Did we sink ? Did we sell the boat ? Have we decided to quit cruising ? None of the above.......we're just in paradise now (Bonaire) and between diving, hiking, happy hour(ing) and reading, it's hard to work anything else in. Typical day......wake up (by 10:00AM), eat tropical fruit for breakfast, do a quick boat project, lunch, dive for 75 minutes, get caught up on all the news we don't care about; then happy hour, dinner, sleep, repeat.
To catch everyone up, we left the boat in Grenada from mid August to the end of October. We were lucky enough to catch Carnival in Grenada before coming back to the US. The festivities start at 3am with an event called Jouvert where people walk down the street with vats of paint and used motor oil with which they cover themselves and anyone in the vicinity. I had to take Kirstin's word on this as she attended with boating friends (as I decided that getting up in the dark to be covered in motor oil was not appealing) - she arrived back at the boat at 9am covered in paint and oil. Then the parades begin...
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| Carnival parade in Grenada |
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| Amazing costumes in parade |
After leaving the boat, we went on Kirstin's parents 50th wedding anniversary cruise (a somewhat bigger boat) to Alaska. It was our first time to Alaska and we hope it will not be the last - although probably not on L'ORIENT after seeing Alaskan size icebergs. After that, I worked and Kirstin visited relatives, friends, and spent some quality time in Wisconsin with her parents.
We returned to L'ORIENT on Oct 24 and spent 7 hard days getting ready for the current 4-months sail. We arrived in Bonaire on Nov 4 and have enjoyed the every moment of it. We've met some old diving friends from 2012 here (Badgers Sett and Songbirds) and made some new friends too......we've become quite social !!!
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| Karel's Bar - Bonaire. Happy Hour in Paradise |
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L'ORIENT in Bonaire - Water depth goes from 20 feet in the light blue area
to 200 feet in the dark blue |
This is a different kind of segment (4 months) from the previous two..........When we left Miami (more than a year ago !!) we were racing and pushing to get out of the North Atlantic and into the Caribbean before the onset of the winter winds. In the Spring of this year, we were able to slow down and enjoy the French Islands; now after the one long sail we will do this winter (Grenada to Bonaire) we won't actually voyage anywhere.......the only trips are via dinghy to dive sites. Each day we see amazing coral formations and numerous turtles, stingrays, eels, and an assortment of crazy fish.
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| Views from our boat |
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| Check out that water - we'll see it for the next 90 days! View from the bow of our boat |
We will attempt to be better communicators as it has come to our attention that our Eastern Ukrainian audience has little else to do besides read our blog and enjoy the onset of another heatless winter. So mea culpa !!! On with the show.
