ALL HANDS 29 April 1990
Underway as usual, a few hours later than planned, but no great loss. I'm a whole day ahead of minimum allowable time - feel good about that, good enough to have disaster #1 right in Guanica Harbor.30 April, 1015The alarm sounded. Shut down power, the engine is pretty hot but it shouldn't be cold. Dropped the anchor and opened up. Water gets in OK, is very hot going out. Can't find anything really wrong. Ample oil. No way I can test oil pressure without more tearing apart than I want to do at sea (or anywhere else for that matter). SHEEIT - let's go. Have the disaster at the point of No Return. So after letting it cool for 20 minutes, I hauled up the anchor (only about 100') and we powered out gently. At the outside buoy I raised all plain sail and shut down power. No alarm in a big half hour of 2000 rpm, so maybe it's the alarm acting up. Famous last words.
Wind is very gentle - 3 knots my guess - and we move pretty slowly, less than a knot I'd guess. I can swim faster. And that's all I see for tonight. I need a little more distance off shore before I dare lie a-hull. Expect the wind to make up to 10 knots and East, which will be fair.
The Ocean is not only gorgeous, it's Bug Free (except for Apogee's plentiful supply of roaches). I've had it with the shore. Never again! The 3 days of o'cast and rain in Guaypao started up a fierce infestatlon of mosquitos and some black flies and something new to me. I haven't seen them, but they got to me where I sit, and I had a welt across my fanny that was an irresistable itch, not painful, but itchy beyond bearing. I have boiled my pants and recent underwear, and that seems to have taken care of the little demons.
Very boisterous sea this morning. I slept for a couple of hours when the wind approached calm in the very early am. The sea never did flatten out - rough sleeping even in my berth. Wind came along, encouraged I'm sure by the rough water and we had a couple of hours of 15 or 18 knots, seems to be gentling a bit now. Self steering under all plain sail as I write below. Eating at every chance last night, and not too many chances, but not ready for Captain's Breakfast at 6:30. What with setting sail and trying self steering positions, I didn't even get coffee till 8 or so, and breakfast came about 9:30. Still nothing hot except coffee. Lots of motion, both rocking and hobby horsing. OK, we're on course eating up the miles gradually.May Day, May Day, May DayThe disaster of day one has not recurred, recharge operations have been smooth. For once maybe I did the right thing! Noon and cold beer with turkey hamburg and onion and peppers. Spilled half the beer too and strict rationing says I can't take another. Not so much a matter of expense as of room in fridge and storage.
Self steering is not very reliable. I did get an hour's snoozing in as I tended it. Will try again in the pm. Good buzz now, about 15 knots, right on the beam, we are making good time with no difficulty. Noon position 50 miles south of start, less than 10% of the trip - I must be wrong. Yes, careful measuring makes it 360 miles wharf to wharf, and I had bad winds the first few hours. OK 310 to go, assuming no detours. 6 miles in the last hour! Three celestial shots, all within reason, but none right. Yuk, annoying. Some of this may be my standards improving and some of the error may be the boisterous motion. It seems steeper and quicker than the Atlantic somehow. Probably I'm just older and stiffer. At least several days before I'm in danger of Rox.
Nope, not a distress call. Just celebrating the end of April, which has been a long time passing by. The itch to get going on the Bonaire project, along with some boredom in PR, and another itch which was more scratchable (at least in private) as the PR weather got wet, warm and buggy. No bugs off shore and we are humming along on course, self steering a little erratically but well enough. I had a good sleep last night, several interruptions but must have been nearly 8 hours altogether. Breakfast this morning to a good clean yellow sunrise. Handsome, if not actually breathtaking. We are at the 3rd day of the PR to Bonaire passage, a trifle more than one third of the trip is done, 130 miles. And no rocks between us and the target. Trades should hold steady and the sea fairly easy, although it was pretty boisterous at the start.2 May, 0600Bonaire is a new direction for me. Not really commercial at this point, but it could be. No way I could charter my elderly gaff rig to the ordinary charter trade, besides I wouldn't be willing to let it out of my hands - but I could provide a special service for divers. Life support at the reef - no scheduled diving party, and no hotel bills, which I'm sure are more than usual dive party charges. Will I be bored to death being water taxi and cook?
O'cast and spits of rain. I can see a hard day ahead trying to keep dry, failing thoroughly and drying out in 20 minutes tomorrow! Sweet water dries fast. Up a lot last night in short bits - dekko - and back to bed, except for an hour when a light showed to starboard - well off, but watched. There's no sun here but bits of blue sky show well to the north and a long way ahead. The wedge of heavy cloud presses east, so I expect it to stay on for a spell.3 May (?) 18190900 - We've broken through the cloud. There's still a light o'cast -promise of a good day. Very fresh breeze under that cloud, kept me busy a while, not so much in danger as trying to cope with best boat motion in puffy winds of varying direction. I could steer it, but could it steer itself? Just get it set here and wind jumps there. But I NEED BREAKFAST! I didn't have to go to the extreme of taking down sail, but did have to lose a couple of points of course. Can always tack later if necessary. I'm pretty safe to play fast and loose with the course as long as I know where I am (I hope!). So far "no problem", and I've got b'fst and 2nd coffee inside. So log and nav before I go out to regain lost ground.
