August 05 to September 30, 2004
Kralendijk, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
September 29, 2004
Kralendijk, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
12° 10.26’N, 68° 17.00'W
Greetings Earthlings
We’ve come to love our battle-scarred spinnaker. It has been repaired at
every major port of call and these days I look at all the patches as if they
were stamps in a passport, with a glow of pride and fond memories of fast
sailing and lessons learned the hard way; the best way, really. On August 5,
2004, running with our spinnaker before a stiff breeze and large rollers,
Safari slid quickly across the 60 odd miles from the westernmost of
Venezuela’s offshore islands to the southern tip of Bonaire.
Bonaire is a small, elbow shaped island about 20 miles long and 3 miles
across. Home to 11,000 souls, it is a quiet and charming island. The quaint
capital, Kralendijk, sits snugly in the leeward crook of the elbow, a cluster of
pretty pastel buildings with a great selection of waterfront restaurants.
Bonaire’s main industries are salt production and eco-tourism. Surrounded by
crystal clear waters and amazingly healthy coral reefs within 30 feet of the
beach, Bonaire is a diving Mecca.
Bonaire is also part of the Netherlands Antilles, with sister islands Curacao
and Aruba a little to the west. The other Antilleans, some distance to
windward, in the northeast, are Saint Maarten, Saba and Statia.
We checked ourselves into a beautiful marina that is part of the Harbor
Village Resort, a low key, opulent resort on the northern end of Kralendijk.
Our NY friends, the Konowitch family, checked into the resort two days
later on a planned visit to be with us for two weeks. Over the years, we have
always vacationed with Paul and Judy and their kids, Jeff (16) and Margo
(12). Back together again, our two families quickly resumed the
companionable ways of lifelong friends. It was a wonderfully relaxing time
and the weeks flew by, island style. We spent the days lazing about on the
beach, reading books and sipping drinks. The kids spent some time sailing the
Sunfish provided by the resort and we would all occasionally float out the 30
feet from the beach to snorkel the reef. When we felt especially energetic,
we would pile into our big dinghy and zoom off to a different reef for a
change of scenery. Some days, we even rented bicycles or played tennis.
Each night, we took the dinghy to the town waterfront for dinner. I, for one,
always ate too much, but the kids’ derision of my ever softening form inspired
me to visit the resort gym to minimize the consequences of too much good food
and wine. The Olympics were on and, after dinner each night, we would spend
some time supporting the good old USA, and South Africa too. Carol,
Andrew, Richard and Lauren fell in love with South Africa when we were
there in 2003 and, to my delight, they carry it with them, even now.
Inevitably, the two weeks came to an end. Paul and Judy headed back to the
New York grindstone, but left Jeff and Margo to join us on the boat for
another two weeks. We spent the first week at the resort in a scuba diving
course from which all of us proudly emerged as PADI certified scuba divers.
For the next few days, we took the dinghy to a number of different dive sites
and experienced the magic of crystal clear, warm waters, and huge,
magnificent, living reefs. It was a dream. Finally we headed out in Safari
for the Venezuelan offshore islands so that Jeff and Margo could get a taste
of Paradise.
Headed east, we motored into strong headwinds and a fairly large swell. Jeff
and Margo quickly succumbed to seasickness, Jeff to the point where he was
practically comatose. Fortunately, it was not a long trip (well, Jeff would
probably disagree) and we were soon tucked in behind the reef of the island
cluster known as Aves de Sotavento. Andrew, Richard, Jeff and I jumped
into the water with a couple of Hawaiian slings (basically, spear sling shots)
and rustled up some fresh dinner. The best part was watching the primal urge
to kill for the table awaken and take hold of Jeff, an otherwise gentle giant
whose heretofore primary talents had been acting and singing. By the second
day, Jeff, grinning from ear to ear, provided us with a tasty contribution to
dinner.
The waters of the Aves contain an abundance of sea life. On one occasion we
jumped into the water next to a large, dark ball of bait fish. The ball, about
20 feet in diameter, was surrounded and being fed upon by barracuda and
enormous tarpon and carp. They were so big that Jeff initially mistook them
for sharks, and his reaction was quite memorable.
At anchor off an island, a small, yellow breasted land bird landed on the
cockpit table, right among us, in mid-afternoon. He seemed quite unafraid,
and soon made himself comfortable next to a window in the main saloon. We
put out water and bread crumbs, but he ignored our offerings. After a while,
we went back to what we were doing and it wasn't until the next day that we
found him dead in one of the cabins. We had a similar experience while sailing
near St. Helena in the Atlantic, and I suppose these little creatures just
needed a place where they could settle down to die, hopefully of old age.
