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| Hole before through hull installation. |
Meanwhile Gilly busied herself making some new flags. Bonaire, Colombia and Panama.
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| Panama's flag. |
Our previous boat, Petronella, was a Joshua ketch. Tucked away in the corner of Curacao boatyard I spotted Northern Light another Joshua. She has made many well documented passages to far flung high latitude destinations with her previous owners but she now looks very sad here in Curacao. I'm surprised she hasn't been bought up by someone wanting to join this year's Golden Globe round the world race that has a special category for these beautiful yachts.
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| Northern Light awaiting some love. |
As always the yard was full of characters each with their own story to tell. At Curacao there is a nice covered area where cruisers can meet up, chat, and on Saturday bring their own food to barbeque. Here we found Roelof and Els, a Dutch couple who have spent their lives buying and selling houses to do up, building kitchens and generally being entreprenurial. Having owned a small boat in Holland they decided it was better to be in the warmth of the Caribbean. So they bought Sotavento unseen, a 44' aluminium monohull. She had lain in Curacao yard for several years presumably due to non payment of yard fees and, though basically sound, was in a sorry state. They proceeded to totally gut her so there was nothing left inside at all. We helped them with the sails and rigging and they planned to sail her basically empty up to Guatemala via Jamaica after first visiting Aruba. There the would have her fitted out. The last we heard of them they had made it to Aruba but engine problems meant they had to be towed into the marina there. A resourceful couple they'll be fine.
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| Roelof and Els |
And then there was Beth. Beth the intrepid. Beth the surprising. Beth the survivor. After a long term relationship turned sour she went to Puerto Rico, bought a 30' boat severely damaged in a hurricane, sailed it single handed for four days to Curacao with leaking seacocks, no wind steering or autopilot. She arrived so tired and without an engine that she was towed, hallucinating into the boatyard where she is slowly making her shipshape again. Beth is very capable not very confident. Between us we sorted out her old seacocks and drilled a hole through her hull for a new one. It appears she owns a substantial range in South Carolina. Whilst in Curacao she hired a very cheap rental car, the Shit Bucket, that conked out on the main bridge across the river. Quite a lady!
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The redoubtable Beth
It was about this time that we heard that Mariel our crew across the Atlantic, had given birth to Basil John. What a cutey and congratulations Mariel. Another dream come true. |
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| Basil John |
Launch time again and we need to check all those new underwater holes. New log - check. New through hull - check. New dripless seal - oh dear, dripping. Call in the yard (after all they installed it), compress it a bit more. Not perfect but we can live with it.
And off we go east to Bonaire, supposed the most laid back of the three. As expected we soon found out why we prefer to go west. A fair wind and big current against us meant we had to motor the entire way. A couple of hefty squalls as we crossed the channel in company with White Pearl who were also making the same passage. Queen Emma Bridge opened for us both early in the morning. However with the new cutlass bearing installed the engine seems to be out of alignment so we had a nasty and concerning vibration the whole way across.
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| Approaching Queen Emma Bridge |
We arrived too late for our marina berth so tied up to one of the famous Bonaire mooring balls (currently only $11US a night but controversially about to increase to $45US a night). After the weekend we went into the welcoming Harbour Village Marina where, guess what? Our much travelled spares, food and other possessions from the UK barrel and from Grenada had finally reached us via Peter and Sally on SV Milly as they passed through on their way to Panama.
The marina was a good place for laundry and other jobs and also for stocking up because we had visitors arriving! Dave and Vera, our long time neighbours and regular sailing buddies flew in from the UK a few days before we arrived and after checking in we met up the grand reunion. With Covid raging back in the UK it was their first trip abroad in two years. They were ready to chill, eat good food and explore.
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| Bonaire sunset towards Klein Bonaire. |
D&V had hired a car for a couple of days so we went south to the salt fields and on to Lac a flat area of sea sheltered from the ocean by a series of reefs. Shallow water and steady winds make it a world famous windsurfing destination so we sat and watched whilst eating a delicious lunch. It's a long time since we windsurfed back in South Africa but we reluctantly gave it a miss.
