Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The ol' Island Grog... life blood of the Caribbean

As Bonaire is a very dry island, so dry in fact that it is one of the best solar salt producers of the world. The terrain is harsh and as a result no one ever tried to grow sugar here.  Now Grenada and most of the other Windward Islands this is not so. With good rainfall over summer when the cane needs to grow and cheep slave labour the islands found their fortune waiting in sugar. When the slaves we’re freed and sugar prices declined the sugar industry all but collapsed. However there are some aspects of the sugar industry that will not go down.... well it’s because it does go down so well especially on the beach at sunset with the fruits of the tropics that it has survived. Rum is the drink of the Caribbean and where ever you go you will find rum punch waiting to wash the sweat of the day away. For the more hardy the rum heads up to 70%+ alcohol and you too can start your fire or run your car on this. All the islands have their grog shops and some more of these than any other shop. Touring around Grenada we visited one of the oldest distilleries on the island. Nothing has changed for centuries and the rum is produced in the same old traditional way. Hand cut cane is brought in and crushed in a large roller that is driven by a water wheel. From here it runs down into a building where they heat the sap to evaporate some of the liquid to raise the sugar content. Now seeing this will more than put you off rum so do not study the next photo too carefully. This grey soggy mess then gets pumped into an open vat where it is left for over a week. Who knows what all happens to fall in here but that must account for the little variation in flavour with different batches. The slop is left to be attacked by all the wonderful goodies in the air that help it to turn your stomach... I mean that helps to ferment what’s in the vat (neighbours cat and lost rat included). Now just as some would give up hope for this mix it gets pumped out into a large  copper still. Some good old fellow stokes the fire and gets the brew a boiling (not quite as alcohol evaporates at 35Deg)...  so let’s say he sets it a simmering and everyone goes to the testing side to wait on the first lethal drops of liquid. If they are not lethal enough ie you car won’t start then they send it back into the still to give it another go. Once a crystal clear pure 70%+ proof flows out of the pipe it is then placed in a holding vat to be bottled. Now you would think this was export grade, but due to restrictions on flammable goods on aeroplanes they do have to water it down to below 70% as stipulated by by-law sub section xxx of the aviation.....Yeah right! Oh well it works well on a yacht. When you catch a big fish that is a little less enthusiastic about being on your deck than you are about it... celebrate and pour some on its gills and it soon settles. Cheers!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Art of the island... Bonaire


Every so often one comes across some lovely unique artwork where the artist has been inspire by nature and has produced something that is different in style and medium (driftwood and clay). Today the street markets and square had all the craft stalls set up for the cruise ships. In their midst was this stall who allowed us to photograph their work. The artist collects driftwood that appeals to her and she is able to see what she is looking for to create her designs on it. It must feel right and you can see why..........                See more: Driftwood Art by Dion www.driftwoodartbydion.com

Kralendijk; Bonaire

    
Bonaire is a very pretty little island and the town where we are on a mooring is lovely. The water is beautifully clear and there are plenty of fish around the boat all the time. The bottom is clear at 8-10m below the boat. The people are very friendly and everyone can speak good English. There is a mix of old and new buildings around with many modern flats along the waterfront. There has been a lot of activity as the large cruise ships pull in here and disgorge their load into waiting taxis and the streets of Bonaire.  We have had some lovely sunsets over the island in the bay called Klein Bonaire.
On our walk around we came along this fellow sunning himself on the rocks. Not as colourful as the tree Iguanas from the BVI's, but just as handsome.
There are over two hundred species of bird on the island including some lovely parrots. We hope to see as many of them as possible

Time to rest

While crossing from Grenada to Bonaire we had a rather exhausted swallow join us. It struggled around the deck and into the cockpit where it sat quietly below the dodger in the shade. I poured some water into a bottle cap and pushed it over to it. The swallow was totally unfazed by us been so near to him. He started to drink before I had removed my hand. After resting up and for about an hour, checking out the inside of the boat, it took off and disappeared for 45 min before returning. The closest land was a small island about 18nm away. Later it went off for longer and the third time must have found something to head for as it never returned. The next day another swallow joined us in the middle of a rainstorm. It rode out the storm with us surfing down the waves and then sat in the sun for about twenty minutes before chirping and leaving. It’s amazing how far these little birds go on their migration.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Sunday 19 December 2010

