19 September 2011 Aves de Barlovento, Venezuela
We woke to dark thunder clouds all around us and it started raining at seven o’clock. By nine o’clock, we had strong west winds which slowly veered to north then east as the day went on. It rained on and off all day, so we had a quiet day on the boat.
I’m still unable to shake this stomach bug. After breakfast, I decided that I might be better off if I didn’t eat anything for 24 hours – thinking that it would give my body chance to fight off the bacteria. I decided to only drink water. Glenys made some rehydration drink up from 1 teaspoon of salt and 8 teaspoons of sugar. It was foul but I managed to drink ½ litre during the day.
I spent most of the day playing with our short wave radio, programming in the various frequencies for the weather stations and cruising nets. I tried to pick up the weather at various times during the day but was unsuccessful. We haven’t had any weather for five days now and I’m starting to get nervous that we don’t know about any potential hurricanes.
In between checking the radio, I worked on producing an eBook version of the Alba Chronicles and the Glencora Diaries. It was a tedious copy and paste process, but I managed to finish both off ready to put onto our web site.
20 September 2011 Aves de Barlovento to Aves de Sotavento, Venezuela
I tried to get the weather forecast on the radio again and failed miserably, so I went across to a couple of nearby boats and asked them. They said that there is nothing imminent, but there is a low pressure area at 12N 37W which has a chance of developing into a tropical storm later this week. One boat uses a satellite phone email system to get weather maps sent to them. Perhaps I’ll have to rethink the use of a satellite phone – getting weather by SSB radio is hard work.
Despite starving myself, I still have the stomach bug, so I cracked up and took a couple of Immodium. After a big breakfast of Rosti with fried eggs, we decided to head west to get to a pharmacy in Bonaire in a couple of days. We had a pleasant downwind sail to Aves de Sotavento, where we anchored off Round Island.
After not catching any fish since we left Grenada, I hooked three fish. The first one must have been a big barracuda because the line screamed from the reel and then the fish bit through the nylon leader and took the hook. Fortunately, the lure was left behind, so I replaced the hook and fitted a stainless steel leader. The next fish took the lure, but spat it out before I could get to the rod. Finally, the third fish was a nice 3lb barracuda, which I managed to land.
The anchorage at Round Island is protected from north-east to south-east winds, but is exposed to anything else. There is a recently wrecked yacht on the island as a reminder of this, which doesn’t make me feel comfortable at all.
We went snorkelling around the boat. The water is incredibly clear here and the coral is beautiful. There are loads of grouper and other nice eating fish, so I’ll be out spear fishing tomorrow. A group of local fishermen were out with spear guns catching spotlight parrot fish, which I didn’t think were very tasty – maybe I’ll try one tomorrow.
As the sun was setting, Ed and Natalie on “Safari” appeared out of the west and anchored next to us. Ed called us on the VHF radio and asked us to relay messages to the Coastguard because they couldn’t transmit long range on their radio. It turned out that the seven people who were on the wrecked yacht (“Blue Marlin”) are being looked after by the Coast Guard. Ed knows Timo (the skipper of “Blue Marlin”) and wanted to tell him that “Safari” is here, so that he could send an email to the Timo’s wife saying all was well.
21 September 2011 Aves de Sotavento, Venezuela
This morning, I finally managed to pick up some weather from the SSB radio. There is a low pressure wave 200 miles east of the Windward Islands and Tropical Storm Ophelia is 1000miles east of Grenada travelling WNW at 15 knots. Ophelia will probably pass through the Leeward Islands in three days’ time and affect the weather here in 4-5 days’ time.
Ed came over and told us about “Blue Marlin”. The yacht went onto to the beach two days ago, when the wind reversed to the west. Apparently, this also happened to a catamaran a couple of years ago. When the wind reverses, the seas quickly pick up because the anchorage is on a narrow shelf with deep water beyond. In “Blue Marlin’s case, the seas were so steep, that the yacht was pitching violently; the propeller was lifted out of the water causing cavitation and making it ineffective. The 25 knot west winds blew the yacht onto the lee shore as they were trying to escape. Scary stuff.
Timo and his crew were brought to “Safari” by the Coast Guard at midday. “Safari” is going to take them all back to Curacao tomorrow. As soon as they leave, we assume that the local fishermen will then strip everything from the boat. We went over to have a look and it was a sad sight.
The coast guard came across to our boat and filled in a safety inspection form. They were very friendly and said that we could stay for a week if we wanted to. Glenys and I went snorkelling in the afternoon and then put the dinghy on deck ready to go to Bonaire tomorrow. The sight of “Blue Marlin” on the shore and thoughts of wind reversals was worrying me as we went to bed, but the sky looked clear.
