Monthly Archives: September 2017

A Lighthouse, Shipwrecks, & Dolphins

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We got up early the next morning to swim ashore and go exploring before the herds of people arrived.  The water here is gorgeous, clean, clear, and cool.  Underwater we were treated to several flounders, box face puffers, an eel, turtles, and tons of tangs.  They didn’t seem to be bothered by the tons of dead choral and sea fans on the bottom of the ocean. We unknowingly, brought a buffet to Klein as the fish loved the remaining soft algae on the bottom of our boat.  After our swim, we dropped off our snorkel gear ashore and headed toward the lighthouse.

Great sign, but unfortunately it is all in Dutch.

Mermaid Tours makes so much money they invested in “$” rims for their trailer.

The original lighthouse was destroyed in a storm so they built this 2nd lighthouse in 1850.   It used to be a vibrant coral pink lighthouse which is now abandoned with graffiti written surfaces.  The wooden staircase is still in tact and has 5 flights of 11 stairs each that take you to the top.  Below are two rooms that used to house the lighthouse keepers with no natural source of running water, it must have been a desolate place to live and work.

Walk to the lighthouse on Klein Curacao.

Front of the lighthouse.

The windward side of the island is a graveyard for boats.  Looming on the beach is the hulking rusted remains of an oil tanker named Maria Bianca Guidesman, which ran aground in the 1960’s.  She gradually eroded away by the merciless waters and now only half of her stern is left.

Matt walking toward the shipwrecks.

Part of the stern of the tanker.

 

Tanker parts strewn along the windward coast.

More pieces of the tanker dotting the coast line.

Right next to this old wreck is a fairly new wreck of a once beautiful Super Amel.  Not sure what happened, but she has no keel and very little bottom left.

Matt climbed aboard the Super Amel.

By the time we walked back to the other side of the island and retrieved our snorkel gear, the beaches were crowded with visitors so we headed back to the boat. The rest of the day was dedicated to chores.  Matt had a 4200 project from hell (that is a type of glue) which turned into multiple projects and I hit the water line.  Over the last few days, Matt had cleaned the lines, props, anchor chain and barnacles, so I decided it was my turn to clean the water line.  It is not a difficult project, just tiring as there is not much to hold to while you are trying to swim and scrub the side of the boat (while not removing any of the ablative paint) in a fairly strong current.  It was pretty green on the interior hulls which required several scrubbing passes.  In the meantime, we had 6 day charter boats come to the island (Mermaid, Jonalisa To, Breeze, All Boat Charters, Queen Ann, and a sailboat with a crappy sail bag that you couldn’t read). Lucky for us, they all headed back around 4p and left us to our little piece of paradise.

Sugar Shack on anchor at Klein Curacao.

The next day, Matt made breakfast as I battened down the interior in preparation for the bumpy ride back to Bonaire.  We left about 845am, raised the main and pulled the jib with 2 reefs in both and headed out.  Coming around the south side of the island we had gusts up to 25-28 knots and seas at 2-3 meters.  With the engines (1500 RPMs) and sails up we averaged about 4-5 knots, a little slower than we are used to but it made the trip more comfortable and dry.  About 10 miles into our 23 mile motor sail, the waves and wind calmed down a bit allowing us to increase our engines (up to 1800 RPMs) and speed to about 5-6 knots which shaved off 2 hours on our trip.  It was a beautiful day, blue sky, puffy clouds, several birds, but no fish on the hook.  We trolled the entire way and caught nothing, not even a nibble.  We did however, get a huge pod of dolphins which stayed with us for over 20 minutes.

Over 2 dozen dolphins came to play with us.

So cute to watch them surf with our bows.

 

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Thoroughly happy with the dolphin sighting, we pulled into Bonaire only to discover there were no moorings available.  Since you cannot anchor anywhere on the island this proved to be a problem.  Matt dropped the dinghy and drove around until he found a temporary mooring.  It is not an “official” mooring, but it will do for a few days until another one opens up.

After checking the mooring and cooling off for a bit we headed in to clear into the country and have a cold one at Karel’s Bar.