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| Lac. |
Next day we went north to the Arizona like (I imagine) cactus and scrubland national park. It was hot so we put the air con on and drove round the 'short' route stopping to climb Mount Brandaris. It's only 241m but a bit of a hot scramble. Dave and I made it to the top with Gill and Vera deciding to wait in the shade after one of the more scrambly bits.
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| Off we go. |
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| Cacti. Lots of it. |
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| David the mountaineer. |
Now the most interesting thing for me about Mount Brandaris is that it is the highest point in the Netherlands. Wow, that's really something!
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| The top. |
It was all going so well. But Vera had a cough (Vera always has a cough) and Dave was hot (well, it was hot). But then I was so tired I could barely get up into the cockpit. Oh no, maybe do a test. Oh dear, three of us with Covid.
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Three positive Covid tests.
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Let's isolate on the boat. Luckily G&V had just done a big food shop and they are both great cooks so 10 days snorkelling, paddling swimming and chilling made for a great quarantine but still, what a shame. No meals at It Rains Fishes or La Cantina and no further exploration possible. You win some you lose some and anyway it meant we could listen to the nightly, noisy parade of motorbikes along the seafront. It also meant we could savour the amazing fish life. The mooring balls are famous mainly because they are right on the drop off zone. Your bows are in 5m of water, your stern in 30m. And the water is SO clear you can see the fish swimming below you. Clown fish, baracuda, zebra fish, parrot fish. They are all there in abundance. Even walking along the sea front you can see 2lb colourful fish playing in the shallows.
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| Drinking beer. |
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| Eating food. |
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| Paddling the kayak. |
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| Toasting good friends. |
Before we knew it they were gone and we turned our minds to other things though by this time Gill also had Covid so we remained stuck on the boat. Time to fix the SSB radio I had bought from Zoltan in Curacao. It needed cables brought from the UK and I settled down to "clone" it that would allow me to use the Pactor modem to send emails via the radio when out at sea (as we used to do from Petronella). If I saw "Good Clone" I had succeeded....
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| First step success, still more work to do though. |
Peter and Sally on SV Milly asked us if we would be their line handlers when the transit the Panama Canal. Of course we would so we need to try and get to Panama for early April. Panama is around 800 miles away so we'd better think about starting. But not before watching a bit of water polo. Now that is a very hard game.
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| Brutal water polo. |
Part 4: Aruba
It looks like nice winds for the next couple of days so we decided it was time to head west again past Curacao and on to Aruba. For that we needed a PCR test and having so recently been infected we were concerned we would still test positive. We explained this to the nurse at Bon Bini medical centre and she said go back and see her if we turned out to be positive. Then she gave us the most gentle ever swab up the nose. Perhaps it didn't go far enough up our nose to register but whatever the cause they both came back negative within a couple of hours. And so they should at $250US. for the two tests Then it was off to immigration and customs to check out and dinghy back to Mehalah. As we hauled the dinghy up onto the foredeck the rope got stuck around the pulley at the top of the mast. Rats, that's not good. Anyway, rather annoyed, we improvised and tied it down ready for what promised to be a fast but gentle 110 mile overnight sail to Aruba.
Initially we sailed under yankee (small front sail) alone hoping for the steady easterly winds and promised west going current. But it was not to be. The wind was light and the current non existent. We changed to first a single reefed main and then full main and slowly but surely our speed picked up as we made our way up the west coast of Curacao and onto the open water towards Aruba. A couple of nicely executed night time gybes and we started flying along still under full main sail. At about this time Paul (named after Paul Weller who kept going whatever the circumstances) decided to stop working so we needed to use the autopilot which we we don't usually do. And of course the engine is still dodgy so we didn't want to run that more than necessary.
