Bonaire

Friday, January 25

Bonaire was probably my favorite island. It’s rather flat and a desert island with a rich history having been conquered by various countries including (I think) England, Spain, Portugal, Holland (as it was formerly called) at least twice, and perhaps someone else. It’s currently a special municipality of the Netherlands. We arrived in Kralendijk (pronounced Kra’ lin dike), the capitol and most populous city, on a beautiful though windy morning and immediately boarded two buses with horrible leg room. The locals speak several languages fluently – they start speaking Papiamento which is a creole of Dutch, Spanish, English, Portuguese and other languages as their native language, begin learning Dutch in school, start English about age 10, start Spanish a couple of years later, and have opportunities to learn French and German in high school.

Our first stop was to the slave huts, a rather sobering start to the day. These were very small white buildings, each with a waist-high door facing the ocean and a little small window facing the back allowing for air flow. It’s not clear how many people slept in each hut, though apparently some chose to sleep outside instead. The “village” was on a coral beach with gorgeous jade water. The slaves were freed in 1863, not sure whether it’s a coincidence that it was the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation or whether there’s an intentional connection (should I choose to be the “advanced student” I can check this out later).

We stopped at some salt ponds where we could see water being evaporated to leave salt behind, piles of salt at least a few meters tall, and the machinery loading salt onto ships. Seems that the major customer of the salt is the US – apparently Bonaire salt is used to de-ice American roads in winter. We also saw some “red” water and rocks, a result of a particular type of algae.

My favorite stop of the 3-hour tour (no, not *that* kind of 3-hour tour) was at the “1000 steps” which led to a series of steps down to a beautiful cove where we could touch the stunning aqua water, hear the waves lapping along the shore, and see a small part of the rock that water went through. Oh, and a geocache. Alas, the poorly named location led some of the folks on our expedition to skip the steps down which was unfortunate because it turned out there were a mere 72 steps.

We proceeded to Goto Lake -- a lake well named for a bunch of geocachers since we regularly set our GPSrs to "go to ____". There we saw flamingos (and found a cache) then headed for the small town of Rincon, a village of about 2000 people nestled in a valley. Here’s a first – we went to a museum where the price of using the toilet ($.50US) exceeded the price of museum admission (free). We realized it was Rick’s birthday (aka lobotomy) so the small group of cruisers who have met him had our picture taken and we texted it to him with appropriate birthday greetings. He thanked us and said to give Roy a kiss from him. Alison and I, ever eager to please, did just that and the reply to the text of that picture included the phrase “Best. Present. Ever!” 

The tour returned us to Kralendijk. I had about 2 hours to explore, eat lunch, and catch the snorkeling excursion that Roy had commented earlier sounded like water sports (um, yes, snorkeling is indeed a water sport), so I meandered my way through the brightly-colored downtown area, went off the main street and found a hole-in-the wall sandwich place where I purchased what turned out to be only off-ship non-excursion meal of the cruise, a tasty chicken and avocado arepa accompanied by a tasty mint lemonade. Unfortunately I chose not to answer a call from “El Salvador” that turned out to be Sue calling me as she had aborted a group trip to the oldest Bonaire cache. I explored the local shops and eventually purchased a souvenir for myself and something to bring back to a few locals. I still had time so I popped back onto the ship to drop off gear I wouldn’t need snorkeling and grab my sorbet du jour, where two of the Canadian trivia players asked if I’d missed my snorkeling – no, didn’t miss it, and arrived to the 2:15 check-in by 2:16 (for a 2:30 tour) so was even within experimental error of “on time”.

I was the only geocacher on this excursion. We boarded a “taxi” boat that took us to the catamaran we would use to sail to and from our snorkeling destination. One of the guides asked people what they knew of Bonaire – my knowledge that it’s a desert, a municipality of the Netherlands, and offers world class snorkeling and diving was about the only response. The guides asked what folks had done in the morning – seems I was the only one who had done anything other than shop or wander around, and the guides commented that I’d gotten to see just about everything. I would concur, and while Bonaire has been high on my bucket list (and I certainly wouldn’t object to returning), it now feels like I’ve experienced this beautiful place and while I would be pleased to return one day, it’s not necessary.

The snorkeling was good – not great – and I saw lots of fish including parrotfish, angelfish, sergeant majors, butterfish, and countless others including one stunning variety I didn’t remember seeing earlier that was black with neon purple at the end of its fins. As usual, I was one of the first travelers off the boat and one of the last back on it.

The return trip to the harbor was nice, sharing stories with the 3 Dutch and 1 Colombian crew. The rum punch was tasty, thought not as good as the Dominican Republic rum punch from a few days earlier. I asked the captain to explain the catamaran’s name, Mushi Mushi. Seems it was purchased and named by a Japanese man who intended to call it “Moshi Moshi” which is the typical Japanese greeting when answering a phone. Alas, the sail came back with a typo, and apparently it’s considered bad luck to rename a boat. So when the Dutch team purchased the boat they were surprised to see dozens of German tourists taking pictures of it. Eventually they learned (confirmed?) what mushi means in German. This will be of interest to those who know the story of Colorado Jones (the postal code for Colorado is CO which should be pronounced immediately before Jones) and Virginia Gina (Virginia’s postal code is VA). Yes, in your German vocabulary word of the day, mushi is Virginia Gina, so the boat had well, um, an interesting name to the Germans. But as the captain noted, it’s great publicity and everyone on Bonaire knows the Mushi Mushi.