Cartagena, Columbia

 Hi Everybody,

Note the size of that new inner turnbuckle

The installation of the new lower shrouds went well. After paying the exorbitant shipping fees I had a dread that something wouldn’t be right, that some dimension would be incorrect. Not so, everything is as it should be and Lennart  “Lelle” Davidson, the rigger in Bonaire, proved to be a guy who knows his stuff. We got the rig slackened up, the new lowers installed and the rig retuned in about two hours. Everything looked good and the voyage to Cartagena proved that, so far at least, its pretty much the way I want it.

Lelle has tougher feet than me!

We departed Bonaire with some sadness. The people at Wannadive had become friends and we had some good times with them. Between Janet and I we did eighty-five dives on Bonaire and felt it really was an excellent dive destination. True, there were no real mind blowing once in a lifetime dives. Not that we saw anyway. However, there are many, many miles of easily accessible and quite excellent reef with a great variety of reef fishes, coral, sponges and about any kind of life you might expect to find in a healthy tropical reef system. The large Tarpon we saw on almost every dive would let us get quite close. There were as many as seventeen around us on one dive. It is a good place and we’d recommend it for a dive trip. We also had fun with the staff at the marina restaurant and bar and they were nice people

First view of Cartagena through the haze

But this season has been about moving west and after seven weeks in Bonaire it was time to resume. We did a non-stop to Cartagena. 510 nautical miles in 77 hours, lines off at Harbour Village Marina to lines on at Club de Pesca Marina in Cartagena. We sailed the first two days in moderate conditions and motored the last due to light air, laziness and the desire to get into port during daytime. Rounding Punta Gallinas, the “Cape Horn of the Caribbean”,  in those conditions was no problem although there were some interesting seas. It was easy to see how in gale conditions you would not want to be anywhere near the area. So we made it to Cartagena with no problems and no breakages and we’re comfy and secure at the rather classy Club de Pesca Marina

Nice equestrian monument to Bolivar

Its hot and humid and very hazy although there were some thunderstorms in the area yesterday which seems to clear things out a little. There seem to be no mozzies here at the marina which is nice for a change. What we’ve seen so far of this city has been interesting but not world class wonderful. The harbor area of Boca Grande and Santa Mari is posh Miami Beach style high rise.  El central is  the old city of Cartagena which dates back to the 16th century. We’ve done some exploring around and we have a lot more to do. So far we are underwhelmed by the old city, it’s too touristy and not as picturesque as its touted to be. 

El Central street scene

We’re a rather jaded pair of course, but  Cartagena seems like a good place to stop enroute to Panama and not a world class destination in itself. People are sweet, there’s lots of well armed security at the marina, lots of cops on the streets, cabs are cheap and prices in general are quite moderate. There are very good super markets for provisioning and plenty of good restaurant food available. Also, true civilization can be found in the fact that they know how to make a really good chocolate shake! There is hope for Columbia!

Monument to San Pedro Claver

We plan on being here ten days, departing Tuesday the 3rd of May for the San Blas Islands of Panama. Should take  just over a day for our planned landfall. The boat is in good shape with the exception of the fridge which has ceased to cool once again. You may remember it failed on the Atlantic crossing. I had the coolant filled in St. Lucia and it seemed to hold pressure and to have solved the problem. Well, it quit again and seems to be out of coolant and that shouldn’t happen in just a few months. We’re supposed to have a service guy here this morning and hopefully the fix will be simple enough. Of course a different service outfit was supposed to be here all day yesterday and never showed! We’ll see.

So we’re both homesick and by next week it’ll be time to get moving towards Panama and ultimately towards the great white bird homeward bound. With a little luck there will be some very good stuff between here and there, the San Blas Islands  are supposed to be wonderful, but home sounds pretty good.

Love to all,
Bill & Janet
SV Airstream

High Times In Bonaire

Family time, Harbour Village's beach

 By Caribbean party island standards Bonaire is a very quiet place. As far as we know there isn’t a tourist attracting night time hot spot to be found anywhere. The local bars don’t seem very interesting and there seems to be no live music to found other than the small but rather good jazz group that plays Wednesday nights here at the marina restaurant. Ahh, there was one night of hell on the other side of town in the local stadium where some disc jockey “music” was being played at about 160 db. Luckily we are berthed far away and up wind.