1800 - Secure at sea. Rest after a long go at the helm. Nav too. Jib rolled up badly, and I had a bad time freeing it. Call it Disaster 2. Furling line needs replacement too. More motion here than I'd like at night, but I need rest. 70 miles to go, doubt if I make it tomorrow.
long day already and no end in sight. Midnight will end it, by that time I'll be hunting for lights. Last calculation I was 36 miles off, with a cross current of more than 1 knot, not quite 2, and a straight out speed of about 4. So I'm only making good a trifle more than 2. 36 miles = 18 hours, and I don't dare stop to sleep for being washed down wind. OK, part of the SPORT. All goes well -jib disaster this am solved by seesawing on the lines. I thought at first I'd have to shinny up the rolled jib, and it didn't look like my cup of tea at all - even in a harbor.Now it's morning 4 MayOvercast all day, now and again a heavy black cloud with a little spit of rain. One shower. No look at the sun at all. Sat Nav had better be right.
It occurs to me that this was exactly the situation when I piled up Little Chance (but no Sat Nav then). Maybe I can do it better now that I've had practice. There is a moon though, and the o'cast seems to be breaking up. If I find bottom I'll anchor, but the chart doesn't show it likely.
Midnight, 3 May I'm here, but Bonaire hasn't arrived yet. No lights, no mountain, NO ROX. I may do better in daylight - sleep.
Quiet night, more motion than the best sleep requires, but not enough to roll me out of bed. Problem is a lot simpler, even if it's not yet daylight. Coffee, clothes (except for insulation from foul weather gear, I've been naked for a coupla days) - then get on the latitude of Bonaire and go east or west, whichever seems most likely. It may even be obvious. That's how Columbus did it too! North point (Aband Tower) is at 12 degrees l9'. At 0330 I was at 12 degrees 41', 68 degrees 27.72 Sat Nav says. Go 11 miles south.9 May0900 OK, went west for 30 minutes then south. Land showed very vaguely about 0700. Came and went in waterladen air, cloud, fog and distant rain. Several miles off still, but at least surely land - and a great mammary gland looking mountain with an erect nipple. Apparently we drifted off to the north while I slept. I set up the mizzen to jog us north, but didn't expect it to be that successful. All I wanted was to stay off ROX.
Kralendijk - The town is lovely, concrete wharf, Customs curious about Puerto Rican boats. Never see them here. Friendly, glad to share a beer. Took all my signal flares away (firearms) but I get them back when I go. Allowed to spend the night at the wharf. Tomatoes, bananas, mangoes from a Venezuelan boat peddler - also friendly and curious and no English, but we had a lot to say to each other. Found the laundry and the telephone office and phoned Peg, whose number I happened to have - all the rest are in my brains book, safe at home in PR! Not needed for diving. Engine overheating, not badly, but not good. Who might fix it? Nobody knows. Back to ask Customs who says ask John of the Blue Boat.
John is Andalusian, a charmer, rebellious, dirty, as wasteful of time as it is humanly possible - but a good mechanic. Found I had a tired impeller in the raw water pump. No great shake. I've got one. "No, no, keep it. We'll find one for you."
All over town looking, four different establishments. No impeller, but a coupla stops for beer, one for lunch (in fact full dinner, vegetables, sheep's brains, salad, and very good). John insisted on buying my lunch. He's rep for a medium big charter outfit in Holland. Has done - does - repairs, rigging, delivery of boats all over the Caribbean. Marvelous job, marvelous fellow, marvelous time with a girl on every Is. He speaks all the European languages, no Russian or Chinese. The local papiamento is written as well as spoken, sounds like Spanish and is apparently more Spanish than Dutch. (Jan speaks it too, has little respect for it.)
Busy Busy Busy - dry out the boat is the first order of importance. Done, at least sort of. Engine, check out hots - done almost. John, the professional rigger in the next boat (steel, from Netherlands), supervised my arrangements. Raw water pump leaks, needs a gasket, he has one. Leak leaks air when running, more air, less water, so it doesn't cool as well. More or less fixed. Chlorox in the engine to kill weeds and incipient barnacles. Done. Have started a cleaning job program.
OK, laundry done, clothes hung out on the boat like a Chinese laundry. 2 cases of beer (Amstel, made in Cura&ccidil;ao) and a day and a half of rest.
Jan is in the water of the south point of Bonaire. Not SOP to dive alone. Jan's preference is to buddy up. On the other hand he's been at it professionally for 20 or more years, is a big boy, calculates his risks carefully, so I have a moment to write. I started this days ago (at Busy Busy Busy). Not sure when. I'd arrived in good season on purpose to be ready and was, except for a dinghy disaster - puncture - that consumed nearly a whole day. To meet Jan at 1900 at the restaurant, whose name I had forgotten, I had to move anchorages - I'd been a couple of miles north in better holding - and found a secure place near the center of town. Easy to move, hard to find a bite for the anchor. Did. Full astern didn't budge it, but fourth try over bare coral. Ashore in my patched boat. I walked 300 yards to the restaurant and got there exactly as Jan arrived in his taxi from the airport!Thursday, 10 MayPause between dives. Jan goes by the book - a book that wasn't ever written in the days I was diving. We knew less about the dangers, but we knew they were there, just not how many or how close. Jan spends x hours between dives of y hours - and now he has sacked out in the shade. Brisk easty blowing across the boat, anchored near the next dive, to be on pilings of the salt company's wharf, more or less 60', must be good stuff there. 4 other dives, so far have all been on drop-offs with the boat anchored or moored (park moorings to avoid coral damage) on the shallow bank between the coral dropoff and the coral sand beach. Winds east all the time, very strong 5-7 in the pm, but usually quite gentle in the mornings. Netherlands Antilles has made this a coral reserve. No fishing except hook and line. No coral or sea fans. Jan was part of the outfit that drew up the law. It has made Bonaire. The economy sits four square on diving. Nothing else here except tourism and salt. No water. There's a desalinization plant and a water truck that waters the palm trees along the main drag! Very clean and pretty town with an impossible name.12 MaySo here and working with Jan. All seems to be fine. I'm sure he's a bit put off by my slovenly housekeeping but the convenience of having the boat working for himself and only him is apparently well worthwhile. My efforts are all on getting to the right place at the right time and feeding him once in a while. SO FAR (3rd night coming up) all goes well cutting off here to get this into the mail tonight.
