Bonaire or Bust !

Friday November 21st 2014

Crossing from Grenada to Bonaire; 400 nmiles

When I wake up, I am on my back, my body is shifting back and forth, back and forth, like some sort of strange slow motion horizontal hoola hoop. As the weight shifts from my left buttocks, to my right and back again....lee board beside me creaking in unison, I realize I must have been doing this strange dance for at least two or maybe even  three hours now..,,,and the first thought that pops into  my mind is : “ I wonder if this counts as exercise ?!...Please God....make this count as exercise !”

We are on our way to Bonaire, having finally escaped from the clutches of the slow motion deck work in Grenada.The new decks look great but nothing beats being out of there and out in the great wide open once again !  When we moved from the lagoon into the anchorage for our last minute pre-departure preparations you could not wipe the smile off of Matthew’s face, it was a beautiful sight after 7 weeks of being landlocked, this had been particularly hard on him !

Bonaire being a little more than 400 nautical miles away,Captain Mark had scheduled a 2 1/2 day crossing . Since we left late in the afternoon on Tuesday, this means that after 3 nights on board, we should be arriving at sunrise, tomorrow morning, that’s in 6 hours according to my watch !

My first night’s watch (03:00-06:00) was no picnic. My body had seemingly totally forgotten what it means to be constantly moving with the waves.....we are sailing down wind the whole way which is nice because you are not pounding against any thing, but the swell rocks Amelie like if she was a tiny nut shell in a bath tub, and that’s the motion that give me that dreaded queaziness. I spend most of the three hours feeling wretched and damp, wondering what on earth appealed to me so much about sea travel.

By Thursday everything seems better, and my perspective changes again. We have had good weather, better than expected, and the sight of the stars at night has been a great reward after all this.

Cptn Mark set up the jennaker to help us on our downwind run, and it worked like a dream !  Amel did a great job in designing this sail to go up, right next to our Genoa (large headsail), but in its own track, meaning that we can raise this  lighter yet similar sized twin sail without too much fuss and without having to take down the headsail!  He was very pleased with how it all went, going up and back down again...and it gave us an extra 1.5 - 2 knots of speed in the 15 knots of wind we were experiencing. 

We are hoping to catch up with a few friends in Bonaire and Meghan is very excited to take part in the rumoured exceptional diving that she can do, right off the boat !  We are staying here only for a few days, waiting for the best weather window before heading out towards Colombia, where we hope to spend Christmas in Cartagena. From what we have read, it sounds like that window will be opening up mid week, as we don’t want to miss our last change to cross before the  trade winds come, in early December. 

Update: We have arrived !  As planned we sailed into the bay  (Kralendijk) just after sunrise. We took a stroll around and so far we are much impressed !  This island is very clean with a charming buildings and a lovely boardwalk along the seaside. Being a Dutch island, there are many people riding on bicycles, something we did not see much in Grenada at all ! We look forward to telling you all about it in the next blog !

Our first view of Bonaire, Kralendijk Bay