From Curacao and Aruba

Again i shake my head at how much formalities require.  In Curacao…one checks in with Customs first.  Luckily Customs directs us where to find Immigration – it’s NOT intuitive.  Immigration requires that the whole crew show up.  Which is inconvenient, but, requiring exploration and discovery, gave the crew a tour of the island too.  In Aruba…only the skipper is allowed off the boat, Immigration is the first stop and in the adjacent building Customs clears us in.  Both of them on the same dock...for the traffic from nearby South America (like the floating market boats in Curacao).  Different in every country.  Nothing standard.  Part of the adventure. 

While Bonnaire boasts an open moorage that is ALWAYS in the lee of the island, Curacao has narrow openings into labyrinthine bays.  GREAT hidey holes.  Perfect anchorages for sheltering from a hurricane.  Really quite amazing natural harbors.  The one we anchored in is named Spanse Water.  It was busy with dinghies and wind surfers - plenty of wind and flat water.  A few full marinas and lots of anchored boats.  The dinghy dock was at Norman's BBQ.  Having given up on Curacao's formalities the first day we were there - really, we tried hard but had to give up - we witnessed a big domino tournament.  1000 florins ($370) the grand prize.  And we enjoyed beer and BBQ.  

The local fishing boats here look like sailboats without a mast, or with only a third of a mast, maybe for lights or a steadying sail.  Displacement, cuddy cabin, sea worthy looking tho held together in some cases with duct tape and string.  Names like "Don Macho" and "Thank You God" and...  

Wednesday, after Curacao’s formalities to clear us  out for a dawn departure, we reached four hours up the coast to a very nice and remote cove…to save ourselves two hours on Thursday.  Being lazy, we unrolled the genoa alone.  Great sailing with plenty of wind and no waves.  The wind built and built, which was what we needed for racing against the sun setting.  Tho the jib would have been the wiser choice, charging at 9.6 knots (?!), sending spray flying, was a thrill.  Nothing broke.  Still, dropping the jib and anchoring took time and we finished in the dark. 

This left us only early morning for snorkeling.  The water was very clear, worth getting’ up early for.  Underway at 8:15, and feeling duly humbled by the winds the afternoon before, we sailed under the jib alone.  Seas built to 8+ feet, and by the end of the day we averaged just over 7 knots.  No complaints here!  We tied up at the Renaissance Inn docks and toasted our two weeks and 500 miles together. 

On the way, i kept hearing a new creaking sound in the rigging.  With only the jib up, i guessed that the sound was coming from either the jib or the stay that it was attached to.  I decided to inspect the solent stay once we were tied up in a quiet harbor.  Why then?  This inspection would require going up the mast, disassembling the attachment of the stay to the mast, lowering the stay to the deck.  That done, i found strands of the stay broken where they entered the sta-lok fitting.  4 strands of 19. 

This is highly unusual.  I can only guess that we mis-handled the stay at times between rigging it and stowing it.  Anyway, the stainless cable is likely way over-engineered and would probably last all the way to Seattle.  Key word:  “probably.”  “With my luck” is generally said in a negative tone, but not for me.  I’m the luckiest guy i know, and my luck held.  The marina manager here, Zanders (sp?), is a sailor and a rigger.  And he had one right size replacement fitting…with extension on hand and for sale.  The extension allows me to make this repair without replacing the entire stay.  Whew! 

I don’t think anyone could have been more enthusiastic than Tina – can’t remember how many times she said “This is GREAT!”  She’s sailed offshore lots, but it’s always been upwind.  I wonder if she’ll ever accept anything but downwind in the future.  Jim was impressed with how little we motored, with sailing as a very real means of transport.  Jeff and Doug, in their early thirties, had sailed before but not offshore.  They were up for anything while taking their experience to a “next level.”  These four were great together.

I’m impressed with how distinct each leg and each crew is.  With how moving Akimbo safely and efficiently forward is a balancing act.  How offshore sailing is a leveler – indifferent to one’s wealth or righteousness.  How nature is an uncompromising and impersonal teacher that does not tolerate fools.  She doesn’t care who or what you are, whether you plead ignorance or exception, whether you curse or scream.  Make enuf assumptions or mistakes, or sometimes make just one, and your next lesson has really tragic potential.  I am amazed at how easily, every day and sometimes every minute, i can blow this.  Being out here, the insulation most of us have known ashore, in modern, cosmopolitan life, is stripped largely away.  I enter into a dialog, i engage with my environment – sometimes on a huge scale (i.e. celestially navigating), sometimes in minute detail (“what’s THAT sound?”).  The “real” world is eclipsed by the next puff of wind, or the size of the next wave.  I feel alive.  It’s required here.  While i remember some days that felt numb and dead and petty and mercenary.  And THAT felt required.  Do we do that to ourselves with money?  Out here, i must pay attention to more fundamental elements (is money an “element?”).  

So, another rendezvous is made.  A crew departs, another arrives.  And usually the new crew brings things.  Maybe Grape Nuts and smoked salmon.  Or replacement binoculars or parts i need.  Or a surprise – thank you Barry for the new fishing lures.  It’s like xmas around here! 

Next post…if my luck and attention hold up…should come to you from Colombia.  South America is only 14nm away.  Cartagena, 400nm.  Akimbo and i are now half-way thru the time frame of this trip.  So far?  So good.  Oh Boy!