12:09.495N 068:16.874W

 

Despite some people's suspicions that we might actually have permanently settled in Grenada (having "grounded on our own beef bones" as the old Naval saying goes) we finally managed to drag ourselves away. We had fantastic time and Grenada remains one of our favorites in the Eastern Caribbean, not only because it is a stunning lush tropical paradise but also because it boasts friendliest population.

 

We had a fantastic sail 385 miles straight west to the first of the ABC Islands of the Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao).  For the first time we had an opportunity to test Bamboozle's downwind ability using the appropriately named "Amel Downwind System" of twin poled out headsails. The good news is (with we hope, many thousands of miles of downwind trade wind sailing ahead of us) it works wonderfully well speeding us along even in quite light conditions with none of the normal hassles of a spinnaker or the uncomfortable rolling you often get on this point of sail.  It is surprisingly easy to put up although it does involve 4 poles and a lot of line.  More importantly it is very easy to get down again and we have the additional bonus of being able to furl them both at the touch of a button if the wind gets up or a squall creeps up on us.  It was possibly the easiest and most comfortable two days downwind we have ever experienced.  

The main excitement on the way was being buzzed by a Lynx helicopter from a Royal Navy Frigate as we passed by some of the outer Venezuelan islands. They are here chasing drug runners and pirates and having established that we were neither of the above, were friendly and happy to speak to us over the VHF.  They treated us to a spectacular low level fly past at very high pace and then even zoomed back past us on the return leg of their patrol.  Sadly Venezuela does have more than its fair share of baddies so we felt a lot more relaxed knowing that these guys were sitting on the horizon just a VHF call away.

We are now settled off the town of Kralendijk (and no I'm still not sure how to pronounce it and even had to check the spelling to write it down).  Anchoring is absolutely forbidden anywhere around the island as the whole coastline is a fiercely protected marine park so we have picked up one of the moorings provided by the park authorities. You should be able to see from the Google Earth map we are on the narrow strip of shallow sand just off the beach and right behind us the reef drops away down to about 40m.  The whole island is rated as one of the top dive destinations in the world and we have already had some fabulous diving including just dropping straight off the stern of Bamboozle.  By converting our trusty dinghy Spot, into a luxury dive boat we are able to head up the coast or across to Klien Bonaire (the little island just to the west of us) to access many more dive sites. 

 

Just in case you don't recognise me I am the fat bloke with no hair.  Lucy borrowed some clippers to give me a trim but the result was a little more extreme than planned!

 

The Skipper playing with his colourful new toy! 

 

 

 

 

It does however involve a lot of string!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Washing down the kit.  Lucy loves our watermaker.