Chaos in Curacao

Every so often, you wake up and hope it’s a quiet, relaxing day - especially after a night of great food and friends aboard Vagabond. We were invited over to Lili and Otto’s boat for dinner and were treated to an international feast to celebrate their varied backgrounds – she’s Swiss, he’s Hungarian and they both grew up in lived in and sailed from South Africa. Each course of the dinner featured a dish from one of the countries. It was wonderful and a real gourmet feast with great conversation and wine to go along with the dinner. So we stayed out late – consumed some wine – and were ready for a calm day!

But the headline gives it away, doesn’t it? For a few weeks, we’ve been anchored at the front of the bay – sort of the ”penthouse” of the anchorage – top floor, great view – nobody in front of us and not many around us. We liked it! Then on Thursday, an Italian boat comes in and anchors very close on our port side. Another boat comes in on Friday and anchors in front of us.

On Saturday morning, the boat in front of us drags at anchor and so he goes to reset it. The wind is quite intense and squalls are coming through with higher gusts and rain. As he’s trying to reset his anchor, another boat comes in and drops his anchor RIGHT in front of us – causing the re-anchoring boat to yell to him that he’s re-anchoring. This guy says, “Too bad, my anchor’s down and I’m not moving.” Nice guy. This is a single hander with an attitude! He’s anchored VERY close to us. We tell him that he’s way too close and he says “wait until I put my snubber on – I’ll be even closer!” He’s probably less than 15 feet in front of our bow – and it’s not an attractive, well-maintained boat. It’s a gusty day and everyone is swinging quite a bit. But he has no intention of moving.

Really Close!

After a bit, the first boat that dragged (and has re-anchored) and this knucklehead leave to go and clear into the country. Knucklehead comes back pretty quickly (less than an hour) and takes down his yellow flag. There is no way he could have cleared with customs, immigration and harbor authority in that amount of time. But he acts like he has. About this time, the other boat is now dragging again and is right between the close Italian boat and our boat. All but one of the crew from the Italian boat also left the boat earlier. The guy left – speaks little English and is obviously not a boater! So he is at a loss of what to do. At this point, several dinghies are in the water, near the boat trying to help. Knucklehead gets on board and “takes over.” The crew of Astarte decides to head back to Astarte. Now the entertainment begins. They manage to drop a lot more chain (scope) and hope the boat’s anchor grabs. However, they fail to take the snubber off first (until Michael yells at them to do so) – so they were simply putting out a bunch of chain that would do absolutely no good. They sort that out and start moving the dragging boat through the anchorage having started the engine. They are moving the boat without the anchor being pulled up – duh! So, they manage to catch the Italian boat’s anchor with the dragging boat’s anchor. This now causes the Italian boat to move and be at risk of also dragging. (and freaking out the non-english speaking person left on the boat who is on deck in very skimpy underwear (not a pretty site). Someone dives in the water to try to untangle the two anchors – scary, dangerous and risky – but it gets done. After several tries they re-anchor the original dragging boat (after almost wrapping the prop with a line.) It was very entertaining to watch – but it does show how important it is to be sure your anchor is set – AND – not anchor on top of someone else. We still have the boat right in front of us with little room should he drag. He probably doesn’t have insurance either.

On a positive note, several friends of ours on other boats arrived in Curacao today – Serene with Mel and Joanie; Rapscallion with Trudy and Dennis and Joule with Nani and Peter. It will be fun to catch up with them this week. They were all boarded by the Coast Guard either while they were coming in – or once they were anchored. There is a lot of Coast Guard activity today – several boats, planes and helicopters.

Great day for Sunfish sailing.

We did watch some fun sunfish races today in Spanish Waters. There is a regatta this weekend – so tomorrow there should be more races. These tiny boats were flying. We saw some collisions, near collisions, good tacking battles, a turtled boat and some excellent sailing by the local boaters. We had a good view and enjoyed the races.

Starboard!!!!!!!!

Yes, he turtled it!

Bad news – the propane didn’t come back this Friday as promised. Bummer. Now we have to wait until Tuesday night. Of course, there’s a decent weather window Monday and Tuesday – but we won’t be leaving on that one.

The Range of Experience

First a quick note – we put a few new pictures on the website (with captions) a few days ago. They are in “photos 2” http://www.sailastarte.com/ or link from this page. Enjoy.

The other boaters you meet out here have a wide range of experience on the water. Some are just starting out and find a harbor they love and get stuck to it (that’s why places like Georgetown are often called “Velcro harbors.”) Some are new to cruising but continue to pull up that anchor, leave the protection of those “Velcro harbors” and move on. Others have been out here for years – sometimes running up and down a specific chain or islands (the Virgins, the leewards, the windwards, Venezuela) or circumnavigating (the Caribbean or the world). We are still thrilled to meet people who have lots of miles under their keels and have incredible stories of exotic locations. They are all so generous with their stories – some openly share them – others you have to pry it out of them.

