Letter from Atlantia October 2008

We are back in Curacao after 3 weeks in Bonaire. We can really recommend Bonaire for a diving holiday. The water is crystal clear, and the diving relatively easy, since the coral bank which closely fringes the island is about 40 feet deep and is populated by an enormous amount of corals, sponges, fish, crustacean, and lots of other beasties, whose names escape us, but one of the worms is called the ‘social feather duster’, which is exactly what it is, and looks like.

The snorkelling was wonderful and we went to Margaret’s reef, (actually the concrete from a small old bridge that had been dumped in shallow water), twice a day, to see the moray eels and a scorpion fish which was so well camouflaged against the rocks that some times we couldn’t find it.

We did see a small lobster there as well, although it had disappeared the following day. Hopefully it didn’t end up as somebody’s tea. On a northern reef we also saw a Caribbean spiny lobster that was nearly as long as Will, from tail to tip of spiny snout. It must have weighed in at over 25 lbs, which is large for a Caribbean lobster. We did see a very similar one at the restaurant that night. They said it was fresh. We couldn’t have eaten it that day after seeing its brother crawling about in its natural habitat of rocks and Coral. In fact our taste for lobster has declined!

Will made friends in Bonaire with a passing swimmer, his name was Patrick. Patrick and Hettie have an apartment right on the waterfront and our conversation with water borne Patrick ended with an invitation to drinks and to meet Hettie and their dog Sparky that evening. A nice way to make new friends!

They kindly took us to the National Park, in the north of the island, in their car. They sometimes help out there counting parrots (lora is the local name in papiemento) and watching iguanas, so they are very knowledgeable about the area.

The cacti forests appeared impenetrable even although the park had at one time been a farming estate. The principal produce here seems to have been goats, and the type of cacti on the island can be made into fences to keep the goats from where they were not wanted.

We went snorkelling on the reefs of the park and the French Angel fish there were so friendly we could almost pat them on the back.

That was also where we saw our large lobster. Obviously Bonaire is the land of large and friendly creatures. We saw no sea monsters there. However we did see some enormous parrot fish. The biggest we have seen. Pink flamingos are also abundant on Bonaire.

Regretably it is not very noise friendly when you use one of the moorings, which you are required to use and pay for! The privilege of having a mooring, which is essential since the bank for anchoring between the deep water and the beach is very narrow, is that you are subjected to blasting music (all night at the weekend) from the bars in the town centre. The most culpable bar is written up as being friendly to sailors but nowadays is in fact the very opposite. It is fortunate that this was just about the only (although very substantial) thorn in the side we encountered during our stay on this beautiful and friendly island.

We managed ten dives whilst we were there, costing only 3 dollars each for the air refills and were lucky that our rubber dinghy and outboard could take both of us plus all our diving gear. This of course includes Will’s weights at 20 pounds of lead! You can imagine the two of us putting on wet suits, weight belts, buoyancy control devices, fins and tanks, all in the confines of a small ten foot long rubber duck! It took half an hour to get in the water, after we had arrived at our dive site, and half an hour to finally prepare to go home again to Atlantia, when we surfaced. The part in between was well worth it though. It is a different world down there, a veritable octopuses garden. We didn’t see any octopuses this time unfortunately but the turtles made up for it.

We were pleased to assist Patrick in his quest to produce magazine articles about Bonaire. He has completed an article on the two sea going tugs in Bonaire which help the tankers and salt barges to load and offload.

Salt mountains are quite a sight on Bonaire.

He has also had published an article about a beautifully restored fishing smack from Holland which is enormously beamy and very wooden.

Patrick took a number of photos of Atlantia from the shore and then interviewed the ‘crew’. He will have the article published in ‘Sailing’ magazine, probably in the Spring of next year. Apparently the editor is very excited about the ‘quotes’. Will wondered what he said to Patrick! We have used a couple of Patrick’s professional photos of Atlantia here, which he kindly donated to us on a disc. Please don’t download these without e-mailing us. It is nice to have pictures of the boat under sail taken by a professional. Atlantia looks so much better with a palm tree in front of it! One day we may make this one into a poster.

Will is writing this from the comfort of being at anchor in Spanish water, Curacao. We leave on Saturday for Aruba, which is also a Dutch island, and at one time part of the ‘Dutch Antilles’. It has as its currency, the Gilder. This is exactly the same value as the Florin of Curacao and Bonaire (1.77 U.S .Dollars), but they do not interchange guilders for florins. Of course Holland now has the Euro as its currency, but that isn’t accepted in Aruba, or in Curacao or Bonaire. They all accept the U.S. Dollar of course. Very Caribbean. Their statuses are all changing, although they have all agreed that Holland is to be their motherland. Nowadays that means the EEC of course. How much of the bad parts of the EEC have been negotiated out of the association with Holland and how much of the good parts (money?) have been negotiated in, will only be known in the future. Clever people the ABC islanders!

Just a short narrative this week since we are stocking up tomorrow for our voyage to Aruba and Cartagena.

We hope you like the mixture of Margaret’s and Patrick's pics.

Love from Atlantia