Puerto Rico November 2013

We had to go up to the office to phone customs. The marina do not charge for this of you take a berth and it was as cheap to stay a week as for 3 days so we booked in. Richard spoke to customs and they wanted to know what food we had on board and if we had tinned meat. We were told to go back to the boat and wait for them to come.

Quite soon, Cagney and Lacey arrived. Cagney armed, ready to arrest or shoot. Lacey, the “Agricultural Officer”, could only hand out a $5000.00 fine for any garbage infringements. She asked about fresh food, but fortunately I had read a book of a couples cruise down here and she had mentioned the problems with produce, which is what the Americans call fruit and vegetables, and we had used all ours on passage.

Then Lacey wanted to inspect all the tinned meat to find country of origin. She did not say which countries were banned, but luckily all ours passed muster (even the Fray Bentos pies!). Finally we came to garbage disposal. We are not allowed to throw away anything from the boat unless she has inspected it first and then it has to go to a specialist disposal company. She would kindly give me their number when we went to their office. In the interim it must be stored down below in a sealed container.

I asked if it would be all right if I went shopping and then only used the food I bought in Puerto Rico. No, she said.  As soon as we take anything onto the boat it becomes foreign and the same rules apply. I must also keep all my receipts of anything I buy in PR !!!

“Oh, and by the way, Welcome to Puerto Rico.”

The only good thing came from Lacey who said it would cost $19 for a cruising permit. If we just checked in it would be $34 and we would have to check in at each place we went to. So, we had to go down to their offices which was a $10 taxi ride each way!

Cagney eventually appeared with the garbage peoples number, telling me the first one had gone out of business, and these she knows are “very expensive”! I picked up a pamphlet in their office about the garbage with a website because I thought this is just impossible. I can understand fresh produce could have pests and disease, but not tins, etc.

Later, we tried to access this website but were informed that we did not have authority to access it. That was when we decided this was just not worth it and left.

The marina staff were lovely, washing machines only $1.50, a restaurant and a café on site and just behind our mooring was a clump of mangrove where dozens of cattle egrets roost as well as several pelicans. Most of the boats were big power boats but like an all marinas, not much movement, but a few came back with big wahoo and snoek.

One evening we walked to La Guancha Boardwalk which is where all the locals hang out especially at weekends. We had already heard the usual Spanish custom of loud music till all hours as the boardwalk was just the other side of the marina. It was interesting, lots of tiny cafes in blocks all serving more or less the same food, empandillas(nice), fried pork, fried chicken, fried fish, nice enough but too much oil. In the spaces between café blocks there were different entertainments, DJ and dancing, a talent competition, different music and like Spain, all ages out enjoying the evening.

A day out to Ponce by taxi because car hire is about $50 per day was not quite the “not to be missed” experience as described in the free cruising guide. There are still many lovely buildings even though the majority are derelict or empty. At times it felt like a ghost town as there were not many people about.

The market is in a huge Art Deco building but inside are about 3 stalls with vegetables, about 20 selling lottery tickets and the rest is empty.  We, of course could not buy any vegetables because we would not be able to dispose of the peels but we had a banana as a treat. Lunch was empanadillas in a café there run by two old ladies, delicious. Everyone speaks Spanish with very little English, so we were trying to remember the bits we learned in Spain.

Town Square

 

The Town Square has lovely gardens and the recent addition of lion statues brilliantly painted by local artists randomly placed.

Street Art

 

They have their old fire station, red and black, which is the main tourist attraction. Inside is and old fire engine and a small museum. From there we did a bus tour $2 each but mostly were shown more parks and statues, mainly of past governors. Some more lovely houses, but up the side streets, more poverty and dereliction.

The Old Fire Station

There were very smartly dressed policeman all over the place, almost as many as the population, with many different modes of transport from on foot, segways, mini mokes to a pair that looked like extras from “CHIPS”.

An Art Deco house

 

We had another taxi ride to Walmart where again almost everything is in Spanish. We looked in the fresh produce aisle for all the Puerto Rican fruit and veg they are so carefully protecting and found only locally grown bananas! We also found PR coffee which is very nice and local PR rum, which isn’t so nice. We threw away as much packaging as possible while waiting for the taxi and put more into plastic boxes on the pontoon, so that it did not become ”foreign”.

