Curaçao

Curaçao is the largest and most populous of the three so called ABC islands (for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) of the Lesser Antilles. Curaçao is a polyglot (look that one up) society. The languages widely spoken are Papiamento, Dutch, Spanish, and English. Most people on the island (85 percent) speak Papiamentu. Many people can speak all four of these languages. It was humbling to listen to a 18 year old clerk quickly switch languages from one to another without hesitating at all.

We picked up a repaired laptop here that my brother had managed to get fixed under warranty in the US and shipped back to me. Many thanks to Jeff and Peggy for all the associated hassles. We were hoping to get other parts here, but decided to have them shipped to Cartagena.

They had free busses each day for the cruisers that went to the food stores and $1 buses that went to Willimstad. Willimstad was a colorful town with a historic floating bridge. One end of the bridge is hinged and a small diesel and propeller drive the bridge open and closed. We actually were standing on the bridge during a quick opening for a pilot boat.

We saw Father Christmas walking around and we ate local food in the Old market house. Kim had oxtail, I had snapper and Emily had a papaya/pork dish. All were served with bean and rice and hot sauce. We had enough food for 6 and managed to make most of it disappear. It was fresh, tasty and around $20 for everything. We were joined during lunch by a bananaquit bird.

They have an area they call the floating market where many colourful Venezuelan boats pull right up to the city and sell fresh produce. We bought some items and I was happy to use my Spanish again. Dutch and Papiamento exceed my abilities. We did learn Bon Bini is the Papiamento greeting and Danke means thank you.

A 3 year old pilot whale beached itself in Curacao in July and was nursed back to health by the local dolphin center. They named it Sully. Once it was healthy, they tried to release it with a passing pod, but it would not dive with the others and remained behind. After he got tangled in the pen netting and almost drowned, they tried a second release by driving more than 6 miles off the coast. They released him and sped the boat back at more than 35 knots. The whale swam as fast as he could and followed the boat right back to the pen. Thus they still hold it in a pen and are still watching for a passing pod to try another release. Another plan being considered is to ship it to the San Diego zoo. We walked over to the pen and watched it swim around. It sure is a magnificent mammal. Here is a link to a series of articles about Sully.

http://tinyurl.com/yhf9ta7

Along the 30 minute walk, we were escorted by parrots, hummingbirds, orioles and canaries.

We only stayed 5 days here in Curacao. We have a calm weather window coming and are anxious to get this next long passage behind us. We have to go around several Colombian capes that have earned a reputation as being one of the roughest places to pass by boat. We plan to cover about 460 miles in about 4 days and would like it to be as comfortable as possible.

Tom

Bonaire

As part of the Netherlands Antilles, Bonaire is also a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Netherlands lost control of Bonaire twice, once from 1800-1803 and again from 1807-1815. During these intervals, the British had control of the neighbouring island of Curacao and of Bonaire. The ABC islands were returned to the Netherlands under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.

From 1816 until 1868, Bonaire remained a government plantation. In 1825, there were about 300 government-owned slaves on the island. Gradually many of the slaves were freed, and became freemen with an obligation to render some services to the government. The remaining slaves were freed on September 30, 1862 under the Emancipation Regulation. A total of 607 government slaves and 151 private slaves were freed at that time.

As we approached the island from the east and passed by the southeast corner, we could see the small (re-created) slave huts and the huge mountains of salt from the still active salt pans. Seawater is let into the salt pans with tidal action and the sun evaporates the water. Huge bulldozers replaced the slaves for scraping the remaining salt into huge piles.

The island is ringed by a coral reef which is easily accessible from the shore along the Western and Southern sides. Furthermore, the entire coastline of the island has been declared a marine sanctuary, preserving local fish life. The coral reef around uninhabited Klein Bonaire is particularly well conserved, and we did most of our SCUBA dives in this area. Each afternoon the local kids would practise sailing all around our boats and they were fun to watch.

We dove with the crews of de Swerver and NightHawk while Emily snorkelled above with the ladies. I reviewed our SCUBA instruction book with Emily and even got her into the SCUBA gear for a taste of this sport. She had a little trouble equalizing (common with small young estuation tubes) but managed to float free at about 12 feet below the surface.

I retrieved an old 35mm film underwater camera from deep within our bilge and we have a few more shots to share with you.

Tom

Fishing the outer Venezuelan Islands

We had a nice passage to LasTortugas and the Captain caught a Mahi-Mahi. These fish are also called Dolphin (not the Flipper variety) and are an iridescent blue and yellow. They loose their color almost immediately when brought into the boat and we all watched it change before our eyes. In the photo the color is receding from the mouth towards the tail and is about half gone. Kim used up the last of our Nori paper making sushi and we had enough meat for several dinners. Kim made soup with the bones and head and nothing went to waste. It was simply delicious.

