Sunday, October 1, 1995 - Bonaire

Roy had a lot of work to do on the boat, including changing the oil, so I rode my bike downtown. Everything was closed, of course, but I located a laundromat that looked good through the windows. It's about a mile-and-a-half from the boat. I can either walk there pulling the blue wagon or I can put the laundry in my Royak, paddle to within two blocks of it, and walk the rest of the way. I checked the shoreline and found a small spot between the rocks where I can pull up my Royak. There's even an ancient bollard to tie to. When I returned to the boat, Roy was still in the engine compart- ment but hadn't gotten much done, because Don had come by and talked with him some more. Don is very enthusiastic about the pictures. He and Roy contacted George on the VHF. George said he would come to the boat around noon. George showed up as scheduled. He's very pleasant and knowledge- able. He was an engineer for IBM for twenty years, part of which time he worked in San Jose! After leaving IBM, he worked in Washington, DC, as an independent consultant. Then he chucked it all to go sailing. He and his wife Laura settled in Bonaire a couple of years ago and have been chartering their boat. After living on their boat for ten years, they have just moved to a new house (he calls it a bungalow) on land. They are SSCA commodores, but will now have to become rear commodores. (Commodores have to live on their boat.) George was very much interested in the pictures and the story. He knows a newspaperman named Linkels who has contacts in Cura‡ao and might be able to get the rest of the story from the police. That's what we really need to know; otherwise, it's nothing but speculation. George asked me to write up the story as we know it and bring the diskette to his house this afternoon. He also picked out two of the best pictures and took them with him to reproduce. After lunch, I wrote the story in newspaper style and copied it to diskette. Then Roy and I got on our bikes and rode about four miles to George and Laura's house. It is a beautiful, modern, tile-floored "bungalow" with a panaromic view of the water, the western shore of Bonaire, and Klein Bonaire. They have a long-haired dachshund puppy named Trixie and a small parrot named Oscar. Oscar loves to be played with and petted. We sat on their patio overlooking the sea and talked for quite a while. Then George took us into his computer room. He has all this terrific new equipment, of course, including a gigabyte hard-disk, CD ROMs, and WINDOWS 95. I drooled with envy. WINDOWS 95 was able to reproduce the photographs and manipulate them in various ways to make them even more outstanding. It's astonishing. George is going to use two of Roy's pictures and my story in the next issue of Port Call. He made several unsuccessful attempts to phone Mr. Linkels. He'll continue trying. Laura told us that the teensy weensy flies that keep biting us are no-see-ums. We should have known. No wonder they drive us crazy. When we left, Trixie got loose and followed Roy about a mile down the road. I was afraid the little doggie wouldn't be able to find her way home, so I kept whistling and calling. Eventually, she turned around and followed me back to the house. George and Laura were overjoyed to see her. They had been looking for her and were about to launch an exhaustive search. They thanked me profusely.