Salinas entrance

Saturday we left for Salinas at first light as it is 24 miles but the coastline is all reefs and little islands and the anchorage is tucked up in a mangrove. We wanted to arrive with good light and after motor sailing all the way we were anchored at noon. It is a lovely anchorage, mangroves on both sides and very, very calm. There is a yacht club at the top and quite a few buildings and boats moored and anchored, quite a few look as though they have been there a long time.

Salinas at night

The guide book says there are many manatees here so we were really hoping to see one. There are buoys everywhere warning of them and all the craft really travel slowly up there, but we unfortunately did not see one. We did not go ashore, just enjoyed the peace and watched the birds - all the usual pelicans, frigates and terns but we did see two American White Pelicans which are rare down here.

We had intended to go to Vieques, Spanish VI, the next day but after checking the weather on the Kindle and the winds to be NNE it looked good to go straight to St Croix. The next morning  I made a big pot of soup thinking that would be nice for supper on passage – turned out it was the worst choice possible – but more later! We had a nice relaxing morning planning to leave at 14:00.

Curacao revisited

Back from Europe we returned to the heat and dust of Curacao Marine, the diggers and tip lorries still busy with their land reclamation. There were boats continually being put back in the water so we regularly had new neighbours and everyone was getting ready for the season.

We spent another two weeks working really hard on the boat : washing all the cushions, more varnishing, changing the oil in the outboard, trying to find the leaks in the dingy floor: it appears that the glue on the seams has gone and generally fettling the boat for another season.

Our 'Twin tub' washing machine!

We hired a car for a week and went out for supper – a real treat!! We did some shopping at the other supermarket for a change and because they have slightly different stock. There is also a really good DIY and homewares shop, Kooimans, so we went there a few times as well. We also used the car to get diesel as there is no fuel at the marina.

A Drive through ATM!



Another nice beach!

Finally, we had a few days exploring the island. We had a long drive all the way up to the north of the island which was a lot like Bonaire, more hilly but also dry scrub and cacti. There are a few places where it much more green and a little section where the trees actually make a canopy over the road. There are many idyllic beaches and we stopped for a swim and a beer at one.

One of many lovely beaches

 

There are several “Landhuise” which are the old plantation houses, but they are nowhere near as grand as the ones in the eastern Caribbean. Quite a few are just a large house, and many are derelict. Most of the restored ones are now museums depicting different aspects of the islands history.

The tree canopy
 

 

 We decided to visit Christoffel Park which contains Landhuis Savonet. The house dates back to 1640 with a good museum telling the history mainly of just this plantation. It was one of the few that was actually successful, many of them were more like country houses for the wealthy Willemstad merchants. There was a river that ran in the wet season and they grew a wide variety of crops including sugar, maize and coconuts. They had cows, sheep, goats and poultry and made cheese. Of course, this all worked much better before the abolition of slavery after which it all went into a slow decline.

Typical Landhuis

The freed slaves were allowed to stay on the plantation in with a small plot of land to farm for themselves. As payment they had to work for the landowner several days a year. If he needed more labour he had to pay them. Life was still very hard for the workers with lots of abuse by the landowners. In the museum they had videos of elderly people who had grown up there remembering their chldhood and what their parents had told them of their lives. Very interesting and quite touching.

The park was great to drive around, narrow winding roads, up and down very steeply in places, all rough cement and very rocky at times. You had to be very careful, but at least it was one way! There were ruins of other plantations and occasionally you would arrive at the sea with good views of the spectacular north coast with big waves crashing onto rocks and pretty inlets.

Road in the park

We saw the Indian caves with ancient rock paintings, now only inhabited by bats and hermit crabs. It was a mystical place for the Indians and we wondered if it still held some thrall as we saw a dead cat and two dead iguanas in crevices. Did they go there to die or was it just happenstance?

Caracara

There was a lot of bird life, Troupials, Caracaras, Parakeets, Hawks, Bananquits, Auriols and others.

Was this a slave 'whipping post' or a beacon to guide ships ?

Troupial

We did not see any of their white tailed deer, but many iguanas including one eye to eye! I was looking out over a viewpoint and just in front of me I saw some rather odd looking bark on a tree, looked again and realized an Iguana was staring back at me! It kept nodding its head which I took as “Don’t come any closer”, so I didn’t!

A close encounter!

 

                         St Willibrordus is an old coastal town with a huge church and old buildings.

Just outside is a lagoon that also used to be a saltworks and a sign that says “Flamingo Area”. Obviously, the flamingos can read as they were dutifully stalking around filtering for food and preening – beautiful birds.