Tortugas was clean with white powder sand beaches and few other people. We walked the beaches and did some snorkeling in the afternoons after homeschool and it was a peaceful stay.


We headed Northwest towards Los Roques and hooked a Little Tunny on the way.

It was good for a few dinners but never made it into a sushi roll. The Los Roques islands are a federal dependency of Venezuela, consisting of about 350 islands, cays or islets. The archipelago is an atoll and because of the wide variety of seabirds and rich aquatic life, the Venezuelan government declared Los Roques a National Park in 1972. We anchored off several of the individual islands and behind some barrier reefs. It was amazing to be anchored in calm light blue water and 50 yards ahead of us we could hear the crashing of waves against the reef that was protecting us. We snorkelled at each spot and saw turtles and many fish that were unafraid of us because they are protected within the park.

We headed westward toward The Aves. Las Aves is a pristine archipelago and is part of the Federal Dependencies of Venezuela. Just before making landfall, the Captain hooked a White Marlin. We brought it up to the side of the boat and managed a quick video before it made a quick flick of its sword and slashed the 80 lb leader like butter. We lost the lure but we enjoyed the fight and that magnificent fish will live to fight another day.

We dressed ship (put up special colored flags) for Emily's 9th Birthday. Kim baked a chocolate layer cake and we had Wiro and Esther from de Swerver over to celebrate with us. De Swerver hails from Belgium and they have been nice to travel with. Apparently we had enough gifts since Emily was in her glory.

She was invited alone to help sail de Swerver between islands on a 2 hour sail and got to steer and trim the sails.

The archipelago consists of two atoll-like reef complexes. We spent 2 days at Aves de Barlovento, the eastern group and moved west to Aves de Sotavento for 2 more days. The water here was also clear but strong winds made snorkelling a little too rough. There are large colonies of booby birds including the Red-Footed booby that have beautiful blue bills. Several fluffy babby boobies were watching us from their mangrove nests.

We had a pot luck dinner aboard Emily Grace one evening with the crew of de Swerver and Ray and Genna aboard NightHawk. NightHawk brought some blackfin tuna they had caught and we shared some Mahi Mahi and de Swerver shared some wonderful homemade dutch dishes. The wine flowed and my 3 A/C units ran to keep the boat cool and comfortable.

We were keeping track of the weather through our single sideband radio and were anxious to make our next landfall. Only 40 miles to the west lay Bonaire, where Kim and I had spent several winter vacations escaping the New England cold and enjoying the world class SCUBA diving. We could hardly wait to see it again….

Tom

Moving Again

We finally have left Trinidad as the threat of hurricanes has now diminished. Although the insurance company wanted us to stay until November 1, we left a couple of weeks early. The entire crew was tired of the dirty water around Trindad and were anxious to swim in clean water again.

Our first stop was Los Testigos. The trip took longer than would be expected because we had to travel due north for almost 30 miles before turning west. We did this based on pirate reports on the north coast of Paria. There had been reports of trouble and this crew wants no part of any trouble.

Los Testigos is part of Venezuela and is mainly occupied by fishermen and their families. We saw several rugged fishing boats and a few cruisers and we enjoyed a few days walking the beach and snorkeling before moving on.

From there we headed southwest to Isla Margarita to top off the tanks with more cheap Venezuelan fuel. We did not care much for the island other than the cheap fuel. We took on about 400 gallons at 78 cents US per gallon and we were only 80 gallons from completely full. We wanted to get those last few drops aboard, but ran into the “no fuel today…maybe manana” Venezuelan two-step and decided to move on. The captain took a bus into the city to get Bolivar fuertes at the black market rate of 5 to 1 and the whole process made me feel dirty. The official government rate is about 2 to 1, but with inflation here at greater than 20%, every one except Chavez and the banks believe it.

The water was clean enough to swim in and make RO water, but was still slightly tannin from the Orinoco Delta outflow. They had a nice cruiser interface with a good book swap and free busses into the city 3 times per week. However, after 6 days here, we were ready to move on.

The boat has been running good. I’ve got one troubling issue where the laptop computer won’t consistently drive the autopilot. Since our other GPS chartplotter will, it has not been a serious problem, and the third backup plan is (heaven forbid) we could hand steer the boat. I suspect it may just be that the oldest (about 5 years old) laptop is just too slow now to keep up and I will switch it out when we get a chance.

We are now underway (another night passage) due west to Isla Tortuga. This should be our first clear clean blue water since Grenada and will be welcomed by the entire crew. It is nice to have the wind, currents and seas mostly on our stern. Tonight the seas are less than 1 meter and the stabilizers are switched off since they are not needed. The moon is nearly full, the stars fill the night sky and all is well as our home glides west. In 5 hours, Emily will awaken with the sunrise as we slip into the anchorage and drop the hook. Another island to explore and enjoy.

Tom