The "floating hotel" with a"red hot" dinghy

But do we care? No way, we like the quiet. We dive almost everyday and we’re getting to be friends with the crew at WannaDive which is a very nice operation. They do our tank fills and we do an occasional boat dive with them.  

Suited up for a shore dive

We have great gelato at a nice place in town. We have a  happy hour libation at the marina bar with like minded folks. We know where to find excellent pizza and great ribs. The trades are always blowing and although its in the eighties every day it cools down into the seventies at night and there’s a cool breeze through the boat for good sleeping. 

Monkeys on board

The main event since your last update has been a visit from my niece Julie LePrie, husband Russ and their two kids Owen and Jack, ages seven and five. They stayed with us on the boat for five nights and then next door at the Harbour Village Resort for the last two evenings. Great fun was had by all! We showed them the island and spent two days on the beach at the Plaza resort snorkeling, diving and using the Plaza’s lovely facility. 

Look out below

All for the price of a $15 cabana. We had an afternoon at Jibe City where the boys played on the beach and Julie took a wind surfing lesson. Then a couple more days on the Harbour Village Resort’s beach with more snorkeling. The boys made friends with the iguanas. We had a morning dinghy ride each day. They think our dinghy is definitely hot stuff. Owen is an avid fisherman so I managed to get him onto a couple fish off our docks. Julie and Janet talked about everything and kids and Russ and I solved the world’s problems.

Prior to lift off.

Mutton Snapper

Atlantic Thread Herring

The family that fishes together........

He does, however, have entirely too much faith in the future of self driving cars. Now me, after a lifetime of monitoring aircraft systems that should be in a “nothing can go wrong” mode, I am probably far too cynical and have little faith in automatic systems unless monitored by at least one very professional person who’s awake at all times. The future will tell.

Chad and Jerry

So it was lonely after they departed. We miss them all and we miss Jerry and Chad and our cruising friends. And we’re beginning to get homesick after four months on the boat. The stem balls for the stainless steel rod rigging that forms our lower shrouds, the shrouds we will be replacing, are supposed to be at the supplier in the Ft. Lauderdale today. If he does receive them he’ll get the new shrouds shipped tomorrow and we’ll have them in a couple days. A day or two of work on the rig and we’ll be ready to depart only a few days later than we had planned. Then it will be off to Cartagena with perhaps a couple stops enroute, then to the San Blas islands of Panama and then Panama itself.

Wish us luck

Love to all,
Bill & Janet Wickman
SV Airstream

DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!

 If you’ve ever seen the great WWII submarine movie “Run Silent, Run Deep” you’ll recognize Clark Gable’s iconic command, “Dive, dive dive!”.  If you haven’t seen the movie you should, that and “Das Boot” being the greatest sub movies ever made and great movies in themselves.

Cockpit social hour with Jerry Dahl

 That’s also pretty much what we’ve been doing on Bonaire the past three weeks. Sure enough we’ve done the usual boat stuff. I’ve changed engine oil and filters. The outboard is finally starting reliably and running very well. The lower shroud parts are supposed to be shipped the 1st and we’re ready to do that replacement. The dinghy leak has been fixed….apparently. We’ve explored much of the island and spent more money than planned upgrading dive gear, etc, etc.

Fellow diver

But it seems every day is pretty much organized around diving somewhere. The entire leeward side of the island (the west side) is one long coral reef and in some places its a double reef. There are a couple marine reserves but all the rest is available for a good to great dive and there are over one hundred categorized entree points. You can just drive the coastal road and shore dive, you can dinghy out to buoys anchored at the known sites or you can do boat dives. We’ve done twenty six dives here as of yesterday. We don’t make any effort to do multiple dive days. A few of those dives have been boat dives but most have been shore entries. The trades have been blowing exceptionally hard the past couple weeks and that has churned things up. Visibility in the water has probably been less than 100 feet but that has begun to improve as the wind is backing off a little. As an example yesterday we dove a site called Karpata at the northern end of the central west coast. Entry and exit were a little rough due to wave action but there was little current and the visibility was at least 100 feet. 

Karpata entry point

 The reef drops off almost immediately from shore  to beyond scuba depth. Went went down to 130 feet along a gorgeous wall of sea fans, mixed soft and hard coral with a wide variety of tropical fish. We worked our way back up along the wall through coral canyons and then eventually into shallower water and back to our entry point. It was a great dive with the only missing element being no really large fish or turtles. We do some variation of that kind of dive somewhere almost every day. We’ve been getting our tank fills and doing a few boat dives with WannaDive which is dive operation near the marina. We would highly recommend them as a very friendly, competent and laid back operation. When my niece Marissa and her friend Olivia were with us they got their open water certifications with WannaDive and were happy with the program. They let us keep our gear in their dive rooms and we just pick up our tanks and gear and go.

