BOATBUMMS LOG: Heineken Regatta Curacao 2010

Tomas Nov 1st 7:36 pm

Tomas same day at 10:44 pm

same time

Tomas weakened to tropical storm strength when he passed us just 100 miles to the north on November 1^st. Therefore we didn’t get much out of it but Tomas displayed an incredible lightning show all around us; it looked like giant LED lights flickering. Around 22:00 a few heavy gust of wind passed through the marina. While our wind indicator measured 17 knots of gusts some boats in the anchorage measured gusts up to 45 knots. We had heavy rain but slept through the night like nothing was going on at all. Poor anchorage was up all night. The highest wind speed we recorded over night, when we were sound asleep, was 24 knots. Seru Boca Marina truly is a very protected marina. Tomas brought 265 millimeter about 10 inches of rain to Curacao (this is half of the annual rainfall in only 8 hours). There was more water on the island than around and many people had to be evacuated due to flooding. One Hospital waste deep in water had to be evacuated. Tomas caused the death of two people. Although there was no wind damage anywhere heavy damage was all done by rain. We were lucky once more to escape a dangerous hurricane. (Click on photos to enlarge).

After six weeks of waiting for Glacier Bay our refrigerator company to come back from vacation we find out that they don’t support our product anymore and gave us the company that took it over. For a further frustrating week trying to get in touch with the new company we finally were able to reach Pat and he surprised us with his responds, he worked over time for us, email went back and fourth until midnight. We needed a pressure gauge to evaluate the system, borrowed one from a boat in the anchorage, gauge had a blocked hose, Manuela started calling around local businesses to find out where to buy one, first call answered the very friendly Dutch guy, although not having any gauges for sale was very interested in the problem and offered to come out to the boat, (we now think why he was so interested is he’s planning on going cruising himself). One our later he showed up checked it out and found that the capillary tube from the sensing bulb to the expansion valve was broken those closing the valve and not letting anything buy and also vacuuming one side.

November 12^th I was sitting on deck of our friend Christa’s boat sipping a sundowner as I noticed a water spout on the south east side of the island. It was moving pretty fast lasted at least 5 minutes if not longer until it hit the island it slowly disappeared. Two minutes later a now very thick funnel cloud started descending and a tornado roared on the island for about 2 minutes and just like that disappeared into nothing, but instantly 2 very thin tornadoes started at the same time just a bit behind where the tornado was. It was pretty spectacular to watch this just hope there was no damage anywhere.

Day time Dengue mosquito

All the heavy rains we’ve had in the last two months brought out mosquitoes. When the sun goes down you better hunker down inside and make sure all the hatches are closed, the attack of the mosquitoes is unreal, never seen anything like it. Even in the anchorage where they usually have no mosquito problems they are plagued by it. Even down town you get molested by them including in air-conditioned stores. They do have Dengue fever in Curacao, I have a feeling this year will be a bad one.

Now to the good news or great news!!! As I mentioned in the last Blog Sid had the opportunity to be crew on a Henderson 30 “TEAM IBIS” to race the Heineken Regatta Curacao. The annual Heineken Regatta Curaçao held from the 12^th to 14^th of November with an incredible opening ceremony with lots of cold Heinies and wonderful Pupus and an incredible band. I danced from the begin they started to the very last song and oh boy the following morning I got out of bed like an old lady and was sore for days.

The amazing thing about the Regatta start was the starting line was set up in the channel between Punda and Otroban in Willemstad a channel about 150 feet wide not much room to maneuver amongst all the many boats. It made for very exciting starts for the spectators not to mention the adrenaline rush for the racers. Each Race TEAM IBIS took off like a rocket. After the start I headed out to the beach front and watched the race form the pier where the windsurfers had their races. To the west of the island a very noisy cloud started expanding and threatened the race, luckily that finally decided to head over the north side of the island, but as soon as that threat was gone a cloud started growing from the south east and did not look good. It spread out fairly fast and TEAM IBIS was just turning into the channel on the home run to the finish line as the cloud let go. White frothy water was headed towards us and all in the background disappeared in heavy rain. All the same class boats behind TEAM IBIS got a pretty good push and corrected time on TEAM IBIS who crossed the finish line first. The second race was delayed due to rain then again because one of the big freighters was heading out the narrow Annabaii Channel where the starting line was.

Saturday we woke up to a heavy downpour and the satellite photo did not look good at all, the whole area from Colombia to Venezuela was covered by a huge cloud with nothing but rain caused by the ITCZ.

Here is Sid’s take on the races since he was there:

First race was light wind and threatening to squall. Finished before the squall but the squall provided heavy winds for the rest of the fleet and we got a fourth.

Second race: was shortened due to delays of start due to rain and outgoing cargo vessel. Light rain, light wind, got a very good start and we finished first but got a second in our class.

Third race: Heavy rain throughout the race, good start, moderate winds, passed the whole fleet and the big boats ahead of us, first to finish over all and in class.

Fourth and last race: just before the race we checked our standings and it was upside down. They questioned the race committee about the standings and found out that during time calculations they had transposed numbers on several other boats that showed correcting out on us. That was all straightened out and we were ready to race but because of our fourth place and no throw out this was a MUST win. The race start was perfect, we headed out the channel and didn’t make one mistake, we passed all the boats by the second mark and blasted to the finish (race was shortened due to weather) and got our first. Question still was did we win first over all. With all our work we did it yeah what a hoot.

The Award Ceremony was awesome. Team IBIS won first in Racing Class 2 and this year for the first time they had an over all win with a nice check of Nafl. 10.000 about US$ 6000. This check looked really good in front of Team IBIS.

What a party that was with a shower of champagne over the crew, lots of photos and an interview with Joey Stevens, the famous ‘man with the parrot’ on See TV’s One Caribbean Weather.

http://onecaribbeanweather.wordpress.com/

He told us that it will air on CNN and CBS sometime in December or January. We’ll probably be underway by then and never see it. Sid had a wonderful time and Team IBIS said he blended right in and Karel the owner asked Sid to race on the last Regatta of the year in December, wow Sid feels really good about that. The funny thing about Sid being on Team IBIS was, all the boats of course know each other and crew and seeing a new face on Team IBIS (Sid’s mustache!!) and Team IBIS was able to beat the fastest boat in the fleet during the last three races. A rumor went around that Team IBIS had a secret weapon. Somebody even asked if Sid was a professional because the boat was working so well. Team IBIS never told anybody anything except Sid was an American crew member and we left them guessing! Sid had a blast and can’t thank Team IBIS enough for having him as crew and the grin will be on his face for a long time.

By the way you can watch Team IBIS on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPdWSEA8OCo