We arrived in Kralendijk, Bonaire, at around 03.00 today so, once we had rounded the southern tip of the island, we had a nice reach up the west coast. The island is low-lying, unlike all the Windwards we've visited, so we had flat water but a nice steady Force 5 in its lee. Of course it was dark so we were trying to work out the coastline as we sailed up towards the lights of the town. Once again, the amazingly well-matched boats meant that Maunie and Stormvogel were only 3/4 of a mile apart after 400 miles of sailing so we both set about looking for mooring buoys off the town beach; we have a powerful hand-held searchlight so we eventually found two vacant moorings together and by 4.00am we could crash into our bunk delighted to have a non-moving boat once again. We were pretty exhausted so only woke up at 10.30 and have been into town (very Dutch) to clear in with the authorities and to check the quality of the Amstel beer.
Overall it was a very good passage – 403 miles in 61 hours so an average of 6.6 knots and a best 24-hour run of 158 miles. As ever we sailed safely and fast but have to report an injury; Graham sustained a very painful blow to one of his toes in a bizarre toast-related incident. Dianne had just made a round of toast for breakfast yesterday morning and almost, but not quite, dropped it on route to the cockpit as Maunie lurched off a big wave; she let out an involuntary scream as it happened which woke Graham from his snooze causing him to fall off the cockpit seat and bashing the said toe in the process. Very nasty bruising and lots of pain but Dianne now promises not to do it again, after, of course, providing first class medical treatment.
So we're delighted to be here. As promised the water is crystal clear and it's really warm. We'll post some photos once we've explored further.
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