ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN SEA ...........

And out of nowhere appeared this beautiful 'weather window' with winds predicted to come out of the west, which in CURACAO is more or less unheard of ....... With hurricane season almost at a close, we made the decision to 'grab' that window with both hands ....... Just too good to be true ....... Our computer weather programs allow us to download wind strength and direction, rain precipitation, barometric pressure, wave height and cloud cover some seven days in advance, and generally it is fairly accurate .....



Our friend TIMO has been busy getting the frames of his new yacht built on his floating workshop ..... If you recall he lost his beautiful yacht " BLUE MARLIN " in the Venezuelan islands of Los Aves ....... But with guts and determination he is moving forward ....... ANNEMIEKE, his artist wife, is equally busy doing her magnificent driftwood sculptures for an exhibition to be called "WOOD FOR WOOD" ..... She will sell her painted driftwood sculptures and buy plywood to build their new yacht ...... The ultimate creative 'win-win' with a sad touch of recycling thrown in ......



It is wonderful to see TIMO at work in this open-air workshop with million dollar views of this enclosed harbour of 'Spanish Waters' in CURACAO ....... His little homemade runabout holds a portable generator that allows him to use table saws, jigsaws, and drills, but mostly it is all hand made glue and screw stuff .....



The man's got a plan ....... Drop the lead-filled keel in the water first, then float a platform over the top of it on which he will construct the hull with its frames .... When that's done, sink the float down over the keel and bolt the hull and keel together ..... Yes you have to hand it to him for ingenuity ..... TIMO is definitely a one of a kind 'hombre' ....



Meantime back at 'our ranch' we have an engine running hotter than normal ..... Which we thought was due to the intake being blocked with all the weed scum, but now that we are clean it still stays hot ...... By disconnecting the outlet hose from the exhaust system we notice that there is no appreciable difference in the salt water pressure when the engine is run momentarily ...... That means the the water pump's rubber impeller is 'kaput' ....."Not good", as they say .... The impeller is in an impossible position under the engine and to get it out is simply unprintable ......... Laurie took this photo from an angle where you cannot lip-read ...... But once you know what the problem is, it is no longer a problem, not so? ..... And shortly after it was replaced, we took off to begin the 400-mile crossing to PUERTO RICO (see that black line on the map above) ..... We motor-sailed till the middle of the Caribbean Sea when the wind finally filled in ........ Filled in from the East again, which meant hard sailing, and hard on the wind, hoping we could still lay our course for at least the middle of the island, and not get pushed West into the waters of the Dominican Republic .....



Really beautiful sailing with the winds somewhere between ten and twenty knots and fortunately with a very flat sea left over from the oil-like calms of the previous days .... No ground swell, no waves, a good six knots and in the right direction .........



Smooth sailing and the 'Queen of Florida' down below learning how to do 'crochet' now that she has a brand new grand-daughter "Sophie" who used to put her fingers in her eyes and nose, but is now in the bassinet making 'gangster' signs .....



This is probably boring, but days like these, with trade-wind clouds and smooth seas are a rarity during the Caribbean hurricane season which is not finished yet .... We just downloaded the weather on our satellite phone and there's 'welcome to two more in the making' picture out there ....... Another day or so and we'll be in Puerto Rico if the wind holds steady .......



We arrive in SALINAS at 0600, having done the journey in just under three days ..... We crash and sleep for a few hours, before making the call to Customs and Immigration ..... We need to get to PONCE to do the clearance and we rent a car at a wonderful $20/day to do clearance, shopping, sightseeing and getting a new phone, but not before coming to terms with this screeching green parrot with a nest full of young screechers in a palm tree ..... Incredible the noise they make ...... Way worse that Sophie with a nasty diaper ....



CULTURE SHOCK ....... As we drive into San Juan in the early morning with lanes and lanes of traffic at a standstill ...... If there is a depressed economy out there, we must have missed it ....... Every man and his dog is out there buying, selling, shopping and having a good time ...... The malls are packed and business is thriving ..... Oh, and everybody is driving .......



But the anchorage at Salinas is peaceful enough ...... Beautiful mornings with a magnificent mountain backdrop ....... The surrounding mangroves provide ample protection even if a late hurricane was to give us a passing blow ......



School curriculum also involves paddling a canoe, for on Friday we saw a bunch of school kids on the water doing paddling exercises, while at the same time learning about eco-systems and estuary habitats ..... Wouldn't mind going back to school just for that, but it is all in Spanish ....... Fast rapid Spanish .....



