Bye Bye Bonaire

A very Bonairian road sign

After using up almost all of our allowed 90-days within 180 days visa, we left Bonaire for a quick stop in Curacao. Chris figured that since her family ancestors were from Holland and that she’s blonde she should be able to stay as long as she wants. Bonaire was a really great stop – fantastic water and easy living for a cruiser. It was all I could do to stop Chris from putting down a down payment for a townhouse here.

     Cruise ship season has started and Bonaire does get a bit too many now. Here’s the ‘Explorer of the Seas’ demonstrating that safety always comes first.

  Our friend/crew Bill came down from San Fran to sail to Cartegena with us. Here he is looking for bats during our tour in Bonaire’s Washington-Slagbaai Park.

  One last good-bye to the Flamingos before we left.

It was an easy, slow sail over to Curacao. We left about 8:30am and were anchored in Spanish Wells about 5:00pm. Our friends from El Salvador, Rose and Jani on s/v Lovely Lady, have their boat in the yard here for some serious repair work. Detailed on their blog http://www.sailblogs.com/member/svlovelylady46/?xjMsgID=338429

They’ve rented a place near the Curacao Yacht Club. We anchored and headed over to their apartment for a great red snapper dinner. Today we head into Wilemsted to check in and check out of the country for a day’s stay. When the rain stops (the rainy season is now here in earnest), we’ll do a little sight- seeing. Then in the morning it is off for a 3 or 4 day sail to Cartegena, Colombia.

Paul

The Slave Museum

Before we left Curacao we took a walk across the floating bridge to the north side, Otrabanda. The Kura Hulanda Slave Museum (www.kurahulanda.com) is here, located in a former slave yard and slave merchant’s home. The 18-19th century buildings have been restored for a 3 or 4 block area of the old town. The museum is large, much bigger than I expected and covers a huge range of history from tribal Africa to the Babylonian times, some Egyptian artifacts and, of course, much on the slave trade itself, and its after effects up to the 20th century. It was much more interesting than I had expected and well worth a visit if you find yourself in Curacao.
  This sign showed a timeline of slavery. It was tucked behind a large bush, so it was hard to see the whole thing. The interesting part to me was the note at the end showing abolition of slavery in the USA. Its date is set as 1863 to 1964. It took us a long time to actually commit. (The dates shown above it are from the Dutch point-of-view).

“I come from the niggeryard of yesterday, leaping from the oppressors hate and the scorn of myself…”   Martin Carter

The leg and arm shackles make an impressive display.

  A sea chest full of hundreds of shackles.

This is a model of the area below decks on a slave transport ship showing the few foot high area where 5 or 6 slaves would be shackled and kept for all most the entire passage across the Atlantic  -- weeks on end. Even though this took place hundreds of years ago, the merchants were very advanced for their time. You can see the security camera they setup in the upper right to keep an eye on their cargo.

The legal end of slavery was clearly not the end of oppression. These are genuine US of A  Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robes.

Along the restored narrow streets around the museum is a really nice hotel. The rooms each have separate entrances along the alley.
  There’s a few restaurants and cafes. I stopped to read my paper and talk about local politics with a dapper local.
I was completely minding my own business when these two floozies tried desperately to pick me up. (“Trouble ahead, a lady in red, take my advice you’d be better off dead” as Jerry Garcia advises, although I’m pretty sure he was talking about drugs at the time.)

Do you think this balcony on this old store front could hold one more air-conditioner? It was already drooping with the current cooling load.

Walkers on the Willemstad, Curacao floating bridge at night.

Paul

OK, we’re back on the water

Curacao on the way out

After spending 10 great weeks in the great US of A, we are back in the water. We watched TV and took long hot showers while in the US. I’m pretty sure that the hot-shower thing is going to catch on – might even go viral. I just need to find a start up company to invest in so we can take advantage of this new fad. As for TV, I doubt it will         catch on. Mind numbingly boring. I did like the the drug company advertisements.  Especially the one that shows a side-by-side graph of the drug they are selling versus the placebo. The drug they are selling out performs the placebo by a few percentage points. Ask your doctor for one today!
We spent a very hot, sweaty week in the Curacao Marine boat yard. New bottom paint, a waxed hull and the rudder re-installed. Glad to have it done and be out of there. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good yard. Rocky, the yard manager and tractor driver is very careful and helpful.  But Chris kept hearing the Cole Porter song It’s Too Darn Hot floating in her overheated brain. Being continually bathed in sweat (literally) is just not her idea of a good time.
After the boat got launched, we waited a few days in a slip – getting the canvas and sails back on and cleaning up. We did get in some sight-seeing while we were in Curacao with Maria and Maurice, our friends on Cattiva. They’re heading off to Santa Marta, Columbia, soon and we hope to catch up with them again in the San Blas Islands, Panama, for Christmas celebrations.
Mostly we were  waiting on some light weather to make our passage back to Bonaire; the trade winds seem to be relentless here… We still have a month’s worth of small projects to do on the boat. Doing them in Bonaire means we can invest a few hours a day on projects and still get in a snorkel or dive. It’s also a lot cooler in Bonaire– the wind blows through the boat nicely when we are on a mooring, and the water is clear and inviting right off the stern of the boat for a quick cooling off with the fishies. 
We left Curacao Marine in Willemsted at about 6am. Got hold of the Port Authority on the VHF 12 and requested that they open the floating bridge for us. A 15 minute wait and they swing her open and we off for a 7 hour motor sail into 12-15kts winds to Bonaire. We grabbed a mooring on arrival (anchoring is prohibited here to  protect their reefs) and headed into Customs and Immigration for a quick check in. Then back out to the boat for a snorkel.
Its good to be back in Boniare.
Paul 

Curacao Break

We’ve been in Curacao for two weeks now. About time I posted a pic. This is the entrance to Willemstad Harbor. We are passing through the open pontoon bridge that separates the two sides of the colorful city. We had to sit outside in the rolly swell for about a half hour waiting for a large tanker to exit the harbor. When small boats like ours come through they just move the pontoon bridge about 20 feet open. For the tankers it has to be brought all the way to the far side. This is a major refining port, where oil from Maracaibo in Venezuela flows in and out and the gas flares of refineries shine at night.
Bonaire is the easy, cruisers island to hang at. Curacao is more the cruisers place to do work on the boat and for hurricane season storage. It is located south of 12*30 N – which is considered out of the hurricane belt. Although there has been hurricane related damage here over the years, it is typically due to heavy rains and large swells. This will be the first time in 4 years of cruising that we put the boat on the hard for storage. We’ll be gone for a little over two months. A month up in Washington to make sure that Meghan goes through with her wedding plans and Tyler behaves. A month down in Southern Cal visiting Chris’ relatives and then a quick stop in Florida to see my Dad. 

The big tractor cometh.

We got hauled at Curacao Marine. This yard has a good reputation for service and security in their storage yard. Two large Doberman Pinchers work the storage yard. Yachtie relatives of junk-yard dogs.

Georgia getting her bottom cleaned off

   While still on the trailer, I dropped the rudder. When we are going downwind in heavy seas there’s always a little squeak that you can hear from the upper end of the rudder post. Since rudders are handy things to have on a boat while at sea, I wanted to inspect the upper bearing. Here I’m re-installing it. This time with 3M 4000 white bedding. Prior to this it only had 6 bolts securing it in that would continually work themselves loose. We’ll see on our passage out of Curacao if the squeak has quieted down.
Paul