Hi there

We have arrive in Bonaire and just finished our breakfast. Well we continued our speedy trip and reached a new high speed of 10.9 knots during a rather strong rain storm. We were well ahead of our schedule to arrive here so we furled the jib and ran with only the main with two reefs. Needless to say we arrived off the cast at 4am so really took a slow sail around the coast - about 9 miles - to where we could pick up a mooring bouy. It only got light at about sixish. Its a very dark coastline with lights in the interior that made seeing anything difficult. The chart plotter earned its keep and the coastline showed up very clearly on the radar. The water here is beautifully clear with plenty of fish. This is the cleanest water we have seen since the outer islands of the Canary Islands. Need to sleep now as it was a long night with large swells really giving the boat a good shake up and us no sleep. We will spend a few days here then move on to Curracao which is only a short sail from here.
Cheers for now
Colin and Sandy

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Saturday 18 December 2010

Hi there

Here is our next position report:

12*14.382' North
67*12.529' West

From 6 am Friday 17 December to 6 am Saturday 18 December we covered 154.1 nm - our average speed has been 6.42 knots and our maximum speed was 10.3 knots. This is taken from our water log. We seem to have picked up a bit of a current - 3/4 to 1 knot

The lumpy seas calmed some during the night and the swells were less frequent and seemed to drop in height. We were disappointed that this has not remained with daylight - seas more lumpy again and swells increased too with the sun!!!

We have had quite a bit of heavy rain - which makes watches a bit uncomfortable. Colin has put up our small sunshade to protect the cockpit area a bit better but it does cut out visibility, so we need to poke our head around the canvas and get a bit of a hair wash!!!

I started this report earlier, but had to close down as we had some lightning - the computer gets put into the oven with a few other electronic items.

The swallow didn't return but we had another swallow taking shelter during a rain squall this morning but he was not people friendly and kept his distance, though he did chirp his thanks when he left.

We have 73.7 nm left to go - hope we don't arrive in the dark!!!

Will send the next report once we have anchored and after we have caught up on much needed sleep.

Hugs and smiles
Colin & Sandy

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Friday, December 17, 2010

(no subject)

Hi there

We have now been sailing for 24 hours and our position is as follows:

12*21.564' North
64*25.632' West

We lost our initial wind about half an hour after we left at about 3.30 pm Thursday and motored for about 2 hours. Then the breeze picked up and we landed up galloping along at an average of 6.5 knots with our fastest speed over water being 9.88 knots - and this morning at 6 am we had covered 103.6 nm - and we have covered a total of 166.1 in 24 hours. Our best ever to date. The strange thing is we do not have the current pushing us - our water speed is greater than our speed over ground. We were hoping for a 2 knot push which most sailors report.

We have a stow-away on board - he/she arrived this morning on Colin's watch pretty exhausted - a swallow. He has flown off 3 times and is not aboard at the moment - the first time he left was for about 20 minutes - the second time just under 2 hours, so are not sure if he will return. The swallow was fairly people friendly - we could move past him close by and he sat on Colin's knee and foot and sat on my finger. Colin was also disturbed from a rest by the swallow fluttering around his face - we feel very honoured to have had this visitor taking a brake on our yacht.

The sailing conditions are a bit uncomfortable with a northerly swell of about 2-3 metres and a north easterly swell of 1.5 - 2 metres so lots of holding on required. The sea seems flatter than when we did the Atlantic crossing and no growling waves breaking at our stern this time.

We had quite a large rain squall at about 4.30 this morning - making the cockpit an uncomfortable place to be.

We we'll send another position report in about 24 hours.

Hugs and smiles
Colin & Sandy

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

time to go

Well its time to leave this lovely island of Grenada and start heading westwards into the sunset. Follow our progress here as we post our  position and blerb (fishing report) hopefully each day. As this will be through our HF radio we do sometimes encounter technical difficulties.