit slow; we were all tired after a day of sailing/ motoring, salt air and sun. It was going to be an early night for all of us. The checking in would be a thing for the morning.

Now that we have an internet connection again I will be loading photos over the next few day so check back to April 7th to see them.