Last night, the good ship Astarte had the pleasure of hosting a range of sailors with various levels of experience. Pat and Rich from “So Cal So Good” have come through the canal from San Diego and have been in the San Blas, run up the western Caribbean and are now heading back to the San Blas then the canal back to San Diego. Ria and Waldy from Talagoa have 60,000 miles under their keel – having sailed to very exotic places after leaving Holland. They have crossed oceans and gone to places so ancient a 2000 year old structure is considered “new.” For us, it’s a thrill to hear the stories and learn from their experiences. Sharing a meal and way too much wine with the conversation makes for a wonderful cruisers evening.

Potluck aboard Astarte

And yes, we stayed up way past cruisers’ midnight (which is about 2100 (or 9 pm) for those that are curious).

Iguana Rescue

In Spanish Waters in Curacao, an iguana was struggling in the water. He was stuck in the middle of the bay and a long way from the shore. So a rescue team went to its aid. Michael (Hawk) from Astarte and Otto from Vagabond proceeded to help the reptile. The iguana dove once - probably thinking the rescuers were gonna cook him for dinner - but then was grabbed by a gloved Otto and instantly became very calm. The dinghy brought him to a mangrove island and he was set free. Lucky iguana!

IGUANA LOST AT SEA

TO THE RESCUE

THE IGUANA GRAB

HAWK AND OTTO WITH THE RESCUEE - NO MOUTH TO MOUTH REQUIRED

It's been a busy social time for the crew of Astarte in Curacao. On Monday, a dominoes match was played on board with Lilly and Otto. Michael claimed victory (Interesting note - he was also scorekeeper - makes you kinda wonder!) A real treat of ice cream sundaes (whipped cream, nuts and chocolate sauce) was part of the fun dominoes night. The clock struck midnight (and we don't mean cruisers' midnight!)

Tuesday night was Happy Hour at the local sailing club. Lots of cruisers there. A sampling of some local Dutch foods became dinner - a loempa and stoba sandwich. Tasty!

Wednesday (tonight), there's a potluck on Astarte - the crew of Talagoa, Ria and Vladamir (sp?), a Dutch flagged boat and Rich and Pat from "So Cal. So Good" will be joining in the festivities. It should be fun. The chocolate banana pie is chilling in the refrigerator.

Last week too much wine was consumed aboard So Cal So Good - along with a lovely dinner by Pat.

Shopping for a new propane tank has also been on the agenda since the bad news of last week. One was found - the right size (10 lb), shape, aluminum with American fittings at the local chandlery - Budget Marine. It was anything but "budget" - but was needed. It;s been sent out to be filled and hopefully this time it'll work.

After the tank is back, we'll wait for a good weather window to start along the Colombian coast. The winds now are very strong and predicted to continue throughout this week. So projects, cleaning, cooking, provisioning are all the agenda for the Asarte crew. Luckily, there's good internet here so keeping up on e-mails, photos and news is good. Skype is also working much of the time - so making calls and taking care of some business and chats with family and friends is also really nice to get done.

Shopping in Curacao is both a chore and a social event. You meet lots of other boaters on the various free buses to the various grocery stores. There is one store called the V(something)....-Hill - it means Happy Hill in Dutch - (kinda sounds like an insane asylum doesn't it?) This store provides a free shuttle daily for the cruisers. Another store provides a shuttle Wednesdays and Sundays. And one store Centrum, doesn't provide a bus - but cruisers have organized one so for 5Naf per person round trip a bus picks you up and returns you from the store. Each store is a bit different - some provide mostly Dutch specialties; another provides American specialties etc.

THE CIVILIZED WAY TO SHOP - COFFEE AFTER THE SHOPPING - THE CREWS OF "MABEL" AND "ASTARTE."


WAITING FOR THE BUS AFTER SHOPPING AT THE "V-STORE"


LOCAL BOATS (look hard - "Happy Time" and "Viagra" in the same area!!)

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.

Shopping. Cooking. Eating.

One of the pleasures of the islands is the adventure of shopping and provisioning the boat for long term as well as the next meal. Every country is quite different in the availability, quality and convenience of everything from meats to fresh vegetables and fruits. In the remote places, you have to make do with a tiny little market that may be supplied once a week or every other week with products from the nearest mainland. On the larger islands, the stores can be quite similar to what we are used to "back home" though the labels on the products may be in a different language. It's all part of the adventure. Plus, you have to determine weights based on the metric system or cost based on the local currency (converted to what you're used to.) So is a box of crackers expensive or cheap? Is that ground beef enough to make a meatloaf? It's all part of the fun and adventure.