But we didn't make it. Dive schedule and distance to cover are being tried out and stretched, with the fully satisfactory ones furthest away. One good new one on the posts of the Salt Company wharf. All the stuff Jan is after at more than snorkel depth one in particular that he's especially happy with is a tiny fish, blue, that lives within a sponge, is very shy, and needs to be taken with the camera tilted up. He found the fish, sponge, angle and place to hold. Took a dozen or so pix before he got exactly what he wanted - about half an hour for the one picture. Happy as the proverbial clam at high tide over it too. Came up bouncing with joy.14 May, 0530We've been anchoring more as we get further afield. The Park administration's moorings near the drop offs get fewer and farther apart as we look at new places. This was yesterday, which was 11 May and the third day of diving - my 5th in Bonaire. So far we are very inefficient, rather feeling our way along to see what works. I'm up at my usual 5 am, start coffee, jump o'board while the coffee heats - back aboard to eat a banana and coffee, write, sit, relax in growing light. (Incidentally the new ladder, devised during the long wait in Ensenada, is a great success. Not perfect for fins, but acceptable.) If I could get Jan to decide on a location early in the evening, I could be there when he gets up, which seems to be 6 or after. I'm trying to work on his schedule without imposing mine. Too many limits already - physical time, decompression and safety: shallower dives can be one and a half hours but as he goes deeper, he may only have 10 minutes to work. Makes diving time rather difficult and expensive, good pix very costly and must be very good to be worth all the trouble.
Bonaire, famous for even clear weather which never interferes with diving, has spectacular drop offs, much like the South Pacific atolls where coral builders grew as land lowered (or water rose). The diver gets to any depth desired without horizontal travel. So we moor on the narrow bank often very close to the beach, often poor holding in thin sand covering smooth compressed coral. I am happy to use the park moorings, rather than anchor, but they look doubtful - ragged lines and rather short, typically to a weight of two 55-gal drums of concrete - adequate for a light motorboat, doubtful for me with my rat's nest of rigging and mass of weight bouncing in reflected surf. Always so far in a wind that is offshore, which is a safety factor. If it lets go, I drift away from danger as well as from my diver! The north shore is reputed to be the best diving, but difficult or impossible to anchor. Standing by without any tie to a location is not safe. Divers can't see very far. Heavy in the water, their horizon height is negative!
So far I'm feeling that it's been very successful for both of us. Somewhat short of perfect. We are all day getting 2 1/2 or 3 hours of underwater work. 4 hours more or less of travel. We have to be at the dive wharf during business hours, 5:30 closing. Parameters are limiting Jan's freedom a little. He needs x amount of time between dives, has a computer which calculates it. Boat efficiency is important, ties to civilization are bad. Tanks of air are readily available here, but pretty expensive - $16 per day, I think. Jan uses two in a day, may not exhaust both, but comes close. No way I can see to increase dive time without greater air capacity as well as substantially more time on location. Owning tanks would help ($175 apiece here) and having enough of them to stay on the reef for 2 or 3 days and perhaps 3 dives a day instead of 2.
The dive boats apparently go out once each morning and afternoon, with different clients. Cruise boats (1 so far) put into Bonaire and buy up all the dive boats. Must be a madhouse aboard one of them as they pick up the mooring and 4 or 6 people lay out gear, struggle into wet suits, set up tanks, harness, regulators, masks, snorkels, knives and hoses, cameras, computers and fins, all on what looked to be a roomy power boat with a big central table. Jan fills and surrounds my cockpit on the way up and down. I tend him both ways. We could get him ready 5 minutes before he goes over, but not much more. He can be fairly comfortable in the water, balanced by his gear. No way could he survive very long without the weight balance of submersion. Once in the water, he's a viable instrument, can have one or both hands for camera. All propulsion and some holding position with legs and fins. Deep dives need more time to let the body adjust to pressure, both going down and coming up. His computer tells him how much of his total of RISK" (my word) or Exposure (computer's term) he's used, which is a factor of various things including time since the last dive, depth and duration of past dives as well as present dive, and instructions for speed of ascent to surface, all of which enter into the safety factors.
Ecology - human of course - is working out beautifully. We are good company, eager to please each other, easily insisting on considerations that are important to ourselves individually and quite able to discuss any of them. I have made arbitrary decisions about this or that that Jan has questioned. I've found it easy to back down where it was purely arbitrary, and easily explained when it was justified.
