King Visit

The Royal Family of the Netherlands (King Willem, Queen Maxima and Princess Amalia) visited Bonaire this weekend. It was a big deal to have the reigning King and Queen visiting this tiny island. They are making the rounds to all their municipalities:  St. Martin, Aruba, Curaçao, St. Eustatius, Bonaire and Saba.

They landed at Flamingo Airport in a private jet to fanfare and waving tourists. Their motorcade traveled around the island so they could see how the natives live.  The island prepared for their visit by patching the pavement on the road to their hotel (the patching stopped after the hotel), sprucing up the fishing pier on Lac Bay ( the fisherman have been asking for this for years) and allowing a motorized boat in the mangroves (usually only kayaks are allowed) for the Royals to view nature. They visited the slave huts and made speeches about reparations for slavery. The Taste of Bonaire was this weekend so the Royals visited the street fair with all the commoners. 

The checker at the grocery store told us about all the events planned for the Royals and a funny story about the King. She said that the King once ditched his security detail in St. Martin and went drinking in a local bar.  Now everyone tells that story and thinks that King Willem is just a regular guy who likes to drink Heineken.

 

Hot vs Cold

I used to think that soup was for cold days when it was snowing outside and you had a fire in the fire place. It is usually 80+ degrees in Bonaire and eating hot soup just seemed wrong. 

I gave it go this week. Our local lunch spot had a special of Sopa de Pollo (chicken soup).  They chop up chicken- bones and all, cook with whole potatoes in a rich broth. A side of rice is served with it. It was delish! And Yes, you can eat hot soup on a hot day.

We used to shovel snow all winter.  We shoveled snow for 30 years. We traded our snow shovel for a squeegee.  After it rains, Rick now uses a big squeegee to get the water off the patio and walkways.  Instead of taking hours, it takes minutes to clear the water from our patio. There is no shoveling!

We traded our snow skis for scuba and snorkels.


 

The Melissa

We took a gourmet dinner cruise on The Melissa, a wood sail ship that tours the west side of the island. 

It was a Birthday cruise because the gang had missed celebrating December and January birthdays.  Our gang was partially gone due to holiday travel and the other delegation was sick for two months.  We finally got everyone back from travel and feeling well for a make-up birthday celebration. 

The ship serves a 6 course, small plate dinner.  We had sushi, soup, fish, beef, ice cream and something else I can't remember.  The wine, beer, prosecco and cocktails were freely flowing.  My glass was never empty.

They motor down to the southern part of the island and sail back to port.  We got to see the island from the sea and point out all our houses, empty lots and new builds that you can't see from the road. We left in the light and returned well after sunset.

We followed up the cruise with an impulsive side trip to Little Havana, a hopping little dive bar with the crowd pouring out into the street. The live band of Dutch musicians were playing American rock songs.  They didn't know the words so they had a gal with cue cards so the band could sing with the music.  We laughed, and laughed and laughed.

Our selfie on the boat deck before we drank too much.

 

Painting

We contracted to have our house painted in July. The rain delayed the painting until mid-January. We now have painters all over the outside of the house.  

They began by power washing everything.  The roofs were the first surfaces to be painted.  With a spray painter in hand the painter walks all over the roof painting.  Notice no safety gear.  The US OSHA would be writing tickets, fining the paint company and shutting down the job site.  Not in Bonaire.

Everything on the patio, the property walls, the back yard and in the gravel around the walls had to be moved to allow for painting.  Our living and dining room are outside which didn't give us a place to "be" during painting. Everything is piled up inside filling our great room.  It was only for a few days but we were discombobulated. 

The crew of 6 painted everything white by hand, with rollers and brushes.  The wind blows too strong to use the sprayer.  The painter said if the sprayer was used the whole neighborhood would be coated with white paint. 

Interesting sidebar: our painter is Dutch and is married to a French Canadian.  He doesn't speak French and she doesn't speak Dutch.  They speak English to each other. The painting crew speaks Dutch and one speaks only Spanish.

 

Prices

My sisters have been talking about the high prices for groceries and utilities in the US.  It started me thinking about the prices in Bonaire.  Although our groceries and gas prices have always seemed high to us it was interesting to look at our actual costs.

Some lettuce is grown hydroponically on Bonaire. It costs more than the imported lettuce but it is fresher and last longer in the fridge. 

Some prices are controlled or subsidized by the government.  We had a shortage of eggs because our local producers weren't producing enough to meet demand.  The importers were not importing because the government said that the highest price they could charge was $3.89 a dozen.  They couldn't import eggs for that price and make a profit. This protected the local producers but created a huge shortage on the island.  The Chinese markets came to the rescue and imported eggs from Columbia and sold at the designated price. 

