Two days at sea and Bonaire

Today we sailed into Bonaire. Here's a couple of pictures from our first two days (at sea)

Dinner with Karl (Boz) and TK Bosworth. They are our travel companions. 

Jon actually bought door decorations. nothing fancy. The 83 was from a USAFA classmate who made a bunch to give out. I like the door decorations, and may try to get fancier next time we sail...

For perspective, this is the door of a classmate. The first sea day (Sunday), TK and I walked most of the ship, looking at door decorations and getting exercise. 

I think this was my steps for the first day. As is my usual, at least twice a day I go to the bottom deck and hike to the top deck. Deck 2 to 15 or 16 on this ship (depending on if I'm in the aft or the forward stairwell). I always come home in better shape then I left, despite all the eating....

A picture Jon took of us sailing into Kralendijk, the capital of Bonaire.

A picture from our balcony of the port.

The humidity! Wow we felt it!!. When we got back to the room at the end of the day, we had to take showers...sticky!

Jon got us a tour through Tours by Local. Our tour guide was Brenda, a native of Canada who has been in Bonaire for 18 years. She was a great tour guide and we can give you her contact info if you are heading to Bonaire. She's a diver, and also does scuba and snorkel tours. After our tour, she may look into geocaching and do geocache tours. More on that...

Bonaire is an arid climate, averaging 21 inches of rain a year. So lots of cacti. Much of the fences were made out of fence cactus. They harvest the cacti when they are about 3 ft and plant them along the fence line (after leaving them out for 24 hours to shock them and make them think they are dying...I did the same this summer with some cacti I planted). Behind the fence is a Candle cactus. They had similar shape to saguaro, but would never have been mistaken for a saguaro. 

Windsurfing is big on the island. 

Milkweed is prevalent on the island, too. We looked for monarch signs, but only saw holes where the caterpillars had eaten. 

The salt flats. She explained the whole process of how Cargill (the company who owns all the salt production on the island makes salt). These windmills are pumping into the holding ponds. The salt is produced in stages. I may add that information later. Cargill produces 500 tons of industrial sea salt per year. They don't want to mess with the paperwork for food-grade, even though it is safe for food. It is used for water softeners, setting dye, cleaning, fuel industry. 

Every weekend volunteers gather and clean the beaches. Some like to build art out of the driftwood and such. 

Lots and lots of coral. Most of the rocks are coral. 

This was a light house. She gave us the history, which I don't remember most of. But I did get my first geocache here. 

Me in front of the beautiful blue water. She was a big fan of desalinization. She said were the water goes back into the sea, the fish and algae thrive, and that's where she takes customers diving. 

Another location where they were kite boarding. 

Flamingoes were prevalent. I didn't see any in Florida, but saw many here. 

Some other birds - black-neck stilts and egrets (in the mangroves). Mangroves are planted along the coast to help prevent erosion. 

There were four locations for slaves on to work the salt mines. We drove by all four. This is the only one where both the slave huts and the overseer house are still standing. 

Where the salt is loaded on the ship. 

Salt stores. They are 35 feet high. The salt is large clumps. When it rains it forms a crust; salt doesn't wash away. 

This was a ruins where they had free salt for the taking. Brenda helped me frame the picture above. I wouldn't have thought to take that. 

TK and Boz getting their portion of free salt. She gave us each a plastic bag. There was a lady there selling plastic baggies, 2/$1

An example of the colorful houses. We will see lots and lots of those in Curacao. 

Seru Lagu (Long Look), the highest point you can drive to on the island (240 feet). To the north, in the national preserve, there's a place that's 700+ feet that you can hike to. The tour we booked would have taken us on a figure eight around the whole island, but she said that was a lot of driving, with only time for quick stops. So we did the lower half of the island. 

Our ship from Seru Lagu. 

Where we ate lunch. 

My fish. 

Karl got the beef stew she suggested. Jon got a bowl that was a mix of salad, fries, chicken, cheese and garlic sauce. 

She knew the place where this geocache was, so we tried to find it. But I couldn't, so we left. Later I looked at logs and someone said they were almost too short to find it. I hadn't looked up! So after we were done with lunch, TK and I walked back to it (about 1/2 a mile) and I saw it right away. 

I only got two geocaches, but that was fine for me. We didn't want to spend all our time looking for geocaches, and I'm the only one who does it. But, like I said, Brenda said she may download the app, do some research, and offer that for her tours.