1340 - Jan got up Finally! Out like a light till after 0700. Shocking! We powered up to a site where he hoped to find something special. He found it, but it was not doing its speciality. Now we are back at the Salt loader. Jan asleep after potato salad lunch. He was out till after 1 am this morning, but we've had a good dive already - didn't find the egg-guarding fish he was after - or rather he found them, but not guarding eggs. So now we are onto the salt loading place - deep piling with many kinds of life on them, 70' straight down! Poor holding for the anchor though. We've been dragging a little ever since we put it down.
Jan asleep. I've had coffee & dunk in the harbor. There isn't time to write! There are idle moments in the day - we are never or at least rarely rushed and then only to meet store closing or shore schedules. Party last night with John and Manuel. I did roast beef over couscous - all out of cans and packages of course. We've done 2 dives a day pretty regularly so far. Monday - that's today according to my watch - we meet Jan's dive buddy at the airport. I get to phone and mail while Jan does the meeting and greeting bit. He may feel he has to prepare the newcomer for the shock of Apogee's disorder and my boorish behavior. I don't wear pants till I go ashore!14 May, 1008Overall, I'm delighted with the operation. I do have things to offer -mobility with space to work and store equipment. I do run the boat - not that he isn't happy to take the helm, work lines, or help with jib sheets -but in general, he works his camera and diving gear while I do the boat. He often naps between dives too, needs the rest. All of these are easy on Apogee and very difficuit or impossible on a dive boat with several people competing for space. Much kidding about Social Director and Captain, but really comfortable acceptance. I haven't had the main up since I arrived in Bonaire, but the morning and evening trip to or from town with fresh bottles of air is usually done under jib and jigger in very fresh cross winds - 15 knots in the morning, and rather better than 20 in the afternoon. I have time to get the current disasters "coped up", tied off, nailed down, or cut away while Jan is under water. The dinghy is still in difficulty. We get back and forth, short hauls only, but the floor is still flapping loose from the main doughnut of flotation, so there's a varying 2 to 5 inches of water in it. John wants me to leave it for a day on Liberty. No way. We'll be tied to his skirts for ever! He's a great doer, expert on many - even most -nautical things, but absolutely unconscious of anyone else's time or convenience. Anyway today is to meet Carleton, Jan's fellow diver, a professor of something interesting in a mid south University.
Moment of leisure. We are tied to a steel column of the Salt wharf. Jan swam out a line and brought it back around a pile. There is a 4' baracuda under the cap of the piles, and a ramora under my boat! I dove with Jan's spare glasses. Couldn't see the bara. The remora is a pretty black and white fellow, maybe 6" long. I was expecting much bigger fish. I could see the bottom very clearly, 51' away. Piles and barnacles too. Water is less clear than usual, but VERY clear in spite of the slime that Jan complains of. O'cast today, which is a good rest from a very hot sun.15 May, 0924and I have 2 divers down! Suddenly I'm a dive director, appointed by the captain of Apogee! We picked Carleton up at the airport, somewhat questionable anchorage, extremely questionable dinghy - 2' tear in the bottom (which Carleton enlarged by a third because he didn't realize the total questionability of our equipment). Two trips with the massive leak in the dink to get first his gear, then the body and its cameras in the 2nd trip. By this time we'd demonstrated that it was at least remotely Possible. So out he came, cameras around neck, shoes and sox in 8" of salt water, paddling like an indian without sign of fear! Of course we'd stopped at Jo's boat on the way in, lost a little time with the anchoring, so we were barely in time to meet the plane. Jan did the shore duty. I stayed aboard tending ship, which dragged twice for 6 or 8' at first, and another small bit of 2 or 3'. Rox astern of me, shoal to starboard and port, stiff afternoon breeze and gathering darkness - ulcer making. OK, NO disaster. Got him and gear aboard and beer in hand to mitigate the impression of the mess we were in: dinghy, deck, and down below, all equally distraught. Charge off with 2 deckhands raising 2 anchors, out of the shallow into the night. Running lights, couple three miles to our usual anchorage close to town. Put down 2 anchors, second one needed a 2nd drop because I overestimated my speed and distance from the first. Little matter. We got two good bites. Then the 3 of us got in the dink with a 3' hole in the bottom and paddled in backwards to avoid accumulating water. No difficulty at all. Carleton by now accustomed to what looks like reckless behavior, joining very freely. Met Jo in "the" restaurant, a working people's place. Still not cheap. Good healthy food, tasty too, but the gravy was the same all through the week. Beer is Amstel, Dutch from CuraÁao brewery. Flows like bottled water too. When we stop in on Jo, our consumption doubles of course (his crew is Manuel) if it doesn't triple or quadruple. Makes short work of a 31 florin case of beer. I haven't done enough money biz to understand the exchange rate, less than 2 Fl to the $ I think. Everyone has a computer and accepts US $.16 May, 13:20I seem to be developing back problems, up a lot last night, but the two before were solid sleep. In this crowd I'm 3/4 dead to the world by the time we get general lights out and gone altogether before the last one is out. I'm still first up and swim in the dark. Almost didn't make it this morning with a final snooze. Jan and Carleton have a lot of diving and sporting past, so a lot to say and a lot of kidding and mock insults - fun. I had to interrupt to get them moving. Pulled the anchor myself, underway with power as a local fisherman showed up in my drift path. Neutraled across his line. OK, his thumbs up showed us free. Power on as I got up mizzen and jib.