Flamingos and Tricolour Heron

Another Landhuis here is now the home and gallery of artist Nena Sanchez, and ex Miss Curacao and Miss Universe entrant.

Sculptures in the gardens

 

She has restored the house and filled it and the garden with vibrant paintings and mammoth sculptures.

Only on the 'Dutch Islands' are the Coke signs Orange! 

After our few days of sightseeing we were back to the everyday business of getting the boat ready for the coming season, one job always leading to another. We were keeping an eye on the weather looking for a ‘window’ of light winds preferably from the south east so we could head towards the Virgin Islands.

We had originally planned to go back to Bonaire for a few days and then go north. Looking at the weather we saw we had a week of light winds with some south easterlies, pretty much perfect. Our plans of stopping in Bonaire were cancelled as we decided to sail to either Puerto Rico or the Virgins, wherever the wind would take us! So at 16.30 we filled the boat with water, fitted jackstays, and make ready for sea. Fortunately we had already checked out with Customs and Immigration (as we had planned to go to Bonaire) and off we went at 0800 the following morning on a 400 mile trip. We would have to manage with what food we had on board. Fortunately we had been shopping thinking we were off to Bonaire so we wouldn’t starve.

We knew we couldn’t arrive in Puerto Rico with fresh produce and we also read that you couldn’t have garbage either, so being over provisioned was not the answer. Little did we know how draconian the garbage rules were to be and almost impossible to comply with.  

Arrived in Puerto Rico

Cruising plans really are set in blancmange! We had planned to finish off our boat jobs and go back to Bonaire before heading North. We had our car hire and island tour then we looked at the weather. We had a window of 5 days of gentle east and southeast winds.

Our initial plan was to sail to Bonaire but why not take advantage of the weather and get north? So last Tuesday morning with a few hours notice we sailed North. Ideally for the USVI's but anywhere east of the Dominican republic would be good.

An early morning start, we left the marina at 0730 but had to wait 1/2 hour for the bridge to open so we could leave the harbour. We had to motor against the SE wind down the coast of Curacao, rounding the south of the island we could sail NE to clear the north of Bonaire and we are off sailing again.

To sail north east can be a challenge against the wind and current. The current is always there, a 2kt westward set but the wind in the south east really helped us for a couple of days.

Day one the log read 106 miles with 4hrs motoring (getting out).
Day two we ran the engine during the evening as there was little wind, eventually sailing in an easterly F3 with calm seas. Day two saw 111 miles run.
Day three we had a couple of rainsqualls and the wind getting up to a F6 almost in an instant and dying again as the squall passed. We managed 113miles on day three.
Day 4 we were not going to arrive in daylight nor were we going to arrive before the moon set at 2300. As there was some conflicting information on the pilotage and entry to Ponce yacht harbour we decided to slow down and arrive at dawn. Easier said than done as we reefed down for the night and set in for a slow sail.
The wind gods had other ideas no sooner had we reduced sail then the wind increased! We were now sailing hard to windward in a F4. Normally this would be perfect but not when you don't want to get there in a hurry!
We arrived 2 hrs before dawn and trusted to our plotter and pilotage info. We never found the leading lights, but managed to avoid the reefs and the island in the centre of the bay. By the time we were tied alongside the customs dock at the yacht club it was getting light.
Eventually the wind went east but we were still on track for the town of Ponce in PR.

With calm seas most of the time it was pretty much a perfect sail in 4 days we travelled 412 miles and motored for 12 hours.

Our plans are to stay in PR for a few weeks exploring the islands of Vieques and Culebra off the east coast before making our way to the US/BVI's.

We're back!

OK fans, we are back in the tropical Caribbean after a month away in the UK and Switzerland visiting friends and family.

A month really wasn't long enough as we were constantly running around, sourcing spares we couldn't get locally, catching up with people we hadn't seen for 18 months, and organising all those little bits of business that it is impossible to arrange from afar.

In the Marina 'Laid up'

Curacao Marine was a good place to leave the boat while we were away. On arrival at Curacao the entrance to Willemstad is very picture postcard as the floating bridge is opened to allow boat traffic in.

Under the high level bridge and we turn right then right again and head for the little marina and boatyard missing the reef that extends 50m or so from the shore. Fortunately the reef is marked with a line of floats so we easily spot it.

