kwilenacat

Aug 1811 min read

ABC Islands-Hurricane season hideout

We sailed from Grenada, Prickly Bay towards the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao). The ABC's sit just off the northern coast of South America. In 1954, the ABC islands became part of the Netherlands Antilles, which gave them political autonomy within the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Below is a map of the currents which were between 2-4 knots and helped us along from Grenada to Bonaire. The small green dot shows where we were at that specific time.

We sailed with the lovely Swedish couple Malin and Cristen (Boat Anastacia). The journey took a bit less than 3 days/nights. We stopped in Bonaire and Malin and Cristen continued to Curaçao. It was nice to have a boat within radio reach. Hope to see you again soon Boat Anastacia.

Some occasional low alcoholic Caribbean drinks for me (they are not too sweet, more like cider/beer with a subtle Ginger, Lychee, lime or dragon fruit flavours), whilst Sven prefers his beers.

We have not been in a Marina since February 11th and were lucky to get a 2 weeks slot at the Harbour Village Marina. It is a convenient 15 min walk along the beach to the centre (we are now on a buoy which is also managed by the marina). They have 1 buoy for each hull.

We love it here and will stay much longer than originally planned! Everything is perfect, The small town, restaurants, shopping, people, weather, clear water and sea life. Its quiet so not for everyone. Curaçao will be far more social

Bonaire's capital Kralendijk has colorful shops in the main shopping street of Kaya Grandi.

Our boat is in the midst of Bonaire's National Marine Park which includes a coral reef where many tropical fish are sheltering. The tropical fish can even be seen when walking along the waterfront. Unbelievable, you don't even need to get wet !

Our daily paddle from boat to land.

Scuba divers just walk into the water from the shore. There are 88 marked dive sites along Bonaire's West Coast and Klein Bonaire. They are all marked with a cute little yellow stone which can be seen from the street.

This large fish (see below picture) just jumped into the dinghy and ended up on our BBQ.

One night we heard a bumping noise and realised, that it was not an intruder but a fish which jumped onto our boat. The "bump, bump" noise told us, that it is jumping its way towards our window above the bed. To not having to deal with a large fish in our bed, we closed the hatch immediately and addressed the issue from the top of the boat. Bye Bye fish, this one we put back into the water.

Sometimes we hear fish swimming into our hull at night.

Street artists from Rotterdam worked for a period of six weeks with youngsters from Bonaire. A few murals below.

The shops.... wow what a change from many of the other Caribbean islands. Here you get everything and in all brands and sizes. You even get Australian Ginger beer.

There are nice restaurants and bars everywhere. The bar below is on our way from the boat to the "city" centre. We sometimes stop here for a sundowner!

One late afternoon we had a drink at this waterfront bar. A little kid was playing with a hand line reel with some bred at the end. Within seconds he pulled in good sized tropical fish, The kid screamed in delight, running through the restaurant with the shocked fish still hooked on and by now gasping for air. Seconds later we saw a man (no doubt the dad) equally frantically running back through the restaurant to the water edge, arms stretched out (he was dressed up) but with a disgust on his face. Who needs a TV.

Bonaire has a few sandy beaches but most of them are coral beaches.

Birds and pelicans are waiting for their fish guts breakfast. Second picture below: I met this friendly man on my morning walk and we talked about fish. He catches one nearly every day and pulled in a 27 kg tuna the previous day. He only uses a handline reel and showed me the inside of his hands to prove it.

Sven bought a large Tuna off one of the fisherman and brought it back on our Stand up Paddle Board. It looked great ! No photo unfortunately, would have been a good picture but we were too busy trying to get this fish onto our boat before it slipped back into where it came from.

There are many huge fish being pulled in. You can see our boat in the background.

These 3 fishermen struggled with this Swordfish for 5 hours. They used a handline reel only and since the boat was too little, they pulled it in behind the boat to bring it in. We just sat there and watched these locals gutting the fish.

It was a family effort. The little girl kept watering the Swordfish whilst the fisherman removed the skin. However, we witnessed first hand by the little girls reaction, how much a fire worm can sting (daddy removed the fire worm from the water and killed it).

The swordfish was lifted into the car. They supported its tail with a large wooden plank.

We hired a scooter for the time here. Our fist outing was a visit to the donkey sanctuary. It was founded in 1993 by a dutch couple to care for sick, injured and orphaned donkeys. There are currently 880 donkeys living in the sanctuary with an additional 1100 roaming free on the island. The stallions in the sanctuary are all castrated, the ones on the roads are not.

The animals were originally brought over by the Spaniards in the 17th century and used to perform hard labour and to build Bonaire. Modern transport made these animals superfluous and they were left to their lot.

