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Diane's DiaryOctober 18 Monday We woke up to good wind so we started running the water maker before 9am and ran it for 3 hours. It's a good thing we started it early as the wind died by noon. It had been blowing around 10-12 knots from the E- NE but decreased to about 5 knots. We like it here so much we have decided to stay another day- except there are now two other boats in this bay with us- not too close but we wish they weren't here. I made some more bread from my cooking cuisine cookbook. We shall have to see which bread recipe comes out best! This one is very fast and easy- that's why they call it "easy white bread" but I think the recipe Dolphin Street gave me is probably better. We'll have to see. Anyway, I did a bunch of boat chores this morning- cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, shook out the rugs, swept the floors etc. It was a real domestic morning! I am almost finished my "The Book on Bush" book. It was not very well written but is a very damaging book about the Bush Presidency. I wasn't going to vote for him before I read this book and I'm certainly not going to after reading this book! So, I guess it accomplished its job- get Bush out of office! Anyway, we went snorkeling in the afternoon and I got 2 more conch. Not as big as the ones I got before but still mature conch. After snorkeling, we took them to the beach, opened them up and cleaned them out. At least we don't make a mess on the boat this way! We changed propane tanks today- we got 2 months and 1 week on the last tank so we will definitely have to get the tank refilled when we get to Bonaire. The most we ever get out of a tank is 3 months. It was about $20 in Bonaire (and they didn't even fill the tank up to the OPD level but only charged us for what we used) compared to around $7 in PLC. However, we don't want to run out of gas! We use a lot more gas out here in the islands since I use the oven a lot more baking bread and things. Plus, we let Dolphin Street use our propane for almost a week! October 19 Tuesday I had a terrible night sleep. I drank some Diet Coke at dinner and think the caffeine really does affect me- so no more soda late in the day! Anyway, there was lots of lightning north and south of us last night but thankfully, no storms came here! I made some pasta this morning as I want to make Mexican lasagna this afternoon- if the pasta is already cooked it will make assembling the lasagna easier. I am using my last container of ricotta cheese though- I don't remember if they sold this in Bonaire. We wanted to see the birds one last time before we left Barlovento as there are very few in the next Aves- Sotavento. So, we dinghied to the shore and drifted down watching them while Larry took pictures. We found a much better spot to anchor than where we are now - it is the anchorage listed in the Doyle's Guide. You still get the birds, have a reef to snorkel at right off the boat and the water is only 20 feet here so it's a much shallower anchorage as we prefer. The only problem is if the wind were low than you would have mosquitoes so would have to anchor farther out. We will have to anchor here if we ever get back here! We wanted to leave when the sun was higher in the sky so we could see the reefs very clearly. Larry wanted to anchor by another island - I was just as happy here but he wanted to go so we did. We left the anchorage at almost noon and it took almost an hour to motor over here. We anchored on the north side of Isla Oeste - there are lots of coral reefs here so it was hard to find a good spot but we did. Unfortunately, it's rolling like hell here. Hope this doesn't continue all night, as it won't be a comfortable night! When we got anchored and I turned off the engine, the low voltage alarm went off. That means we weren't charging the battery on our trip over! Great and the batteries were low since we had been running the water maker for 3 hours! Larry looked at the engine and saw a wire had come off so he wasn't too concerned. We had lunch and then took the dinghy around to see if we could get a better spot using the portable depth sounder we have. There were a lot of coral heads and shallow water so it looks like we'll have to stay right where we are unfortunately. It's a very pretty spot but just too rolly- we don't know if it's like this normally though. Anyway, we then went to the beach and walked around and swam for about 2 hours. The beach is much nicer here than on Isla Sur where we were anchored - not as good as Los Roques but still good. Anyway, Larry worked on the charging system. It turns out it's not just the wire - something is wrong with either the alternator or charging system. This comes at a very bad time as it means we can't charge the batteries. I worked on putting together the Mexican lasagna while Larry was working on the problem. Larry thinks it may be the alternator and fortunately he does have a spare for this. The bad part is he looked everywhere for it and couldn't find it. His last step was to look for it in the aft cabin so we had to take everything out. Thank goodness it was there but it's way to late to install it tonight so we'll do it in the morning. We have very little wind tonight and are only getting in 2-3 amps at most so we really need to conserve on the battery- no email for us tonight! October 20 Wednesday I got a very bad night's sleep last night again as the boat was really rolling way to much - the motion is actually better if we hobby horse (vertical) rather than roll (horizontal). We haven't rolled this badly except on passage in a long time. I even came out to sleep on the settee thinking the motion may be less severe here but it wasn't. Larry needs to work on the alternator problem this AM as we aren't charging the batteries right now and we don't have much wind or sun to help out. He worked on changing the alternator and this took hours. However, when he finally got it installed it didn't work! So, back to the Nigel Calder book again. Next he tried the voltage regulator - yep, that's the problem. So, he got out the old one that originally