Never Ending Story
Bandit
David Morgan and Brenda Webb
Wed 4 Apr 2012 18:03
12:21N 69:30W
We left
Spanish Waters in Curacao at 6am and it’s one place we weren’t sorry to
leave. It’s an island with very little going for it from a cruisers’ point
of view. With drug trafficking from nearby Venezuela a real issue,
anchoring anywhere except Spanish Waters is difficult. To do so you need
to go into the harbour master in Willemstad (a tender, bus ride and long walk
away) to buy an anchoring permit which is only valid for three days for any one
spot. We put it in the too hard basket and stayed in Spanish Waters - a
good anchorage but not ideal for swimming.
Curacao is
a place we will not recall with fondness due to yet another fruitless wait for
parts.....the ongoing Never Ending Story (more of a saga really). Not
having a fixed address and having to wait for parts to be sent to a marina, shop
or business is a frustrating part of this cruising life that causes huge
stress. The first chapter of the Never Ending Story was in 2006 when we
had new mattresses sent to Preveza in Greece.....only to discover they’d been
sent back to London by the marina because we’d gone out for the
day!!!!!! We wrote more chapters throughout Turkey, Italy and Spain
as we spent countless hours on buses, in taxis, on bikes and even hitchhiking to
try and track down missing mail or parts. In Barbados we waited seven days
for our new ship registration papers to arrive from Wellington....watching
online in growing disbelief and frustration as they sat in Miami for five days
despite being on a “rush” courier service. Tracking numbers aren’t always
helpful!!
This time
we needed a part for our depth sounder. Budget Marine is a huge chandlery
with stores throughout the Caribbean and, after fruitless attempts in Barbados,
Grenada and Bonaire, we finally managed to order the part in Curacao. We
even had a confirmation email from the general manager saying the part was
ordered Tuesday (last week), would arrive on the island Wednesday and take a
“few days” to clear customs. David duly rang the store each day to be told
it would be here “tomorrow”. After a week of this.....we began to smell a
rat. Call us cynical but we’d been stung in the past and so yesterday
decided to see where out part was. We headed into the shop only to
discover the part had in fact not even been ordered. It takes a lot to get
mild mannered David fired up but the combination of an arrogant Dutchman (the
general manager of Budget......what an attitude) and the frustration of our much
needed part not arriving saw him get rather tense. With Easter looming we
decided to flag the whole thing. What a wasted week of waiting. Yet another
chapter in our Never Ending Story and believe us....there WILL be more!
Sailing
conditions today are lovely – 15 knots of wind from behind and a relatively flat
sea. We’re sailing with one reef in the main and the headsail poled out to
starboard alongside Balvenie – neither boat showing any advantage at this stage
despite the Bandit skipper shaking a reef out of the main to increase
speed. We did note that Balvenie had two headsails as well as their main
earlier.....note to ground jury......is that legal???
We plan to
anchor on the south of Aruba overnight then have another early start tomorrow
and get underway to Colombia. We’ve already been buzzed by CoastGuard in a
helicopter and, given the proximity to Venezuela, imagine there will be
more.
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