Well hello again!

Look who came out to play : a well behaving Jurassic butterfly! After 6 months of bobbing up and down on her Bonairean mooring buoys, O2 finally managed to pull herself free to hit the waves. Btw, they were 3 meters high for most of the time.

For us -her obedient crew – it wasn’t an easy thing to do: Bonaire had put a spell on us. As time was fleeting by new seductions kept coming around the corner, softly whispering in our ears to just stay a little bit longer.

During our last week on Bonaire, we were shown hidden spots around the island by Philip and Els, the hospitable Belgian couple who had turned into locals. Their adobe style mansion was a feast to the eye, filled as it was with minimalistic art gathered from the seashore.

The ultimate seduction appeared in the shape of master kite buddy Bert.

Belgian Bert and his gorgeous young family arrived on board Temanu’a just as we were planning to leave. So that’s how we spent our last extended days on Bonaire: kite surfing in the good company of fellow wind addicts who could all produce negative PCR tests after having spent days at sea to begin with.

Thanks to Bert, my Captain has now acquired another important skill: how to launch the kite from the boat without risking dismemberment or decapitation by the lines.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the conversations with the sun kissed Blue Lagoon marvels named Roxie, Lyam and their mom Stefanie, aka the Temanu’a gang. To me, they seemed to be wondrous water beings, risen straight from the Caribbean sea.

Bonaire kept saying hello and it was so easy to linger on, but we had to say goodbye to keep on exploring. So when our jolly French and Venezuelan boat neighbours decided to crash the kite course party on board of O2, we can say we left in style with a regular “fiesta de despedida.”

It took O2 a mere 6 days to zoom for nearly 800 nautical miles past Curaçao, Aruba and Colombia right into Shelter Bay Marina, near the city of Colon, Panama.

Sadly enough, Colombia is still off limits due to Covid 19. Cartagena, which to us sounds as magical as the Timboektoe or Mandalay of the sixties, will have to remain a far off mystery for the time being.

But Panama and the great beyond is calling! We have barely arrived in Shelter Bay and we can already feel the tug of the Pacific luring us in. That’s why we are holding on firmly to the mast with our ears stuffed with wax. Our nostrils on the other hand are wide open , ready to be swabbed by the Panamanian health authorities who take matters very seriously now that Covid 19 is on the rise again in Panama City. And we couldn’t agree more.