Sinterklaas in Bonaire

What a grand way to experience Santa in a different culture. This morning Sinterklaas arrived in Bonaire. The traditional story is that he arrives by boat from Spain (slightly more plausible if you are in Europe ) with his companions Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), disembarks and gets on his white horse and rides through the town. Bonaire has put its own twists on the story.

Shortly before 9 this morning two tugboats appeared in the bay, water cannons firing.

Bonaire- turquoise and sapphire

Bonaire is a aquaphile's version of heaven. Because it is a desert island the water surrounding it is phenomenally clear as there are no rivers flowing into the ocean bringing in the runoff. Boats are not allowed to anchor here, to protect the reefs, so Bonaire has set up a mooring field for the boats.

Passage to Bonaire

Don't leave port on a Friday, it's bad luck. Don't have bananas on the boat, it's bad luck, and sailors long felt that having a woman on board was bad luck (their loss!). We left Grenada on a Friday, made it Friday the 13th just for good measure,  a full weeks supply of bananas,  and I decided that I would go along as well.

Happy Splashiversary

It was one year ago today that we became full time liveaboards, and what a year it has been! We have met some amazing people (and if you are reading this and we met you this year, yes I am referring to you!), went some interesting and exotic new places and had some wonderful adventures. We have learned so much this year and are looking forward to future years on life on Rhapsody.

One year ago!

Hiking and Hashing

Lush green hills, beautiful waterfalls, exotic flora and fauna. Wonderful reasons to hike around Grenada. 

Underwater Sculpture Park

As divers we were familiar with the underwater sculptures in Grenada. They were actually one of the first underwater sculpture parks. We were looking forward to experiencing it ourselves.

Learning a new sail

When we bought Rhapsody she came with a spinnaker.  What is a spinnaker?  It is the big colorful sail you see in pictures of sailboats. They are wonderful to look at, unfortunately they require a lot of hardware and knowledge to get them flying properly. We had never put up our spinnaker, and we had many questions about the details of rigging it.  We were very fortunate to run into Jamie Gifford from S/V Totem. Ok, when I say ran into it sounds rather random. In actuality we (I) had been stalking them, and knew exactly where they were, you see I have been following this family of 5 on their blog for about 6 years now tracking their circumnavigation.