Anyway the winds continued to increase and the waves got bigger. Not scary bigger but definitely bigger. Soon it was obvious that we would after all reach Aruba in the light as we had hoped and we prepared to check in. Arrival in a new country is always interesting. Here we had 20+ knot winds and a 1-2 knot current in our favour and we had to enter through a narrow dogleg entrance between two reefs. Normally you can anchor or tie up in the marina before going to immigration but here it must be the first thing you do. With yellow quarantine flag flying we inched our way in. A radio call ascertained we needed to go round the rusting, grounded hulk near the entrance to the commercial dock, take a sharp left and tie up against the wooden dock. We crept in and tied up. We had 0.2m of water below us a reef directly to our port side. Into immigration where a surly officer eating his lunch and listening to a loud radio station did the honours and then it was back to customs for their procedure, mostly form filling. And then, for the first time ever customs came aboard. The main man chatted to us about our passage whilst his mates were busy on deck doing something. Maybe they were swabbing for drugs as we are only 20 miles off the Venezuelan mainland here. We don't really know.
To get out we performed a text book reverse and forward 180 turn just missing the shallows to port. It must have looked great to anyone watching so we didn't own up to the fact that we were really trying to reverse out!
Three miles left to go to the marina and dolphins came to play off the bow and welcome us to another new country. After a bit of faffing about we followed the cruise ship buoyage into the small fishing harbour marina and tied up to a wooden jetty, scratching the side of Mehalah as we touched on a non fendered section of hull. Bugger.
I put the boat to bed, Gilly checked in to the marina, we went for a good Mexican meal and then...slept. Only people who have sailed overnight know what that first sleep is like. Warm, full, clean and satisfied with the passage you fall into the deepest of deep dreamless sleeps.
Up early for jobs. A good day. The stuck rope at the top of the mast is repairable. I climbed the mast to recover the block, then we cut away the rope and went to see if we could afford a new 50m of 14mm rope here in Aruba. $450US. We couldn't! So we rigged up a replacement until we can import a new line, or of course, one of our readers comes to visit with a nice coil of rope! Then we investigated last afternoon's scratch on the hull. Turns out it just superficial and a quick rub down and it's as good as new. Result! That just leaves Paul the self steering and the engine/prop shaft to sort. Tomorrow is another day.
So. The first full day in Aruba and it's "First Impressions" time. Curacao (the "C" of the ABC islands) has a reputation as a commercial island. Bonaire (B) is the laid back, nature and especially diving and snorkelling island and on Aruba (A) we expected a brash, full on American cruise ship island. But we've been pleasantly surprised. Yes, the main street is full of cruise ship "tat" as the girls would call it but the people are SO friendly. Apparently, and this may not be true because we haven't talked to all that many people yet, but it seems that whilst Bonaire and Curacao have long slave trade histories Aruba avoided the worst of the trade. Perhaps this is why it feels initially more open and truly welcoming despite the thousands of tourists bought here every day by plane and ship. We like it. And its a real mix. There's a Dutch guy on the big motor boat next to us who has lived here for 24 years having completed a solo round the world trip on his own designed and built sailing boat. At the excellent Mexican restaurant we went to yesterday to celebrate our arrival we were served by the 16 year old daughter of the owner from Colombia with a father from Venezuela. And at the Dutch Pancake restaurant tonight the waiter was an Arubian but his mother was Colombian and his father Dutch. Like most on the island he is fluent in his first language Papiamento but also in Dutch, Spanish and English. Papiamento is a mix of Spanish, Dutch and English and is only spoken on the three ABC islands.
I think we are going to like it here and we may be here sometime. The strong winds continue to blow til April when we need to be in Panama to help out friends Peter and Sally on Milly through the Panama Canal.. As we have already been to Colombia we might give it a miss and sail straight to Panama instead, a journey of some 600 miles potentially with strong winds and big seas. We shall see.