And when class is done, well, just hook on and the teacher will tow you back to shore ...... Oh, and we also discovered this secret door in a breakfast restaurant that leads to the kitchen ..... If you can't find it, just look for the door handle ......

Coming back to PUERTO RICO is also a 'culture shock' in another sense, for here Spanish is spoken with such volume, passion and speed, as to leave you reeling ...... Ask somoeone "Is this the way to SAN JUAN" and back comes this torrent of Spanish, with arm and hand gestures and comical facial expressions, which if you are smart like we are, means "YES" ................. Now this is completely different from, say, Northern Scandinavia, where very few words are ever spoken for fear of freezing your tongue to your gums ...... One reindeer herder was heard to say to another "I love my wife so much, I almost told her" ..........

WHO ARE YOU LOOKING AT? ...............

While we were busy in the boatyard in CURACAO, doing all that dirty work of cleaning and repainting the bottom of "ARITA", young "GEICO" here, decided to jump into a bucket and see what he could find in the bottom ......... One of the things he soon discovered is that he couldn't get out ............. The yard manager Mikey, handed him to Lauren, where he is now able to survey a whole new world from up high, and then gives us this incredible cheeky 'look' that more or less says " Who are YOU looking at? " ......



"GEICO" continues with his nonsense, and lets us know he is not really happy about any of this ............ When he finally takes off, he literally flies in his attempt to get away ....... Cute little lizard ...... "GEICO" is actually a baby iguana .......



The boatyard is full of lizards in all shapes and sizes, including a whole bunch of iguanas doing their head-bopping thing to attract someone's attention .......... "Now if I get on to this green pipe they might not see me!" ...............



They tell us that this lizard is called 'Blou-Blou", meaning 'blue-blue' in Papiamento, the local language here in CURACAO ......... Very original name, that one ...... He is also not shy, for every time we sit down to have a drink of cold water, he is right there looking for a hand-out ......... He promptly polishes off several biscuits ..... No trouble at all ...... Wouldn't be at all surprised if he followed us over to the Curacao Yacht Club, that thatched clubhouse that runs the marina and the haul-out yard, and where they really do serve 'cheeseburgers-in-paradise'....... Yes, 'Blou-Blou' is a character alright ....



We found a seam in the fore-foot that stays moist after the hull has dried out which indicates some trapped moisture beneath the antifouling paint ....... The seam is first opened up. old caulking cotton removed, the joint between the planks is painted with primer and new cotton caulking is hammered into the joint ........ Dirty work, but the only way to keep a beautiful wooden yacht in great shape .... There is a special mastic sealing compound that gets troweled over the cotton ..... Cotton swells with the smallest amount of moisture and therefore doubly seals the joint .....



Back at the houseboat, our friend TIMO is busy drafting out the plans of his next yacht ...... Smaller than the last 'BLUE MARLIN' but just as beautiful he assures us ....... He gently lowers these 'floating Lotus creations' into the water to ward off would-be visitors to this fragile end of the houseboat ..... Many have come to give TIMO and ANNEMIEKE their condolences over the loss of their yacht ....... By dinghy, of course ...... Note the cryptic warning sign that didn't work ........



Exhausted at the end of each day, we dinghy back to our temporary apartment with its wonderful creature comforts and its 'Hollywood' shower ....... A short walk past beautiful flowers and palm trees brings us to our private gate .........



After four solid days of hard work the job is done and she is ready for the water once more ............. You feel like taking a hundred photos, but what's the point .... All that beauty of the fine lines and curvature of the hull with its wine-glass shape is under water and no-one's going to see it ...... More like a red-wine glass we think .....



At least with a house you get to see all of it from every angle ......... Nice neighbourhood, don't you think? ......... We splash "ARITA" and spend one more night in the apartment, for we are too weary to clean up the boat and put all the tools and paint away ....... We'll do all that tomorrow ......



We finally said our goodbyes to Peter and Jutte from the yacht "FREYA", who shared the journey from Grenada to Curacao with us ..... They sail on to Colombia and ports beyond ..... We will also say goodbye to our 'Birthday boy' GEORGE, who together with his wife ANJA, provided us with a fabulous apartment, and certainly know how to throw a good party ........ We will be back again to CURACAO with the new boat "SOUTHERN COMFORT" to stir them all up again, when we will follow in FREYA's wake and head for the Panama Canal ......But that's all in the future ......

Rumours abound now that we have returned from Florida to Curacao, one of which comes from people who are now in Cartagena, COLOMBIA ..... " We had heard through the rumour mill that Laurie was having a baby and you wanted it to have US citizenship, so slipped away in the night, but you can't believe everything you hear...

TRANSITIONING ............................

