Leaving Curaçao

by the time we paid the marina bill, checked out at customs and immigration it was a bit late for the plan, which was to head to the north of the island and find a mooring. Steve had been up on the bus and with his usual optimism had seen moorings suitable for big boats. I didn't like the idea of arriving on an unknown shore in the dark and would have preferred to take immediate advantage of the weather window we were offered and get on the way to Panama, taking an extra day in the islands. However my crew made it clear that they were not happy with where I'd taken them so far, and if I didn't go up to West Point they would be even un-happier.. I was also under a different colour of pressure from Marcel. Our marina on Abbatoirweg had put on a free BBQ for staff and yachties on our last night and Marcel had become blotto, appallingly drunk, annoying nearly everyone but himself but doing no real harm. He took 36 hours of sleep to recover and it was probably not wise to head straight out to sea with him so I set course up the coast, vainly hoping to spot a yacht or two as an indicator of a safe and good place to park. It is forbidden to anchor most places to protect the coral. We arrived at West Point after dark and Steve eventually spotted the place he had in mind. I edged us toward the shore using reflected shore light to pick clear paths. The only real danger here is of embarrassment. The wind in Curaçao blows at 20kn day and night from the same direction, there is no chance of being caught by the weather, and there are no offshore dangers, the bottom simply drops straight down, sometimes after a narrow shelf. However, I do hate embarrassment and we could potentially run aground, catch a mooring line around our prop. We're also going to an unknown mooring so we could damage it or find ourselves being evicted as the owner returns. I was most unhappy but continued edging in till Steve found his buoy in his torch beam, picked it up and we were tied on. To something. With a not too thick rope.

I went down and cooked a delicious trahanas soup, and as I picked the red and green bits out of Steve's bowl so he'd eat his dinner, (I'm being unfair, which I do enjoy in moderation, I bought a lot of dry Spanish chorizo for the Atlantic, just in case, but we ate fish the whole way, so now I'm trying to use it up, but both crew would prefer not to eat it), Marcel having decided he would eat his sausage tonight, I swore I would never ever put the boat in a situation I was not uncomfortable with again… unless of course, there was the smell of mutiny in the air… What would Bligh have done?

Next morning we jumped in to look at our 'mooring' and found a little lightweight sand anchor wedged in a crack in a rock with one foot of light chain! Oh well, we stayed put, didn't break it, didn't get asked to move and Steve is happy. He caught a Yellow Tail Snapper and had an underwater encounter with a Wahoo. I swam to the bottom to check if a string had a lure attached. Turned out to be a wire, but it's always worth being on the same level as the coral and fish so I was glad to be there. Noticed it took some time to get back to the surface and later thought to measure the depth. Eleven meters! Eclipsing my Previous Personal Best of two and a half! Amazing what warm clear water and a bit of practise can do.

We ate the snapper for lunch, let go the buoy, set the genoa and set off at 7kn for Panama, the land of my dreams, where everything smells of bananas sagt die Tigerente.