came with Destiny but couldn't get that to work either. If we don't get this problem fixed, we'll have to go to Bonaire and go right into the marina or we'll lose the batteries. Back to the Calder book again- yes, they describe how to jury rig something so that's what he does. Finally, it works! Unfortunately, it's now 3pm and he's totaled exhausted. I didn't do much except help him monitor the voltage periodically and read my book, as it was a one-person job. We definitely need to get a new regulator ASAP- we don't know how long this jury rig will work plus it's not charging as much as it should be. We also are getting almost no sun or winds so are getting very little amps. We will have to go to Bonaire sooner than we expected- like within the next several days. We are not at emergency status yet so we have a few days to play with. Also, realistically the part can't be sent until Monday, as the earliest we could get to Bonaire is Friday afternoon - too late to order the part that day and than there's the weekend where nothing is done. We need to have it shipped Fed Ex as we know that's the only reliable service in Bonaire. Plus we need to find out about the cost of shipping a part into the country before we have it sent. We knew from last year that Bonaire doesn't honor the yacht in transit status for shipping in parts duty free. It may turn out a lot cheaper to sail the boat to Curacao and have the part sent in there. We could also go food shopping as we have heard Curacao is a lot cheaper than Bonaire for food and fuel. So, we'll only stay at Sotavento for a few days - I like it here much better anyway. Anyway, by this time Larry needed a break, as he was very tired so we went to the beach for a quick swim and shower. Afterwards, we came back to the boat and ran the engine for 1.5 hours. We didn't run the water maker today so would need to catch up some tomorrow. We'll leave for Sotavento tomorrow- we are too tired tonight to get the boat ready and put the dinghy up on deck- wish we had dinghy davits! October 21 Thursday We had another rolly night although it was much better than the previous one. We made the mistake of trying to put the dinghy up on deck this morning- usually we always do it the night before as we usually have more than the 15 miles we have to go to tomorrow! We also had to get the boat ready to transit which means putting everything away. So we worked about 2 hours this morning getting the boat ready to leave. We are in a trough so have very little wind and almost 100% cloud cover. Great! and we aren't getting enough amps either from our jury rig so will have to run the engine longer. By the time we finished getting ready to go we were just to tired, hot and sweaty to leave. The rolling has mostly stopped and what little wind we have is coming from the SE and the weatherman said it would even switch more south. A south wind would be perfect for this anchorage, as we would be very well protected. However, it would not be good for the little islands of Sotavento, as we will roll there. We also have almost 100% cloud cover so this is not great for reading the reefs to enter Sotavento. So, we'll just stay here today and leave tomorrow. I made some more bread from Dolphin Street's recipe. I also did some emails and updated my logs. An article I did 2 years ago finally made it into Latitudes and Attitudes sailing magazine in the US! It's called "Sex, Tans and Cocktails". I was so happy but don't know how much I get paid for this one. At least we're getting some money into the cruising kitty though it's not much. The part we need to get for the boat will be over $300US so there's goes any money I make for writing! Anyway, Larry read the whole day while I worked on the computer for hours. We ran the water maker for 3.5 hours but it's still only 3/4 full- plus we haven't even taken showers yet today. We need to run it some more to get the tanks full but will wait till we have to run the engine again. Since we're getting little sun or wind, looks like this will be soon again! Wish we hadn't put the dinghy up as we definitely use less water when we take a shower onshore. October 22 Friday We finally left Barlovento this morning after 3 weeks. We had almost zero wind last night as this trough is still around us so we'll need to run the engine to charge the batteries. We were still rocking and rolling in the anchorage last night but it wasn't nearly as bad as the previous nights. It was so calm out this morning we could clearly see the bottom. We took the northern entrance into Sotavento but were going very slowly - only 3.7-4.5 knots so the trip took us from 10:15 until 3:30 before we finally got settled into Isla Ramon. We anchored behind the island as close as we could get so we would get some more protection. Just as we were approaching, another boat coming from Bonaire anchored very close to us. I know they were trying to get out of the swell but they were to close to us as far as we were concerned. The anchorage is extremely hot, as we do not have any wind at all- zippo! I finished another book "Le Divorce" but didn't like it very much. We have to keep watching the voltage to make sure we don't overcharge the batteries. We were running the water maker to keep the voltage controlled so Larry said fill up all the containers I have with water since we had to run the water maker anyway. We caught another barracuda fishing- this time Larry managed to get the lure back from him. We caught another barracuda in this same spot last year! Could it have been the same one? Anyway, it's extremely hot here and we are both just sweating up a storm. I went swimming in the afternoon mainly to cool off and take a shower. We saw lightning north of us starting about 6pm- hope that's all we see tonight! Last year we had lots of storms while we were here. This is not my favorite place unless you are out on the reef. We would like to go out there but you need good light to see to enter and leave so we'll just stay where we are so we can leave for Bonaire on Sunday. We could go tomorrow but we are both tired since we haven't been sleeping much and we don't