Rundervinken

One of our favorite things about traveling is trying new foods and experimenting with new ingredients. We have tried many new foods in our year of cruising and enjoyed most of them. (Except pupusas; I'm sure we could go the rest of our lives and never miss pupusas.)

 

 

We are at a distinct disadvantage here in Bonaire because we understand absolutely no Dutch and the labels at the markets are in Dutch, but yesterday at Van den Tweel Supermarket we picked up some rundervinken. We didn't know exactly what it was, but it looked good and we figured we could Google it to see how to prepare it.

 

 

I discovered that rundervinken is sausage wrapped in beef and that a traditional presentation would be with an onion/pepper/tomato puree/sour cream sauce. Sounded easy enough, so here's my mise en place.

 

 

 

After a 15 minute saute, the meat sits and waits while the sauce comes together.

Here's the finished dish and if our speed inhaling it was any indication, it was delicious! 

 

Our Neighbors

Because Bonaire is a marine park there is no anchoring anywhere. Anchors damage coral and the healthy condition of the coral is one of the big tourist draws here.

 

The island has mooring buoys for visiting yachts on a first come basis. When we arrived we picked up a buoy close to the marina in the north part of the mooring field. Later, when a spot opened up down by Karel's (and free WiFi) we moved to the absolute southernmost spot.

 

We are the blue dot. I have drawn in the ship and its dock lines

 

Our new mooring is about 500 feet behind the cruise ship dock so we get a good look at every ship as it docks. Since we have been here at least five ships have visited. The Monarch, 880 feet long, 105 feet wide, and carrying up to 2700 passengers, just arrived this morning. (Town will be crowded today.)

This morning's view from our cockpit

 

The Monarch

This interesting sailing cruise ship was in port Saturday.

Club Med 2

This shot shows how close the ships are to Karel's patio.

Norwegian Dawn

Not all our neighbors are big. Several of these little fishing boats go by every day too.

  

The Cartophile Finds A Way

Since Bonaire is a diver's paradise, the Tourist Information Center gives away maps which include the dive sites. Above you see a portion of the map. Unfortunately, they aren't too accurate. It probably isn't an issue if you are driving to the sites because there are bright yellow rocks with the names of the dives positioned along the roadway. However, if you are taking your dinghy to the dive sites, an accurate map is a must.

Last night I was searching for more dives close to our boat because long dinghy rides in the chop aren't much fun. I discovered some that sounded good and tried to find them on the map. It was so frustrating! I finally remembered Wikimapia, and "Bingo!" There they were accurately marked on the satellite image maps.

If you compare the paper map to the Wiki map, you see big differences. Something Special isn't even shown on the correct side of the marina entrance! And Jerry's Reef and Just A Nice Dive aren't in the correct place either! All that just drives this cartophile crazy, because first and foremost, A MAP SHOULD SHOW WHERE THINGS REALLY ARE!

French Angelfish

FRENCH ANGELFISH

French Angelfish Video

SCRAWLED FILEFISH

We went snorkeling again today and saw all kinds of interesting fish; French angelfish, scrawled filefish, barracuda, grunts, angelfish, parrotfish, trigger fish, a lion fish, and even some disco fish which are juvenile yellow damselfish. I have learned that the best way to take good video of these fish is to pick a spot, try to hold still (which is hard because of the surge), and get really close to the fish. Some of the fish are so unafraid of humans that they approach us, which makes the videos even easier.

Finally! Snorkeling Videos

One Fish

Two Fish

Red Fish

Blue Fish

Here are four little videos I took whilst snorkeling yesterday just off the bow of our boat within feet of the busy malecon with its pedestrians and cars. The fish like to hide beneath the coral shelf there and it's so easy to swim there from the boat. My videos aren't very good, so if you want to see more and better videos of the sealife here in Bonaire, just go to YouTube and search for "snorkeling Bonaire". Like I said, it's like swimming in an aquarium!

First Snorkel at Bonaire

After getting our park permits at the dive center Thursday, we went snorkeling for the first time yesterday. I tried to take some GoPro videos and photos and I can't tell you how DIFFICULT it was. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, because everything looks bright and crisp and beautiful with my eyes, but when I get back to the boat and download the photos, they look all washed out and blah. The photo above was one of the best and I had to make some adjustments to the color and exposure just to make it look halfway accurate. I will have to experiment with the camera settings some more to get this figured out, because I really want to share the beauty below the sea here in Bonaire; it's like swimming in an aquarium.

Location Map November 2nd to 12th, 2015, Kralendijk Bonaire

 Bashing, bashing, bashing to windward. 

Bonaire

After another upwind passage (but only 30 hours instead of 90 hours), we arrived in Bonaire. It is another small Dutch island with tourism as its major industry. The whole sea around it and out to the 200 foot depth contour is a protected marine park, with no anchoring anywhere, but plenty of mooring buoys for long term visits and special dive site buoys for up to 4 hours. To even snorkel here you need to purchase a $10.00 park pass and affix it to your mask so the rangers can tell if you've paid.

The island is home to a large colony of breeding Caribbean flamingos and also sea turtles. Numerous beautiful fish swim in the shallow water near shore and under our boat. Also under our boat are scuba divers day and night. It's kind of creepy to hear their bubbles on the hull when we are sitting below.