 As a working boatyard in the corner of a very commercial port and a branch of Budget Marine on site, everyone is either hauling out or working on their boats prior to the start of the new sailing season here. We are the only Brits, mainly Dutch and German flagged boats with a couple of Swiss. The talk is of where we are going next, some are heading West for Columbia and Panama others North to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica or the Virgin islands. There is little distraction with regard to social life as there are no cafes bars etc surrounding the boatyard so no distractions with 'Happy hours', Mexican train Dominoes, Jazz sessions, or diving!

Our harbour views!

 

 

In spite of the very industrial surroundings we have seen iguanas, an osprey fishing, 3 kinds of heron, green parakeets, toupials, several different doves, mockingbirds and a raptor flies high overhead from time to time. There are also many fry in the water, we see bigger fish occasionally and the pontoons piles are covered in sponges and tube worms and we hear snapping shrimps when down below.

We wonder what has grown on our bottom after 2 months here!

Our list of jobs seems to be getting shorter although we keep finding things to do. Before we went away we 'laid up' in the water, now we are doing all the 'going afloat' and deferred jobs ready to go sailing.

On left of the photo below is our original jobs list. With all the crossings out of jobs done and new ones added it was looking a bit of a mess. One morning we decided to write a neat short list - the one on the right!

This could only happen on a boat!

Our plans are to hire a car and tour the island so we see some of it before we depart. We will probably go back to Bonaire next week before heading North.

We have gone Dutch!

Bonaire

Welcome to the Dutch Caribbean! Bonaire is 400M west of Grenada and 50M north of Venezuela. First impressions are of a Dutch town, the style of buildings, the layout and ordered arrangement of things, quite a contrast to the Eastern Caribbean with its slightly chaotic and mixed development. The feel here is very European; the majority of people speak Dutch and Papiamento (the local patois). English is widely spoken together with a spattering of Spanish from those of South American descent.

Bonaire is another volcanic island, the whole of the east coast is a national park and fringed with a coral reef. This makes it a diver’s paradise with many shore and boat dive sites not to mention the island of Klein Bonaire with its own reefs.

The weather here is pretty dry even for the ‘wet’ season, the wind blows from the easterly quadrant most of the time and while we have had a few showers it is mainly dry but occasionally cloudy but very warm, 32 degrees during the day only dropping to 28 at night so no relief in the evening from the heat of the day.

By chance we are moored opposite a dive centre so it is a 2 minute dinghy ride to get our cylinders filled. There is no anchoring anywhere off Bonaire, you must use a mooring, even to dive from your dinghy. There are moorings provided by the National Park Authority at all the dive sites and they are free to use. A yearly diving permit is charged of US$25 per person to dive in Bonaire, it costs US$10 to swim or snorkel.

View from the boat

While we are here we will have our wind turbine fitted and hopefully solve our lack of battery charging. We also want to tour the island which reminds us of Lanzarote with the arid landscape and cacti. Almost forgot we plan to dive a bit too!

Having taken a few days to get ourselves organised, we arranged a scooter hire and took a tour along with another couple we had previously met in St Lucia.

Born to be mild!

The history of Bonaire is all about salt production and piracy. The early settlers built the first town of Rincon inland so the town couldn’t be seen from the sea (avoiding being attacked by pirates). Rincon is a small town, the main town is now Kralendijk, but the people of Rincon consider themselves the ‘true’ Bonairans! The latest new attraction there is the Cadushi Distillery where a Dutch couple now make the cactus liqueur. They also do whiskey, rum and vodka and we had a few tastes. We preferred the liqueurs to the spirits.

Old church Rincon

 

 Later, slaves were imported from Africa to work in the salt producing industry. Salt is still produced here on an industrial scale with large salt pans and piles of drying salt waiting loading onto the ships waiting offshore for a berth on the dock. The salt pans provide a rich feeding ground for Flamingos, Black winged stilts and other wading birds.

Saltworks

Slave hut

We felt sorry for the slaves who had to walk from Rincon to the salt pans in the south. It was a 10 hour walk so eventually they built themselves huts which in the 1800’s were replaced by the huts we see today. The salt was graded into different qualities and coloured obelisks informed the ships where to load the quality they required. The obelisks were red, white, blue and orange (very Dutch).

How it was done in the old days!

After a very sunburnt day on a scooter we had seen most of the island. The south is very low lying and windswept, the beaches on the south and east coast are littered with driftwood and other debris from the sea. As we travelled further north the vegetation was thorn trees, scrub and tall thin cacti. Cacti is cut by the locals to make fences, also you can make cactus soup and now of course the cactus liqueur.  Further north are the hills of the Slaagbaai national park (referred to as mountains by the locals!).

