A Milestone Along Life's Path

Although 65 years old is no longer the official retirement age, it does seem like a quite significant milestone in life. The dangers of childhood parental mis-management, teenage and young adult recklessness, extreme sports, workplace political back stabbing, plague and wars have all been sidestepped to leave a slightly scarred but overall healthy individual. There have been a few near misses along the way but overall the prospects are still looking good and the near misses make you really appreciate what you have got. 

I really have all I want and find no need for a present for such an occasion as my 65th birthday. My wardrobe consists of swimming trunks, vest type T-shirts, shorts and flipflops – so there is little to buy in this area and there is no room on the boat for an ornament or painting.  Maybe a new set of drill bits, insulating tape or a packet of tie wraps. Usually a dinner cooked at home with a glass of Champagne and/or a good bottle of red wine is all that I want to celebrate the passing of another year.

Ingrid, on the other hand is always looking for something special that will please me and fit the occasion. This story happens to start in a restaurant, somewhere we don’t go often as we find that we enjoy the daily ocean view restaurant we have on the boat that really meets a lot of our needs. However, there is a restaurant in Bonaire called “Chefs” where the waiting list is several months long as the reputation for the quality of the food is renown to be excellent.

As we never plan so far ahead with restaurants, we asked to be put on the waiting list for a cancellation, which came through about 2 weeks later, too early for my birthday, but a good excuse to have an evening out. The setup of the restaurant is kind of like a horseshoe shaped  bar, where the guests sit at the bar and the food is prepared in the centre of the horseshoe.  On one side we had a Dutch couple who owned a house on Bonaire and on the other side was Jordan and Galina from Bonaire and Moldova.

As the first course of cured marlin was served, the introducing chef said that the fish was caught by Jordan – the guy on our right. The second and 3rd fish course was also prepared from fish caught and supplied by Jordan. This information helped our evenings conversation and we discovered that Jordan’s only passion in life (other than Galina who he will marry this September) is fishing. He goes fishing every day and seems to catch quite significant quantities of large ocean swimming fish (tuna, marlin, wahoo, mahe mahe and red snapper). With these fish, he had developed a network where he supplies half the restaurants in Bonaire with up to 1000kg per week and the rest is sold in his fish shop that is managed by the lovely Galina.

The way he does this is by going fishing every day in his 30 ft long powerboat called “Valhalla”, either on his own or with paying guests.

Ingrid booked a fishing adventure for me with “Mako Tours” as my birthday present and as the cost was the same for either 1 or 6 people, she agreed to join me and also invited our next-door boat friends from Aqualuna for the fishing trip. So, this is how my birthday present idea developed from a chance meeting in a restaurant.

As the trip was being planned, Jordan wanted to depart at 4am – a great time to start a birthday party ! We agreed for 4.30 in the morning and he would pick us up with his boat from our boat to optimise our time and travel.

Heading out between Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, our destination was a FAD – a Fish Activating Device. This is actually a buoy with ropes and large pieces of cloth hanging from it. It works by forming a shade, a little like a floating reef, where small bait fish gather and feel safe. Larger predator fish like tuna feed on the smaller fish that are attracted in this small area. The FAD is unmarked on nautical charts as they only remain intact for a number of months, so they can be quite a hazard to boats, good to know but not a point of concern for this trip.

Jordan said that the tuna wake up before dawn and are hungry, so this is the reason he wanted to head out at 4am. and that our best chance to catch a tuna was as we travel past the FAD. We had 2 rods out and hand line trailing our lures as we came past the FAD. Bang, bang, bang, 3 fish on 3 lines within 3 seconds ! All the men were suddenly involved with reeling in yellow finned tuna that were about 1 meter long. Once they were close to the boat Jordan deftly took the gaf and brought the beasts aboard, banged them on the head and dropped them into the cool box.

With the next pass we hooked a wahoo that struggled in vain to get free, but the metre and a half of fish was again gaffed by Jordan, banged on the head with an aluminium bat and added to the cool box.

As the sun was now over the horizon, the chances of additional tuna were minimal so we changed our lures to be attractive to the mahe mahe. Passing the FAD my lure took flight again with line stripping off my reel at great speed and a large mahe mahe on the other end. The fish jumped metres into the air, dived to depths and thoroughly wore me out with the effort of reeling it in. Once close to the boat, off it went again and again, looking for freedom. Finally, it was close enough to be gaffed and so Jordan did his trick, wacked it on the head and dropped it into the cool box in a practised manner.

