12.09.0000 N 68.16.0010 W

After leaving Dominica we were faced with our longest passage yet – 5 days at sea. We had planned to sail directly over to Bonaire. In general the crossing went well. We had the wind behind us most of the way but the seas were probably a bit bigger than we expected. This wasn’t great for my sea sickness and I am afraid I felt rubbish most of the trip across. I kept hoping to acclimatize (like I had done on previous trips) but it seemed trickier this time. Nick managed to catch a tuna on the way which was good and we had some dolphins along for some of the ride. We also had a little bird land on the bimini and stay with us for a night and a day which was nice (the poo on the deck less nice).

We got into Bonaire at night which was a bit daunting. Its very deep water until literally 50-100m off the shore where it gets very shallow. So we slowly edged our way in and managed to pick up a mooring. We were then very pleasantly surprised in the morning when we woke up to find that we were in the most beautiful turquoise water with a beautiful coral reef wall directly behind the boat. We enjoyed our morning wake up swims/snorkels every day. 

Our time on Bonaire went pretty quickly – we hired a car and did some island exploring, I went windsurfing quite a bit in the most beautiful lagoon, Nick visited the donkey sanctuary and we found lots of delicious food everywhere. 

While we were there we had some issues with our fridge and we felt the pressure coming on with timings and trying to get to Panama. We ended up having drinks with some friends on a boat called Ariel who gently suggested that we chill out a bit and head for the canal in the next season and accept that the trip may take us 2 years but at least that way we would be doing right and not rushing and stressing all the time. We thought about it and decided they were 100% right (Nick was over the moon) and we started making plans to haul the boat out for hurricane season in the Caribbean – and for us to try and find some money for another year of sailing………