August has been a fantastic month in this beautiful place; discovering more dive sites; getting to know more cruisers; welcoming Crazy Daisy with Heather and Bob into the marina and Leo, Karin, Paul and Trish rejoining us.

The boats are permanently covered with Sahara sand so cleaning is either not an option or a huge chore. All washing requires drying inside the boat which makes it smell sweet but resembles a Chinese laundry, together with the potential of being garrotted by the plastic washing line. The bottom of the boat and waterline has been cleaned by sheer elbow grease and the sea life are very appreciative of the scrapings.

We had the pleasure of joining Ksae and Daphne on board Atmos, a beautiful 60 foot refitted boat. They had recently enjoyed a birthday treat in Cuba and watched cigars being rolled by hand on one of the tobacco farms. Kindly they offered Stephen a Havana, which was dipped in honey and then lit. The aroma was gorgeous and even the non smokers had a puff. Stephen was in sheer heaven. Sadly we had to say goodbye to them as they were leaving for Holland but hope to meet them somewhere along the Colombian coast.

The diving has continued to be wonderful and we are now spending over an hour underwater with air to spare on surfacing. Our confidence and enjoyment has increased and we don't really want to leave. We have sited sea turtles several times, one of which we were concerned about as it descended onto rocks and perched its head on a boulder, very close to us, lying there without much movement. Eventually after a rest, it glided off to the surface for air. Whew!

We have been waiting for Crazy Daisy to arrive and with SSB contact each morning we monitored their progress from Grenada. They snuck in to the mooring field whilst we were asleep and called us on the VHF the following morning. The last time we had seen them was at their daughter’s wedding in Grenada in September, 2014. Since then Bob has undergone surgery for his heart and is now a new man. Heather is her normal bubbly self, feeding us her delicious Banana cake on arrival at Crazy Daisy. Once Crazy Daisy was moored safely in her berth we relocated to Zazu’s bar for internet, cocktails and lunch, catching up on one another's news. Talk of future plans and boat things was the order of the day.

 Our friends, Ed, Elizabeth and Luna on Skylark have taught us how to play "Mexican Train", a competitive domino game with masses of tiles. We have shared our favourite game of “Karma", otherwise known as S***head, courtesy of our kids. We have spent lively evenings, eating, drinking and using our brains much to the amusement of one another. Both games bring out the mean streak in people, absolutely hilarious. We understand that Crazy Daisy have a larger set of dominoes and are up for joining us. We really must get our own set!

Through Babe, we were introduced to the crew from Wildberry and now with a gang of boats; Amelie, Atmos, Babe, Bubbles, Crazy Daisy, Skylark and Wildberry, we had enough players to introduce people to "Werewolves". Maurice and Dieuwke were kind enough to translate our Dutch rules and a Sunday barbecue was organised. As usual the table was heaving since everyone provided so liberally. After food and of course, beer and wine, Stephen organised the group on the veranda as game master for Werewolves. People's ability to pretend, role play and confuse their opponents made for a great game. Our barbecue became a full moon party.

Our next plans are to get ourselves to Curaçao for the Jazz festival and finding a solution to our generator problems.

 With a heavy heart we left Bonaire promising to return one day.