REVISITING CURACAO AND KLEIN CURACAO

Painting by local artist Den Spotlait

BON BINI MEANS WELCOME in Papiamentu, and you see these 

words all over the large Dutch island of Curacao, located between Bonaire and Aruba. 

Papiamentu is a Creole language based on Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and several 

African dialects. It's been spoken in the ABC islands for 300 years. Another phrase often seen is 

MI DUSHI and means My Love or My Sweetheart or just sweet. 

On the east end of Curacao is the colonial-style capital of Willemstad. Many of the ornate buildings were built in the 1700's, and are painted bright colors, creating a beautiful backdrop to the busy downtown port area. Most of Curacao's 130,000 residents live close to Willemstad, while the west side of the island is dry and desert-like. Curacao is less than 50 miles from Venezuela, and has an oil refinery, Isla, that produces 320,000 barrels of oil per day, operated by the Venezuelan state company PDVSA. 

Our favorite restaurant in downtown Curacao - The Gouverneur

Delicious Cuban Banana Soup

 

I ordered fried fish at a local restaurant and was served the entire Snapper,

                           much to my surprise! It was wonderful, served with sides of salad,
                                              fried plantains and black beans in rice.

Many of our friends were worried about us during Irma and the other storms that took their toll on our favorite Caribbean islands. In fact, we were in St. Martin 10 days before Irma arrived. Ricky met a guy who mentioned he was leaving to sail to Bonaire, and we decided it was time to go south and out of the hurricane belt. We hauled our boat out in Curacao and scheduled a trip home to visit family and friends, but Irma was going over Miami and our flight was delayed over and over again. We couldn't stay on our boat, as it was already out of the water, so we checked in to Lions Dive & Beach Resort. Our two-night stay turned into nine nights. Finally we were able to fly home, but our unplanned mini vacation was pretty special. The restaurants on the premises are all amazing, and the grounds are spotless. We recommend it highly to friends looking for a new place to vacation, especially divers.

Having a romantic dinner at Hemingway's,
an eclectic restaurant right on the beach

KLEIN CURACAO, or Little Curacao, is a small island located near Curacao. Day-trip boats bring loads of tourists over to explore the rocky, windswept island that maintains one of the oldest abandoned lighthouses in the world. The 66' high tower and red brick buildings were rebuilt in 1877 after a hurricane destroyed the first one built in 1850. The newer building sits in the very middle of the island, and has received some recent tender-loving-care, mainly a new roof. The two keeper's houses have been gutted, but you can still walk up the narrow staircase for fantastic views. In 1888, Germany established a naval base here, but storms finally forced them to leave. We enjoyed snorkeling, and saw a pod of 16 dolphins and several sea turtles.

We were the only sailboat in the anchorage - a rare treat!

A Plumed Scorpionfish, camouflaged to blend in perfectly with the sea grass and algae 

A Flame Box Crab being shadowed by a flounder

A strange looking jelly fish found washed up on the shore that I can't identify

DIVING IN BEAUTIFUL BONAIRE

     Seven years ago, while taking our first sailing sabbatical, Ricky, Danielle and I spent two amazing months diving and having fun with new Aussie friends in Bonaire, one of the three ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao) located north of Venezuela. We were also brand new divers, and were lucky to be buddy-boating with Master Instructor Jamie Dryden. Those two months hold so many happy memories for us, so, of course, Ricky and I were pretty excited to return.

Quite a treat to literally bump into Jamie while we were docked at
Nanny Cay Marina, Tortolla, and he was chartering a boat on vacation. Small world!

     Bonaire is a Dutch island that thrives on tourism, namely scuba divers arriving by plane and sailboat to enjoy 86 marked dive sites around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, home to over 57 species of coral and over 350 species of fish. We dove right off the back of our boat in 20 feet of crystal clear water where the wall drops sharply to about 100 feet, covered with colorful corals and sponges and home to an amazing assortment of fish and sea creatures. It is diver's paradise.
     We also made a lot of new friends while in Bonaire because Eric, Kate, Kyle and Matt on Ad Astra invited 25 people on seven boats to come aboard their Lagoon 45' Catamaran for a day trip to Klein Bonaire. It was definitely the highlight of our stay in Bonaire as we met boaters from Norway and Germany, and enjoyed the interaction with the kids.

Eric Bethke (PADI Rescue Diver) standing far left on Ad Astra addressing the group

Ricky enjoyed being Grill Master

Studying Fish Books

What do you cook when new friends, Emory and Kim on Zimmer,
from New Orleans visit your boat? Red beans and rice, of course!
Note the Tony Chachere's on our table.

Kim made jambalaya for us when we had dinner with them! So good! 

We enjoyed hearing about the Zimmer's plans to travel in the World ARC Rally, a round-the-world adventure taking place over 15 months and covering 26,000 nautical miles, with 39

other boats leaving from St. Lucia in January.

We celebrated Labor Day with fellow boaters at a pot-luck in the park.

Awesome girlfriends!
 Holly (Shangri-La) and Christine (Sugar Shack)

We got Advanced Certified! Dive Instructor, Steven.

Shy Balloonfish

Squat Anemone Shrimp live in Giant Anemone

Hawksbill Turtle didn't seem to care that I took 20 photos as she ate. See Ricky in the background?

Baby Trunkfish - just a tiny round ball. So cute!!!

Snorkeling with Tarpon in very shallow water

Sand Diver

   

Beautiful Chainlink Eel

IN LOVE WITH THE LITTLE THINGS!

Spinyhead Blenny 1"

I've been spending a lot of time snorkeling while Ricky takes care of boat maintenance, so this is a taste of what I've found literally under our boat or nearby. If you're not really looking for the tiny fish, crabs and other interesting creatures, you will pass them without a clue. But I have a very detailed book, Reef Creature Identification,that helps me search out the things that are normally overlooked, like this adorable blenny (right) looking out of a hole in brain coral. 

Spinyhead out of his hole

Ciliated False Squilla 3"- Can change color and markings

Tiny Brittle Star - found under rocks in shallow water

There are many different kinds of blennies - 2-4" long

Rough Fireclams

Pair of Flamingo Tongues 1" long

 

Slate-Pencil Urchin about 4" - Look at the beautiful flower design in the center!

Christmas Tree Worms 1 1/2"

These Squid let me take all the pictures I wanted, which is uncommon 

Arrow Crab - very common on reefs

Cleaner Goby 1-2"

This baby Lionfish is in my fishbowl. So cute!!!

Spot-Winged Comb Jelly 2-3"

Spotted Seahare 3-6"

Mysterious Headshield Slug 2"

Spotted Cleaner Shrimp 1"

Tiny Baby Highhat in the Drum Family

 

Warty Sidegill Slug on a bottle

Warty Sidegill Slug found under a rock