Curacao

On one of the days we spent in Bonaire, the roads near the courthouse were closed for a big criminal trial. It wasn't a big enough trial to yield any Google results but big enough for all the locals to know about it. A cab driver told us that it involved people from Curacao that were accused of murdering a third person from Curacao a little while back. Apparently, people from Bonaire don't do murder; it's those bad seeds from Curacao bringing down the hood. We had also heard rumors that people in Curacao aren't as friendly as in Bonaire.

When we got to Curacao, it did seem true that the local people in Willemstad weren't quite as friendly as in Kralendijk (Bonaire). But Willemstad is a huge metropolis next to Kralendijk. It's an almost universal truth that people who live in big cities aren't as friendly as those who don't. It's self-preservation--otherwise  you would spend all your time greeting everyone. Curacao has  industry and business that isn't just tourism. Of course, the population of the whole island is still less than 150,000 people, so it's all relative.

 

 

We anchored in Spanish (Spaanse) Water, which is a 15-minute bus ride to Willemstad, the capital. Nearby are miles of trails surrounding lagoons with flamingos and green parrots. We got to see up close the pink shrimp that give the flamingos their signature color. Mark and Conrad chased lizards all over the place, trying unsuccessfully to capture them temporarily (lucky lizards).

 

Willemstad is a diverse and colorful city. The biggest bridge in the Caribbean lives here and there is a floating pontoon bridge for pedestrians that swings aside when boats need to pass. When the bridge is open, free ferries take passengers across.

Flamingo food

 

Bonaire--familiar and not

In Los Roques, I bonded with a woman on the beach (in Spanish, even--yes, I may have just pulled something from patting myself on the back) over our mutual lack of swimming skills. We laughed about the irony of my living on a boat yet being a relatively poor swimmer. Mark and Conrad are both better swimmers than I am, even considering that Mark's technique involves thrashing around and not making much forward progress when he tries to breathe and swim at the same time. The biggest advantage they have is being comfortable in the water. When I first took lessons at around their age, I hated the cold pool water and sank like a rock. It's been hard to shake that early impression.

Now that we swim almost exclusively in salt water, I can't help but float and if you give me a mask and snorkel I can actually swim for a decent distance. It helps to have logged a lot more hours. However, whenever I try to keep up with someone who actually knows how to swim, like Matt, it's a struggle. Which was a mystery to me, since from my perspective my form was perfect.

So the other day when we were snorkeling, Matt told me that I don't kick properly and that I bend my knees too much. This was news to me because I was pretty sure that I was already keeping my legs straight. So at least now I have something specific to work on (I mean the kicking, not the lack of self-awareness).

Bonaire is Matt's parents' home away from home. They have spent three weeks of every year windsurfing and diving in Bonaire. They're pretty impressive. At the Wilmette sailing beach, I once overheard a young whippersnapper mention to a friend, with mild awe, that she's a windsurfer (pointing to Nana as she walked by). As a result, Matt has been there a handful of times and we even brought Conrad for a visit when he was six months old. Our good friends Jeff and Laura and their daughter Alexis joined us and we had a great time. So we are more familiar with Bonaire than the other islands we have visited. However, like most things in life, it has changed in the last eight years.

Gio's gelateria and café, staffed by the tallest Dutch women ever.

The biggest difference from when we last visited is the cruise ships that come in almost every day. There are new businesses and buildings to support the ships and certainly more people milling about on cruise ship days. But in many other ways the main island is the same. It has crystal clear waters filled with coral and teeming with fish. The streets are notably free of litter and the people are friendly. Lac Bay is a haven for windsurfers, both beginners and world champions. Mark and Conrad's Nana sprang for lessons and they are hooked. We stayed a couple more days to try to get some used equipment so that they can keep at it. Hmmm, do they have scholarships for windsurfing? It's never too soon to start thinking about these things.

We can cross iguanas, flamingos and donkeys off our list of wildlife to see on the island. We saw (from a distance) the salt factory and the slave huts. Of course, the boys are still most interested in digging holes at the beach and swimming around on their boogie boards. We bought $1,400 in groceries, which is meant to be our main provisioning for the next year as we cross the Pacific. Speaking of the aforementioned pack animals (donkeys), Matt has been one and has the sore shoulders to show for lugging a grand and a half of groceries a mile back to the boat over multiple trips. As a side benefit, we're well-positioned for the zombie apocalypse.

It has rained a lot for a supposedly arid island, which has been good for water collection but bad for solar. Matt finally bought a battery tester and figured out that one of our batteries is bad. He may not have needed the tester to figure it out because the battery was almost dry after just a week of adding water and very hot to the touch. He removed it from the bank and we'll replace it when we get to Curacao, which is our next stop. The battery bank has been behaving much better since then. One bad apple and all that.

Las Aves to Bonaire

We had a nice and fast sail from Las Aves to Bonaire. The tuna must have been running because we got these beauties and at least two other boats also caught some (though smaller than ours, not that we're competitive or anything).

We satisfied our sushi craving and had a wonderful salad the following night. Mark and Conrad love sushi but draw the line at seared tuna. They enjoyed some hot dogs on the second night.