In Curacao, there are several good grocery stores - quite large and well-stocked. We've only been to the one that provides a free shuttle bus to the store for the boaters. (You can also drop off your laundry if you ask the driver nicely!) The adventure begins when you don't speak the language and you're trying to determine what something is from the label or the look. This caused some issues aboard Astarte yesterday. There were these lovely tiny red and green peppers that looked exactly like the peppers we bought at the local veggie market in Grenada. They were called flavoring peppers and had a wonderful flavor, aroma and taste when added to dishes. Barbara picked up a pack in the Curacao grocery to add to some curry she was going to make that night. The label was in Dutch - so she wasn't 100% sure what it said - other than she deciphered that it was a pepper (duh!)

She cut a bit of the pepper off and tasted it and it was nice. She threw two in the pot with the curry makings and started to cook it all up. In about ten minutes, her lips began to burn from the bite she tried. It was too late for the curry dish however. The curry, though tasty, was nuclear hot. Thank goodness for rice (and wine!)

The joy of traveling is the adventure. It's the pleasure of trying new things, sampling local products and experiencing all that a new country has to offer. Food is one of the easiest and fastest ways to get a sample of a new country. On the Dutch islands, the names of various dishes are pretty foreign sounding. And sometimes, some of the local dishes don't look all that appetizing. But the fun is in trying. We tried some mighty hot peppers.and will probably be more careful next time (or we'll ask in the store).

It is amazing the amount of US brands in many of these stores. They usually are significantly more expensive than the local brands - but they are available. But on our cruising budget - we go for the local goods. It's been part of the fun.

The one thing we did learn - you can't go wrong with Dutch chocolate! And even if you can't read the label - you're pretty certain it will be rich and tasty!

Curacao - an Island and a Liqueur

Which came first? The island was discovered by a lieutenant of Christopher Columbus, Alonso de Odjeda in 1499. The Spaniards started to settle the island in the 1500s. The Dutch captured it in 1634 and founded a Dutch settlement with its Governor Peter Stuyvesant in 1642. IN 1646, Stuyvesant became governor of New Netherlands of which New Amsterdam (now New York City) was the capital.

Then it was the typical island history. From the mid 1700's through the early 19th century, the English, French and Spanish all battled for Curacao. It went from British, back to Dutch, back to British.until the Treaty of Paris in 1815 gave it to the Dutch. Curacao gave asylum to South American liberator Simon Bolivar multiple times during the South American War of Independence.

Now, the island boasts 50 nationalities as part of the 160,000 population. The influence is definitely Dutch and Curacao was part of the original Netherlands Antilles group of six islands (Sint Martaans, Bonaire, Aruba, Statia and Saba). Things are changing on that front with Curacao becoming more independent from the group. But you would call the island Dutch though the language spoken is a Papiamento - a mix of Dutch and Spanish with a bit of island slang and English., They use the Antillean Florin (NaF) as well as the US dollar as their currency.

The early economy of the island depended largely on the slave trade. With the abolition of slavery by King William III of the Netherlands in 1863, Curacao lost much of its economic clout. Then came oil. Black gold! The establishment of an oil refinery in 1915 helped the island's prosperity. At night, you can see the glow of the oil refinery flame over the city - giving the skyline an eerie red glow. Curacao has one of the largest oil terminals in the Western Hemisphere. It also boasts that it has the largest non-military dry-dock in the region. (Richard S - more competition!!) Plus there's the alcohol here - the famous Curacao liqueur and the Amstel Brewery (using distilled sea water to produce its beer). Tourism though is the number two industry on this pretty island.

Astarte is settled into Spanish Waters and we've had good weather. We are wishing for a good downpour to wash the decks though - they are quite dusty. The solar panels are probably at less than 100% efficiency thanks to all the dust. It's a combination of African dust, phosphate mining dust and just blowing dirt and dust from Bonaire and here. We've had good breezes most of the time, so the wind generator is pumping out amps.

On Friday night we entertained - inviting Otto and Lily from "Vagabond" aboard for a pork roast dinner. It felt very international. They are South Africans but he carries a Hungarian passport and she a Swiss one. It was a good time and we all stayed up way past cruisers' midnight (2100).
Saturday, we did some boat projects and some dinghy exploring. There are some big fancy houses around Spanish Waters. It's interesting though, not many local restaurants or bars. With all these cruisers anchored here, you'd think it would be a good business. The good news is the boat parts Michael ordered are here already - as is our mail which we had forwarded (good work Fed Ex!).

Today is hair cut day and a few more boat projects. Our friends from Bamboozle left this morning (Sunday) for their trek to Columbia - we hope we'll catch up with them again soon. Barbara continues Spanish lessons - prepping for Columbia and Panama.

Captioned Pics on Web

FINALLY! The new photos are all captioned. Check it out on the web page. www.sailastarte.com go to Photos 2.