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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

 

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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.