A GREAT TIME IN BONAIRE.!

Bonaire is one of the Dutch Antilles and situated just off the coast of Venezuela (which is a highly dangerous area these days). It is part of the three island group called the ABC Islands. Bonaire specialises in scuba underwater diving since it has amazingly clear water.
The other islands in this group are Aruba which has all the casinos and is an American holiday destination, and the bigger island on Curacao is a budget holiday resort.
The trip to Bonaire took us three days of sailing in some quite rough seas, along the north side of the Venezuelan Los Roques islands.
The fear we had about arriving in Bonaire was that yachts are not allowed to anchor anywhere, they have to pick up mooring balls, and these are very few.
So on arrival in the late evening we were very lucky to find a spare mooring close to the passenger ship dock. That was at 22.05 on Friday 12th January. 402 Nautical Miles from Grenada.

Bonaire was beautiful and the shops were full of Dutch products (cheese and fricandel.!)

Kwanza on a mooring in clear blue water right over the diving area..

a view along the shore from Karols bar

Dinghy parking at Karols bar

frequent cruise ships which very quietly glided onto their dock..

Kwanza basking in morning sun..

DEPARTURE FROM GRENADA TOWARDS BONAIRE

After leaving Woburn Bay we motored around to Prickly Bay and picked up a mooring ball for a week. We had to have our new AB dinghy repaired. This was done with the agreement of Budget marine under warranty.
So when the dinghy was repaired we sailed to Saint George's bay as a last staging point before we headed West to Bonaire. We fuelled up at the Saint John's Club fuel dock then spent the night at anchor before we headed out into the deep blue on the 10th January at 06.55.

Provisioning......

Then off we went..

initially quite calm but the seas soon mounted high...

This is our usual downwind rig...poled out genoa..

crew on watch..