Embarking on a New Adventure: Klein Curacao

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After 66 days in Curacao, we decided to leave and head back to Bonaire.  We rented a car and did a huge provision run stopping at Best Buy, Cost U Less, Van Den Tweel, Vruegdenhil, Scuba Shop, Luna Market, Kooyman, Building Depot, electrical shop, and a few other places.  Somehow, I managed to get over 28k steps!!!  Needless to say, our little picante car and our dinghy were full to capacity on the way back.

Yes, we use a lot of flour (new 20lb), found some Sprite Zero, Special K bars and lots more!

The shopping and transporting seem easy compared to the storage prep on some occasions. Once we unpack the food we use a sharpie to write the contents and expiration date on the top of every can and bottle. We then rip the label and glue off and out blue tape on the bottom rim for storage. The removal of the label and glue prevent weebles and roaches from  coming onto the boat and thriving and the blue tape prevents the cans from rusting and leaving a ring on our cabinet shelves. Then all cardboard is removed from the boat so anything in cardboard is put in zip locks or Tupperware (avoiding weebles). I know plastic—eek!  But you can’t have glass on a boat and we do reuse as much as possible.

We make a lot of pizza from scratch. Soon we will start making our own sauce too.

It took us several hours to prepare to depart, as Matt wanted to clean, for the 3rd time, the 2nd anchor line, the bridle, and the main anchor chain before bringing them onto the boat – at least try to get another layer of hair, grime, and growth off before stowing everything in the lockers.  As you know from previous blogs, we experienced a lot of growth on everything that was underwater.

Once we were free, several hours later, we swung by the Curacao Yacht Club with the big boat which is next to a small reef and rocks.  Luckily, it was a low wind day and Matt was able to expertly “cat walk” the boat into the dock which is well protected with large A3 fenders.  We needed to get diesel ($0.61/liter) for the big boat, gas ($0.91/liter) for the dinghy, and water ($0.15/liter) for the humans.  We got about 390 liters of diesel, 50 liters of gas, and 388 liters of water all for under $400!  Excellent prices and a super nice attendant too boot!

Curacao Yacht Club before we arrived.

We then had to make a choice, where do we want to stay – Fuik Bay (1 mile away) or Klein Curacao (13 miles away)?  The decision was made to head to Klein Curacao to knock miles off toward Bonaire.  It was only about 13 miles away, but it was a bit into the wind and seas.  We made it with no issues and enjoyed one of the 6 moorings available for visiting yachts.  Luckily, we came at the end of the day so the day charter boats had already left or were in the process of leaving.

Arriving at Klein Curacao with the lighthouse and ship wreck in view.

Klein Curacao is a 1.2 square mile uninhabited island with a lighthouse, several ship wrecks, and some thatch roofed complexes that the day charter boats use to entertain and feed their guests.  This little island used to be very fertile until mainland farmers decided to use it as goat grazing land which turned it barren.  Then from 1871 to 1886 the island was mined for phosphate until it was mined out which caused the level of the island and seabird population to plummet.  The island then played its part in the slave trade as a quarantine location for sick slaves and resting place for those who died.  Then in 1888, the German Navy descended on the island intent on building a naval shipyard until the tropical storms washed it away.  They ran out of money to fund its reconstruction and abandoned the entire idea.  Now, it is a great day stop for avid swimmers, snorkelers, and divers to enjoy pristine, white beaches and beautiful sea life.

Arriving at Klein Curacao. The tall thatch hut is a day stop for the Mermaid Tours.

With a quiet beach, nice calm seas, and a beautiful sunset, we settled into our evening with a pork chop dinner and a cocktail on the lido deck in our bean bag chairs.

Channeling Betsy Ross

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We have had a laundry list of sewing projects that we have been “meaning” to get to but haven’t had time.  Maybe it is because there are so many and it is overwhelming, maybe because setting up the sewing machine is a “process” maybe because I was not 100% sure I remembered how to sew (since it has been 35+ years since I touched a sewing machine), or maybe it was just plain procrastination (and a combination of all of the above).

This week, I sucked it up and jumped right in.  First let me tell you how we prepare to start a sewing project:

  • Matt pulls the sewing machine case out of the bilge
  • Pull out supplies from various storage areas: hot knife, extension cord, carpenter’s square, tape measure, scissors, blue tape, pencil, chalk, velcro, basting tape, shower curtains (for patterns) and fabric
  • Turn on inverter to provide electricity to sewing machine and hot knife
  • Set up machine

Sewing supplies

My first project(s) was to create new helm seat cushion back covers.  Our current blue ones are stained, torn, falling apart and need to go.

