Life in Bonaire

There is not much of a cruising community here, most boats stay a few days then leave and neighbor boats rarely wave to each other, frankly we're not used to this and so I decided to get the boaters together. The Wanna Dive Hut has a fun Thursday night Happy Hour with free rum punches. Thought that would be easy to lure cruisers there, everybody like free. Lourae had a better idea and offered her house for a potluck. We had about 20 people at the potluck and it was really nice to finally meet all our neighbors. Everybody had especially fun talking to Donna and Leroy. We had a fun week with Leroy and Donna but as always time when you have fun just goes by too fast. The following they after they had left our buddies on Moon Dancer left as well. The trade winds had slowed a bit so many more boats left and of the 42 mooring only 6 boats remained. The turnover here is so fast there really isn't a chance for a cruising community to build. We thoroughly enjoy Bonaire; the anchorage is calm, except when the dive boats race by leaving a pretty good wake. The water is absolutely clear and it feels like sitting in an aquarium, no matter when you look in the water there are colorful reef fish looking back at you. I actually started recognizing certain fish and guess it won't take long before I name them. Some times some big grouper or snapper is on the hunt for food which would look so darn good in my frying pan, but then again he is part of this beautiful aquarium. Not just all is rosy, the water maker parts arrived in Curacao only 5 days after the order went through but then it took another 10 days to finally get the part ourselves. Luckily these are now spare parts as Sid was able to get it fixed. The fridge is still not running well, Sid emailed to Glacier Bay this time and his email was immediately answered. The technician wanted Sid to look at the window where the oil is, run the engine and see what happens, if the air bubbles don't disappears it needed more coolant. Nothing was wrong with it and Sid wrote the tech back with his findings, it's now a week later and we're still waiting for more info from the tech. Funny though ever since Sid looked at the window the fridge seems to work better, let's hope it stays. The alternator took a dump too and while working on it Sid also found a water leak. We had a back up alternator but since this engine is over 20 years old it was a different model as they don't make the old one anymore. The adjusting arm was not long enough and Sid had to chase down a mechanic who could fix it. He also had to chase down some tools and Moon Dancer let us borrow their generator to run the fridge and top off the batteries. At Budget Marine Sid ran into the same old man who helped him with the water maker valves and again was able to help and just two days later Sid fixed the engine.
Shopping here is not too bad but if you see something you eventually need you have to load up because you may never see it again. There is only one store on the island that sells popcorn, yeah I finally found the store. If you make dinner plans don't make plans for what you'll cook until the day you go shopping for it, you may not find what you need. If you like chips and tortilla chips good luck they are sold out so fast you feel lucky if you manage to come home with one bag. But it makes shopping a challenge as every week I find something I never thought to find for instant boiled peanuts, wow.
Our cruising life has settled to an almost routine life here on the island. Wednesday's Sid joins the guys at the "It rains Fishes" to save the world while the ladies get together and have breakfast somewhere else. Every Saturday Lourae picks me up for shopping, especially to the Venezuelan butcher who sells his delicious rotisserie chickens only on Saturdays, I tell you these are the tastiest we've ever had. Once a week we get together with Villa Blue for dinner and whenever they take Mokko Jumbie, their trimaran, out for a sail we're joining them. It's always a lot of fun and last time the max speed was 14.7 knots I just wished this on Paradise.
On May 19th I hit the big 50 or is it my 20 Anniversary of my 30th Birthday, Sid is sure that's the one?! We celebrated it with a nice dinner at the Mona Lisa restaurant with Randy and Lourae and Stan and Magi on Inner Wisdom.
I joined a Gym twice a week for Zumba, which is a dancing aerobics created in 1999 in Colombia and is a hit world wide since then. Where was I that I just found out about it?! If you don't know like me what Zumba is Google it and watch the U-Tube videos. I always enjoyed Latin dancing and Zumba is just that but double the speed, wow I was sure I would through my back out the first time. It's a lot of fun and I have to laugh about my lack of coordination, didn't know I was this spastic and that there is such a thing as dyslexia of body parts. It's a lot of fun and I laugh more than I dance.
Anyway, we're enjoying the Bonairian relaxed atmosphere to the fullest and can't wait to share it with Bill and Nell from Virginia who are coming to visit us on Saturday for a week of diving and fun.
By the way you can still see us on the web cam: http://www.bonairewebcams.com/YellowSubPierCamLarge.php