Curacao
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Sat 2 May 2009 01:44
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12:16N 69:07W
It was time to move on. We had been languishing on a mooring in Bonaire for a few months and we
were beginning to wonder if we would remember how to sail the boat again. After
50 odd dives, we figured we'd got the hang of the diving thing, but
would we remember what the white flappy things and the different
coloured bits of string on the boat did. Clearly they did something,
probably something quite important but would we know what to do with
them?....... Well of course we did, it's just like riding a bike and we only had
a short passage to Klein Curacao, ('Little Curacao', for those of you that don't
speak Double Dutch). So it wasn't too testing...... well at least we
thought so, but the numerous wrecks on the windward side of the island, 2
yachts and one large tramp steamer, suggested otherwise.
  Clearly we were getting into the part of the
Caribbean where the weather & sea conditions are not to be trifled with. The
wind seems to be always over 20Knts and regularly over 30 with seas to match. In
fact, the closer one gets to the infamous Columbian Low pressure area, the worse
it becomes. And it is said that this area is in the top 5 of dodgy sailing
territories, behind the likes of Cape Horn. So looking for 'weather windows' is
a common topic of conversation around here and we had a nice one for this
first little sail.
Klein Curacao is a lovely little desert island and
once in the lee of it and out of the wind, it is quite calm, picturesque and
nowhere near as foreboding as the approaches appeared to be on the windward
side.
There's an impressive lighthouse, which apparently
at least 3 vessels didn't to take too much notice of, an excellent soft sand
beach and a few thatched huts, perfect for shore barbeques. And the most
delightful feature was.......we were the only people there. Splendid, get the
togs off, go skinny dipping and chase Jo around the island, yeee
haa.
  We spent a bit longer there than planned
but finally did the final short leg to Spaanse Water, Curacao. Looking at
the chart, the much talked about Spaanse Water anchorage, looked nothing more
than a big swamp. So we were pleasantly surprised by the upmarket Caribbean
setting of posh houses and resort buildings in lush green hills fringed
with mangroves. We were also greeted by a couple of the longstanding
liveaboards, who gave us the heads-up on the place and made us feel quite
welcome. So first impressions were favourable but those pleasant and
positive feelings was soon replaced with doom and despair.
Getting around Curacao is a bit tricky and
solely reliant on the local bus service which seems to run on 'island time'.
Island time, is typical in the Caribbean, it basically means whenever they
feel like getting in the bus and driving it. How very cute and laid-back I here
you say, but what a pain in the proverbial when you need to get things
done.....like checking-in with the authorities. Checking-in is mostly a
painful experience anyway, but here it proved to be absolutely
infuriating. The Customs building is nowhere near the Immigration building
and Port Authority and to make things worse, they don't even open at the
same times. So combine this, with a checking-in order and a
dodgy bus schedule.... well, it was a recipe for an unhappy day, and it
didn't disappoint.
I found Customs ok and they were all very nice and
jolly, and surprisingly efficient. But Immigration was on the otherside of the
waterfront and in the docks somewhere. I found it eventually having caught
a ferry and got a pass to enter the restricted dock area. Immigration is
normally a straight forward procedure.... you know, fill in a few forms, smile a
lot and slip a few dollars in the passport. But I stupidly asked how long
our visa would be if Bonaire was our previous port. I should have kept my mouth
shut....old Mr Gobby Gobshite has done it again, why didn't I keep my big mouth
shut. Because the answer was ''it would have been 90 days but
now you mentioned Bonaire......well ya know mon, Bonaire is part of
the Netherland Antilles group, and you have been in Bonaire for nearly tree
months, you can only stay for a few more days mon''. ''Tough luck honky,
you had better go to the main Immigration office in da town and apply for an
extension''. Bugger. So of I went, cussing under my breath back
into town to look for the main Immigration office. I found it sometime and a bit
of shoe leather later, just in time to join a Disney Land sized queue. Poo and
double poo. I joined the queue of dodgy looking characters and misfits trying to
gain entry into this corner of paradise only to find that after one
and a half hours of shuffling with the great unwashed, my case had to be dealt
with by a government department which was in a different building. So yes,
with even more cussing and walking in 100 degrees of stinky fume laden heat
I arrived at the right building only to find that it closed early and
wouldn't be open till the following day. Well that was it for me for the
day.....I needed beer and I needed alot of it and PDQ. The thought of coming
back into town to do this sort of procedure again filled with me dread, but
I did. The very next day, I waited an eternity for a bus, filled in a few
more forms, wrote a letter explaining why I needed an extension to my visa,
handed in photo copies of each page of our passports, which of course meant
going to the library, a 15 minute walk away, to get the photo copies
because it was far too much to ask for the government dept that needed the photo
copies to have a photo copier in the building, d'oh.
We then had to wait for an answer but we
were eventually delighted to learn that our application had been approved
and it was all worth while......or was it? We were told we had to go back
to the main immigration building to get our passport stamped. So off we
trouped to that same crappy building and joined another queue of giant
anaconda proportions, but this time when we reached its end, we were told we
were in the wrong queue and that the person we needed to see had gone to lunch.