WannaDive's operation

 We been socializing and diving with Jerry Dahl who has become a good friend and dive buddy. His sweetie Gwen left a few days ago but he’ll be here a few more days on his boat ‘Castaway’ until heading for Curacao with a friend as crew. Jerry and I have an amazing number of things in common starting with being Iowans the same age and it goes on and on. Jerry has been coming to Bonaire diving since 1972! 

Janet and me...

.....with Jerry Dahl

 So the next big event is a family visit from my niece Julie, her husband Russ and their two boys Owen and Jack, ages six and four. That will be a kick! If we survive the week we’ll get this boat up and ready to move onto Cartagena about the middle of April.

Love to all,
Bill and Janet
SV Airstream

Bonaire, Getting To Know You

We’ve been in Bonaire two weeks now and are starting to feel like old hands. We can drive around ‘town’ without getting lost in the roundabouts and we can find decent ice cream when needed. There are more than a hundred recognized dive sites around the island and we’ve done ten so far. Actually you can fall into the water about anywhere on the leeward side of the island and have a good tropical dive experience.  

The dominant native fauna

People are laid back and friendly and the racial ‘edge’ found many places in the eastern Caribbean doesn’t seem to exist here. The Dutch influence is strong and positive. Island time is still a factor but not to the point where nothing gets accomplished. The rigger working to solve our shroud problem seems to be a good guy and I believe we’ve finally got our pesky outboard starting problem solved at last. With a little luck things will continue to go very well

Olivia, the old guy and Marissa

We had a really nice visit from my great niece Marissa and her roommate/teammate Olivia. The girls are freshmen at Creighton University and soccer players for the university team. They flew in and spent eight days with us on the boat. 

They got scuba certified and went diving with us. They took wind surfing lessons. They did the usual girls stuff and some shopping. They’re very nice, smart and athletic girls and it was very interesting for us ‘old’ folks having some teenagers around for a change. 

Dive training

So we’ve been diving with a nearby dive shop called “Wannadive” and enjoying the local scene. They do our tank fills and we keep gear at their shop. Our boat dives have been with them. They’re very nice.

Wind surfing lessons

But people at home say that we’re on another “island paradise”. Hmmm…..when I look at Bonaire I see  an arid and harsh place where cactus and Iguanas compete with the wild donkeys for what little sustenance is provided. There is almost no fresh water and all the water used in the island’s system is reverse osmosis sea water. What I think of is what an old ship wrecked mariner would have thought having washed up ashore. This was a little bit of hell for those people and for the slaves who were brought in to work the salt ponds. Today the main sources of income are tourism, mostly dive tourism, and salt. Cargill owns the salt production facilities that occupy most of the southern third of the island. There are dive shops on every corner and they seem quite good. There are modern super markets and good restaurants. People are friendly and competent

Cargill's salt loading facility

 Beneath the surface is a rich and varied tropical ecosystem that is well protected by the island government and seems quite healthy. Typically there’s a shore ledge that extends out to 20-50 yards of sandy bottom with some soft corals or stag horn coral and then the reef drops off to maybe 140 feet of depth in a nice wall. The walls are covered with a good variety of coral and there are supposed to be over 400 hundred species of fish. Visibility is 70-100 feet and water temps are about 80F. Its good, very good, tropical diving. Bonaire is touted as being one of the three best dive sites in the world. Well….maybe…..that jury is still out as far as we’re concerned. I still think of the walls north of Little Cayman, the Red Sea south of Hurghada and a bunch of places in the Pacific and Indian Ocean as perhaps better. But as far as the number of sites available, shall we say the square miles of reef that are easily accessible,  well maybe that’s an argument to be made.

Flamingos on the southern flats

In the meantime life is good. Our rental wreck pickup is running better. The previous renter had tried to run it on diesel and it was still recovering but the rental outfit assured me it would be OK and a tank of gas later that seems to be the case. The roads are very rough and tough.

Lunch at Karel's on the waterfront

We’ll have more family down in a couple weeks and that will be great fun. All is well. We’re looking forward to the next month in Bonaire.

Love and kisses,
Bill & Janet
SV Airstream