What a wonderful summer month in FLORIDA ......... The perfect birth of Lauren's grand-daughter, the peaceful passing of her mother (that's Lauren's mother, not baby "Sophie's" mother), the accommodating weather and the absence of destructive hurricanes and the peacefulness that came with knowing that our yacht "ARITA" was safely anchored in CURACAO under the watchful eye of Timo and Annemieke, notwithstanding that they lost their own yacht "BLUE MARLIN" in Los Aves, VENEZUELA ....... A tragic loss in pride, but their ever-buoyant spirit is alive and well, for there is already a new yacht on the drawing board ............ And surely a new-born baby engenders the same feelings as this beautiful Caribbean frangipani flower (Desert Rose) we saw as soon as we flew back to sunny CURACAO .....



On our drive down to MIAMI from Jacksonville in Northern Florida, we spent a night with Laurie's sister in MICCO, and had a quick visit with Lynette and Richard in VERO BEACH where we had spent a summer tied to their dock two years ago ........... Here's living proof that coconut trees really do come from coconuts ............. Not that you doubted that?



During that stay in VERO we felt sure we had killed their long stemmed single frangipani tree with the construction of their bedroom pergola, but lo-and-behold it is alive and well and flowering ...... Miracles of nature .... On to MIAMI, and another great night with Dudley and Becca and then on to the airport .......... You have to board a driver-less train that whizzes you all over the place and drops you at your terminal ...... All indoor and air-conditioned ......... You don't get to breathe fresh air until you land in CURACAO ............. I guess that's fresh ..... Certainly was 'warm' .... Maybe more than warm .......



We had left "ARITA" with a stainless steel chain wrapped around the backstay and hanging in the water as a sort of 'lightning dissipator' ......... Well take a look at the growth on it, after only one month ....... Like we said, it is warm .......



Less than 100m away from where we are anchored is the CURACAO YACHT CLUB, where we planned to haul out ....... It is a cradle on a set of railway lines ....... This kind of haul-out is always fun to watch ...... And just as scary as a travel-lift ..... A diver pushes and shoves the keel more or less into the centre of the cradle while his assistant slowly winds the cradle out of the water .... In our case ARITA started to lean seriously to port on the way up, so they reversed and did it all again ...... Even asked me if I thought 'she' looked level? ........ Meantime, the "QUEEN of FLORIDA" stayed on deck ........ Ever tried pacifying and kissing a shaking 'stuttterer', who has just been through a 30 degree lean and been yelled at "Don't move lady" .........



But "ARITA" came out perfectly and perfectly filthy ...... Scraping the weed off was like shearing a sheep ......... Slabs of crustacea-laden weed and slime, with very few barnacles and in no time at all she was ready for pressure washing ........ Their unit is industrial size, and shoots you backward like a fire hose ........ Oh, and just a reminder that we are back in the beautiful Caribbean with magnificent flowers like this purple Bougainvillea .....



And this blue Plumbago ........... We even saw that ocean going fishing boat "Baby Love" being hauled away for repairs ..... It seems that she has a bad leak and that the last time we saw her, when she was barely above water, was not due to a full load of fish after all ......



So here we are, barely three days after getting back to Spanish Waters in CURACAO and we are fully into cleaning and repainting the top-sides and the bottom ...... The old girl looks 'Just Grand' ...... And the hull is in perfect shape ...... We should be done in a couple of days and we can start looking for a 'weather window' to sail across the Caribbean Sea back to Puerto Rico ..... You probably noticed that this railway is at somewhat of an angle ..... Sleeping and living on board is somewhat out of the question ......



Interesting things are taking place all around us ........ Take this nice piece of machinery trying to lift an engine out of a powerboat with only inches to spare on the boom ....... Everything is controlled by the man whose hands are playing with a small keyboard near his 'nether region' ...... To get it out they slowly lift then drop the rear hydraulic supports and with it the back tyres springs, and then move the vessel forward, or at least that's the plan .......



Well, to offset our 'sleeping predicament' whilst hauled-out, Timo and Annemieke have put us in touch with a couple who have a wonderful 'little' two bedroom/bathroom/lounge/kitchen 'to-die-for' humongous down-stairs apartment, with A/C, mod-cons and everything, and even its own garden pathway access ..... All we can say is ....... AWESOME ...... Then again, though their canvas over the patio is the 'right' colour, it is still a 'poorly-designed yacht that is permanently anchored ....... Tonight, upstairs they are having a birthday party and we have been invited ........ Cruising and being hauled-out is really, really tough ..... Do I hear any 'AMEN' to that, anywhere?