Perhaps, they understood their demise was at hand and this allowed them to be
unafraid of us. Somehow, it moved us.
On our last night in the Aves, under a carpet of stars, we built a fire on the
beach of a tiny island and cooked up some s'mores (roasted marshmallow and
chocolate between two biscuits). We could happily have lived there
indefinitely, but Jeff and Margo had a plane to catch and, in the morning,
reality took us back to Bonaire.
After Jeff and Margo had returned home the plan was to spend the next
month catching up on schoolwork before leaving the boat in Bonaire and going
back to the US for a 5-week visit. The school system we had chosen for the
kids is far more demanding than we had imagined. Every week, the work for
each of the courses they take needs to be emailed to their teachers for
grading. There are 36 weeks and 36 grades in each course so it is not a
system that allows one to slack off for periods and still get an A for the
course. At the same time, in the stop and go lifestyle of cruising, consistency
is the toughest discipline.
Lauren is always well ahead of her school schedule. She sees each course as
an inviting challenge and works at it consistently. Not surprisingly, she
always gets straight A’s. Richard works well with little prompting and,
although he has a tendency to fall behind from time to time, he finds a way to
keep getting A’s and to catch up at the same time. Andrew also gets A's, quite
often, but he can't help feeling that schoolwork is simply an annoying
inconvenience in an otherwise enjoyable lifestyle. Rather, he prefers to be
outside having fun or reading books. In short, Andrew is much the same
student I was, once upon a time. Hopefully, they will all share my good luck in
life.
In early September, I left Carol and the kids on the boat in Bonaire and
hopped a plane for Miami to look at some real estate deals in Florida (I
dabble). I thought I had left at the perfect time. Hurricane Frances was
just moving north of Miami and Ivan was heading up the coast of Brazil with
an anticipated first landfall on the island of St Lucia. Then, on my first day
in Florida, Ivan went, well, crazy. He took an unexpected sharp left, crossing
over Grenada, the first hurricane to do so in about a hundred years. In fact,
Marine insurers, until now, considered Grenada to be south of the hurricane
belt and covered boats located there during the hurricane season. Well,
apart from damaging 90% of all the buildings on the island, Ivan destroyed
hundreds of boats in the marinas leaving very few without serious damage.
Then it did something even more bizarre. Ivan headed west, northwest, almost
parallel to the coast of Venezuela, making it the most southerly hurricane in
the Caribbean in recorded history. What’s more, it was now headed directly
at Bonaire.
I tried in vain to get a flight back to Bonaire and to get Carol and the kids on
flights out of Bonaire. No luck. Ivan was now a category 5 Hurricane with
sustained winds of up to 140 mph. For the next 24 hours I sat huddled over
my computer in my hotel room, tracking the path of the hurricane and calling
Carol with instructions on how to prepare the boat. Carol bought tons of line
and about 20 extra fenders. I secured an open line to the telephone on the
boat and kept it open as all the international lines were busy and the chances
of reestablishing a line, should I disconnect, were slim. I felt helpless as
Carol and the boys spent hour upon hour securing the boat as best they could
while Lauren talked to me and relayed my ideas to them. I tracked Ivan’s
course and for 12 straight hours it hugged a line that would score a direct hit
on Bonaire. I tried to imagine the effect of 140mph winds on that flat and
unprotected island, ill equipped to deal with these conditions, and I was really
frightened. I was certain that we would lose the boat and even more worried
about Carol and the kids. Then at 8am Ivan took a 20 degree turn towards
the north that, 7 hours later, caused it to pass to the north of Bonaire at a
distance of some 90 miles. Carol and the kids, by that time, were ensconced
in two concrete hotel rooms, one on the bottom floor in case the roof was
blown off the 2nd floor, and one on the 2nd floor in case the bottom floor
was flooded. In the end, the winds in Bonaire maxed out at a little above
40mph and the skies cleared quickly. We had dodged a bullet and we were all
eternally grateful. Ivan went on to miss every target the “experts” had set
for it until it slammed into the panhandle of Florida, the third hurricane to
strike that state in one month.
I returned to the boat a few days later to find that Andrew and Richard had
had their hair cut for the first time since leaving Cape Town, almost a year
ago. We all thought it was a big improvement on their already dashing looks.
The month of September slid by in a regimen of school, gym (gotta lose some
weight), tennis (gotta get ready for the trip to The Colony, a Sarasota beach
front tennis resort), diving the reefs around Bonaire and exploring the island.
Then, on the last day of the month, we left the boat at the marina and headed
to the airport for our trip home.