The hilly north

The Park is only accessible by 4x4 so we will do that another day.  Feral goats and donkeys roam everywhere which is part of the reason that the island has such poor vegetation. The islanders are trying to find ways of restricting the animals to help the trees to re-establish themselves. Now and then there was a fenced off area and the difference was marked with bigger trees and more lush undergrowth.

Island vegitation

There are beautiful green and orange parrots and parakeets that fly overhead, calling raucously, even right in town. As we drove around we would see them sitting on top of the cacti – a strange sight as one usually associates parrots with lush jungle. I have not yet got a photo because the roads are quite narrow and winding, so we did not feel safe stopping except in the occasional passing places or viewpoints.

Windmills - of course!

The dive sites here are all marked by a yellow painted stone with the name on and there are over 60 on Bonaire and another 30 or so on Klein Bonaire. Most are accessible from shore so everywhere there are parked pick- ups (Bakkies) with divers in and out of the water. You do not have to dive with a guide here, so once you have paid your Park fee and had a little lecture on marine conservation, you are free to dive as much as you like. Many people go self catering, hire a vehicle and dive, dive, dive! There are dive centres all over the town so air fills are easy. We paid $107 for 20 fills (in advance) and have a card at Yellow Sub, ”our” dive shop.

We have been diving off the back of the boat or going by dinghy to different dive sites. There is usually a sandy area close to shore where the moorings are laid in about 5m then the reef begins and drops off to about 30m where there is sand again. So you get to see a good variety of life. The reef is all wonderful, huge corals and sponges in all different shapes and colours. There are so many different fish rushing around that we can no longer record all the fish we see on a dive. Now, we just mention the unusual ones. Meter long parrot fish, French Angelfish the size of dinner plates, schools of blue and brown Chromis, Creole wrasse racing each other in apparently mindless circles, Bar jack hunting and hundreds of Damsel fish are now dismissed as “all the usual reef fish”. We note Hawksbill turtle, lionfish, spotted scorpionfish, different eels, spotted drums, soapfish, Sand tilefish, Fairy basselets, Hamlets , Moharra, and anenomes with their different attending shrimps. All the creatures seem unbothered by divers and we can approach them closely. As we are diving on our own we go slowly and have time to watch trumpetfish using parrotfish or angelfish as cover, juvenile Spanish hogfish and other fish at cleaning stations and tiny gobys peeping out of holes in the coral.

We have seen Tarpon about 2m long, 1m Tiger grouper,1.5m Black groupers and a great Barracuda, about 1.5m, swam past me about 30cm away! The dive shop told us yesterday where a frogfish (purple!) has been found, so that will be our next dive. It is under a boat, 3 moorings away from us! Not even an official dive site. Quite often we hear the bubbles of divers going up the side of the boat and many evenings we see the lights of night divers around us. That is another dive we still have to do!

If I had my camera I would have had some amazing shots. Hopefully we will come back.

The town, which is a dinghy ride away for us, has pretty buildings, a lot of construction and many resorts and hotels. There are lovely shops, some very upmarket, because cruise liners call in and Gio’s does delicious ice cream, coffee and iced coffee. There are many restaurants with cuisine from all around the globe, Happy Hours and live music at the weekends.

There is a supermarket in town, and just outside is Van den Tweels which is a Waitrose type shop. They provide a complimentary bus from the marina and back on Tuesdays and Fridays, so new all go in and buy things we have not seen for a while – ready cut up stir fry, fresh Tapenade, great beef sausages for the braai (BBQ), grapes and cherries. The local laundry will also collect you whenever you like and bring you back again at no charge, so its all nice and organised.

We will stay here until the beginning of September when we will sail to the nearby island of Curacao (about 40miles). We have been told that Curacao is very different to Bonaire with more development and industry. We will see. We will leave the boat in a marina in Curacao for a month while we fly back to England to visit family and friends and pick up the inevitable boat parts we always seem to need. It will then be a rush to get ready for the start of the sailing season proper.

Where we go from Curacao really depends on the wind. There is often a ‘wind reversal’ which would allow us to sail back east, if not we will sail north, the beauty of cruising!

Grenada

We had heard so much about Grenada, the cruisers summer hideout.