2016 - We got to dive location "2 reefs" had a good dive apparently, pix and all. Lunch of hot dogs in peppers and onions plus salad, and off to the wharf for a second dive. Apparently fantastic pix there. Charge off home after the 2nd dive of the day, both for over an hour. Both for a 36 exposure roll of film, and of course the acceptable amount of pressure and decompression. Way back in my diving days we knew very little about pressure's effects on the human system. We took all kinds of crazy risks that we didn't know about. Now it's all formulated and recorded. Jan's computer is strapped on his wrist with time of dive, depth, how long and deep next time.
At Red Slaves Beach - so called because there are "stove hats" ashore, very close to the beach, which were once painted red. worker slaves were quartered here, or as explained by modern Dutchmen, merely siestaed here. It's a "good location". Lousy for boats - an uneasy and irregular sea - but good life on the reef - great variety and no current. Current of course is a big difficulty with photography under water. Wave motion only affects my handwriting, thanks to a cast iron stomach.17 May, 0530We're now on the second dive at this location. Usually we move between dives, but we've had 1 dive now at each of the locations Jan wanted to take Carleton to, so we're covering this one in depth. It's also the farthest from our starting point, and we've been having to get refilled tanks every day. We may be able to get back in time for mail, fuel, water, all of which have suffered from a policy of Dive First - reconnoiter when there's no diving to do. OK, that's what I came for.
Threatened disaster today: engine died in transit. Sails up so we jigged along on jib and jigger while I opened up. Air in the fuel lines, probably sucked in from the nearly empty fuel tank when it sloshed away from the feed lines in the larger seas that we got into as we came closer to the south point and the eastern coast.
Today I think we do Kleine Bonaire, the island west of town. Reef all around it and drop off usual. We will do a lot more moving, I suspect, and very likely sailing rather than engine, since we are out of fuel in one tank already. No fuel at the wharf here. Jan took my jerry can (2 1/2 gal) looking for a fill while Carleton and I did water. Carleton did the work, I chatted up the interested locals and poured - all this at the public wharf. But no fuel. Kerosene for sale at gas station. Is it really kero - or diesel? Must be sure, not enough lubrication in kero for diesel injectors. Most of the small commercial boats use gasoline outboards, and the visiting yachts, being seagoing, have adequate tankage. So I'm fixing up a future, when I get too old to sail - paddle diesel from a small tankship in Bonaire, water, parts, advice and repair facilities. Not enough yachts to justify the existence of such an enterprise, so I wouldn't be too busy! Great. And fuel is 8 cents a gallon in Venezuela, 30 odd miles away. Sell here for 30 cents a litre.18 May, 0530Two divers down at 0900 after a 4 or 5 mile trip from night mooring in town. Uneasy anchorage at the northwest point of Kleine Bonaire. Not that we needed Mr. Sunset's great flank speed wake to ease us at 0936.
1126 - Now we are out of the water again. Great dive spot but few pix. They want to do it again. OK, that gives us an early start back for a long beat to home base in Kralendijk for phone, groceries, fuel. Ham and chopo salad for lunch all made and refrigerated. No haste. Talk goes on about camera gear, depth and life observed. Eager, always they are eager about a fish, coral, spot to dive, bit of gear, always, always these guys are eager. And of course there's no such thing as enough. They are limited by the tables, a compendium by some authority of how long, how deep, time between dives, etc., and they have their computers keeping track. Beep if you are due to come up. Beep if you need more decompression time at some level. It is pretty safe this way, though one can still make a fatal mistake by not noticing the computer. But the info is with you, it's up to you to pay attention.
Dark. Too dark to clean up decks - crew all asleep, do not disturb. Can't leave before 0800 because of shore appointments anyway. Yesterday's good start got us off to a new and magical reef in Kleine Bonaire - two dives in one location, and a sail, hard beat too, to Marina where we got fuel and made a fool of me with poor landing, diesel fuel spilled on deck, and victim of robbery by fuel retailers. I'm full up now, with a quart of spilled fuel for spare or cleaning. Some exchange of info. Jan walked back to anchorage while Carleton and I powered. Jan missed the air tickets confirmation by minutes, so it has to be done this morning (our last diving day). I'm right pleased with the record - 2 dives a day every day, which is almost the limit of what the Tables allow, a health limit drawn up by the pressure and blood absorbency experts.20 May (I think) and shortly after 05001044 - Errands ashore and tanks refilled, we are on Dive Location # Double Reef - both down. Dishes washed and decks in order - sort of! Carleton and Jan fighting bitterly about the way to preserve the reef and reef ecology using the World Bank's very available money. There's a big difference in how to use it, how to get it into a place where it is useful. It's a ball for me to hear the infighting, officially vicious, personally not even cool. They are the warmest of friends, agree generally on ecological matters, but bitter opponents on People and Money things. Jane is Jan's boss at the World Bank. Carleton knows her too, has proposed something unsuccessful (for both World Bank and Carleton). Seems to be a vast gap in approach rather than a different opinion on what's needed. "Study" I keep hearing and "it's not necessary, we can't show any exact figures on NEED but it's obvious that a NEED is there." No point in my talking, but I find it a great privilege to be part of these experts' exchange. A great satisfaction to have provided a platform for what probably is an important exchange of ideas and Information about People, Parks, Conservation, Money, and a little bit about Fish and Reefs! Repeat - a great satisfaction. They'll be up soon (1101). Start lunch.
