Back to the U.S.A.

Our friends the Joch’s graciously let us stay at their mansion in Key Biscayne. Key Biscayne is just an incredible place to bike as a family. The quiet neighborhoods of mansions, bike lanes and cross walks on the main road and public parks on both ends, one of which used to be a zoo. Collectively we had 3 spills and Sabrina almost “met her maker” crossing a street when she was told to stop. Tragedy avoided, we made our way back for an incredible afternoon feast we all helped prepare. It was the maid’s day off so two beautiful babes and me in the kitchen, I wasn’t complaining. Topped up and repacked with clean dry laundry Orlando was calling. Hugs and kisses to the Joch’s and we were singing Christmas carols along the I-95 concrete corridor of SE Florida. That didn’t seem to appropriate so we tuned in some hip hop pop to pass the time.

Leaving Crystal and Stormy Nights

A few days later, Crystal finally sails in from the islands of Venezuela. To welcome them, I made arrangements for dinner on the beach at the Bonaire Beach Club Resort. After sundowners we zoom off down the coast to dinner. Since we made reservations and were a large party they had set up a large linen covered table on the beach with candlelight and everything. For $10/adult we enjoy an all you can eat BBQ buffet on the beach! We are all tied up at Hanks dock. The kids can roam freely with their scooters, snorkel under the dock checking out the over dozen moray eels and even bone fish. Bone fish are the prize of saltwater fly fisherman. They are mystical, elusive, and put up a great fight. I confirmed what Doug and Kim had said, the reality is they spend their days rooting around in the shallow sand like a pig looking for a snack. The kids enjoyed making Xmas cookies and delivering them around the anchorage.

Bonaire was quite lush thanks to the most unusual rain showers and cloud cover that came every afternoon while we were there. This island rarely sees much rain as evidenced by its arid dessert landscape covered in cactus and other prickly scrubby vegetation. As much as we could have stayed here for a long while we told the kids we had to get going to Aruba. This met with much resistance by the children as Crystal was staying behind. As much as we were trying to keep our Christmas plans a secret for the kids, Angie finally caved under Sabrina’s constant badgering and full fledged fit about leaving her best boating friend yet again. “Why do we have to leave!” she relentlessly screamed. “Because we are going to Florida and Disney for Christmas with the grandparents!! There, are you happy now??!!” Not quite how I envisioned surprising our children with a very costly and choreographed gift. It reminded me of the scene in Chevy Chase’s Family Vacation when he says “This is not a vacation, this is a quest! It’s a quest to have fun! In fact, we are going to have so much g@#$% ^&*$#@ fun, you’ll be whistling Dixie out you’re %ss! The stormy evening continued as the most squally high wind passage ever.

Beautiful Bonaire and the Junk Man

The contrasts between Venezuela and Bonaire were evident in our stroll to Immigration. We could wear our watch and wallet vs. cash in our underwear. The classic architecture vs. iron bar art and barbed wire in VZ. Money came from ATM’s vs the black market. Bonaire had a master plan with bikes rolling by vs. deteriorating buildings with ghetto buses rambling along pot holed roads. We wore jewelry , carried wallets, and the kids played on the promenade. The Dutch know how to do it right. Bonaire is a micro Netherlands, soon to be the Netherlands, with proper architecture, codes, culture, zoning, conservation, etc but without the free heroin syringes and girls in the windows like in Amsterdam. Guess you can’t have it all.

Upon arriving we picked up a 10/day mooring as no anchoring is permitted. For the same price including electricity and high speed wireless, you can stay at Club Nautico, a T dock marina run by Hank and his family and they charge $10/day. Hank owns two Mantas, Ushi Ushi and Dushi Dushi (means beautiful girl) and with his sons run day charters for tourists.

Safara, with Mark, Kirsten, Nick, and Ben, is a kid boat we in and had not seen since Trinidad. For $50/day we rented an open bed extended cab mini pickup truck and went on an island tour for the entire day. We cruised by the beautiful homes, the crystal clear seashore, took in the vistas, saw some ancient hieroglyphs, watched the waves come crashing into the coral island on the windward side, watched the kite boarders, saw the slave huts near the salt flats, observed the pink flamingos, had lunch in the locals town, and last but not least met the Junk Man and his property.

