Tag Archives: klein curacao

Te Aworo Bonaire

“Goodbye Bonaire”  Our friends, Shawn and Sharon are meeting us in Aruba, so we needed to leave our beloved island of Bonaire to head south west.  Unfortunately, there was no wind (less than 8 knots) so we ended up motoring the entire way from Bonaire toward Klein Curacao.

Sugar Shack leaving Bonaire

On the way over, we ran the little generator, water maker, and washer machine (did you know we have a washer/dryer on board – oh ya!).  Of course, I was just doing my delicates and things that needed to be lined dried so the laundry service could focus on towels, sheets, and other bulky items.  We also had to dry out our dive gear so we could stow it for a few weeks on board.

BC and workout clothes drying

BC and Tanks drying

Some say I have a bikini problem

We happened to leave at the same time as Always Sunday so it was not a surprise to hear them hail us on the VHF.  They talked us into heading to Klein Curacao for the night – they did not have to try very hard as we loved this little island stop and just needed a reason to stop short of Curacao.

When we arrived, we met Ricky and Robin (Always Sunday) for a snorkel where we saw lots of turtles, a few scorpion fish, an eel and lots of other little sea creatures.  They invited us to their boat for tuna and a card game.  They have a beautiful 40’ Lagoon 2013 that is immaculately kept. Robin prepared a lovely tuna dish and taught us a new card game that Matt dutifully won.  Despite the fact that they let me cheat my times,  I still came in last.

Matt & I with Robin and Ricky

Once we arrived in Curacao, we rented a car and ran a bazillion errands: dropped laundry, Budget Marine (pick up Life Seal that we ordered), Scuba and More (fix our regulators), Digicel (update our data plan), customs & immigration, Cost U Less, Best Buy, Vruegedenhill, Van Den Twill, Kooyman, Mangusa Grocery and Centrum Market.  We managed to get back in time for happy hour where we met our friends Steve (Kialoa III), James (Moonrise), Matias and Ulreke (Bella) for a final toddy before we head West.

James, Matt, me, Matias, Ulreke, Steve

The next day, we picked up our clean laundry, repaired regulators, and a swung by few more stores to find some elusive items (diet coke, diet ginger ale, mozzarella, and ribs).  We returned to the boat to unpack and stow all our goodies and headed to The Pier for the weekly captain’s dinner where they were serving dorado which was delicious.  We enjoyed hanging out with our friends and 25 other boater pals of Spanish Waters.

A Lighthouse, Shipwrecks, & Dolphins

We got up early the next morning to swim ashore and go exploring before the herds of people arrived.  The water here is gorgeous, clean, clear, and cool.  Underwater we were treated to several flounders, box face puffers, an eel, turtles, and tons of tangs.  They didn’t seem to be bothered by the tons of dead choral and sea fans on the bottom of the ocean. We unknowingly, brought a buffet to Klein as the fish loved the remaining soft algae on the bottom of our boat.  After our swim, we dropped off our snorkel gear ashore and headed toward the lighthouse.

Great sign, but unfortunately it is all in Dutch.

Mermaid Tours makes so much money they invested in “$” rims for their trailer.

The original lighthouse was destroyed in a storm so they built this 2nd lighthouse in 1850.   It used to be a vibrant coral pink lighthouse which is now abandoned with graffiti written surfaces.  The wooden staircase is still in tact and has 5 flights of 11 stairs each that take you to the top.  Below are two rooms that used to house the lighthouse keepers with no natural source of running water, it must have been a desolate place to live and work.

Walk to the lighthouse on Klein Curacao.

Front of the lighthouse.

The windward side of the island is a graveyard for boats.  Looming on the beach is the hulking rusted remains of an oil tanker named Maria Bianca Guidesman, which ran aground in the 1960’s.  She gradually eroded away by the merciless waters and now only half of her stern is left.

Matt walking toward the shipwrecks.

Part of the stern of the tanker.

 

Tanker parts strewn along the windward coast.

More pieces of the tanker dotting the coast line.

Right next to this old wreck is a fairly new wreck of a once beautiful Super Amel.  Not sure what happened, but she has no keel and very little bottom left.

Matt climbed aboard the Super Amel.

By the time we walked back to the other side of the island and retrieved our snorkel gear, the beaches were crowded with visitors so we headed back to the boat. The rest of the day was dedicated to chores.  Matt had a 4200 project from hell (that is a type of glue) which turned into multiple projects and I hit the water line.  Over the last few days, Matt had cleaned the lines, props, anchor chain and barnacles, so I decided it was my turn to clean the water line.  It is not a difficult project, just tiring as there is not much to hold to while you are trying to swim and scrub the side of the boat (while not removing any of the ablative paint) in a fairly strong current.  It was pretty green on the interior hulls which required several scrubbing passes.  In the meantime, we had 6 day charter boats come to the island (Mermaid, Jonalisa To, Breeze, All Boat Charters, Queen Ann, and a sailboat with a crappy sail bag that you couldn’t read). Lucky for us, they all headed back around 4p and left us to our little piece of paradise.

Sugar Shack on anchor at Klein Curacao.

The next day, Matt made breakfast as I battened down the interior in preparation for the bumpy ride back to Bonaire.  We left about 845am, raised the main and pulled the jib with 2 reefs in both and headed out.  Coming around the south side of the island we had gusts up to 25-28 knots and seas at 2-3 meters.  With the engines (1500 RPMs) and sails up we averaged about 4-5 knots, a little slower than we are used to but it made the trip more comfortable and dry.  About 10 miles into our 23 mile motor sail, the waves and wind calmed down a bit allowing us to increase our engines (up to 1800 RPMs) and speed to about 5-6 knots which shaved off 2 hours on our trip.  It was a beautiful day, blue sky, puffy clouds, several birds, but no fish on the hook.  We trolled the entire way and caught nothing, not even a nibble.  We did however, get a huge pod of dolphins which stayed with us for over 20 minutes.

Over 2 dozen dolphins came to play with us.

So cute to watch them surf with our bows.

 


Thoroughly happy with the dolphin sighting, we pulled into Bonaire only to discover there were no moorings available.  Since you cannot anchor anywhere on the island this proved to be a problem.  Matt dropped the dinghy and drove around until he found a temporary mooring.  It is not an “official” mooring, but it will do for a few days until another one opens up.

After checking the mooring and cooling off for a bit we headed in to clear into the country and have a cold one at Karel’s Bar.