Tuna salad: seared tuna on greens with tomatoes, beets, hard
boiled eggs, and pine nuts.

Mark and Conrad's Nana and Grandpa have been coming to Bonaire to windsurf and dive for 24 years and running. The last time we were here, Conrad was six months old. Things have changed in the seven years since we were here last, due in large part to the cruise ships that now dock in Kralendijk. There is no anchoring here because the whole area is now a marine park with vibrant, healthy coral. There are about 40 moorings, pretty much all of which have been occupied since we've arrived. We'll be here for about a week or so.

The birds (said dramatically, like Hitchcock)

We broke up the trip from Los Roques to Bonaire with several days in Las Aves, which are also islands that belong to Venezuela. Isla Aves de Barlovento felt practically prehistoric with the gigantic mangrove trees and the nonstop caws of the constantly circling boobies.

That's a newly hatched chick under there. Under where?

The birds continued to fly around all night. On land, you couldn't walk more than a few paces along the rocky shore without coming across a nest on the ground. It was like nothing we have ever seen before. And it's amazing that we didn't get pooped on.

 

Birds, shmirds. Throwing pieces of coral is way more fun.

Bird bones and crab remains. Can we keep them? Uh, no.

 

We also visited Aves de Sotavento. We got there late in the day and visited a nearby beach that was covered with huge piles of the biggest conch shells we have seen. The local Venezuelan Coast Guard came by to check the boat and our papers. They were very friendly, even if their boat did put a couple of scuffs and dings in our hull. As they were leaving, they asked if we had any food to spare because their freezer had gone on the fritz and most of their fresh food had gone off. Their next shipment wasn't due to arrive until three weeks later, along with the new crew. We were mostly out of fresh provisions after a couple of weeks out of Grenada but left them with some pasta.

The Wild Wild West

Lately, cruisers have rightfully given Venezuela a wide berth because of some incidents of piracy. Los Roques is an archipelago that is a territory of Venezuela. We went back and forth about visiting these islands. All recent reports suggested that despite being about 70 miles off the coast of Venezuela, Los Roques is gorgeous and safe, and doesn't even really consider itself to be Venezuela. However, we had all but ruled it out because at the official dollar/Bolivar exchange rate, it would cost about $900 to check in. As we would only be staying for a week or so, this was too rich for our blood.

 

Gran Roque

 

 

When we heard reports about the ease of getting a ten-fold better exchange rate through the healthy black market for American dollars ("lechuga verde"), we changed our minds and decided to visit the island chain. We were a bit nervous because we had had zero experience with black market anything. Then, just before we left another cruiser informed us (through second and third hand reports) that we were putting our lives at risk and exposing ourselves to rampant local corruption. As we had not heard this from any other sources, we decided to forge ahead.

 

As we made our way to Los Roques, we put our AIS transponder into "silent mode," to prevent anyone from tracking us. We left our mast lights off and only used our deck navigation lights. On my watches, Matt advised that I should wake him up if I saw any fishing boats headed towards us at high speed.

 

Having spent about a week in Los Roques, we are happy to say that we have found it very safe. The few other boats in the area seem to be mostly mega-rich Venezuelans and local fishermen just making a living. My guess is that pirates here would be tolerated about as much as pirates descending on Martha's Vineyard.

This bird was foundering in the water and let Matt pull him out.

Changing money and checking in was time-consuming but otherwise uneventful. Almost no English is spoken here. We have been the only boat in many of the anchorages. The terrain and water remind us of the Bahamas. The water is not as clear, probably because of the super-fine sand that is almost like flour, but the fish life is incredible. Everything is super-sized: sea stars, sea cucumbers, big parrotfish, school masters, grunts, huge  conch, and gargantuan sea biscuits. Spear-fishing is not allowed and the fish seem to be a lot less scared of snorkelers as a result. Cero mackerel and mullet jump out of the water all over the place and the place is swarming with turtles. Our only complaint is the many mosquitoes that descend at dusk.

 

The turtle research center was closed but was interesting.
The island (Dos Mosquises) is an archaeological dig site for
the founding natives.

The sailing is great. Lots of wind and relatively smooth water. We have mostly been able to sail between the islands, other than one almost windless day. We haven't seen any sharks but did pull up our trolling line one day to find the head of a tuna with the body chomped off.

Lobster anyone?

Matt caught a few crawfish with the lobster snare. It is basically a little lasso on a stick that you hook around the tail of the lobster. You have to hook them just so or they wiggle away. Fortunately, several lobsters let Matt get a third and fourth try after escaping initially. One side effect of not shooting the lobsters was that they stay a lot more active. Seeing the first lobster wriggling around apparently drove home the fact that it is a living creature and Conrad started crying and wailing uncontrollably and saying that he wanted to let it go (conveniently, Conrad doesn't like to eat lobster). He has never given a second thought to the many lobsters and fish we have captured and eaten over the last couple of years. After initially saying that he planned to stay in his room for 3 days in protest of the impending lobster slaughter, he apparently got over it and didn't have any issue with the subsequent catches.