Happy New Year to you All!

Well I guess that here in Curacao I must be one of the last ones of us to celebrate New Year!

At the moment it is still a balmy 28 degrees and we don't expect it to drop much over night. Not certain what we are doing this eveing, we are going to go over to the local bar here in Spanish Waters and then judge whether to go into Wilenstad for the New Year.

We had some rather sad news today, Triton who was one of our neighbours at the marina in Trinidad was attacked by pirates on their way to Grenada the day after we left. They were held hostage for 5 hours while everything was stripped off the boat, as far as we know they weren't hurt too much - but there for the grace of God..... They had been joined by their son from South Africa and were so looking forward to a cruise in the Grenadines, we just hope they are all safe and well now. We hope that we are now well away from the danger zones and our only worry is a visit from some well meaning DEA agents near the Colombia coast.

I have managed to add some photo's tonight - one is of an old fort just across from where we are anchored, and the other is the capital Willemstad about 5 miles away.

I am now going to 'glam' myself up for New Year - this means jumping off the back of the boat for a wash, trying to find something that isn't creased or stinking of bilges!

Happy New Year to Everyone - love and miss you!

Fireworks in the Toilet Department!

No not quite what you are thinking!

As we are having more work done on the engine (all new batteries) we are trying to conserve power until we can connect the wind generator again. So when you go to the heads (the loo to you land lubbers) you leave the light off. At the moment we have lots of bio phosphoressence in the water, so when you flush the loo you get thousands of sparkles in the toilet bowl. So when I want a little bit of excitement I go into the heads to flush the loo - little things etc! The other night we jumped off the back of the boat and came out covered in sparkles - pretty neat! Its even better when you've got dolphins in the water - its like silver torpedoes shooting ever where.

Totally Illegal - but who cares!

Today we did something that was sooo illegal! But hey it felt good!

We turned up at the place where we were told we could purchase the 'good stuff' - furtive glances were given as we entered the given place. A man sidled up to us and whispered 'Are you the ones who made contact this morning?' if so come with me I have what you want out back! Please take a seat while I show you a sample of what you want - if its good I will arrange to get you some - come back in 3 hours! Three hours later we returned - he had what we wanted! he slid it over the desk after we paid the lady out front - we made a sharp exit with our 'stash' in Nigel's rucksack. We now have it stowed safely aboard Honalee!

Now before my poor old Dad has a heart attack or Karen in Canada thinks Nigel has succumbed to the evil weed what we actually went to buy was highly illegal photocopied sea charts. We paid a visit to the Xerox building in town where we were told they could provide us with dodgy copies of Admiralty charts that normally cost around $50+ each - they did them for us for $5. Totally illegal - but it probably pays for their tea boat.

This quick trip into town took from 9am this morning until 5pm tonight - waiting for buses and for the man to photocopy the charts took up all our day - so nothing exciting to report I'm afraid.

Hopefully our trip to the supermarket and the laundry will be more exciting for you! See life on the high seas isn't all pirates, sun and sand - its scrubbing the decks - feeding the crew - and washing me undies in a bucket!

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas to you all!

Well this is a very different kind of Christmas! At midnight last night the sky was lit up by hundreds of fireworks to welcome in Christmas Day, this was the start of our Christmas 2009 in Curacao.

Santa managed to find his way to Honalee depositing pressies at the foot of our mast, so after a leisurely breakfast (ie we have nothing else to do - and I can't exactly fit a turkey in the oven onboard) we opened our presents. One of Nigel's pressies from Steph & Mike was a mosquito bite zapper - this little beauty delivers 13 kilo vaults to the bite ie a taser for midgie bites - it is supposed to stop you itching the bite. It does this alright by paralysing you for half an hour or so! this could be a good pirate reppelor! Nice one Steph!

We will be dining aboard this evening - I have coddled together a Christmas Dinner of kinds - a ready cooked chicken in lieu of a turkey - even got some stuffing! Getting the trifel to set is going to be a bit of a b*gger though! Please think of me as you tuck into your tin of Quality Street - no such luxury here - but we do have some M&M's onboard!

Today we are going to spend time on the beach snorkeling and swimming. Earlier today we treated ourselves by digging the charts for the Pacific out of Deep Six storage, just to remind ourselves why we were actually sitting here waiting for a weather window to Panama. Some dedicate sailors left this morning at 7 am as they had a window going Eastwards - dedicated or miserable?

I have tried to upload photos but I need power from our wind generator to keep the computer running, and to do that I need plenty of wind - usually not a problem on Christmas Day!

Anyhow I will leave you by wishing you all a Happy and Peaceful Christmas!

ROCK & ROLL AND CURACAO FOR CHRISTMAS

Well you will be glad to know that we finally arrived in Curacao safe and sound!

