Wednesday 2nd May

Kralendjik
Bonaire

12 09.387 N
68 16.822 W

Another day of “hurry up and wait”. It really gets quite tedious having to wait around for spare parts, especially as the weather was perfect for a sail to our next port of call. Gerry made a run into the marine store to see if there was any news on the part – he returned with the tale that there was a parcel at customs but that we wouldn’t know until tomorrow if our part is in it, he has to go back in the morning. Whilst he was gone I began the odious task of cleaning up the mess from yesterday, stripping the bed linen off and shaking it out, removing things from shelves, cleaning the shelves and the jars down then replacing them, vacuuming the places that could be reached with the vacuum cleaner, wiping down surfaces – it seemed to go on forever! I then sanded the driving seat and applied another coat of varnish just as Gerry reappeared from his trip ashore. I continued with domestic chores – vacuum bagging meat into individual portions and mixing up marinade for some prawns that we had bought. Coffee break followed extending into an early lunch and as I prepared the lunch I noticed even more sanding dust that I had missed. Post lunch I spent pulling stuff out of places that even I had trouble believing the dust could get into. Following the clean up it was time to catch up with blog notes and then begin prepping stuff for dinner. We decided to go ashore for a pre dinner drink at the Karel's bar - it was full of people from a cruise liner that was docked just down the way, we knew this as there were no other dinks tied up to the dock and all these people sounded like tourists! Anyway a couple of drinks later and we got back in the dink and returned to our boat for a spectacular dinner that I cooked! The sun set was mediocre as there was a haze around the place so still no green flash Ray (Thanks for keep reading my drivel by the way!) Lyn and Peter have emailed me to say that Peter saw the green flash when they were on their cruise around the BVIs in March - we just want to know how much red wine he'd had to drink before seeing it! (Lyn didn't see it so we are certain that the wine must have played some part in the sighting - where's the photo to prove it Peter?) I'll not give up though I have the camera at hand every night just in case! I have high hopes for the Pacific, with 3000 odd miles to sail in one stretch I will have plenty of nights to watch the sun setting over the water, trouble is you'll have to wait if I get a photo of it until we are in civilzation with a decent internet connection which will allow me to up load the picture! We have worked out a way to keep the blog going whilst we are "between Islands" in the Pacific, My sister has agreed to load the site for me as long as I can email her the text by satelite phone, there won't be any photos though, it's too hard to email them so I'll have to add any (all the fish we catch plus the green flash) when we have a decent connection at the other end. My sister actually loaded this blog and I've just edited it - amazing what you can do from this distance apart (she's in England and we are currently in Bonaire). At least there will be some news of where we are and how we are going, even if it des get boring and repetative.