Weeks 34 to 35
Wednesday 12 to Monday 24 March
On 12 March we left St Lucia and sailed to the beautiful island of Martinique, a French island about 30 miles away. The sea was a bit lumpy and Christine felt a little queasy but was ok. The first night we anchored in St Annes and the second night we anchored in the Marin. We did not get to see much of the island but what we did see was lovely. Having just spent the last 7 months in France it was strange to be this far away from France but hear everyone speaking French. It was a surprise to see the same French supermarkets we had become used to and to spend Euros!!
On the day we left Martinique it rained heavily for about an hour but then cleared up and we headed off about midday, passing Diamond Rock on the way out into the Caribbean Sea. Christine felt ok for the beginning of the trip (which lasted 4 days) but as the trip went on she felt worse and worse and Darryl felt pretty queasy too. Could we take 3 weeks of this crossing the Pacific!?!. We covered the 6pm to 12am look out but generally it was pretty quiet with the odd cruise shipping passing far in the distance. We saw lots of flying fish along the way and just before we sighted Bonaire a pod of about 8 dolphins came and played by the bow of the boat which was really exciting.
Arrived in Bonaire about 8.00 pm which made mooring pretty difficult as it was dark. You cannot anchor off Bonaire due to the coral reef, which surrounds the island, being protected so you must pick up one of the mooring buoys. Bonaire is a very pretty and colourful little Dutch island and a divers paradise (as all of the car number plates boast). We were moored about 30 meters off the coral beach and about 100 meters from the dive shop which was great. We hired tanks and just walked off the beach and dived around the coral and saw hundreds and hundreds of beautiful fish. Even just snorkeling there are so many fish to see. On one dive Christine saw a hawksbill turtle swim past which was great but sadly Darryl missed it. On Good Friday we walked into town in the evening and listened to a jazz band playing. On the way back we came across a great reggae band playing on the quayside.
On the Saturday Steve and Di hired a jeep for the day and took us on a little tour of the island. There was a lake with lots of really, really pink flamingoes. We also saw the local Bonaire parrots, lizards and iguanas. We have never seen so many cactus, they are absolutely everywhere! We drove along a sea road on the Atlantic coast which appeared to be a graveyard for flip flops. It looked like every pair of flip flops that has ever been washed off a beach had ended up here, along with all the plastic bottles which will take years to decompose! We saw some caves with 1000 year old Indian paintings and visited a pretty little village called Rincon, the oldest town in Bonaire.
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