ABC islands without A ( 15,336 miles to date)

Ok, I cheated - this was not one of our dives -  we see this on an enormous billboard next to a Transworld radio transmitting station - American Evangelical Christians transmitting on shortwave to the world. (there is a lot of religious programming across the shortwave band)

Psalm 107:26

We depart Grenada for a downhill sail of 400 miles to Bonaire - but divert a bit North to avoid Pirates and Parrots.

We also run with no navigation lights and the Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmitter switched off - we are rigged for silent running. It was a bit windy for pillaging around in small boats which gave us some comfort. The end of the journey saw force 7 but we ran nicely under twin headsails both poled out.

Future travels will be homeward bound from Curacao. Below is the complete map of the Caribbean. My future journey is North from Curacao, ending up in Puerto Rico(PR) again and then a wee sailing holiday around the Spanish and US virgin Islands before leaving the boat in PR and heading home for a couple of weddings. Then May 1st departure to Bermuda and the Azores.

The reason for visiting the ABC Islands is the diving and it does not disappoint. Kieran, Eamon and I manage 7 dives in Bonaire and I get another 6 in Curacao (3 with Kieran and Eamon and 3 with Alan). They are good diving destinations. Curacao has slightly poorer visibility at the moment but they tell me that it beats Bonaire in various diver surveys normally. both are good!

Yes, I realise the hat looks silly - it looks even sillier underwater as I have to keep the sun off my pate when diving or swimming on the surface.

Note I am hanging onto my dangling bits, to improve the quality of the photograph

Eamon on the other hand is not trying to be an underwater model,  

We arrive in Bonaire and have the most hassle free week so far - the first 150 feet of water out from the shore is shallow and has mooring buoys which you must use. The line of moorings stretches from Karel's bar which has a dinghy dock to a dive centre which can fill our bottles for 6$ each - the Friendly dive centre (it's name!). Our first dive is off our mooring buoy, we jump into 12 feet of warm water and outstanding visibility and light. 60 feet behind Shadowmere the sand gives way to a coral drop off to 25-30 metres. Right around the island there are diving buoys you can pick up. All dives are also shore dives - as well as the yellow pickup buoy for boats there is a yellow painted stone on the beach. So Easy. 

The wee island on the left is "Klein Bonaire" which is dutch for "Wee Bonaire" We have 7 dives on Bonaire including one on Klein Bonaire and these include "Something Special". "Cliff", "One Thousand steps" and "The Hilma Hooker" - the one wreck dive - All are recommended! I particularly liked the wreck dive and the "Cliff" but frankly I enjoyed them all.

And the traffic avoids divers!

Karel's Bar has free Wifi and cheap beer, we ate here a couple of times too. 

Bonaire is a cruiseship destination and we see them call most days. For an island of 19.000 people they get quite a few. They also have 70,000 people who visit by air and stay each year.  But the town is not too blighted by the cruiseships and it has one small Mall that might not be there if no cruiseships ever came. There are tours to see the salt pans in the South and the national park in the North, as well as pink flamingos and donkeys.  

I pick up a free copy of the Bonaire Reporter newspaper and it has the results of a questionnaire about cruiseships. 67% of people believe that few benefit from visits, 87% believe it has a negative effect on the environment. 74% say the government is not looking after the environment and 73% say the island is becoming over developed. 1,300 people responded.

There are a lot of big houses on the island - and more being built. It is prosperous and busy in a way that few other Caribbean islands are and there is lots of good infrastructure. We like it here

Along the shore road we see a "flipflop tree"

And the dive shops are eco minded - you normally have to do a check out dive to make sure you don't drag your fins over delicate coral and can hover above the reef - which we do most carefully. (We are allowed to skip the check out dive on account of our qualifications which are higher than the people running the dive schools)

View of Shadowmere from 60 feet below.

The mooring field - the dark blue is 100 feet deep, the turquoise blue is 12-15 feet deep.

And warm enough to play water polo in the sea! - the local swimming club does not need a pool. We are advised to go from our boat in the Dinghy straight to the dark blue and go up and down the coast in the dark blue to avoid people swimming.

We are approached by Sue and Malcolm from yacht Piano (their tender is named Forte!). They are OCC members and also CA members though both of us have shredded unusable CA burgees. We have sundowners and snacks in each others boats over a couple of nights and have a pleasant time. Thanks Sue and Malcolm.

As usual the diving is like being in a tropical fish tank.

Above is a Toby fish I think And below is a trumpet fish - about 18 inches long

And a box fish - really cute looking

The Eeyore of the deeps

A Morey eel. We also see a turtle several times but I fail to get a decent photograph.

Touring Bonaire was interesting. 

There is a Children's Carnival and we see preparations for an adult carnival in a town in the centre of the Island (Rincorn)

The ladies are friendly. Our 4 hour tour takes us right around the island. First we visit the South end where massive acreage is devoted to making salt. Various pools are filled with seawater and eventually the evaporating water has just a pink bacteria alive, it then dies as the pool dries out (they are 18 inches deep) and a bulldozer piles up the salt into big mountains - which we had seen from Sea as we came in. A conveyor belt spends three days filling a tanker and then it is taken away to get processed and packages. (Or maybe just packaged?)

Our tour takes us further on to a windsurfing centre on the windy side of the island (Duh!) and passes some houses out in the scrub. They use cactii as fencing which looks fairly secure

We pass a crazy golf course - so beloved by the Swedes in Scandinavia, it is a recent startup the taxi driver tells us and not doing very well.