1320 - They were up within minutes of my getting beans and franks into a jury rigged double boiler for warm up in the can. Undress, beer, chatter about the flora and fauna, things seen and things missed, persiflage and joking, pix of Carleton on the pot and Jan peeing off the fantail. It's so damn comfortable, I don't want it to stop! It's probbly our last day in the water. Jan would like to drive us around the Is., see the land sights as well as the north coast which is not happily anchorable. I can't quite believe that, but Jan assures me that NO ONE EVER anchors there. I can see where a lot of chain might be needed, but IMPOSSIBLE? I doubt. Anyway, not this time.
First false start of the trip. Jan got a bit of the silicon grease that lubricates his camera controls on his goggles. Had to come up to let me wash them with detergent. Remarkable to me that this is the first time this trip that his launch has not been complete and successful. It is a pretty complicated procedure - has to be to maintain life, visibility, mobility, and still take flash pictures under water at 3 or 4 atmospheres or a hundred!
You readers, consider the fall trip south. Starts as usual, end of hurricane season Bermuda, Tortola, down the island chain perhaps as far as Tobago. Then downwind through a lot of little Venezuelan Islands, Bonaire again, perhaps some others, Venezuela, Belize, Cayman Islands and north via Cuba (?) and a flight upwind through the Bahamas or buck the prevailing wind and current to PR and Ensenada. Any takers? A circumnavigation of the Caribbean.
Coffee in hand, dried off from my early plunge, and dark out. Quite a lot of light from ashore. WHY? Are lights a proof of something? And if so, what? When I get to be emperor, I'll give everyone a flashlight and outlaw street lights. May even help with overpopulation. I think we are finished diving. Jan got us a car late last night, and the plan is to show Carleton the land side of the Is. Great. For me alone it seemed a waste of Jan's precious dive time, but it turns out that one mustn't fly immediately after diving. 24-hour interval is safe. I've also found at the bar last night an interesting British family with little children that live on a gorgeous great rusty schooner that I want to visit with. Rust because of old fastening, it's a wooden boat. So off to land today, waiting for Sat Nav to have a chat with a satellite. Nobody seems to be up there in a conversational mood!Sunday 5/20, early1000 - now at northwest edge of Bonaire, high o'cast, lots of moisture in the a1r, sun between loose spreading clouds. Recent rain leaves the normally desert dry country a bright green - yellower than our well watered New England green forest, and all surviving by dint of hard holding on, leaning to leeward and no competition. Many bare places between greens. Big and small cactus. lizard, dark grey head melding into brown body with bright green tail, white spots all over. Good disguise if the green was not so bright. Back feet gorgeous bright green.
My guys have found my lizard and are abusing him with long lenses, full forward at 20'. Carleton chased him into the bush, got him to lick (read: smell) his hand. (Photographers are not considerate of each other, spoil each others' game when they see a possible shot, then turn about and drive the game into the other's camera.) Now they are looking for more at the cliff edge.
1530 - Now we are traveling south to look from land at the seas we were diving in. Stopped here and there, turned over stones, pix of lizards, coupla three different ones, and an iguana. Lunch in Rincon, a very pleasant village inland. Neat houses overrun with goats, mostly well fed goats too. The wild goats look very bloody hungry, but still move fast. Jan says they are all owned by someone. Back to Apogee for a nap after the 4 beers of the morning and 2 more at lunch.
coffee & swim done. We toured the island yesterday in a rented Toyota that threatened to fall apart. Pork barbecue lunch in Rincon, a neat interior town. A great part of the Is. is completely uninhabited. No water. There are a few outposts company buildings for salt works and government. High country north is much like the PR dry forest - an impenetrable dry bush, full of thorn and iguanas. The southern 2/3 (my guess) is low and flat. Salt pans over much of what we saw. Flamingos all over, mostly pairs and juveniles. Coupla three different herons, doves, parrots and parakeets, one of each, native to Bonaire. Some other lizards, a few gekkoes. They are more likely to be in buildings and on walls. Bugs, worrying rather than biting. Many!20 May, 2000East and northeast beaches are solid coral washed by constant great waves of at least 200 miles fetch and constant easterly winds of 10 to 25 knots. There's a brutal smashing sea zone of a few feet wide and 30 miles long! and its working on that shore all day and all night, every day including holidays. Spray for a hundred feet drenching the coral rock, a jagged surface mostly, some of it wildly indented. One deep little bay with a sandy beach a few feet wide. Otherwise a stretch of tortured jagged coral rock, constantly pounded by big energetic seas. In some places great coral boulders, as big as 8 or 9' in diameter were tossed and rolled up the packed down coral rock for as much as 200 feet. I can't imagine a more hostile shore for a swimmer or small boatman. Apogee wouldn't last a half hour, and I'd be gone two minutes after! West side is relatively peaceful. Active surge of course and no gentle beaches that extend far from shore. Sand very often, sometimes interrupted by the sharp coral. Many miles of beach, and usually a sharp drop off to 50 or 100 feet, some places much deeper. On the lee shore we could anchor in the sand of a short shelving beach, and pay off rope so that the boat was over deep water, very convenient for divers and reduced surge too.
New (to me) life - iguanas, road runners (another lizard), parrots, parakeets, flamingos (I'm not much impressed, but the color is quite something). I see a crying need for a big commercial market garden, but there's no water for it. Goats are endemic, all over all colors and sizes; hard cactus fences needed to keep them out. I find them quite handsome, but often very thin. Glad to have seen the interior. I suspect that very few visitors do. Jan lived here some months on some research job. Knows the country and language (papiamento, a pidgin dialect of Spanish & Dutch).