Yes, it was going to be another one of those days.
While all this was going on we had discovered that
our passports were due to run out soon anyway and we could use the British
Consulate here in Willemstad to get them renewed. We had made an appointment
with the consulate to get this sorted which would coincide with our visa
extension. No such luck. When we did eventually get to see the immigration man
he needed to take our passports to get them stamped by his boss but not on
the same day, which of course required another thankless trip into town.
Which we did as programmed only to find out that the passports had not been
stamped at all, infact they had been lost somewhere in the building. At this
point I lost it......I truly spat the dummy and threw all my toys out of the
pram. I made a huge scene in front of everyone, screamed abuse at the
immigration official and said that ''I would rather leave the
country than spend another minute in this chuffing office. Get me my
passports now, I don't give a monkeys cuss about your poxy visa stamp and I am
not moving from this spot till I get my chuffing passports back''.
With that security entered the scene and much to my surprise, rather
than throwing out onto the street by one of the big mamma's in a uniform,
one of the big mamma's searched the offices instead and indeed found our
passports. I snatched them back and told them they could stick their visa where
the sun don't shine and scarpered out the building.
So after all this we had gotten nowhere, infact we
got worse than nowhere 'cos we finally got to the British Consulate, filled in
even more forms, handed in some new mug shots, our current passports and a
cheque for nearly £300, yes, £300 for 2 passports and a bit of courier
costs.....rip-off. And to this day, many weeks later, we still haven't
got our new passports. Do I sound a bit miffed and hating my time here in
Curacao....well not one bit. Passport nonsense aside, this is a great
island, particularly when you get out of Spaanse Water.
I joined in with one of the local yacht races from
Spaanse Water around Klein Curacao and back, some thirty odd miles. It was a
hoot. I'd forgotten how wet and uncomfortable, and how much fun it was sailing
small race boats around the
cans.
 I'm the ballast at the back of the Melges 24 called
'Chimmichurri'And the cruising and diving along the South
coast of Curacao is simply fantastic. Santa Cruz was our favourite spot. Perfect
shelter, sandy beach, crystal clear water, a dive shop with a bar and
restaurant, and sublime diving. What more can you ask for. The best dive so far
was 'Watamula off the north west coast. This will be difficult to beat. It was
like swimming through an architect designed city of coral with its streets
crowded with marine life of all kinds....magic. Even our friends and old hand
dive instructors, Fred & Cindy (S/Y Kelp Fiction) were suitably impressed
and rated it as one of their best dives. We will be definitely going back there
again en-route to Aruba. The only thing that spoilt our time in Santa Cruz was
that we missed the infamous green flash at sunset 'cos our pals Troy &
Winnie (M/Y Lucky Dog) was blocking the view,...... gert big stink
pot!!!.
 The waters off this coast were full of tasty
morsels and we couldn't resist them. So we collected 'conch', pronounced
conk and Al & Joan (S/Y Break and Run) caught lobster.
Preparing the shell fish ready for eating was
almost as much fun as catching them but cant be compared with the joy of
munching into the fruits of your freshly caught labour.
We caught 5 conch and for those who are wondering
what the dickens is a conch, well they are a shell fish of huge proportions and
they have attitude.
Jo tried to oick one out of its shell but ended up
riding it around the cockpit in a rodeo like display. This thing was half
out of its shell and 'galloping', in a conch style fashion, around the
cockpit with Jo holding on as best she could. It was as funny as you like but
clearly we needed the expert guidance of the resident conch killer Cindy, who we
renamed the 'conkquerer'. Instead of tapping the shell in the strategic place
with a screw driver and hammer, Cindy threw away the screw driver and said
''you won't be needing this you pansies'' and
began demolishing the shell with the claw of the hammer. She beat the crap out
of the poor beastie and then pulled it out unceremoniously with a pair of
mullgrips.
  The next bit of preparation of this beastie was
very difficult for me, as member of the male gender, to report on and was
even harder to watch. For its size, the male conchs, had male members, if you
know what I mean, to be proud of. By proportion, if it was on a full grown man,
his willy would be at least 3 foot long.....and it had to be cut off while
it was still alive, as did his eye balls, which were now out on
stalks. The only acceptable way forward was to cut off his eye balls first
so that he didn't have to see the loss of his manhood. Clearly watching your own
penis being removed by a deranged women was unacceptable and somehow I
found solace in having his eye balls cut off first. But the girls, nasty
little creatures that they are, found it all highly amusing, and brandished the
super sharp filleting knife around almost as if somekind of female revenge
ritual was being exacted on the male gender generally.
  The whole conch preparation thing was blood
curdlingly gruesome for me and I can honestly say I shant ever be doing the
de-knobbing bit and will leave that to Jo. But the eating on the other hand,
well I am good at that and pretty good at the cooking too. We had a conch salad
to start and a conch cooked in white wine and garlic sauce, all washed down
with copious amounts of wine. It was rather splendid and it is fair to say we
all liked the conch party bit best.
PS. Yes, that long dark thing in the picture above
is the manhood in question.........see what I
mean!!
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