7 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
We’ve been living on Alba for six months now. Time seems to have flown by. I worked on our accounts this morning and reconciled our bank accounts. September was a good month because we received some interest from a two year ISA and our income was greater than our expenditure for the first month since we retired.
We rely on the internet for all of our banking, which is great as long as it works properly. We’ve had a problem with the Halifax website and Glenys has been locked out by the security team. We spent 15 minutes on the telephone to the UK and eventually they said that they enabled the account for login again, but we still can’t log in – very frustrating. I’ll wait a week and try again.
The fridge seems to be behaving itself and is not gurgling anymore. I’m now in a dilemma about the compressor speed - should I set it back to 2000 rpm or not? It seems to draw about 5 amps at 3500 rpm and about 3.5 Amps at 2000rpm. I guess that I should be more scientific and monitor its performance, but I can’t be bothered at the moment, so I changed it back to 2000 rpm and we’ll see what happens.
I decided to remove the windlass and reseal it to the deck to make sure that we don’t get any more sea water inside the front cabin. According to the manual, I should just have to remove four nuts and then lower the motor and gear box down. Unfortunately, the shaft jammed in the gearbox – probably corroded slightly. After two hours of levering, hammering and cursing, I only managed to move it 6 mm. I gave up and put it all back together - I need to get some kind of puller device.
8 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
I asked on the cruiser’s net if anyone had a puller for the windlass. Brad from “Seafari” kindly loaned me a three legged puller. It’s the correct size, but unfortunately, there’s a bulge in the gearbox that is fouling one of the legs. I need to get a two legged puller from somewhere.
Timo, who lost his yacht in Sotavento, lives on a house boat just in front of where we’re anchored, so I went over to see if he knew where I could get hold of a puller. We had a good chat and he gave me some interesting information about the island.
The fridge seems to be behaving itself, so I’ve left it at 2000 rpm. We did a few more small jobs for the rest of the day and then went for a walk with Timo and his two dogs in the late afternoon. Timo has cleared some paths by himself under the cliffs on Goat Hill. It took him eight months with a saw and shears, but he now has his own private paths where he walks the dogs every day. He’s even installed a statue inside a cave in the cliff, which he lights up at Christmas. He was a good guide, pointing out interesting plants like the Brazil Tree and Indigo bush, both of which used to be used for making natural dyes. He obviously loves Curacao.
I played the clarinet before dinner and, having practised every day, I’m doing much better and my lips are getting stronger.
9 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
It’s Sunday today, so we declared it a holiday and went for a walk. I printed off a screen shot from Google Earth, which showed some paths around a lagoon called Jan Thiel. Our route took us past local houses which look very posh, past a couple of hotel complexes and then into a totally deserted area of scrubland. The path went along the edge of the rocky shore, across the edge of the lagoon and brought us out by another hotel complex where there is a Seaquarium.
We’d been walking for 90 minutes, so decided to visit the Seaquarium. It’s a small place, but they have a Dolphin Academy, where one can swim with the dolphins (for an additional fee of course). We saw a sea lion show, a shark feeding and a nice little dolphin show. All in all, it was a pleasant three hours.
Our walk back took us deeper into the Jan Thiel lagoon area and we saw quite a bit of wildlife including flamingos, parakeets and an osprey which came out of the bushes about ten metres in front of us and then ran down the path before heading back into the bushes – weird.
Flawless D came for sun downers. It’s Kath’s sixtieth birthday next Thursday, so Glenys volunteered to cook dinner for her on Alba. We also decided that we’ll take them out for a day trip on Alba. If we have light winds, we’ll take them to Klein Curacao which is 12 miles to the east, otherwise Fuik Bay is only a few miles away and Timo has told me that it’s a nice anchorage.
10 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
The Curacao government made a declaration last week and today is now “Independence Day” - a new public holiday.
I’ve decided to have a crate of stuff delivered from the UK, so I spent most of the day working out what to buy and sending out emails to suppliers to get quotes. I’m getting everything sent to my friend, Mike Johnson, who has agreed to go down to Geest-line and pack it all into a “personal effects” crate for me. He only lives about five miles from the Geest-line warehouse, so it’s not too much of an imposition. The crate is scheduled to arrive the week before Brett and Craig come to Grenada for Christmas.
The main item that I’m buying is a series drogue which will take up 60% of the crate. I’m also getting quotes for a cruising chute and all the bits and pieces to convert the running backstays to Dyneema rope with two new winches for the stay sail. I can save myself the UK VAT on expensive items if I get them delivered directly to the Geest-line warehouse, so I’m hoping that things will be significantly cheaper than here in the islands.
11 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
We caught the ten o’clock supermarket bus and went shopping. The driver said that we had to be on the return bus at eleven o’clock so I rushed off to the hardware stores. I bought a few screws from the chandlers and then rushed off to a hardware store to buy a puller tool to help me take the windlass apart. They only had a small one, so I bought it and rushed off to Napa where they had a larger, six inch puller which cost £60. I bought it. I was now running out of time, so I jogged the half a mile down to Caribbean Fasteners. The bolts haven’t arrived from Trinidad – I’ll try again next Monday. I ran back to the supermarket and arrived sweating at 2 minutes to eleven. The bus didn’t turn up until half past eleven…
Back on the boat, we did a few small jobs; I don’t want to touch the windlass until after we’ve been to Klein Curacao on Thursday.