We could not feed the donkeys from our scooter but enjoyed watching some of the car drivers which did.

I was interested to find out why most donkeys have a cross on their back and got a religious answer from google It was a donkey colt that Jesus rode when he made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, prior to his crucifixion - the first Palm Sunday. The legend is that ever since that momentous occasion, that donkeys have carried his symbol - the cross.

Salt lakes

Explored the south route of the island on our scooter. The landscape here is characterised by salt production and you can see the salt mountains waiting for export. It is truly magical to stand in front of the glistering white Bonaire salt flats surrounded by various shades of pink lakes and the blue skies above them.

After many various shades of pink lakes, a turquois one.

Next 2 destinations (10 min apart by scooter) a the white and yellow slave huts.

Slave huts

Many African slaves were employed in the salt pans.

The little coral stone slave houses were built in 1850. This was 13 years before slavery was abolished on Bonaire. Before that, the slaves slept in the open air or in small wooden huts. Different colored slave huts can be seen at two locations. Near the white salt pan are the white slave huts and ocher yellow slave huts can be found at the red salt pan.

There is also a larger house next to the white slave huts. This house was for the bomba (the overseer). The small two-person houses (barely 1.5 meters high) have no windows and have small doors. It is difficult to imagine that two adult men could sleep let alone sometimes up to six slaves!

Many of the slaves were blinded by the reflection of the sun and the salt crystals. The slaves were working with their bare feet and hands in the biting salt basins. After the slaves had chopped the salt from the salt pans, the salt was put into baskets.

Captains on the salt exporting ships would describe the beauty of the island, the colourful salt ponds, blazing sunsets with pink flamingos and singing women who looked like mermaids carrying the baskets full of white salt on their heads to a small boat.

The Dutch government built four obelisks, each a different color red, white, blue and orange. These were the colors of the Dutch flag and the Royal House of Orange. The obelisks were constructed near the salt lakes as a means of showing the ships where to land and fetch the grade of salt they had purchased

Beautiful colours everywhere.

Some old windmills

More donkeys, but in the wild....

Driftwood Art South of Bonaire. Some locals having fun with all kinds of wood and items which washed up on shore eg nets, rocks, boat line and even shoes.

Flamingos, flamingos, flamingos - never get sick of seeing them.

We stopped at Sebastian's beach bar for lunch and watched the windsurfers. The water is so shallow that you can just stand up and get back onto the board. The experienced surfers have to go further out.

Scooter trip North route with different scenery from the South route. Lots of cactuses and rocks. The main roads (similar as in the south) look more like small country lanes.

Natural fences: No barbed wire fencing required here to protect the properties!

Love the colourful cactus fences!

Our goal was Rincon Village which was settled by the Spanish in the early 1500s, Rincon Village stands as the oldest continuous community within the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Tucked away in a strategic valley, it was once a shelter against pirate invasions and other threats.

Have you ever tried drinking a cactus?

We stopped at the Cadushy Distillery to taste the unique local cactus liquor, a speciality of Bonaire.

The distillery is full of tropical birds (but only the yellow ones agreed to be photographed). Seems they give them sugar!

The Cadushy Distilling team made a unique Liqueur for every Dutch Caribbean Island based on the Traditions of these Islands: Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Sint Eustatius (AKA Statia) and Saba… Only for Sint Maarten they did not find traditions they could use. So… they took a great Dutch tradition that was ready to be renewed and made a Royal Orange of Orange Liqueur for the Kingdom of The Netherlands.

The Liqueurs were not to my taste. Sven preferred the cactus Beer and myself the smooth dark Rum. Not sure what they gave the cat but she was out of it!

And I thought I was seeing double after the alcohol tasting? ..... but...Sven turned on the camera by mistake whilst speaking to me!

Posada Para Mira Restaurant has a nice view of the cactus covered hills.

They offer local krioyo cuisine which includes servings of stewed chicken and goat, fresh local fish and iguana, all served with either funchi, tutu or rice accompanied by sweet potatoes, pumpkin and fried plantain. They also had Iguana soup on the menu!

A prickly hike (Dos Pos) in the area. There are many of these male Whiptail blue lizards around (females are a dull brown color). Sven got a cactus needle stuck into his leg and had to visit a doctor after a week of trying to deal with the infection.

Ha, ha what is the chance of this pic!! Two lizards following the entry and exit sign to feed out of Svens hand!

Montana hiking trail.

Stand tall and stand out, that's the flamingo way! This Flamingo was too busy playing with a can to notice us!

