Yesterday didn’t get off to a good start. First of all, we had intended to get up early. We wanted to get all of our errands run in the morning so we could spend the afternoon SCUBA diving. But we wound up sleeping late, which put us behind schedule.

Our morning routine at anchor/mooring is to turn the generator on to charge the batteries and make water when we get up. Eric turned on the watermaker and was dismayed to see the high pressure pump didn’t go on. Eric suspected that he turned the watermaker on before the generator was properly warmed up, which is no big deal. The problem is fixed by simply pushing the reset button on the unit. So, he got into the lazarette and took apart the water maker panel, found the button and pushed it. He turned the water maker back on. Now the low pressure pump wouldn’t turn on. Argh. Eric went back into the lazarette and poked around some more, but didn’t see anything wrong. Not good. He gave up, and we went to shore to get lunch and run our errands.

Lunch was the first stop. We picked one of the many cafes along the water. Christi tried the only unusual sounding thing on the menu, snybonchi, which turned out to be a stew with beef, pork and green beans. It tasted good, but the meat was quite fatty. The restaurant we chose happened to be right across from the destroyed dock. We watched as a construction crew poured concrete into the new dock they are erecting. Someone told us the bar it is attached to had just upgraded it right before the fateful storm. Sad.

After lunch, we started on the errands. The first was to go to the tourism office to get dive maps and licenses. As many of you know, Bonaire is considered a diver’s paradise. The entire coast is a giant marine park, with healthy coral teeming with fish all along the shore. In many places in the world we have been, dive sites are kept sort of secret so it is hard to go diving on your own. Here in Bonaire, they hand out detailed maps of the island that give the name of each site, a description of what lives there, currents, potential hazards, and all the other pertinent information that one needs to know to ensure a safe dive. Each site is clearly marked with a buoy so you know exactly where the spot is. Since the reef is so close to the shore, most sites can be entered from the beach, so you don’t necessarily need a boat to go diving. Licenses are required for both diving and snorkeling. The license is only $25, and is good for a whole year. Oh, and having a license gets you free admission into the Washington-Slaagbaai nature preserve.

Anyway, they gave us the map, but told us we needed to get our licenses from a dive shop. We ran a few more small errands that went quickly, such as the post office. The last item on the list, find a new camera, turned out to be harder than expected. We went to every store that people suggested might carry cameras. Between all the stores combined there was only a small selection, and none were what we are looking for. We absolutely need a camera that can get splashed by a wave coming over the dinghy and still work. We don’t necessarily need something we can take snorkeling, just something water resistant. We killed one camera via the water in the dinghy method, and we don’t want to risk losing another one the same way. One of the store owners told us that with the recession, they aren’t keeping as much expensive merchandise in stock.

Defeated, we headed back towards the dinghy dock. As we walked along the quay, we noticed about 5 vibrantly colored parrotfish swimming along the sea wall. It was almost shocking to see such beautiful creatures right there at the shoreline. Usually along the shore in a city you don’t see much more than little crabs.

By the time we got back, Christi wasn’t feeling very good. We scrapped the diving plan and she took a nap. Eric called Village Marine and asked about the water maker. He was told it was probably a loose fuse. He went back into the lazarette and pulled off the panel. They were right. He must have knocked it loose when he took the panel off the first time. He shoved the fuse back into place, then turned the watermaker back on and it worked fine. Happy days! Eric also combed through the dive map and chose spots to go.

Since Christi wasn’t feeling good, we wound up having a quiet evening aboard and going to bed early. The mooring area is OK in terms of how much rolling we experience. It is never totally calm, but it is also never so rolly it is uncomfortable. Dominica was more extreme on both ends of the spectrum.

We figured potential cruisers would appreciate some commentary about anchoring out/mooring versus staying in a marina. Anchoring out is nice, as long as the anchorage is reasonably calm. When you anchor out, you have to plan trips to shore carefully. First of all, you have to think about what you wear. Since there is a reasonable chance you will get wet, you generally opt for quick dry materials, so jeans are out. There is also a reasonable chance you will get dirty, whether from scrambling up and down the docks, from tracking dirt into the dinghy that gets wet and muddy, and many other ways, so you don’t want to wear something light in color or something that you don’t want to see stained. Conversely, if you wear something dark in color and get splashed by a wave, the salt leaves white streaks on your clothes when it dries.

You also have to think about where you will be landing. If you are doing a beach landing, everything needs to go into a dry bag in case you get knocked over by a wave. If you are going to a dock, you have to consider winds, waves and tides to make sure it is safe to leave your dinghy there. In some places you have to lock your dinghy up to prevent theft. When you make an appointment to be somewhere, you have to factor in how long it takes to get to shore and get the dinghy situated above and beyond the transportation time from the beach/dock. And in some places, it can be a good half hour or more ride for us in our little 2 hp motor.

You also need to think through small but crucial logistical details. Most important is a hand held radio, because you could get stranded. You have to bring flashlights so you can find your way back in case you accidentally stay out later than planned. Loading things in and out of a dinghy like ours is sometimes tricky. So, when we go to the store, it is always a juggling act to get our purchases off the dock and into the dinghy, then off the dinghy and onto Kosmos. And if it is rocky, it can be somewhat difficult to move things from the dinghy to Kosmos when both boats are swaying frantically in different directions. Most places have few lights in and around the anchorage area, and in places where it is very dark at night we generally like to be back on board before sunset. We find it a bit stressful to look for potential hazards, as well as more difficult to find Kosmos, in the dark. So, we often cut our plans short to ensure we can be back before sunset.

Staying in a marina is easy. If you decide you want to go to shore, you simply step off the boat onto the dock. You can wear what you want. You can come and go at any hour without a second thought about it. You can do a huge stock up at the grocery store and wheel a shopping trolley right up to Kosmos’ door. But marinas have drawbacks, too, and every marina has its own set of drawbacks, whether it is problems with surges, tide swings, noise, etc. Also, in an anchorage we usually get better ventilation than in a marina. We are certainly not saying that staying in a marina is better than anchoring out, we are simply pointing out that anchoring out requires more planning and effort than staying in a marina does.