April 1-14 -- More Work and we are off! The first 10 days of April were a blur. We had many, many projects still to complete, and realizing that there was only so much time before we had to leave Venezuela (we were at the limit of our 18 months in the country), we started focusing on those projects that had to be completed before we left. That significantly eased our work load, but still kept us very busy until it was time to ready the boat to leave. On April 12, we woke up to light winds. We pulled weather faxes and saw that lighter than normal winds were expected for the next 72 hours. So, hoping to catch the end of decent winds for sailing, we decided to leave earlier than we had first planned. So, we headed into Jak's restaurant for a good breakfast. We left Porlamar at noon, and sailed in comfortable winds until we reached the end of Margarita approximately 6 hours later. At that point, the winds dropped to almost nothing so we fired up the engines and motored for about an hour. When the winds came back up, we put out the sails again and continued on our way, under sail. Around 11:00 pm AST, the winds began to get stronger. At the same time, a new swell pattern showed up. We had swells coming in from the North, northeast and from the East! As the night continued, the winds increased to a steady 25 to 30 with higher gusts, blowing on our stern quarter. This would have been OK, except that with the increased winds, the size of the northerly swells also increased. When they teamed up with the northeasterly swell, they laid the boat over on its side (30 degrees). Then we would "cork screw" and the jib would collapse! We have often listened to friends describe downwind runs as a sleigh ride. I never really understood this since our boat (until now) had never really gone down wind under sail. Having been in this, I now understand what they meant. Though, I am more inclined to describe the experience as a trip on a luge! We rode out most of the night this way. By early morning though, the wind had decreased to the point that it would not support our sails. Since we couldn't see well enough (it was an extremely drak night) to do very much, we turned into the wind and sailed in a close haul with reduced sail until it was light enough to assess the situation better. This had two benefits. It guaranteed enough wind to continue sailing, and it also would take us out of the shoal area to the north of Tortuga. Once we could see, we tacked the boat and headed towards the South Eastern Roques. The wind had given up, and we had no choice but to start the engines. After further discussion, Mike and I decided to leave the go/no go decision until later, after we had both had some sleep. There were two locations we could get to in the Roques, or we could continue on another 20 hours to Bonaire. After sleep and food, we both felt much better. As we reached the south eastern tip of the Roques, it was to overcast to enter the reef there. Neither of us was thrilled with the second location, so we decided to continue on. We had a good dinner of stew (Thank you Mary Jane from Second Line for a wonderful recipe!) We continued through the night on a fairly comfortable tack, motoring. By early morning, we spotted the lights from Bonaire and knew we were close to the end of our trip. We watched on radar as three sets of line squalls formed. We were headed down an alley formed by the squalls. The wind increased around the point at the south end of Bonaire so we turned a little further south until we could get out of the northerly swell. We wound up going to the edge of the squall to the south of us before tacking up to the edge of the squall line to the west of us before heading back towards land and the squall to the north of us. Next, we slowed down enough to stay behind the north squall line until it had dissipated. We were discussing calling Blind Date, and what time would be best to call them, when they called us! Carol and Ashley gave us directions for coming in and where to find the mooring that they had picked out for us. They asked that we call when we passed the airport and they would head out in the dinghy and help us get attached to the mooring. We continued along, and figured that we were passing the airport when a plane buzzed the top of our mast going in for a landing! We called Blind Date, and this time Galadriel answered us. They said that Blind Date was already out and checking the moorings and to just come on in. Carol and Ashley headed out from the mooring field (really more of a mooring line) to greet us while we were still pretty far out. We offered them our customary greeting and Carol improvised with hers. They helped us tie up to the mooring and then helped Nine Of Cups move moorings since one of their mooring lines broke during the night before returning to Nightwinds to say hi! After cleaning up the outside of the boat and bringing most of our stuff inside, we spent a quiet morning. In the afternoon, we checked in to Bonaire and filled out the paperwork for our mooring ball. That evening, we went to dinner with Galadriel and Blind Date at this Argentinean place called Casa Blanca. We returned to the boat and went to sleep.

On Tuesday, April 15, Precocious Gale arrived. We helped them tie up to their mooring which was right next to ours, and then let them get some rest. In the afternoon, I snorkeled over to their boat. Ashley joined me, and we snorkeled around. We saw many fish, a snake and an eel. That evening, we went to dinner with Precocious Gale at Casa Blanca. On Wednesday, April 16, we started working on our list again. That evening, it was time for me to cook again. We had Ashley from Blind Date over for dinner. Since we had done so well on Wednesday, we continued on our trend of working on the boat, and finally treated ourselves to ribs on Friday where we joined Blind Date, Galadrial, Natural Selection and Precocious Gale for a fun evening. We opted to take the weekend off and concluded it by going back for more ribs on Sunday with Precocious Gale. Actually, I started reading for my diving class that was starting shortly. On Tuesday, April 22, I started my diving class. And on Wednesday afternoon I was a PADI certified open water diver. We spent the rest of the week working on the boat again, before breaking Sunday evening to go for pizza with Blind Date, Precocious Gale, Galadrial, and Natural Selection. On Wednesday, April 30, the whole gang (see the list for pizza) piled into the back of Ton and Renota's (These are friends of ours that run a restaurant in town that serves the best hamburgers this side of the States) truck and went to Rincon Day. It is a celebration of the Queen's birthday and the founding of the oldest town on Bonaire, Rincon. It was interesting to see some of the old ways of dressing on the island, and to taste some of the local cuisine. Over all it was a fun day, through everyone got bored quickly.