And here a short video .... which I was unable to load... but will add in our next blog. We got a notice from Starlink that they are not allowed to provide us the service in Bonaire, so all sailors and households on the island were disconnected. To do the blog with 3G only and from the boat is very challenging....

We saw Go Karts on the way back...... instead of a motor they have a sail. So Sven felt very competitive and asked me for a race..... Lucky for me they were closed for maintenance.

Sven was keen to take Kitesurfing lessons once the water reached a certain temperature...The day has finally arrived in Bonaire and his dream can now be put into action!

His kite must be relieved to be finally set free (after being holed up for the last 2 years). I will keep you posted on his progress. Maybe being a snow boarder and having done hang gliding/paragliding helps a little?

Whilst Sven took lessons and drank a loot of sea water, I took the scooter and enjoyed alone time exploring the island.

Some new signs for the street sign collection:

Always different / never the same:

Due to Global IT glitch I got stuck in Amsterdam for a few days on my way to Zurich.

It was lovely to walk around the city and catching up with Marieke.

My sister Jacqueline flew back to Bonaire with me and spent 2 weeks with us on the boat. We hired a car and drove around the island.

Love this donkey face. Unfortunately we did not have food with us, but a few donkeys still came to say hello.

Diving is a must do on Bonaire. The weather did not look promising, however the underwater GoPro photos (taken by my sisters buddy diver) turned out great.

Sven and I admired the Salt pier diving spot by snorkeling and looking onto coral reefs and sea life from top down...

...my sister and her dive buddy had a different view from bottom up.

Some spots with same view for snorkelers and divers.

We were told by my sisters diving buddy that there had been a huge shoal of fish at the "Vista blue diving spot" the day before, and to our delight they were still there the next day too.

My sister and I decided to check out Curascao. There are no ferry's between the ABC islands, so we had to book airline tickets.

When I booked the ticket online I had NO idea how small this plane was going to be.

1 Pilot and 7 passengers. That alone was worth the experience. The flight took 20 Minutes. My sister was on a different flight.

The view on this flight: WOW!! WOW!! WOW!!

And just when you think our girly weekend could not get any better, we got an upgrade to the 2 bedroom Penthouse overlooking the ocean. We had a massage, Pedicure, explored, talked, ate and relaxed.

We visited Curaçao's Capital Willemsrad. The official languages here are Papiamento, Dutch and English. Compared to Bonaire's population of 24,090 inhabitants, Curaçao felt large with its population of 150'000. Instead of using US Dollars as in Bonaire, the currency here is Netherlands Antillean guilder.

Chichi is the Papiamentu word for ‘big sister’. Chichi is a brightly and colorful painted, vibrant female figure. She represents the eldest daughter of the family, who binds the family together in a loving and caring way. She is a much appreciated female role model in the Caribbean community of today and a very live part of its colorful heritage. I bought Jacqueline a small Chi Chi figure to remind her of these big family responsibilities :-)

The city colours are beautiful here.

Check out this house, even the washing line, pegs and clothing are pink !!!

There is a large community of local artists which helped transform parts of Willemstad into an open-air gallery.

In contrast to Bonaire, the street art scene in Willemstadt grew out of social pressure.

Many mural paintings are dealing with social topics like poverty, racism, neo-colonialism, and environmental problems.

I quite liked the "love locks" being hanged onto 3 heart frames rather than onto the bridge itself. I wonder how many of these couples are still together.

This bridge is driven sidewise to let the boats pass.

The restaurants behind our hotel

Set up under a large bridge.

The floating market

We walked through the old Jewish neighborhood of Scharloo.

Each home was decorated. Many of the homes have since been converted to commercial or government buildings. Homes that need repairs must conform to the certain UNESCO standards. Many houses had small, tidy and colorful servants quarters for servants who worked for the Jewish families

I had a bigger plane with Divi Divi Air on the way back to Bonaire. This time there were 2 pilots and 16 passengers. My sister flew back to Zurich with KLM. It was great to spend some quality time together again.

What about hurricanes?

Based on forecasts, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be worse than previous years. 15 to 28 tropical storms, 8 to 16 hurricanes, and 2 to 7 major hurricanes are being forecasted. They are likely to run out of storm names for 2024.

The first major hurricane "Beryl" arrived early in the season (end of June). Many sailors fled Grenada and adjoining islands and hundreds of boats could be seen heading South over several days. Some leaving early but a few left it really late. Trinidad bays were packed. We were lucky to have left Trinidad and Grenada a week before the Hurricane was announced.

Since writing this section, Christ, Debby and Ernesto storms have already passed as well.

The dangers leading up to a storm is well communicated and the hurricanes can be followed by many weather apps. We feel so terrible for all these poor people, many have so little and have nowhere to go.