Merry Christmas

After 3 days of solid rain a bright disk appeared on the sky, we were told it was the sun, wow!!! With the sun out it was a perfect day to venture into town but not without an umbrella as there still were occasional squall passing by, some passing by and some passing right over us. The ground is so saturated that no matter were you go you have to dodge huge puddles and on our way to the Marina Office we were concentrating on where to step and where not to. At one point we had no choice but head across a soaked lawn and doing so we carefully stepped across in fear of slipping or stepping in deep puddles. I didn’t know that Aruba is a Hollywood fan, they have a walk of fame too, just like in Hollywood you know where you find the foot and hand prints of celebrities. Best part Sid and I are the first celebrities leaving our foot prints here in Aruba! I did a giant step out of the grassy area onto the side walk to avoid a huge deep puddle but instead I was stuck in ankle deep cement and by the time my brain realized what just happened I was in the middle of it. Sid had one foot in it but managed to back track. I felt horrible for the workers, for having ruined their job and kept apologizing but they felt bad and apologized back it was a lot of apologizing I tell you. While I was standing in the bucket of knee deep water washing the muck off they marked the danger zone with a yellow tape, hmmm it may have been their fault after all. We all had a good laugh especially a couple hours later when we returned I walked up to the guys asking if I could do it again and take photo (forgot in the first place that I had the camera with me, hey can you blame me I was star struck at that moment!). Aruba sure knows how to treat tourists not just did they give us the feel of fame status but the first night they welcomed us with an enormous fireworks display that after what several times we thought was a finale ended in a magnificent explosion of one of the best finales ever. Welcome to Aruba!

  

Bill on Bamboo was returning after a 3 week State visit and his wife Roxanne organized a welcoming party for him on their beautiful and huge catamaran. Since it’s been nothing but raining here for the last month we all awaited for him with snorkel and mask on, some even wore fins. It was a heck of a party and Roxanne went all out with a giant buffet with all homemade delicacies, it was a feast and Manuela had to prepare some rum punch twice which was potent enough to sedate a few of the party members. It was a fun party that started at 14:30 and we don’t remember anymore if it was 22:00 or 23:00 when we went to bed. We met new boaters and one particularly stood out, Sid just knew he’s met him before. Sure enough they knew each other some 20/30 years ago when Barry was a tow truck driver for the police impounded cars, small world. The two had so much to catch up and it was truly fun listening to them.

Bill coming home

Anne and Steve Fine Line

Aruba is an amazing shopper’s paradise the stores are huge and you can get pretty much anything from Europe to the States. Every single Isle I entered it was all over “Merry Christmas” again, oh that’s write almost forgot Christmas is just around the corner, silly me. I found Orville Redenbacher popcorn, frozen Limeade for Silver Fizzes, Clamata juice, Hooters wings sauce, real sharp cheddar, boiled peanuts……..

Anne Fine Line took this priceless photo

The weather has cleared no more rain other than an occasional squall and amazingly it went from humid and hot to pleasant and cool and at night you almost want to pull the blankets over your shoulders. Aruba has been a very fun stop with many wonderful meals in the many good restaurants. The best though was with Steve and Ann on Fine Line and Bill and Roxanne on Bamboo to the Brazilian Restaurant “Amazonia”. This restaurant is a must and you’ll leave not just pounds heavier and so full you want to roll home but with an experience that you will never forget. First they give you instructions on how the dinner works then you go to the huge salad buffet and you go ohmygosh if I try everything I will not have room for the main course and so you just pick out the very best: grilles asparagus, marinated Portobello mushroom and artichokes, colossal olives, sushi, the best ever sun dried tomatoes, delicate pumpkin soup, Brazilian black beans, roasted peppers and on and on. After you’re done with the appetizer, yeah right sounds like a full meal already, you turn that wood plug sitting on the table over from red to green and in less than a minute 6,7,8,9 or even more guys show up with huge swords filled with meats from chicken legs, wings, bacon wrapped breasts (chicken breasts that is), to fillet of pork, leg of lamb, huge hunks of sirloins and rib eye, fillet mignon, sausages and grilled pineapple and each cuts a good junk off the sword onto your plate. The plate was filled with all these wonderful pieces of meat we did not know where to start. 