Old helm seat back covers in blue.

Yep, we procrastinated long enough – these need to go.

So, I took the Starboard one off first, measured, double and triple checked the measurements, created a pattern, transferred the pattern to the fabric and cut into my huge 15 yard roll of Sunbrella Toast fabric.

Transferred my pattern to the fabric.

After I created my pattern on the fabric, and remeasured and cut the fabric with a hot knife to prevent loose strands. Then added basting tape to hold the hems cleanly to the fabric.

Basting tape for the hems.

Next, the female velcro was added to one side (we used velcro that had a sticky back side).  Then I flipped my piece over and added the male velcro (so that when the piece is rolled they stick to each other).

Velcro applied to pattern.

Test, with just the basting tape holding the piece together, I take it outside and test to see if my measurements were correct.  EEEK Gads!  They are not!  I had measured the circumference 7 3/4 but did not take into account an extra 1″ for the velcro overlap.  Yikes. Luckily, I had not sewn anything yet so I had to go back a few steps, shorten my hem and create an overlap so that the velcro actually overlaps and sticks together.  Yeah!  Worked swell. Now the hard part – sewing.

I had not touched a sewing machine in over 35 years and was a little intimidated about using this one.  But, Matt figure it out and walked me through a few things, tested using scrap fabric, fixed mistakes, tested again, fixed mistakes, rinse and repeat.  Finally when I felt confident, I broke out the project piece and started sewing the velcro to the fabric.

Working diligently on getting the fabric, basting tape, and velcro through the machine.

Yep, I got this!

Almost done and feeling a little giddy, I start working on the last step which is sewing the end tie pulls into the left and right hems so we can pull them tight to hug the pole.  Easy enough, little basting tape, hold the line in, shift the foot on the sewing machine to get a closer fit to the line and call her done!

Yep, the lines are askew, but not bad for a first project.

Finished the port helm seat cushion back cover the next day.  The first one took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and the second one took me about 3.5 hours.

Completed port helm back cushion cover.

Super pleased with myself, I moved on to a much more complicated project – the outboard cover.  I won’t bore you with a separate email on the outboard cover, just give you the highlights here.

It took me 7 times to create a pattern that worked – yep, that is 7 different patterns.  Part of it was because Matt had a different idea of what he wanted for the cover than I had so once we got on the same page, we worked it out.

Since it was using two different fabrics and had many curves and uneven measurements, I taped the pattern to the cover to see if it would work before I cut my fabric.

Using a shower curtain, I created a pattern.

This is way beyond my sewing scope, but I am willing to give it a whirl.  Keep in mind that this entire process is over multiple days and I have already been frustrated, recovered, frustrated, recovered, over and over.

After blood, sweat and tears (literally all three) Matt and I finished the project together.   It was such a relief to have his help, logic, and different outlook and it made all the difference in the world.   Let me tell you – this was a complicated project!  Glad it’s done.

Hole on the front is for the starter handle.

We were going to remove the stitching on the phifertex to make it fit the opening but decided it wasn’t worth it.

Phifertex over the to let the engine breathe and hand hold to lift the engine.

Matt likes his new engine cover.

Next, was a simple cover for our ICOM as the screen is getting wonky from the sun.

ICOM Cover at the helm station.

New pillow covers – done

Recovered two new pillows in Sunbrella red to match with the boat better.

New socket holder.

New socket holder.

Made several wind barriers to stop the whistling

Made several wind barriers to stop the whistling

 

Before & after: Curtain for office shelves with sewing junk.

Before & after: Curtain for office shelves with sewing junk.

Before & after: hide shoes & yoga mats.

Before & after: hide shoes & yoga mats.

Too embarrassed to show true before with all the shoes and yoga mats but you get the general idea.

We have several other projects, but I will save those for another time.  They include:

  • New sunshades (this will be a huge one as our old ones are small, dirty, and old)
  • Cushions to set over the line storage area
  • New man over board cover

You can tell I don’t like to have my “stuff” to be seen so hide it behind a curtains.