Collecting Barnacles in Curacao

We’ve moved quite fast (as far as “cruisers” go) through the Caribbean. The goal was to visit some new places, visit some old favorites and make it to Panama for some of hurricane season. Sometimes you simply stay someplace because you love the snorkeling; the convenience or you’ve connected with friends. Sometimes you stay someplace because you’re waiting for company, mail or boat parts to arrive. Or sometimes you’re ready to leave and something breaks. That’s the case with us right now in Spanish Waters in Curacao. We’re pretty ready to move on (though we’d still love to find a buddy boat for the trip along the Columbian Coast). But now we have a propane tank issue. Propane is used to cook on Astarte. We have two 10 gallon tanks that we rotate. When one gets empty, we switch and then figure out how and where to get the other one filled. It’s usually not too hard on most of these islands and runs anywhere from $10 to $20. One or our tanks was empty – so we found “Propane Paul”, is who you need to give your tank to – he picks up at the Happy Hour on Tuesday nights or on your boat on Friday. The tank would be returned at the next pick-up. So we had Paul pick-up the tank on the previous Friday, went to Happy Hour on Tuesday – no tank. There was some issue with the propane supply on the island. On Friday, we see Paul delivering and picking up tanks from boats – but he passes by our boat without a stop. Michael overhears a conversation from the dinghy that seems to indicate our tank isn’t there. But they don’t stop by. So Michael gets in our dinghy to chase him down. Sure enough, there was some problem. Our tank for some reason couldn’t be filled because it was “broken.” And unfortunately Paul’s wife (sure, always blame it on the wife) left the tank in the car. Michael insisted on getting it back so we could start figuring out what was wrong and what we needed to do to correct this problem. Later that night, we got our tank back and sure enough the pressure release screw was mighty tight.

Michael worked on loosening it almost all day on Saturday. No luck. He started to price options for a new valve, new tank etc. Unfortunately, we are on a Dutch island and the valves are different than American valves (and our system). Plus the new fiberglass bottles (much lighter and cheaper) won’t fit in our propane locker. This simple re-fill issue has now turned into a major problem. We really don’t want to travel the Columbian coast without a fresh tank (no place to refill along there if our current tank runs out). On Monday, we’ll go to Budget Marine and determine what we can get here in Curacao or see if we have to have something shipped in. Shipping costs really add up. Anyone want to come visit us in Curacao next week and bring a part???

Once the propane issue is resolved (one way or another) we’ll look for a good weather window to start our trip down the Columbian coast. We’ve enjoyed Curacao, but barnacles are starting to grow on the hull. We did some cleaning on Thursday – Michael doing the lower part (he’s better at holding his breath and diving) and Barbara did the waterline.

On Friday, we did a trip into Willemstad on the local bus and roamed around town. We were in search of an underwater camera (for those of you asking for fish pictures!) and a beard trimmer. Found the beard trimmer, but decided the camera was a bit out of our cruising budget right now. We also shopped around for a mini computer (the Acer), but again, decided we’d like it – but don’t need it. After the propane tank issue, we were glad we didn’t impulsively make a purchase. Now we’ll be spending money on fixing something (not as much fun as a new camera or computer!)

In town, we ate lunch at this really interesting “food court.” All the locals go there and they serve local dishes. Lots of “stoba” which is a stew in Dutch. We’re getting a little better recognizing some of the names. We know “kip” is chicken. And people here are very helpful. We sat at these big picnic tables and met an interesting woman who was trying to trace her family’s roots in Curacao. She was a fourth generation Curacaon. After a stop by the Venezuelan veggie market (bought a whole watermelon!) we headed back to the boat on the comfy air-conditioned bus.

On Saturday night, we took a walk along the waterfront and discovered a fort (on a hill!) and went up to that. Found a fun little beach restaurant for a cold beer and saw some really interesting birds – shorebirds, little yellow birds, parrots and a larger yellow variety of something that looked like an oriole. One the way back, there was this group of local men racing Radio-controlled speed boats. We watched for awhile and it was great. It was nice to see fathers and sons out on a Saturday night sharing a hobby.
Today, (Sunday) we woke up to some drizzles – looks like a grey morning.