We had an amazing trip from Trinidad to Curacao, Honalee did us proud and got us here in record time. We left Trinidad north bound for the first night, bypassing Grenada and then swung west into pirate country around midnight on Saturday. The most Honalee has ever done in a day has been 120 miles coming across the Atlantic – we did 160 miles the first day and 170 the second. So yes we hammered it! The boat sails really well, and despite 25 knots of wind and 10-12ft swells she got us here safe and sound. It was all down wind sailing but the waves rocked and rolled us all the way here, no casualties and no one was sick. I even managed to cook (much to Nigel’s amazement I might add) a Spag Bol and Sausage and Mash, quite an achievement when the boat is bucking like a bronco.

We sailed through pirate country at night with no running lights as we really didn’t want to give our position away. Had a scary moment at around 3am when Nigel and I were on watch together, we could smell an engine running behind us but the wind was so loud we couldn’t hear where it was. Thankfully a merchant vessel lights suddenly appeared over the horizon – big sight of relief! Mind you they would have had a hell of a job getting onboard as we had 12ft swell and a cricket bat/ferry pistol at the ready!

Anyhow – here we are in Curacao! We sailed past Bonaire which looked mountainous lush and tropical, Curacao is flat and quite barren. It has a heavy Dutch influence, canals, architecture and currency (the gilder). We are anchored in Spanish Waters south of Williamstad the capital, I guess at one point it was a mangrove swamp visited by Galleons looking for water and buried treasure. Today it is inhabited by the ubber rich and famous with holiday homes around the shore and mega yachts tied up in very fancy marinas. We were a bit like Mary and Joseph – we got here and there was no place at the Inn – so we anchored with the rest of the ‘plebs’ in the harbour. The are yachts from all around the world who are our neighbours – at the moment we have Swiss and Swedish. Nigel thought he was being very brave the first hour we got here, we all desperately needed a wash, he stripped off and sat in the cockpit for a solar shower – very modest of him. Not our neighbours - they just strip off and dive naked into the harbour – just before we have our breakfast – wrinkly old Swedes - just what you need!

Today we spent 4 hours trying to get through immigration and customs – 4 American mega cruise liners were in – deep joy! Fighting our way through 7,000 Elmer J Fudds and their ‘interesting’ golf trousers. No wonder everyone wants to bomb the b*ggers, I could have quite happily have murdered a few of them myself. Gee honey! Look at that stone in the road – take a picture of it with me Irvin for the folks back home!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve – not quite sure what we are doing – but with 7,000 less visitors Williamstad sure will be a little quieter and the beer cheaper. I would like to go for a swim in the sea at some point – it’s an amazing turquoise and so warm. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas – I will be thinking of you. Hopefully I will be able to put some photo’s on with this update – I think you will all appreciate the ‘Snowflake’ sign on our neighbours yacht in Trinidad!

PS Sorry no pics - internet speed not fast enough here on the anchorage

Still Here - and its Still Hot!

Well the saga of the engine goes on! Everything else is good to go we just have to get this sorted. The engine is our source of power for everything that we will need for crossing the Pacific ie water, navigation and communication, so it is important that we get it fixed now rather than further down the line when we won’t have access to mechanics let alone spare parts.

Have I mentioned how hot it is recently? Thankfully we have shore power which is a God send so we have fans running constantly, we won’t have the luxury of this as we cross the equator, not unless the wind generator and solar panels can generate enough power for them to run. We are hoping to sail by the wind vane which will save on the power, once we get under way we are going to have a trial run.

I am eyeing up with envy the Americans here on their large catamarans, they’ve all got air conditioning, flat screen tv’s and all sit around in the evenings in their lounges with their chilled drinks on the coffee table! Most evenings we wander down to Sails Bar for supper and listen to the music, tonight I have stayed home and watched a DVD and sent the boys off by themselves. Work here is performed at a leisurely pace, during the day we do as little as possible with the major work late in the afternoon and early evening. Most mornings we are woken up by the birds who insist on sitting on our mosquito net – luckily none has pooped on us yet! We sleep with the hatch wide open looking up to the stars, the past few nights we have had Orion’s belt directly overhead, my old friend on watch The Plough is off to the left and no doubt will keep me company on my solo night watches.

I guess you must all be well into the swing of Christmas by now, it seems a million miles away here, we have Christmas decorations up at the marina and some of the boats are decorated with Christmas lights but with this heat it doesn’t feel like it some how.

I’ve been scrubbing the boat out from top to bottom, there’s been 4 guys onbard for the past year and it desperately needs a scrub. It gives me a chance to look in all the nooks and crannies, making space for food and any ‘souvenirs’ I buy along the way. Also if we get boarded by the DEA when we sail along the Colombian coast I know what is in all of the spaces. This is a real likelihood listening to our neighbours, one who had the Bejesus scared out of them when they were buzzed by the DEA helicopter in the middle of the night. Apparently they appear from nowhere and light you up like a Christmas tree, I’d rather that than the bad guys any day!