 Wow what a feast and not just that during our affaire with all the yummy meats all the waiters and probably cooks were all in the main dining room area playing all kind of instruments from drums to who knows what and singing some Portuguese songs it was awesome. When we were done with the huge plate full of meet we were ready to pop but wanted to test the green and red plug and turned it again so that the green was showing and swoop the boys were back with more meat. We of course felt bad now that we had called them over for nothing and oh well just had to have a few more slivers of this or that, yeah write on feeling bad. Then some of us (the smallest ones) still had room for desert!!! We literally rolled out of the restaurant and to the bus stop. They should weigh you before you eat then again after and charge by the pound. What an incredible experience and we swore we would not eat for at least 3 days. Next day’s lunch some of us were spotted at Taco Bell!!!!

Then after a long 8 months we received an email from Wind Shear that they arrived in Bonaire and wanted to know where we were. Only 3 days later they dropped anchor next to us. It sure was great to see Rob, Debie and Captain Jack again and from here on we’re sharing our next adventure of sailing along the coast to Colombia, yeah, we’ll have fun.

Together with Fine Line we rented a car to do some serious provisioning and oh boy did we provision. We hit every store there is it seems twice. Anne and I had to go back to the kewl Christmas store next to Price Smart and both bought a cute 1 ½ foot plastic Christmas tree plus some ornaments. Mine is all nicely decorated and hanging upside down in the cockpit and looks just wonderful. 

  

After two long days of nothing but shopping we decided we deserved to go out for dinner and both Anne and Manuela wanted to visit the famous Charlie Bar. That was the day Wind Shear arrived so we squeezed 6 bodies into the car. Like a sardine can on wheels we drove south and found Charlie’s like we owned it. Truly it is a fun looking bar which takes you back many years in our youth when hanging around those fun bars with all kinds of junk and nick nacks hanging from the ceiling. 

  

 Each couple ordered the special of one pound peel and eat shrimp, which disappointedly was 5 shrimp on a plate = 1 lbs?? I don’t think so. We had a wonderful time but we all agreed it is a total tourist trap and a rip off and very expensive. We did meet a fun fellow though, he brought a chair over to us and sat on it cowboy stile lifted his cowboy hat and introduce himself as “Boa Bob”. We had no idea that Aruba has a huge Boa problem as in those long slinky huge snakes which can swallow humans. Yep that kind, he offered to cook up some Boa for us next week.

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Our membrane we ordered for our water maker arrive the very next day, amazing fast, but then Customs kept it for 5 days before releasing it to us. Wind Shear had to order a new tuner for their SSB which they did while still in Bonaire but had it shipped to Aruba and this one arrived one day after we finally had our membrane out of the Custom custody.

We all were on a countdown to leave Aruba for Colombia and all agreed that the weather looked perfect for Friday. Two nights before that Friday we woke up to a swell heading into the anchorage rolling us now and then sideways. By 7 in the morning the roll was getting uncomfortable as the swell grew bigger and bigger and when some started to curl and break about a boat length behind us we re-anchored a bit further out. 30 minutes later huge 6 foot swell came rolling into the anchorage and within minutes you saw one boat after another pull anchor and leave for the south anchorage which is very protected behind the reef and mangroves (normally you can not anchor but in bad weather it is OK. Even all the tourist boats came in). I think we were one of the fastest out of there. Later on that day we took the dinghy into town and had to cross this anchorage again and couldn’t believe the size of the swells and the pipelines outside the reef, a surfer would have died to be here for that. As we went into reverse to set the hook a loud knocking was echoing through the hull, not good. We did have reverse but the sound, Sid found out that the shaft came out again by a 1/4 inch. Again the shaft zinc saved the shaft but was rubbing on the strut in reverse Sid went back to work this time it is fixed (hope hope).

Our view of the airport is really kewl now as we are halfway along the run way and really get an incredible view of takeoff and landings, awesome!!!

The heavy west swell lasted for two days and was still unsettled on Thursday night. That morning when we heard the weather report Wind Shear and Paradise backed out on leaving on Friday, there is no way we would go out in 20/25 knots of wind with 7 to 9 foot seas on the beam with a 7sec interval, and so we postponed our departure for Sunday. 

 

And with all this we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful and Happy New Year!

 PS: we don't know yet how long it will take us to sail to Colombia, most legs will be all day trips and so I'm not sure if I will post anything for especially the next two days, but but I will post our position on http://www.aprs.net/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EZH