Leaving Bonaire. It’s Hard to Say Goodbye.

Our final sunset on Bonaire.

Well it was hard to leave Bonaire and say so long to the great people we met as well as the beautiful island. We spent our last few weeks taking advantage of the wind for kiting and the fabulous reefs for diving.

We also said goodbye to many people we had the fortune to befriend while visiting. Jerome, Aga, Sebastian and Basi invited us to their home for dinner in their back yard.  Aga made a delicious dinner and we enjoyed it in while watching the sun set beyond their dock as the boys played in the surf.  Thank you all so much for sharing your lives, your local knowledge and your home with us!

Bonaire shirts and a mug depicting our day of sailing!

We also received this fun memento from the BSSA sailors! Now each morning we are reminded of them as Frank has his coffee. Thank you so much for the shirts and mug but mostly for welcoming us into your group.

Frank passed a Gatorade to Rudo, that day’s winner.

We loved having the BSSA kids sail by LIB and Frank often tossed them Gatorades. These memories are very special to us! Keep sailing kiddos. We look forward to hearing how you are progressing and we will truly miss seeing you sail or hearing you call to us from the shore!

In addition to leaving shore friends, we had to say so long to many cruisers. Because we were in Bonaire a long time, we made some very dear friends in the cruising community. We can only hope our wakes cross again in the future!

A huge pod of dolphins!

We left our Bonaire mooring ball for the last time on Sunday morning.  Just past Klein Bonaire, we saw a large pod of dolphins in the distance.  I’m guessing there were nearly 50 dolphins in the pod and we decided to turn a bit in their direction and get a little closer.  Soon part of the pod came to play in front of LIB’s bow!

How cool is this?!

Perhaps 15 dolphins came to play and were cavorting just in front of us, looking up and smiling as Captain went crazy, barking at them from above.

I so wish I could jump in and swim with them.

The water was perfectly clear so I could get this picture of two dolphins swimming just below the cross beam of LIB. I, and nearly everyone I know, seem to smile any time dolphins come to play.  Somehow they manage to raise the happiness level of the boat, even when we weren’t unhappy about anything!!

Our plan was to stop at Klein Curacao for three days and two nights and take the opportunity to be away from any city lights or traffic. The day we arrived, our plan looked golden. We knew there were some serious swells north of us but we hoped they wouldn’t arrive for a day or two.

A wide angle view of Klein Curacao from our mooring spot .

We grabbed a mooring ball and settled in for a quiet day.  Klein Curacao has perhaps two little places to grab a lounge chair and drink. These are visited mostly by the day boat passengers and are fairly crowded until late afternoon.

Cappy’s friend is left on shore.

Frank paddled into shore with Captain and she managed to make friends with the only dog on the island.  But after romping along the beach and rolling in the sand it was time to come back to LIB.

Private boats anchored off of Klein Curacao

Since we arrived on Sunday, there were several private boats from Curacao anchored or rafted up and enjoying the day.  But we knew that before dark most of the boats would head back to Curacao and we would be nearly alone.

By late dusk only a few stragglers remained and they left just a little later.

The sun looks like it is melting into the ocean.

We watched the sun set from the deck of LIB and loved having a completely quiet evening. Bonaire is fabulous, but the street does have a good deal of motor noise in the evenings. It was a nice change to hear only the water playing across the beach and hear the fish jumping nearby while watching the sun wave goodnight.

The buildings on Klein Curacao have character.

While this old light house looks kind of charming, I wasn’t sure if it actually functioned, but sure enough, her beacon flashed through the night warning sailors of Klein’s shores.

We planned on scuba diving off of Klein Curacao Monday, but when Frank took Cap to shore that first morning, a group of surfers were unloading their gear.  The arrival of serious surfers did not bode well for the comfort of our anchorage.  Sure enough those northern waves began to roll in around 11 am.  Rather than stay on Klein, we decided to finish our morning chores and head to Curacao and a protected anchorage.

Our decision was a good one as is evidenced by these surfers loving the waves on the north end of Klein Curacao as we motored by.

The waves were pretty close together.

The waves we saw were a decent size and they were expected to become larger over the next 24-48 hours.

That boat is partially hidden by the waves.

If our sons had been on board, I am sure we would have stayed on Klein so they could catch a few waves, but Frank and I aren’t surfers, so we think our decision to leave the unprotected shores of Klein Curacao and find a protected anchorage on Curacao was a good one.

~HH55 Update~

So our big news is color!  We have chosen the exterior paint color for our new boat.  HH has kindly put together a rendering of the HH55 with an approximation of the color we have chosen.

A rendering of our pretty, unnamed, future boat.

I actually think the paint will be a slightly darker blue than this rendering shows. We are pretty excited! It seems like the HH66 owners have chosen bold and unique paint colors and the HH55 owners have chosen very subtle colors.  We decided to go with something in between.  How do you like our color choice?

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