This is our utility bill for electricity.  It is $407 for the month down from $500 plus in previous months  The government has stepped in to subsidize utility costs and those kick in the first of this year. The island uses oil to produce electricity and the world oil market has risen significantly. They have plans to increase solar and wind energy but that is years away from being a reality.

The government also subsidizes gasoline costs. Gas costs $1.28 a liter (about $5.00 a gallon). We fill up the car for $45.00.  That is down from $65.00 for a full tank. Since everything is imported onto the island, we are at risk of food shortages and pricing increases. The island does produce it's own water which is of high quality and relatively inexpensive.  Our water bill is about $40 a month.

That's the price of living in paradise.  We still have free beaches, free access to the ocean, free sunshine and blue skies. It's worth it.

Movies

We get first run movies on Bonaire.  They are in English with Dutch subtitles.  The subtitles are usually ignored except when they are translating a language other than English....like Spanish, French or whatever the Avatars speak. We miss those translations because they are in Dutch.

We have two options for movies:  1) an outdoor theater with a huge screen and big sound system where you can bring your own chairs (or use the ones the theater provides) and sit at tables and drink while watching the movie; and 2) an indoor air conditioned theater with big rocking theater seats that's just like the US theaters only a little smaller. Beer and wine can be purchased as well as snacks for both theaters.  It's a cool set up.

I usually go to the movies with Rick.  I had a date for Avatar The Way of Water.  One of our friends, Mark, has a wife that doesn't like sci-fi/fantasy type movies.  Rick did not want to sit in the theater for three plus hours to see Avatar. So Mark and I went together.  It was the first time I had been to the theater with a man other than my husband.  It was a really great movie and the animation was spectacular. My date was pretty good too!

We also saw the Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance movie.  It's not our usual choice of adventure/action shows but our musical expat couple (an opera singer and teacher at Emory University and a really good saxophone player) suggested we all go together.  It was a super good movie and, of course, the music was really fabulous. We sw this one in the outdoor theater under the stars.

Wakanda Forever was another long film that was showing at the indoor theater.  Once again, Rick was unwilling to sit for long in the theater seats which he deems uncomfortable.  I went with a girlfriend.  

The translation from the Wakanda language into Dutch  subtitles was not very fulfilling for us.  We only got about half of the movie dialog because the other part was in Dutch. It had a good story line and great action sequences.

I am not a Siskel or Ebert but those are my takes on recent showings in Bonaire.

 

Repairs

This is the month for repairs.

After all the rain, the roof on the apartment leaked and damaged some ceiling and walls. When we looked at the roof, it had been patched and repaired "Dutch style"...meaning cheaply and poorly. 

We called our trusty construction guy.  He took off the old roof and put on a new roof in one day. He is working on the interior work now.

We had scheduled painting of the main house for November. It has rained everyday for three months. The painter has not been able to paint in the rain.  Things have dried up a bit making painting the outside of the house possible.  Not only do they paint the outside walls and exterior house walls but also the roofs. We had to pick roof color as well as wall color.  

Our painters wanted to introduce more color into the house.  They suggested tans, blues and murals.  We are staying with the terracotta roof color and white walls. 

 

The decking around our house is wood.  Not the best choice of materials in this climate.  One of the decks was done "Dutch style" (we all know what that means). The structure under the deck failed because it was not sized correctly when it was originally built.  This has been Rick's project for the past week to replace the structural board that holds the deck to the concrete.

Some of our backyard decking has had so much water on it that it is now spongey.  Replacement will be Rick's next project.

New Years 2023

New Years fireworks on Bonaire were once again a fabulous show over the water.  We were on the beach looking toward Kralendijk.  The fireworks  show went on for 45 minutes and then extended throughout the island the rest of the night. It is a fabulous show and the beach was packed with onlookers. It's one of the most amazing celebrations we have ever seen.

Rick and I managed to stay up late to see the fireworks. It was the first time we had felt good in a month and were were ready to party.

New Years Day we opened a bottle of Prosecco and had fresh squeezed orange juice. We downed our traditional orange cinnamon rolls and proceeded to drink the whole bottle of Prosecco. Let me just say that we are way out of practice and our endurance for consumption is low at best.  We were napping by the afternoon...sleeping off the alcohol. We were dragging the whole day because of our over indulgence.

This will be the third year for our island living adventure.  It certainly feels like home and we really love living on Bonaire. 

Happy New Year everyone! I hope its a healthy and happy year for all of us 💖