Yesterday was another errand day. First thing, we were back on the camera hunt. We heard about a place at the south end of town that might have one. We walked down there, but still no luck. Every place we have been to sells regular cameras with dive housings, not water resistant cameras. We understand why. They are afraid that someone will take a camera safe for 3 feet into 60 feet of water, then demand a refund. Anyway, we ran a few other errands, including going over to Harbor Marina to pay for the mooring and drop off one of our propane tanks to be filled.
As we were heading back to Kosmos in the dinghy, we saw a sail boat coming into the mooring area. It was about to tie up to a mooring near where we happened to be. We decided to return the favor, cosmically speaking, and zoomed up to them and offered to tie their lines to the mooring for them. We got them all tied up and had a nice chat with them. They have not circumnavigated, but they have done more miles than we have on their boat (over many years). It is getting to be rare that we find boaters with more miles than us. It is weird that in less than two years we went from being the newbies with almost no miles under our belt to the salty old sailors with more miles than most everyone we meet. It is kind of crazy how far we have come in so short of a time. What is even weirder is that we are now 4/5 of the way around the world. We are almost done with our journey.
For dinner, we went to a pizza place near the marina. The marina itself doesn’t have a dinghy dock. The dock for the hotel is actually farther north. We tied our dinghy up to some rocks next to some fishing boats. After dinner, the ride back was exceptional. The night was perfect. The wind had completely died, the seas were flat, the moon was bright, and visibility excellent as we putted along. We could see many diver’s lights under the water, illuminating little spots here and there from below, like lights in a fountain.
We noticed a boat was underway at the edge of the mooring field. What was it doing out there? We approached it and asked if they needed help. They said they did. They needed a mooring, but couldn’t see well enough in the dark to find one. We found them an empty mooring and helped them tie up. It turns out we met them briefly in Gran Canaria. The wife had been kind enough to give Christi information on provisioning, so in an odd twist of fate we had returned their helpfulness. Those people lucked out in three ways. One is that we came by. Two is that if it was a dark night, we couldn’t have got them in so well. Three, we just had a dry run with the tying up process, so we knew exactly what to do and were not put off by the dark.
This morning we headed out early. We hopped in the dinghy and were most surprised to see Arielle tied up next to us on the starboard side. What a surprise! We went over to say hi. It was really nice to see them. They had just arrived and had a hard time with the mooring lines. One of the crew actually had to jump in and kind of jerry rig the mooring lines. Poor guys. If only we were outside a few minutes prior. They asked us to help them get the lines properly situated, which we did. After our little chat, we rented a car.
The first stop was the land sailing place we had passed on the way up to Rincon. The land sail vehicles are basically small triangular frames with three wheels, a seat, and a sail. They have carved out a track in the dirt, your standard oval shape. We were the first ones there, right when they opened, though a family of four came a few minutes later.
The owner went over the “theory” with us about how it works and gave us pointers on the track. You hold the steering wheel with one hand, the sail line with the other. Let out the line to slow down, pull on the line to speed up. One turn is into the wind, and he said it was impossible to fall over on that turn. The turn where the wind is behind you is a whole other matter. If you take it too fast, you can totally fall over, but he promised that as long as you kept your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times, you would not hurt yourself.
Eric got the cart with the biggest sail, so he was flying along the track. He lapped everyone several times. Right off the bat, he was comfortable with speeds so fast that the sail lifted the cart off the ground a little bit, tipping it so he only had two wheels on the ground at a time. Christi did fine from the get go, as well, and as the hour and a half went by, progressively maintained a faster and faster speed. Although, honestly, she was paranoid about falling over, so every time she got to the downwind turn, she let out all the line completely and made sure every inch of her body was protected by the cart frame. And it took until nearly the end before she was comfortable staying on two wheels for longer than a nanosecond.