Well I’m off to study some charts, hopefully we will set sail fro Grenada by the end of the week and then on to Curacao. Last time I sailed in to Grenada it was cooking up a storm, thundering and lightening, it was the only time I have seen St Elmo’s Fire at the top of a mast. Let hope that this time it will be uneventful!

PS. Hope to put some photo’s on soon but the internet is so slow here that it would be nigh impossible to upload them.

Guess What? Its HOT!

Well - we are still waiting here in Trinidad for the engine to be fixed. today it was put back together and then the engineer bent one of the rods! Everyone shuts down on the 18th for Crimbo - so It looks like we may still be here then! This is not the place I want to spend Christmas!

Stored ship today! A very hot bus trip in to Port of Spain to fight our way round the Trinadian Christmas shoppers - not pleasant!

I am going to keep this short today as it is as hot as hades at the moment and I am wilting very fast - I'm going for a swim and then out for dinner. When it is cooler I will sit down and describe some of our adventures in the past few days. My fear of snakes is lessening as the days get hotter - 500 yards by path in 92 degrees or 100 yards by field. Hell - I'll be Steve Erwin soon!

Farewell My Dear Hairdryer!

Well we finally arrived in a very hot and humid Trinidad. The last time that I was here was just after 9/11 and to be honest in the past 8 years nothing has changed. We were hoping to have left for The ABC Islands (Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire) by now but we are having problems with the engine.

Anyhow – our home for the next few months is a yacht called H***** of Dartmouth, she is a 40 ft Scanmar and is Captained by *********** (Commodore *** as he likes to be called). Hopefully we will be sailing all the way back to New Zealand with him aboard Honalee.. We are presently tied up in Coral Cove marina in Chagauramas in the North of Trinidad just across from the Venezuelan coast. Across from us is the fishing dock so we have something to watch all day long, the pelicans keep us company as they beg for off cuts from the fishermen. I’d rather be here than over at the Crews Inn where I was previously, it’s full of ubber rich Americans all comparing the size of their rudders! I can’t complain - we have a plunge pool here, toilet blocks and also I have the added luxury of a hairdryer onboard at the moment! In a couple of days time I will bid it a fond farewell as I pack it away at the back of the cupboard until we get to another marina with shore power - and I don’t know when that is likely to be. A short haircut is looking good!

Today Ted and Nigel have been working hard on the wind vane steering – another thing that has been in pieces on the deck. After lots of swearing they finally got it back together – now we have to figure out how to use it! It will be a bonus when we are in the Pacific trying to conserve our power. Autohlem is great but is uses up power which we can ill afford to use if fuel is getting low.

I’m getting used to life onboard, we haven’t looked at a watch since we have been here, we eat when we are hungry and we know it is time to go to bed when the moon rises over the rain forest. Clothes washing is done in a bucket every morning and hung out to dry, when the wind comes up my big knickers come down - the boat moves side way! We have a laundry here but it is too hot to walk the 200 yards with a big bag! 92 degrees today!

Once we have got the engine fixed we are sailing North to Grenada and from there across to Curacao. We are hoping that this will take us out of the main pirate areas, of all the trip this is the part I am not looking forward to. We are not too sure yet where we will be spending Christmas, if we get held up more with the engine (I have ‘Fa*co’ on the floor beside me as I write - fixing the engine) then I think we will be in Curacao. If not we hope that it will be Cartagena or the San Blas Islands waiting for our passage date through the Panama Canal. I’m really forward to the San Blas – look them up on google - they’re amazing islands and the people are supposed to be very friendly. So Christmas day may be spent on the beach with a tin of Spam and tinned fruit! I have brought my Christmas stocking so I hope that Santa will find me! Think of me when you all sit down to turkey and Crimbo pud – I no doubt will be thinking of you all – especially about last year at Dee and Norman’s – No Harrods pud this year hey Norman? I wonder where it could possibly be?

Well I will love you and leave you for now – I’d like to say I’m going to sit on the poop deck and sun myself but I’d fry! So I will go ashore and sit under the pergola with the marina dog and cat – they know the coolest places – hey I only hang out with the best of folk!

The Man from Immigration - he say No!

Hi There!

A very brief update for you! Am sitting in Chagauramus in a hot and humid Trinidad at the moment - never ever thought that I would ever come back here again! Nothing has changed!

Well after a VERY long journey to get here (which had lots of hiccups - ie over booked flights etc) we finally got to immigration in Trindad - and the Man he say NO! long story short they had lost our Skippers fax to confirm we were crew. Any how we are here now - and trying to cope with the heat and jet lag.

I will update you more when I have internet time!