No diving today. Not so. Jan did a quickie without air (snorkel only) this morning right at the anchorage. Found some stuff worth the film, and some really marvelous stuff that he couldn't "hold" for. Needed to stabilize himself and wait. Couldn't do it without air. Gave it a try anyway and stayed in the water till Carleton was having fits over plane time. Finally out and rush thru camera putting away, clothes stuffed, beer, by which time I was already at the Dive Inn wharf. Get off you bastids, the charter is over! And don't leave any f-ing diving gear on my boat! A very warm goodbye from both of them. It does make a lot of difference having a boat dedicated to your own use and operation instead of sharing with 10 or more, some of which are: selfish, inexperienced, ignorant, loud mouthed, and maybe drunk to boot! Not us, never drunk before 5 or sober after 7! We've run through a case of Amstel's delicious beer in 3 days. C & J bought me another to fuel my way back across the Caribbean. Anyway a fond goodbye at the tank wharf, whence they'll taxi to aeropuerto. Gone - kind of hollow, but OK. I think I did well by them. So apparently did they.21 May, 0500Up and dunked, coffee in hand. Alone on board. Feels good after the clutter of three people and a million cameras and another million of diving gear. Can't really feel the difference in the balance of the boat, but the space inboard and on deck has expanded mightily. Like visiting Grandma, it was nice when we got there and nice when we left! The giveaway inflatable works. Still seems to go soft faster than I like, will carry a pump in the AM. One of the patches across a seam is leaking but only in the floor chambers. I've found more patch material. It's not a good transport, but better than the bottomless doughnut that the other one got to be.Tuesday, 5/22 - 0522Still dark. Sat Nav working on finding where Bonaire is. Made it. Turned it off, ready for today. Sea duty coming up - some fresh greens, police (immigration) and customs for clearance, stow, maybe even a scratch at the waterline, then go.
Past noon, back on board at great peril! The newly patched giveaway dinghy is leaking a lot. Pumped it up ashore and barely made it afloat, carrying ships papers, passport, check books, groceries and dry shoes. OK aboard, lunch and stow leftover tuna casserole with onion and tartar sauce added. Pretty good lunch if it had an elegant name. Case & 8 beers, 1/2 bottle whisky, and fully 3/4 of the stores I started with.
But - But - But - The collywobbles are with me, why? No doubt on the southbound trip at all. Why doubts going north? But I've gotten 5 or 6 goes on the pot already. OK, all stowed, mizzen ready to hoist and power the anchors up. Off -
1725 - Left in many doubts at 1400. OK, we are clear of Bonaire, but not out of sight. Holding 30 and 40, self steering on a close reach and will have to try it out for a while to see whether it's working. (What if it isn't?)
I did finally get to the PO today - 3 letters, marvelous. Read them all before actually leaving hard ground in case there was something I should do. Nope. GO. Hearing aid gave up the ghost sometime this am. Click and groans is all I get. Immigration was easy - all signs. Customs kept telling me unimportant things at great length, and I almost missed getting my flares back.
Lots of motion, not all towards PR - most of it up and down! Fix at 1730 shows 1 mile made good, but most of it was on the screaming down wind leg. Now we are close reaching in that same hard wind, but in the open ocean!
1816 - Sat Nav says we are making more or less 1 1/2 knots of land speed in about the rlght direction. More shots and time to be sure. Very slow, but that's speed over the ground and includes the heading current of 1 kn on our windward bow. Looks like a two-week trip.
2116 fix says we are travelling true north at 2 1/2 knots.
fix says we are 30 miles from Bonaire after a fierce downwind start. Very poor progress. In fact not progress. Losing as fast as we gain. Needs a storm jib. OK, rest first.23 May0900 - We've broken through the cloud. There's still a light o'cast -promise of a good day. Very fresh breeze under that cloud, kept me busy a while, not so much in danger as trying to cope with best boat motion in puffy winds of varying direction. I could steer it, but could it steer itself? Just get it set here and wind jumps there. But I NEED BREAKFAST! I didn't have to go to the extreme of taking down sail, but did have to lose a couple of points of course. Can always tack later if necessary. I'm pretty safe to play fast and loose with the course as long as I know where I am (I hope!). So far 'no problem", and I've got b'fst and 2nd coffee inside. So log and nav before I go out to regain lost ground.
It got up. By 0900 it was pulling us along in good shape, self steering comfortably if not accurately. We've lost a lot of leeway. It'll take a couple of fixes yet to figure out the course we held. I believe we'll make it easily since the wind is a trifle south of due east. Another fix brewing now. Jan left his sunspecs. Ladder has to be inboard all the way. bowsprit turnbuckles need tightening up, also whisks atop all the shrouds show up loose in this fairly choppy blow. More sea than wind. Deck leak is still with us.
Unreliable f1x at 0924 12 deg 49.41 68 deg 39.58.
Last fix at 0750 12 45.86 68 38.81.
So in 2 hours we've won 2 miles of latitude, lost one of longitude. I'm guessing that the win was all since the jib got up, and the loss was dogging along getting it up. Needs another fix to be sure, deviation was only 6 degrees.Noon position puts us north and a bit west of Bonaire, fairly consistent compass readings tell me that I am not making the course, losing almost a mile per hour, consistent with pilot chart listing. So engine on to get the jib tighter and even up higher. That's the current chore.
