Bon Bini!

It translates into welcome, and that’s at least one of the many feelings we had as soon as we rounded the western tip of the island of Bonaire after our sail south.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve now been in (or moored off) Bonaire for 9months. The very same people who seem to get shifty after a couple of days in most places… how on earth did that even happen?

Not only have we not yet begun to feel shifty here… that old feeling we get that there’s something "better" calling our name and making us want to pull up and anchor and explore - we’ve actually been going hard the opposite direction.

When the friends we convinced to sail here with us started looking at condos we couldn’t help but go with them to give our “professional opinion” (mostly for the opportunity to see them for ourselves - we love a good open house).
A couple weeks later we started discussing the possibility of buying something here and then started trying to persuade a couple we met to sell us their condo (yes, really... I couldn't make this shit up).

It obviously failed at first - walking up to someone and offering to buy their home rarely works right away, but in this case we had done our research, knew that they owned and were remodeling the place upstairs to be their actual (part time) home, and figured it couldn’t hurt to try, much less invite them to happy hour and see where it lead.

Long have we tried to live by the mantra “You don’t get what you don’t ask for”, so we reached out and introduced ourselves, and tried to make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. They of course, still refused… but I guess we wore them down and seemed like decent neighbors - because a few weeks later they wrote back and accepted our offer. Suddenly we find ourselves condo owners on Bonaire.

The process of course wasn’t exactly as easy or clear cut as it sounds (rarely is)… but like all things, we took the first step, learned as we went along and within weeks we were knee deep in an international real estate exchange.

It’s a tiny 1bedroom condo, but it is overlooking the ocean/reef and in almost laughable irony - is in the same building as the condo we fell in love with over a decade ago when were visited Bonaire (but couldn’t imagine ourselves ever being able to afford, even WITH the jobs we held at the time).

Much like the far-fetched idea of ever owning/living on a boat… this was one of those dreams we knew/assumed we were giving up on back when we decided to quit our jobs and run away to find happiness rather continuing to work and focus on money. Minds blown - yet again.

So where we are… still sitting off of Bonaire. Still working to find some kind of live/work balance (and still not doing a very good job) and figure out what’s next, still pinching ourselves every morning as we try to figure out how all this has come to be.

How on earth its possible that by giving up the dollars we thought it took to buy happiness, we somehow keep ending up with all of those things we thought we’d never have (even when working jobs we hated).

Think dreams cant come true?? You might just be asking the wrong people!

"So, What’s the new plan" you ask?
As always… there isn’t one, yet.

We know for certain that we aren’t ready to sell the boat or stop sailing/exploring… but we have always dreamt of owning a place on an island for when that day does eventually come.

We’ve also now toured almost every island in the Caribbean, and to our surprise Bonaire still sits at the top of our favorites list (and our knowledge has also grown immensely in terms of weather, hurricanes, etc… the very things that could make such an investment a bad or very expensive idea, which has also moved Bonaire even higher up the list).

Much of our current stagnation and sitting is caused by covid and our inability to continue forward towards the pacific (or anywhere else), but there are other factors at play here as well.

I’ve always joked about spending my “later” years snorkeling out to a reef every morning until one day when I either forget to turn around or don’t have the strength to come back.

While it began as a joke, it also always seemed like a pretty great way to spend ones final days, especially since for me the water seems to provide a quiet and calm that I simply don’t or cannot find elsewhere in life. Within our first few days moored here off Bonaire we noticed that every single day an older gentleman slowly makes his way to the shore. He slowly manages to contort himself into a wetsuit and then grabs a line tied to a tree and waddles his way even more slowly into the water to float among the sea and stare at the creatures beneath.

We originally called him “the manatee” due to obvious visual relationships… but as time went on, it was pretty tough to not connect the dots and realize that if later in life that is still my “goal”, then this little island (the same one time and time again voted as the best in the word for snorkeling from shore) might just be the best place to grow old later.
Oh, and the idea of free health care doesn’t exactly hurt.

We have been in the process of applying for residency here, have been working to remodel the condo (more on that later) and have been immersing ourselves in the community, both sailors and locals… and at least so far - we love this island as much or more as we thought we did years ago when it was only a far-fetched dream.