We see slave houses - very like fishermen's houses we had seen in the Baltic on one of the islands. They are small. The slaves used to have to work in the dark to harvest salt as they would go blind if they were over the salt pans during the day. No Sunglasses...

Bonaire is very important to Pink Flamingos and donkeys as well as scuba divers. The Flamingos nest here - they need an awful lot of privacy as they abandon nests if disturbed which results in hard boiled eggs if they are exposed to the sun. Donkeys are given sanctuary in Bonaire too - a lady started a sanctuary up and now hundreds roam about.

The boat is training a (human) to kite surf

This solitary Flamingo is asleep - Terese the taxi driver is a bit worried about it as it was asleep the day before when she brought cruise ship passengers past.

This is a saddlewood tree, planted by the Spaniards presumably when a lot of them needed saddles.

And then onto Curacao, we arrive first at Klein Curacao (Wee Curacao) and find a tiny island, low lying and battered by the trade winds - and currents. The East side is very rough and there are two wrecks on the beach just beside the lighthouse. I can imagine the skipper saying  - just point it at the lighthouse, I am going below for a sleep... One wreck is a tramp steamer and the other a yacht - well pounded on the beach God love it. The island had 90 tons of birdsh*t mined from it hundreds of years ago - or rather the phosphates that lie under the bird guano. There are the remnants of very big mooring chains underwater on the "sheltered" side of the island. 

The West side has a bay and several tour boats have come the 6 miles from Curacao to here, there are various thatched sun shaded seating  areas and a bar. Tourists walk the beach and several snorkel. We pick up a buoy and have a pleasant dive.

Our dive on Klein Curacao produces this - there are 4 hubs on each side so it was either a tracked vehicle or an 8 wheel "buggy" 

And onto Curacao. There are two massive inlets which are very sheltered - the first is Spanish water and is a popular anchoring destination - there are 4 allocated anchoring areas and anchoring outside these is forbidden. Very crowded during hurricane season as hurricanes are very rare here (the last one was in 1877) and insurance companies are happy for boats to spend the Summer here (the hurricane season is immortalised in the rythme "June too soon, Remember November"). It is currently March so I can find room here easily enough (it's half) full. 

The other inlet is behind the main town of Willemstad. You go through the middle of the town through a narrow water way to the lagoon. This involves a unique floating bridge that has to give you access. Also note the town of Willemstad is actually two towns joined by the bridge (and another high rise bridge for vehicles) But the towns of Punta and Otrobanda are considered to be Willemstad.

All those wee boats float! and are driven by the boat with the hut that rotates the entire assembly to let boats in and out. In can rotate 90 degrees to dock against the far bank.

The hinge is not very big. In the very rare big seas that affect the West coast they "dock" the bridge and use free ferries to move pedestrians across.

I wish I had seen this cruise ship come through the bridge (around the bridge I suppose is a better way of putting it).  Unusually this ship stays the night because it is Mardi Gras. 

The carnival started in the Airport side of the island and was due to arrive here by 11 pm - and we would have had no way of getting home. I had tried to contact the only marina in the lagoon before leaving Bonaire but they didn't answer their website - or their "online chat" option and never emailed me. The "marina" specialises in lifting boats out and is really a boatyard with a few docks. (although I see 3 or 4 empty when I go over the bridge and can look down on them during daylight the next day). A pity. But Spanish water is a nice anchorage - no yachts anchor in the Willemstad lagoon as it is bordered by a massive oil refinery with a lot of commercial shipping coming and going.

Willemstad is a big town - nice coloured houses with a dutch style

A local market is packed with fresh produce - possibly from Venezuela, the market in Bonaire was having trouble getting produce from there as the border is shut, but there are about 12,000 Venezuelans living (legally) in Curacao and I suppose they have found a way.

As well as big houses there are small ones too, there is a working bus service (1$ and very good) as well as minibus taxis (2$) that leave when full. The local currency is the Florin or Guilder but US dollars are accepted readily. 

These small houses were very much the exception. The vast majority of the housing stock is better than western standards.

Before we got to sightsee we had to check in with customs and immigration. We anchor in Spanish Water - we check a local marina as we need water but it has become private and has no free docks. So we take our dinghy across to "The fisherman's Dock" which has 24 hour manned security and convenient to the 6A bus as well as the Pirate's Nest bar and restaurant and a dive centre.

We meet another group of 3 yachtspersons who are waiting for a taxi to go to clearing, Charlie arrives in a minibus sized taxi and the 6 of us head out for an adventure! 3 hours later we are through customs and immigration but the harbour master's office is shut - it is an island holiday on account of carnivals the night before.

Sightseeing in Willemstad brings us to a Maritime museum and we learn that cruise ships have been coming here for a long time

We also visit the slave museum but it is closing early and I postpone my visit until Alan arrives. 

We go diving. The dive centre near the Dock is called CURious2Dive and we book two shore dives - "Tugboat" and the "Director's Bay". The dives are good and they show us where they are regrowing coral in nursery frames (each dive centre adopts a site - there are 94 dive centres on Curacao although 70 are illegal). CURious2Dive also has monthly site cleanups.

This blog has some other photographs taken by Hans and uploaded to their diving website. I have cropped a few others so the logo is missing. Thanks Hans.

Thanks Kieran and Eamon for being good dive buddies, good boat crew and good company.

And thanks Alan, as well. Good dive buddy, crew and company - the two of us leave Curacao on Wednesday stopping briefly at Klein Curacao for another dive and then onwards Thursday morning towards Puerto Rico via Bonaire. (or the DR - depends how strong the equatorial current is.)

We have the weather forecast... taken from the CURious2dive dive centre.