Grenada will hold very happy memories for us, our wedding ceremony, the fun and celebration we had with our very dear friends, the excellent food and the humour gene that people of this island are born with. Grenadians have a ready laughter, see the lighter side of life, hold onto family values and demonstrate a courtesy between themselves and towards those who visit their beautiful Island, all these attributes make leaving Grenada a wrench but we must press on to Bonaire and Curacao to lay up over the hurricane season. So, we prepare for the last big passage of our season. Sisu’s hull is in a sorry state from being in a marina for over a week. Barnacles and brown moss like growth is all over her rudder and hull. Once again we get on our fins and snorkels, keep hold of our abrasive kitchen scourers and start the job. It’s not unusual to have fishy company while we work, they feed off the algae and barnacles we scrub off. This time Terry was aware of a black shadow hovering off his peripheral vision. He looked round quickly to be faced with plumes of black fog, squid ink! As the small area of fog cleared he realised he was being watched by 30 to 40 pairs of beady eyes! A group of various sized small squid were gently hovering around him, they were so pretty, delicate rose, pink and raspberry coloured bodies, with big black eyes on either side of their heads, holding their positions within the cluster by fanning their pale speckled frills along the underside of their bellies. Continually curious, in one co-ordinated movement they conducted a ballet around Terry as he worked, if he moved too quick, they shot a small jet of indignant black ink at him, before once again settling in to watch. We have no idea how they communicate, but clearly they do, as another 20 or so quid joined them and Terry had this entourage following him around the hull and rudder, like a group of curious Japanese tourists! I got in and was able to just float around the group and closely study them, they were virtually unconcerned and comfortable in our company, in fact it got to the point where it felt that any squid who let off a small puff of ink actually felt quite embarrassed by it, rather like accidently farting in company you’ve only just met!
As usual for a passage, I’ve cooked various meals to see us over the four/five days, hard boiled eggs, Chinese 5 spice chicken pieces, local sausages cooked in chunks, and a hearty pasta and vegetable salad to go with anything. Conditions were good and we got going on our 436 nautical miles journey. The winds were a steady 18/20 knots and 6/7 foot swells with a decent interval. Excellent! Unfortunately…… by the evening of the first night, just after tea, I began to violently throw up, and up and up……. I was so ill that standing watches for the night, which would have been easy given the conditions were rendered impossible. For the first time ever I could only lie in bed desperately wishing the passage was over, despite it having just begun! I couldn’t even contemplate opening the fridge, I was wretching at the very thought of food! Terry stood watch all through the night and periodically checked on me. Everything I tried, be it meagre mouthfuls of hard boiled egg, yoghurt and water came up before it went down! A head ache of gargantuan proportions hammered and beat remorselessly inside my head. I seriously thought my head would explode. I rarely get headaches, and where this thundering ride of the Valkyries pounding head ache came from was a mystery, the electrical pain storm laughed at the paracetamol I swallowed, mind you, they came up too! I won’t prolong the agony for you dear reader. I continued this way for two days solid, useless for just about anything, though I managed on the second night to get into the cockpit and kept a feeble watch as the vice inside my head squeezed what little brain I have into my eyeball sockets. Terry made the decision to fire up the engine, and gun it to Bonaire, thereby making our passage a day shorter than our original plan of sailing the passage in two 200 mile tacks. This was no time to muck about, we had no idea what was wrong with me, in fact he had considered calling up a passing tanker to lift me off, I would have stubbornly resisted, but in this case had I got any worse I probably wouldn’t have cared less! Fortunately I picked up a little and on our final night was able to help Terry keep an eye out for passing marine traffic. Our eta was reaching Kralendijk, Bonaire at 0430hrs so we stayed awake. As this is our third time in this bay, we were confident to find a mooring buoy amongst the moored yachts in the dark. By 0200hrs we were cruising down the coast of Bonaire, picking out the familiar land marks, the airport lights, the floodlights of the salt flats, the street lights of the town till we reached the bay. Anchoring is not allowed in the bay, it would destroy the coral, so in the dark we quietly motored up and down the mooring buoys, one row set near to the shore and the other row set back, just on the edge of the coral reef. It was busy, but we spotted a spare pair of mooring buoys near to the dinghy dock of Karel’s Bar, that will do! It began to gently drizzle as I went forward, still feeling weak and very tired, as I gave Terry steering instructions towards the buoys, I snagged one on the first attempt! We were moored, what a relief to know that this passage was over!
There was an upside, pardon the loose play on words given the sickness content of this blog, on the third day we saw a tremendous Booby fishing frenzy, over 100 birds in the group, called a “congress” “trap” or a “hatch”, wheeling round, then suddenly folding their wings executing 30 foot high dare devil plunges, propelling the bird up to two metres deep into the fish shoal. Magnificent Frigate birds, also known as “the pirate bird” were lunging at the Boobys, attempting to wrench fish from the Boobys beaks, who’d done the hard work catching fish in the first place. Spectacular aerial battles were taking place between the predators of the skies with their black two metre wing spans and the friendly brown Boobys. It was a close call, but the Boobys had the edge. These two breeds of birds are fascinating. The Boobys have medium large hydrodynamic bodies and long narrow wings are built to withstand the stress of plunge diving. They also have exceptionally webbed feet, waterproofed feathers, forward facing eyes,air sacs within their skulls to protect the skull from high speed impact and no external nostrils. To prevent water entering the airways during dives, Boobys must breathe through their bills! Magnificent Frigates birds feed on the wing and largely forage. Their pneumatic skeleton, light weight streamlined body and highly developed pectoral muscles are adapted for high altitude flying. They have a long swallow like tail for manoeuvrability and with more than two metres of wing span they have the highest ratio of wing surface compared to body mass of any living bird. But… unusually for a sea bird, they lack waterproof feathers and their legs are far too small to land on sea, however they can remain airborne for many weeks at a time and rely on soaring and piloting the air currents. They can travel open ocean distances to reach other bird colonies, covering thousands of miles using thermal air columns, gliding down in the down draft to forage of the sea surface, then cruising in ideal flying conditions between 50 and 6,000 metres altitude their energy consumption is so low that their heart rate can be as slow as when sitting on the nest, they can remain airborne indefinitely. They can sleep during flight in ten second bursts throughout the night, averaging 45 minutes total sleep each day. Even more incredibly, during these powernaps, only one half of the brain sleeps, the other side remaining semi alert to avoid mid air collisions! The life story of these two birds is fascinating if you wish to learn more, for us, discovering more about them makes us appreciate them both even more. In the case of the Frigate bird, their numbers are in decline, they act as environmental indicators by which the health of our oceans can be measured. Chemical and climatic changes and imbalances in the lower levels of their food chain deeply affect these birds, if we do not improve the health of our oceans, these stunning birds will continue into decline. Equally the Brown Booby is becoming victim to human activity in developing where they breed, over fishing and badly disposed of fishing tackle. We’ve seen hooks and line trailing from beaks, eventually they will become unable to feed and starve. There is growing awareness to look after bird and marine life in the Caribbean, to protect their future numbers and growth.
sisu journey 