want to get there on a Saturday night where the disco is playing music until the wee hours of the morning. I went to bed before Larry at 9:30 but was woken up at 11:30 by a severe thunder and lightning storm that was close by. A repeat of last year! The storm lasted around 3.5 hours with thunder and lightning all around us but not a lot of rain or wind thankfully. We both stayed up for a while anyway to make sure the boat was OK though I went back to bed earlier than Larry. October 23 Saturday We finally got back to bed but didn't get a good night's sleep since it was so hot- the air was not moving at all! We knew we would have to use the watermaker in route to Bonaire if we were using the engine in order to keep the voltage down, so I decided to do a bunch of laundry today to use up water. I also defrosted the freezer to use up water. I did this all in lots of heat so was really sweating. We traded with 2 fisherman that came over to us - a huge 4lb lobster for a cheap bottle of rum, the other gave us a huge mackerel and cleaned it too for another bottle of rum plus I gave him a pack of cigarettes for cleaning and filleting the fish. We both thought it was a good trade. In the pm, we went snorkeling right off the boat but it wasn't very good. I made some bread when we came back and cooked some conch fritters, as I didn't think the lobster would be enough for both of us. I was wrong as I didn't think the lobster was that big but it was and delicious too! I also made some carrots for dinner. It was a lot of work for me all day and I was absolutely exhausted - especially with all this heat! We will leave for Bonaire in the morning! Oh, my bread came out very good- think I finally have bread making down pat. I made it in a loaf pan so it came out like sandwich bread. I baked it at 375 degrees but think it should be baked at 400 so the crust gets harder. I am very pleased with my new skill! It only took me 4 years of living down here to perfect making bread! Though I must admit I only do it when we are offshore as bread is usually very cheap to buy. October 24 Sunday More storms last night! Though they were not as bad as the previous night they did wake us up at 3am when they got closer. Fortunately, they didn't get as close as the previous night but they had started at 6pm as they had done. We went to bed but the storms woke us up and kept us up for about an hour. I went back to bed as we were going to leave in a few hours - Larry slept on the settee in case things got worse. The low voltage alarm went off and I got up to shut it off. Larry never heard it even though he was sleeping on the settee. I keep telling him I think his hearing is starting to go! We both had a hard time getting up when the alarm clock went off at 6am as we were both tired from being up during the night. When we pulled up the anchor, Larry noticed it wasn't set very well. He thinks we had sand over coral here and that the holding wasn't very good. It's a good thing we didn't get a lot of wind and dragged as we had coral all around us. He said he never wants to anchor near Ramon again and I agree. The holding is definitely better at Saki- Saki. Anyway, we had the anchor up and were underway shortly before 7am. We actually have a west wind so the wind and seas are against us! Very unusual and we should be sailing but instead we have to motor. Thankfully, the wind is very low so there are almost no seas. We didn't want to stay here another night with more storms plus we wanted to get to Bonaire so we could order our part. Larry said during the trip to fill up all the water jugs we possibly have so I was filling up everything since we had to use the watermaker to keep the volts contolled. We even washed our shoes, the cockpit, cockpit cushions etc. I filled up every available thing I could put water into! I wish we hadn't burned all those plastic soda bottles- they would have really come in handy! I had a few but not too many. Larry called HonaLee on the SSB to save us a mooring if possible. He said he would try but it was very crowded. Coincidentally, Skylark called us en route as they were headed west. We were worried we would have to take an inside mooring as with this west wind Destiny might be aground on an inside one. We also did not want to have to pay for a marina. Alan told us to call back around noon as we got closer but we couldn't connect via VHF. As we got closer, Promesa called us - Alan got us a mooring- number 3 on the outside so we both felt relieved, it was actually the mooring Skylark had vacated that morning! Promesa said they would help us with our lines as we got closer- just call them. I was worried about the mooring since they are close together and with the NW wind that it finally shifted too and the boats swinging that way. It was possible we would have a problem with the approach. Normally, I would have driven the boat in while Larry did the lines but I was definitely nervous so wouldn't drive the boat. Normally you drive into the mooring in the direction the winds are coming from. However, we could not go close into the shallow water to turn up into the wind so it was a little tricky. We had almost no problem but it was very nice of Promesa to help us. We invited them on for a drink but they said make it another time- they knew we were tired from the passage and we definitely were. We just sat down to have a drink when Dolphin Street came over and came aboard for a while. But Promesa was right- we really didn't want company right now as we were both tired from the trip. We arrived at the anchorage at 4:30pm so the trip took us 9.5 hours. Hope we have no thunderstorms tonight and get a good night's sleep! Thankfully, we had the leftover beans, rice and turkey I had made so we just had that for dinner. I was definitely too tired to cook. Oh, when we turned the south corner of Bonaire we still couldn't sail as the wind had switched to NW so we were really rocking and at that point and just wanted to get there. It took us almost 2 hours to motor down to the anchorage! Normally, it should have been a beautiful sail! We were both so tired we were in bed by 8:30! |