We had 1 more mahe mahe join the cool box and this gave us a moment to catch our breaths and rest our tired arms.

Next was an attempt to catch a blue marlin. These beasts of several hundred kilos love live bait fish, preferably small live tuna. We tried with the one little live tuna we caught, but it did not live for long and the marlin had to be left for another day.

With the sun rising further our options were either more trawling for wahoo or some bottom fishing for red snapper. We opted for red snapper as we thought it may be less tiring than catching the big pelagic fish, little did we know !

The red snapper were to be found at a depth of 200-300 metres, so a line with several baited hooks and a kilo of lead was dropped over the side of the boat and about 5 minutes later was on bottom. Hungry snappers attacked our baited hooks almost immediately and the long and tiring journey with 2 snappers of several kilos plus the big lead weight was beginning. The fish did not fight like the pelagic ones but the effort to bring them to the surface was enormous. We took turns in reeling them in so we could have a rest between the fish we caught. After about 8 fish, we were so tired that we were happy to go trawling again and give our arms a rest.

10:00 came, the sun was up, our 5 hour fishing trip was over and the day was just starting. Jordan kindly filleted a selection of as much fish as we wanted and kept the rest for his shop and restaurants. I think I have never in my life caught so many fish in such a short time and it was great to share the fishing adventure with Ingrid and our friends.

Needless to say what dinner consisted of that evening and for quite a few subsequent evenings !

Our time in Bonaire came to an end and we sailed onto Curacao for the last stage of our 2024 sailing season. Here we organised the final preparations for haul out and the work that needed to be done.

The UV protection on the jib was wearing out and the stitching needed to be re-sown. We initially thought to have it done in Curacao, but we decided in the end to bring the sail back to The Netherlands as a part of our luggage allowance. The repairs would be done at “Dekker Watersports” where they specialise with such jobs. The new sail maker in Curacao was enthusiastic, but we thought that they did not have sufficient experience and a large enough work space for our sewing job.

We desalted the outboard engine, did some gel coat repairs and cleaned, washed and prepared for our journey back to European summer.

We took it quite easy, with an apartment for the last few days and a car rental for the period that we were there. The days were very hot and the sun cover did a lot to help the inside boat temperature but by the end of the day we were ready for a swim and snorkel. We explored a few beaches and clubs that we could access within 30 minutes from the marina and got into quite a nice routine of cooling off at the end of the day. Returning back to the boat when the sun had given off most of its heat to enjoy a pleasant warm evening outside was a pleasure every day.

The boat came out of the water the day before we left for Europe. Surprisingly, there was little marine growth and what there was, was easily removed with the pressure washer. The boat will remain on the hard for the rest of the hurricane season, with a plan to wax the hull, re-paint the anti-fouling, change the anodes and change 2 seacocks just before we return to Curacao.

I think that we came back to The Netherlands at a perfect time. In our first 2 weeks we have only had 1 day of rain and many days of warm sunshine. The Netherlands is just so beautiful in the sun ! Unfortunately, the evenings always cool down with an increase in humidity, but we don’t complain too much about having to wear clothes in place of our bathers on a daily basis. We even took a walk along the beach where we saw people actually swimming in the North Sea  and enjoying themselves – what a tough and hardy lot !

We again enjoy the culture, the museums and the fresh seasonal fruit that are just so delicious. Almost gorging ourselves on strawberries, raspberries, soft peaches and nectarines, we don’t even look at the passion fruit and mangos that we are used to in the Caribbean. The daily choice of fresh fruit, and fresh vegetables that don’t go off in a day is great – we have missed the fresh abundance of locally grown produce.

For the boat, we have ordered a new mattress for our bed (from Neptune), some additional solar panels and a few small items. With export shipping to Curacao, we are not required to pay for VAT in The Netherlands and this saving covers our transportation and Curacao importation costs. This way we can purchase exactly what we require in The Netherlands and have it shipped to Curacao to be ready for our return. Saving money in imaginative ways is really a good sport !

Although we love to be on the boat and sail around to where ever we wish, as soon as we are back on land, we switch and love being on land again. It is an opportunity to catch up with friends and family, which above all, are our most treasured possessions. We have the death of a good friend that makes us sad but the news of 3 babies to be born that puts a smile on our faces. We can’t change the progress of time and the effect it has on all of us, but we learn to celebrate the good things, the good memories and enjoy the times that we have to live, love and share today. We regret nothing, only sometime, some of the things we don’t do.