Aruba Butterfly Farm

We spent a pleasant two hours at the Butterfly Farm the other day. Our guide was very informative and it was so relaxing to wander through the shady garden just watching the butterflies.

Arikok National Park

We had a great day yesterday with the crew of Seahorse V. Since it was Halloween we drove through a pet cemetary, and then we visited caves with bats in the Arikok National Park. 

Then we had an Arikok pedicure. These little fish nibble the dead skin off your feet as you soak them in the cool spring water. It was very relaxing, but it tickled.

Then we saw this natural bridge and watched some blow holes....

and did some rock stacking.

Then we drive all the way (less than 20 miles) to the other end of the island and checked out the California Lighthouse. 

Later the kids put on their Halloween costumes and joined the locals at a party at the shopping mall.

We hope you had a happy Halloween too.

Aruba is Fascinating

I had no idea Aruba was so interesting. I knew it's history was long and complicated, but the variety of languages, peoples, and cultures surprised me.

For instance, although Dutch is the official language, English, Spanish, and Papiamento are also spoken. Papiamento is an old blend of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch that originated in Curacao to enable the slaves to communicate with their's  Spanish owners. Indeed, the word "Papiamento" comes from the Portuguese verb "papear" which means to ramble.

It's nice for us to have English so widely spoken, but I still say Gracias and Buenos Dias every now and then, and that's okay too because so many people speak Spanish. The coast of Venezuela is only 20 miles away.

Speaking of Venezuela, we all know about their terrible problems: crime, inflation, failing government. Those problems are affecting Aruba too. The clever Venezuelans come here, and using debit cards, withdraw all their money in American dollars at the official rate of one dollar to 6.3 Bolivars. Then they travel back to Venezuela and sell those dollars on the black market for 630 Bolivars each, deposit them into their accounts, and do it all again. They also do this thing with gasoline where they buy it at the official super cheap price in Venezuela, then drive over the border to Colombia and sell it at a great profit. I think their "government" actually condones this because the higher echelons are in on the take. What a mess.

The architecture has a nice Dutch influence because the Dutch have been in control since 1636, except for a brief period from 1805 to 1816 when the English took over. We see statues and monuments everywhere of Dutch royalty.

Over the years Aruba's economy has been dependant on gold mining, phosphate mining,  cochineal production, and aloe farming. At the turn of the twentieth century Aruba was the world 's leader in aloe production. More recently, oil refining an important industry, but now tourism has taken over as the primary industry.

Aruba is very popular with the cruise ships; yesterday there were three of them in port, today there were two different ones. The attraction is the perfect weather, the friendly people, and the beautiful beaches. The weather is much more pleasant than Panama or Colombia because of the drier climate and the cooling trade winds.

Consequently there are wonderful entertainments available to tourists: skin diving, parasailing, fishing, windsurfing, birding, horseback riding, biking, ATVs, tennis, and even a submarine tour.

Truly, Aruba is fascinating.

Getting to Know My Boat

After a particularly frustrating, hot, sweaty, oil everywhere, tools everywhere, getting taken off my chore and sucked into a job that wasn’t mine, boat maintenance in a rolly anchorage kind of day, I posted my frustration on a Facebook group to which I belong. One of the first comments told me to “Get to know your boat and you will not be so frustrated when this happens.”

So in the interest of “getting to know my boat” I have compiled a list of ways to do that and checked off the ones I’ve done.

✓   Spend hours hanging your head in the bilge changing hoses, wires, and equipment.

✓        Go to the top of the mast to repair lights or clean and inspect the rig.

✓        Dive for hours cleaning barnacles off the bottom; repeat monthly.

✓        Spend an hour with your arm wedged in the bow thruster in a rolly anchorage cleaning off barnacles.

✓       Spend hours in the chain locker installing a new windlass. 

 

      ✓        Crawl into the chain locker whilst beating to weather to stuff things into the hawse pipes.

✓        Spend hours behind the engine replacing all the belts and hoses.

✓        Wrestle a 4” x 30’ exhaust hose out from under the engine, batteries, and lazarettes then weasel the new one in its place.

 

      ✓        Remove the old head, hoses, and holding tank.

✓        Remove the mast with your own crane, install all new rod rigging, and re-install it with your own crane. (Admittedly, I didn’t operate the crane, but I was down below giving the proper hand signals to guide the butt onto the mast step.)

✓        Lay under the cockpit floor for hours removing the steering idler and rotten wood, then replace the idler, chain, and cable.

✓        Spend hours wedged into the tiniest spaces running new wires up through the deck and into bow pulpits and such for new lights, radios, and antennas.

 

      ✓        Paint your boat's bottom and wax the topsides at haul outs.

      ✓        Rebuild or repair things whilst bashing to weather.

 

Now live aboard for over a year whilst cruising in foreign countries, cooking three meals a day (even underway), living at anchor (we haven’t seen shore power in over six months), making your own water and electricity, showering only on your boat, and I think maybe you will “get to know your boat”.
 
Oh, wait, I’ve already done that too. Maybe I have “gotten to know my boat” after all.