Entering St Georges

We had taken a berth in the yacht club marina, an ideal place to refuel, water up, do our laundry,

Yacht club Marina from the Bar terrace

shop and sightsee. 

This time our marina visitor was a Green Heron fishing!

 

St Georges is an interesting town, many of the Georgian waterfront buildings have been restored – it reminds us a lot of Royal Clarence in Gosport.

Georgian waterfront

 

The harbour is separated from ‘downtown’ by a steep hill. . In the late 1800’s a tunnel was dug to enable traffic to access both sides without having to climb the hill, but only women were allowed to walk through it. We walked through a few times, no pavement or anything so when a larger truck comes you have to flatten yourself against the wall! I found it quite scary, but the locals just stroll through quite nonchalantly. The tunnel is still very much in use today although much of the town is a one way traffic scheme. It must have been chaos 100 years ago! It is still very hilly!

Sendall Tunnel

 

For us Grenada was never going to be a long term summer stay (some never go away). We were always going to move on to the ABC islands (a little bit of Holland in the Caribbean



The Careenage from Fort George

 

 

Dock at the Careenage

 

We spent a couple of days exploring St Georges, the fort and the town, markets and Supermarkets, chandleries and hardware stores, finally moving  to the bays on the south coast.

 

Clarkes Court Bay

There are several good anchorages and marinas to choose from. Prickly bay is popular with easy access to buses to town and local shopping plus many restaurants, bars etc. Mount Hartman bay is a little more secluded as is the anchorage off Hog Island (a favourite hurricane hole). We chose Clarkes Court Bay, partly because ‘Vivace’ were there but also because it seemed to be a little quieter with a bit less of the hectic social whirl that seems to be the cruisers Grenada.

Every day the morning cruisers ‘net’ would announce social activities ranging from ‘Mexican train dominoes’, water aerobics, yoga, to tai chi, even a cricket match! Shopping buses every other day to take you to the town or out of town shopping malls, wherever you needed to go. In addition there were half price pizza nights, various ‘happy hours’ lunchtime specials, evening entertainments galore. Sometimes It was exhausting just listening.

We managed to avoid most of the activities but did use the shopping bus which was very good and also the local bus from the nearby village of Woburn to St Georges. It is a good service Monday to Saturday during the day.
 

Maurice Bishop

We arranged an historic sightseeing tour of the island with CB Historical tours - at US$20 per head for the day it was good value. Clement Baptiste was very knowledgeable about the islands history and he shared some of his personal experiences in the events that lead to the murder of Maurice Bishop, the then Prime Minister, and the US invasion in 1983.These events are still very close to the hearts of most Grenadians and Maurice Bishop still remains a hero of democracy.

Distillery Furnace

 

 The Rivers rum factory was very much as it would have been 300 years ago with a water wheel used for crushing the cane and wood and cane stalks used in the furnace for the boilers. The 50% ABV and 75% ABV white rum they produce is lethal! It is a drink you inhale rather than sip as it vaporises before you can swallow.
 

Cane Press

The day was finished off with a drive through the rain forest and a visit to a waterfall surrounded by many coloured flowering plants and trees.

View from the rainforest

 

 

We finally managed to learn how to play Mexican train dominoes, (any thanks ‘Secret Smile’) so we now feel like real ‘Grenada cruisers’!

Grenada is a real meeting place for those cruising the Caribbean, we managed to meet up with people we hadn’t seen since the Canary islands along with new friends we had met out here. We had plenty of stories to swap over several beers! Whisper Cove is a tiny marina which was closest to us. They have a good butcher on sight in a tiny well stocked shop, laundry, water and daily lunch specials, Happy Hour every evening with free wifi and quite often, live music. A really pleasant little hide away.

Enjoying the ambience at Whisper Cove

 

We  had heard so many good stories of the ABC islands as the best place to avoid tropical storms in the summer so we were looking for a good weather window (no storms or tropical waves) to make the 400M passage west. We also didn’t want to stay too long as we would have to renew our cruising permit (they last for a month).

Our passage west would take us directly through 3 islands off the Venezuelan coast so we would head slightly WNW then gybe and head WSW to reach Bonaire.

We left on Monday 29^th July  at 14:30  and were tied up on our buoy here in Kralendijk at 18:00 on Thursday 1^st August -402 miles in 3 days and 3 ½ hours – a moving average of 5.3kts. We are here in a divers paradise for at least a month – a nice feeling knowing we are going to be settled for a while.