We left Bonaire at 0730 this morning on passage for the San Blas Islands, home of the Kuna Indians. But first a note or two on Bonaire.

We rounded the southern tip of Bonaire, at Sunset on Friday night. This is the low laying part of the Island and is where the evaporation lakes are that are used for Salt production. Bonaire’s main industry, next to tourism.  In this area there is a large lake, which is home to Flamingo’s. Some 20 minutes after we were heading up the west coast, a flight of some fifty or so Flamingo’s flew across our bow at about 20 feet above sea level. Murphy’s law, I was charging the batteries for the camera at the time, so whilst this was a wonderful photo opportunity, I missed it!! Still they made a spectacular sight, with the coral coloured plumage and the burnt orange light from the setting sun.

Having spent Friday night on a mooring. (Which are interesting in themselves. A six ton block of concrete on the sea bed, with two stout lines to which small floating buoys are attached and a further pair of floating lines, each one  around 3 metres long, with loop eye’s. The idea is to pick these up and then put your own lines through each one, port and starboard. It’s a neat idea and works well). We then had to go into Harbour Haven Marina for fuel. On entering the marina we discovered several of the BWR boats we still there, so there was much greeting and catching up to be done! The refuelling was straight forward and very reasonable too. It was in USD and worked out to about £0,40 a litre. Given I had used 405 litres getting to Bonaire from Petite Martinique, the low cost was a very welcome surprise.

Bonaire is teaming with wind life, and has the clearest waters in the Caribbean and so is a haven for Scuba Divers. The wildlife on land is right in the marina too! So are the mosquito’s. They are voracious!

    Green Lizard “Strutting his stuff”

Once sorted out in the Marina, we headed off to find a restaurant for lunch prior to finding the supermarkets, as we had to provision for the next 10 days.

Most restaurants were closed as this was a holiday weekend, but we found one on the beach road, near the town quay. They did the most wonderful Wok fried vegetables and shrimps. The staff were very accommodating and Paul Bennet from Anahi was on good VERY terms with our waitress……………………………..

After buying a huge amount of provisions (crew had stated “that we really didn’t need much”, but just fell on the fresh fruit and veg' section, when she saw wide range and selection that was available). We headed back to the marina, to plan out our “one day whistle stop tour of the Island” for Sunday. Harriett from Anahi organsed a Jeep for the day, so the girls set about making a (monster) picnic lunch for Sunday, prior to getting “Blinged up” for the evening out

By this time we had already discovered that the people of Bonaire are like a breath f fresh air after the Caribbean. Bonaire is one of the three Islands that make up the Dutch Antilles. So the people are a mixture of Carib’s, African, South American, Dutch and there is even a British and French twist to the local culture, as it has had many owners in its modern history. Everyone we met was friendly, courteous and smiled easily.  The whole island was clean and had an air of being cared for by people who are proud of their homeland.

We had been recommended to sample the delights of the dock side Patagonian Restaurant in the marina complex. So we made a reservation for the Saturday night, which included the crews from Anahi and Spectra. The food was excellent and the wine flowed, as we all had a splendid evening…………………….

As the night drew on, the staff laid one some wonderful dance music, and as one might expect “crew” made the most of it………………………………

  Is that an Irish whisky I see in you right hand?  You’ll be sorrieeeeeeeeeeee

It was all fantastic fun, and we did not get back to the boat until the wee small hours. Whist this was great at the time, it was a nasty shock when the alarm went of at 0600 on Sunday morning so we could get ourselves ready for the Island tour…………………………Neurophen Omelette for breakfast Madam????