22 September 2011 Aves de Sotavento to Bonaire
At three o’clock in the morning, the wind picked up and the sky was lit by lightning. I was out of bed like a shot. Was there going to be a wind reversal? Will we have to pull up our anchor and escape? Will we be able to escape? We both sat in the cockpit for twenty minutes as the thunderstorm went slightly to the north of us. There was a little rain and wind but nothing much. We went to bed but didn’t sleep much.
We dragged ourselves out of bed at half past six and left just before seven. The wind was directly behind us, so I rigged up a pole to starboard, clipped in the jib and we rolled westwards in the 15-20 knot winds. It was a lovely sail apart from the occasional violent roll when a large wave caught us. It brought back memories of our passage across the Atlantic twenty years ago – I’d forgotten what it was like to roll every two seconds.
Once we had rounded the southern tip of Bonaire, we turned north and had a fantastic reach in the flat water in the lee of the island. The land is very low and doesn’t affect the wind at all – perfect sailing conditions.
We picked up a mooring just to the north of the main docks. The whole of Bonaire is a Marine Park and there is no anchoring anywhere. The moorings are really good and only cost $10US per night. We went to clear in which is very easy, since the customs and immigration people sit side by side - the whole thing just took twenty minutes. The customs guy spotted that I’d declared a spear gun on the Grenada clearance papers, so I’ve got to take it in tomorrow and they will lock it away until I leave. I won't bother declaring it again.
We wandered around the town trying to get our bearings. Bonaire used to be part of the Netherland Antilles, but that has recently ceased to exist. In October 2010, Bonaire became a special municipality of Holland. Bizarrely, the currency is US dollars at the moment, as they try to work out who and what they are. The town is not very yacht friendly, with the supermarkets and hardware stores being spread out and a long way away. There doesn’t appear to be any public transport and taxis are expensive. Ah well, we’re only here for the diving.
I managed to get an internet connection – 30 minutes for 3 Euros and downloaded the weather. Tropical Storm Ophelia is predicted to track well north and fizzle out.
23 September 2011 Bonaire
I woke up this morning to the harsh sound of a motorbike screaming along the road, which is only 100 metres away. Then the other sounds of the town, the odd car horn and a dull roar of traffic drifted across – this will take some getting used to after the peaceful anchorages that we’ve been in for the past couple of weeks.
We had a day of running around and spending money. We first went to the marina to pay for the mooring and then went to a dive centre to buy the diving permit, which cost $25US per person. We then went walking to find the chandlers, hardware store and the major supermarket.
It was nearly noon when we found the hardware store about ¾ mile out of town. We didn’t get much of a look around because most of the shops shut down at noon for 1½ hours – how quaint and irritating. I did manage to buy some “Northern European” mains plugs to fit the sockets on our Swedish boat. All of our electrical equipment has UK plugs and we’ve had to use adapters to date. I bought six to start with.
We had lunch in a small deli and then marched, in the afternoon heat, to the large supermarket – again about ¾ mile outside town, but ¾ mile from the hardware store. It was OK, but nothing special and too far to carry a case of beer. There’s another supermarket in town that isn’t as good, but will do for the essentials.
A set of squalls were passing through as we left the supermarket, so we got wet through walking back to the boat. We chilled out for an hour and then I dinghied into the marina and paid $35US for seven days unlimited internet access. That’s enough running about, we’ll go diving tomorrow.
24 September 2011 Bonaire
We chilled out first thing in the morning. The insect zapper had stopped working, so I took it to bits and found that the switch was faulty. I removed it from the circuit board and attached a toggle switch with a couple of wires and Araldite. It’s a bit industrial looking, but at least this essential piece of equipment is working again.
We went for a dive on Klein Bonaire. The water clarity is astounding, the reef is in lovely condition and the fish are relatively unconcerned by divers - all in all, a fantastic dive.
After lunch, I filled the dive tanks and ran the water maker and then we went to the supermarket to get another case of beer and a few other essentials. By the time we got back to the boat, the day was over and a cold beer was cracked open.
25 September 2011 Bonaire
It was very cloudy in the morning, so we didn’t bother going for a dive. Today was Maritime Day, so we joined the crowds on the sea front. There were two naval ships on the Town Pier which were open for tours. There were helicopter displays and boats whizzing about and the army was demonstrating various pieces of their equipment and cooking free food. It was a fun hour or so.
We went back to the boat after lunch and decided to move closer to the marina, so that we can pick up a better internet signal. Soon after we were settled, an ominous black cloud started to head in from the south and within fifteen minutes the winds had picked up to 25 knots from the south west - an infamous wind reversal. It was not very pleasant. We were only 50 metres from the shore in 4 metres of water. The waves grew to 2 metres and we bashed into them with the mooring lines groaning and squeaking. The wind dropped down to 15 knots after 30 minutes and then we rocked and rolled for four hours until the swell died down. It wasn’t too bad by the time that Glenys had prepared dinner.