As we were nearing the end of our island tour on the NE end we passed this “property” lined with painted up junk and memorabilia. All I know is a hand painted rusty sign arranged amongst a bunch of other signs in Patwa said welcome and that was all I needed to say let’s stop and have a look. Beach trash, a shell of private jet, old cars, appliances, and anything you can imagine that people would have in their home or business that they no longer wanted ended up here. The edifice was set back some 100 meters from the road and his back yard was dense mangroves of the ocean where Angie determined no one could hear our screams. We’re goin’ in boys as we were greeted by Thomas. Sanford and Sons junkyard in the tropics. Inside his home, he had mannequins, many of which were sleeping in bedrooms As a memory he got all of us dressed up in sombreros and guitars and had us take photos with him. The guy was crazy, but in a fun way. Off to the wind mills and slave huts before the rent-a-car time was up. A great day was had by all.

Goodbye Venzuela

Isla de Aves (Bird Islands) is a very apropos name for the area. Out in the middle of the ocean exists two island specks loaded with seas birds because the fishing is spectacular. At sunset we passed the time away paddling along the mangroves observing the bountiful species and sounds. We were fascinated as to how close hundreds of birds would allow us to approach without flying off. Of particular interest in the seas were the midnight parrot fish, an extremely rare treat. They are 2-3x bigger than parrot fish with midnight blue bodies. Like Tortuga, there are a couple of fishing camps occupied by very friendly salt of the earth fisherman. Cigarettes and rum go a long way in trading for lobsters. They actually came back and bought Angie an extra lobster to sweeter the deal. The rum cost us a whole $0.50, we love this country. The islands we anchored between appeared to have tall hills; upon closer examination the hills turned out to be the remains of unsustainable conch harvesting. Never in my life have I ever seen anything like it. A conch shell graveyard of tens of thousands of conch harvested for profit. VZ now has an out and out ban on conch harvesting. The best snorkeling on our journey was at the Eastern Aves. Well goodbye Venezuela. We came far longer than we expected. We saw, far more than we planned, and we explored, without incident or mishap in a place avoided by most of the cruising community. The wind is up and so are the sails carrying us into the sunset to beautiful Bonaire.

Happy Birthday Sabrina

Most of the Rocques are virtually uninhabited because the killer black mosquitoes are such a menacing force. You can feel their blood seeking bayonets sinking in deep when they attack!! Our strategy with the enemy was to avoid mangroves, low wind areas, and being close to shore thus minimizing: land to sea attacks, air strike damages (bites) and making refueling difficult. In reserves were the no see ums that further dissuaded us from stepping on shore in many areas. Dos Tortugas was particularly menacing, day or night, it didn’t matter. It was a government funded turtle research and hatching center in the middles of nowhere with a couple of people acting as blood donors, researchers, and turtle ranchers. Razing baby turtles in captivity increased their chance of survival by almost 50X! It works because they have no parents, only instincts to guide them to the sea. The scenery was as close to postcard perfect island paradise as one could imagine. ‘Tis true nothing in life is perfect or without some flaw. Sabina celectrated her ninth birthday with a family party, horse cake and a homemade present from each of us. The malls in Margarita also provided a horse calendar and horse Barbie for our equestrian daughter.

Gran Roque, the jewel of Venezuela

While the rest of the Los Roques is of coral origin, El Grand Roque (The Grand Rock) juts 280’out of the ocean from tectonic plates buckling. El Grand Roque is one of the coolest places on earth with its sand streets and well-maintained. brightly painted stucco structures. Unlike the rest of VZ we had seen, the iron bars and barb wire were less excessive, the streets were litter free, and the hombres wore shorts vs. long pants. The mujeres, as in most of VZ, could arouse the dead with their attire. Small charming posadas lined the beach and other streets were interspersed with restaurants and small scale shopping. Basic provisioning was possible and the people were very friendly. At one shop I found a lone pair of size 13 Crocs for only $20 since no Venezuelan has feet muy, muy grande. Sabrina and Parker negotiated for their trinkets letting them know it was their earned money. All in all it was one of our favorite places.

Los Roques

Los Roques, the jewel archipelago of VZ, was another overnight sail. Upon entering we hit a school of tuna. Angie did circles after 2 hits were had.. bang, bang. That was a first for us, prolonging a sail to try to catch fish. Standing taller than all the islands, except Gran Rocque, is a massive freighter washed up on the barrier reef. Though we tried, the current and crashing waves kept us from snorkeling around it. Sandy bottoms and clear blue coral studded waters is something we hadn’t seen since the Tobago Cays or the Bahamas and just felt right. The kids were excited to find a bat fish.. a rare find indeed.