1230 - jury jib halyard gone, chafed through.
1600 - OK, I must go back. Bonaire first. Easy to get to CuraÁao from there. About 50 miles at 150 degrees to Bonaire, or 200 degrees to north point of CuraÁao. Will have to work without jib.
1800 - OK on our bay back, tail between legs. The jib sheet let go while I was navigating. Got up in time to see the clew batter itself to pieces on the shrouds and light board. Storm jib up with much difficulty and not high enough really. And that chafed thru its halyard in an hour. So no foresail. Give up rather than spend a week or more fighting a 1-knot tide with a two-knot boat. Turn around and can't quite make Bonaire, but should easily make CuraÁao and new scenery. SHEEIT, a whole new jib probably too.
Underway after a drifting snooze at 0400, power at 1500 rpm assisting double-reefed main and mizzen. Not very efficient rig, but self steering and steady. Making for CuraÁao since I couldn't fetch Bonaire without a jib. Badly crippled and one hell of a job to get the main up in a fresh breeze w1th a boisterous sea flopping the boat around like a chip.24 May0700 - The veggie oil is about gone, or I'd never have made it. It spilled out of its container sometime before striking sail last night. Made the foredeck a death trap. Fortunately it's soluble, won't last long the way we take on spray and green seas. Spit of rain for a while. Ran out of steam but left a heavy o'cast. I'm pretty sure of my position, even have the drift calculation agreeing with the "coast Pilot". 15-18 miles from land now.
Nothing in sight. Not that I can't see land. I see it all over, except astern - and I'd see it there if I stared for a while. But it doesn't stay yet or get sharper or darker, a ghostly land. Land falls are always itchy, and this one is as itchy as any with the disappointment of turning back, and now a doubt of Sat Nav, which has skipped two forecast fixes. Not necessarily a sign of disaster BUT NO FIX when I want it. Just missed one at 0944, no reason, no regrets, no apologies. Electronic civility is dead! Another fix promised for half past 10, an hour. I'm guessing my distance at 25 miles (The dead reckoning if I wasn't doing it on Sat Nav fixes) so I could see land any t1me, especially if it's mountainous. No detailed chart, of course, although I had one for Bonaire. Even Bermuda shows at 15 miles. Overcast though, it might not show at 10. Itchy, itchy, itchy.
Now Sat Nav is stuck on "sleep interval". Real problem? Now it's asleep, so probably OK. But itchy!
1445 - Don't know about Sat Nav, but I'm secure in a tiny bay near the west point of CuraÁao. Wet stuff hung out, cold beer beside me. Anchor went down about 1350. Flapping jib is rolled in. Shall I tie it there or take it down? I need its halyard for the jury rig. Have to climb to find out. Need rest. Maybe some lunch, not but what I have been feeding my pregnant tape worm all day.
There has been a fix, at 1344, but only one since 0500, another due at 1504, then we'll see. My roller jib is torn to crud at the clew. Maybe its fixable, maybe even fixable here. That's the next thing after customs, telephone, mail, and whatever. I suppose I'll be stuck here for a spell. OK, it's a nice island at this end. The city (?) may not be, but I'll have to be there. Stop now to check out the jib halyard.
Not much to be done with jib halyard. Enough surge in this open bay to toss me off the mast before I'm half way up. Maybe CuraÁao harbor will be better. I'll need a major repair on this one if not a whole new one. I do have a storm jib, could get back to PR with it. There may be a sailmaker who can repair it. Drying out and relaxing, mid afternoon beer as I write. Very pretty fishing town and anchorage in a cove of a bold rock cliff shore. Red tile roofs, square and boxy little houses. Betty Levin should see it.
Minor stuff is dry. I haven't started on beds, etc. So I'll move on to Bullen Bai tomorrow, probably very early. There may be a phone here, but not direct to USA probably. My hearing aid is kaput too. I need to get another out, assembled. It's here, I'm sure, but not located. Monday in Bonaire, the one I've been using for a month or more started squawking and spitting. I walked out of the phone booth with an apology to the Hello girl.
This shore of CuraÁao is upwind. Without a jib I can't make diddly squat upwind, never mind 400 miles. I couldn't even get to Wilhelminastadt on this island, which is dead downwind from Bonaire, which I couldn't quite make after the jib packed up. At the first gasp of disaster I got out the storm jib. Couldn't put it up because the wind was so strong. It has to be raised flying and its a long hard pull to get the catenary straightened out - I couldn't, not in 3 tries. Then I put stops on it to keep it rolled and a pull release to let go the reefknot stops. Up but far from neat and tight. BUT it drew. Made a lot of difference in my course to windward - 20 or 25 degrees - and a lot more way too. Middle of the moonless night the halyard chafed thru - it's a spare reeved through a high check block - rubbed itself to failure, dropped the jib in the drink. OK, 3 lines still on it, but the end of the world for getting back to PR. Hard to swallow, but I have to head for the nearest sail maker, CuraÁao. That's where I am, a third of the way down the west s1de of the island, Santa Mata Bay, and tied up at Coral Cliff Hotel's diving and boating facility. Maybe I can get a job lecturing to the tourists.OK, there will be more - more victories and more disasters. Tune in every day at thls time for another lnstallment of Peter's Perils. Good beach here at least!