Land sailing is a lot of fun. It is cool to be in a little vehicle powered solely by wind, especially when you are going really fast. If only these little vehicles could be functional in “real” life, the world would be less polluted and drivers would have way more fun on the roads. An hour and a half is a good amount of time you really feel like you had a good run and are ready to stop. We were surprised by how much of a muscle work out it was. We really felt it in our abs (the sitting position was like half of a sit up), in our necks, and in the arm pulling the sails. Eric pulled on the ropes so hard that his hands were raw and he had to stop mid way and get gloves.
From there, we went back to the windsurfing place. Christi chose the same large beginner board with a slightly larger sail, the same sail that Eric had upgraded to last time. Eric chose a slightly smaller board and a slightly larger sail than he had last time. We both struggled with our new equipment. Eric found his sail to be heavy and hard to pull up. It took him a long time just to get up on the board and pull the sail up. Then he had a hard time figuring out how to steer, stay upright and move the right direction. It wasn’t until the end of the two hour session that he finally had the hang of it enough to get in some good runs.
Christi found the larger sail to be heavier and more unwieldy, requiring much more upper body strength to manage. She was able to stand up on the board and pull the sail up, but she would almost invariably get blown over within seconds of getting the sail upright. A few of the falls did not feel good, leaving a skinned elbow and some bruises on her legs. After almost a half hour, she went back and asked for the smallest sail. With the smallest sail, she was up and moving right away. She had a really good run where she went a long way out. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been paying attention and had gone into deeper water in the outskirts of the bay.
When she did finally fall off, she realized she should get back to the shallows. She decided the prudent thing would be to lie on the board and paddle in surfer style, rather than try to windsurf in. She still had a hard time with directional control windsurfing, and was afraid of getting farther the wrong direction if she tried windsurfing in. She knew she could make it in via paddling, but wind and waves were against her and it was a fair distance, so she would be tired by the time she arrived.
Then three kids in a small hard dinghy-type boat came by and asked her if she wanted a tow in. She is guessing two of the kids were 9 or 10, the other was 11 or 12. They wanted her to get in the boat and sit while they took care of hanging on to the board during the tow. With no line to attach the board to the boat, holding on to the board without getting the sail stuck in the propeller was no easy task. The kids have apparently assigned themselves to bay patrol, and they spend their days off school tooling around the deep water, looking for stranded sailboarders to tow in. Those kids are really amazing. They are so incredibly mature and really have their act together, professionally running their little boat and their rescue adventure with the same caution and prudent judgment an adult would use. They will likely go very far in life. How does one ensure their kids turn out like them? Nevertheless, it was still a bit embarrassing to be rescued by children.
Anyway, they brought her to the edge of the shallows, careful to not get their boat too close to where they might hit bottom. She immediately got back on the board to steer herself in. She stood up, sail in position to move forward. But she wasn’t moving. After several minutes, she realized the waves had actually pushed her back to the deep water. Argh! How had she managed to go backwards???? She swam back in the little ways to the shallows, then walked a good long distance to where she felt she was safe from drifting out to the deep again. From then on, every time she got on the board, she headed straight into shore rather than riding parallel to shore. It felt like no matter what she did, she couldn’t control the direction the board went. Realizing it was a futile effort, she came in ½ hour early. Her belief is that once things go bad in recreational activities, it is better to quit and try again another day. She finds that if she continues to pursue an activity once it has ceased to be fun, it never gets better and she has a hard time giving it another chance down the road.
Neither of us had very much fun windsurfing this time. We were both pretty grumpy when we left. We were both worn out, were hungry, and had gotten too much sun. And Eric’s hands hurt.
In the evening, we went over and visited the boat that we had helped tie up yesterday afternoon. As we were leaving, we saw a boat coming in. In a repeat of last night’s mooring assistance, we asked them if they needed help, found them a mooring and helped them tie up. This time there was a small snag. Once they were tied up, we realized the mooring lines were twisted, so we had to untie them, untwist the lines and then re-tie them. The moon was almost full and incredibly vibrant, with visibility so good that we could see under the water that the lines were crossed. We are just amazed at how bright the moon is here.
We have dubbed ourselves the “Official Bonaire Welcoming Committee”, since we have assisted 4 newly arriving boats in the last 2 days.