The wind’s been blowing hard for the past few days and I’ve been enviously watching the wind surfers scream past the anchorage. I dinghied over to the windsurfing centre and booked a lesson for Saturday morning. I’ve not wind surfed for fifteen years, so I’ve organised a one hour private lesson to run through the basics.
12 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
I received some quotes back for cruising chutes and they range from £1,350 to £2,500. I put out a call on the Cruisers Net asking if anyone had a cruising chute for sale. Bob from “Freestyle” responded, so we went over to have a look. They have a 43 foot catamaran and the sail has never been used. It’s seven years old and looks to be in good condition. The sail dimensions are six feet shorter in the luff and the foot than the sails that I’ve been quoted, so I’m not sure if it’s right. They want $1000US for it and we were surprised how bulky it is. It’s packed into a very large holdall - so where on earth are we going to store it?
While I was chatting to Bob, I discovered that they also have an old Pactor modem for sale which interfaces to a short wave transceiver and allowing email to be received over the radio. I’ve been agonising over how to receive weather forecasts when we are in remote places. Up to now, I’ve relied on getting an Internet connection to receive weather charts and forecasts. When we start heading back up-wind and up-current to Grenada, we need the winds to be as light as possible, so it will be really important to get an accurate wind strength forecast for a 72 hour period.
I spent the rest of the day, investigating Pactor modems and how to get weather from the radio. I down-loaded a couple of ham radio programs which pick up weather faxes that are transmitted by various radio stations around the world. I managed to get the radio interfaced to my laptop, but failed to receive any weather faxes. We’ve also got a Navtex receiver on board which should pick up text weather messages automatically. I found out that there is a Navtex station in Curacao, so I tried to get that working as well without any success.
It was a frustrating day.
13 October 2011 Spanish Water, Curacao
It was Kath’s 60th birthday today. I picked her and Jim up from “Flawless D and we motored over to Klein Curacao. It took us about 2½ hours. Klein Curacao is a very small island similar to those in Aves de Sotavento and we anchored on the edge of a sandy shelf that drops off very quickly. Glenys rustled up some bacon and egg sandwiches, which we ate while gazing at the beautiful waters and beach.
After our brunch, I took Kath through some basic diving theory, so that I could take her on a short “Discover Scuba” dive. We then went to the beach where I ran Kath through the basic confined water exercises such as how to breathe underwater, how to clear a regulator & mask and a short underwater swim.
We piled all the gear back into the dinghy and tied up to the back of Alba for the dive. It’s a bit of a faff getting the scuba gear on in the dinghy and getting into the water, but Kath coped with it well. She hasn’t done much snorkelling and was extremely nervous, but we managed to do a short five minute dive before she had a problem with water in her mask and wanted to come up. It wasn’t the best dive in the world, but I think that she enjoyed the overall experience.
We had lots of air left in the tanks, so I took Jim out for a quick dive as well. He had exactly the same problem with water in his mask and we had to cut his dive short as well. Glenys and I do lots of diving and snorkelling and we’ve become used to having a bit of water in our masks. Both Jim and Kath only had a tiny bit of water, but didn’t like the feeling of water around their noses.
Glenys prepared a nice lunch and we popped open a bottle of Cava to celebrate the birthday girl. I dropped Kath and Jim off by the beach, so that they could go snorkelling in shallow water, then Glenys and I went and free dived on the edge of the drop off. The reef wasn’t very good where we were anchored.
A guy came along in a dinghy and asked us if we had heard about the weather. He’d heard that there was a strong possibility of a wind reversal, which wouldn’t be pleasant where we were anchored. He explained that his name was Jack and he was helping an inexperienced couple sail their boat (“Polaris”) to Bonaire. Unfortunately their engine had packed in and they wanted help to get the yacht onto a strong mooring a bit further along the beach. His boat was back in Spanish Water and he wanted to be back on board in case he needed to re-anchor in a west wind. I agreed to give them a hand to move “Polaris” and give Jack a lift back to Spanish Water.
I tied my dinghy alongside “Polaris” with front and aft springs and used my 15hp engine as propulsion. It took us about 20 minutes to move them onto a large mooring about 400 metres along the beach. The couple looked shaken by the whole episode and were very worried about the dreaded wind reversal. We tried to reassure them, but by then it was three o’clock and we needed to leave ourselves.
It took us 2 ½ hours to motor back to Spanish Water. It turned out that Jack has been cruising for 20 years and has spent time up in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, so we had a chat about the various places and the best time to be there. It sounds like fog is a major problem north of New York even as late as July, so we might have to change our plans a little bit.
Kath and Jim came for dinner on Alba and we polished off a substantial number of bottles of wine.