Curacao

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Curacao, Netherland Antilles
July 28, 2005

We departed Bonaire for Klein, Curacao and spent a couple of days at the small island hiking and snorkeling before we arrived in Curacao on June 8 2005, and anchored in Spanish Waters Bay. There are about 50 other cruiser boats here. It is quite a large bay with a couple of small marinas. We have been enjoying the sights, the movie theater and the snorkeling, which is great.

Willemstad is the capitol and is only a 20 minute bus ride from our anchorage. It is a lovely city with many interesting museums, forts, shops and restaurants. The streets are lined with 18th century Dutch-Caribbean houses painted in pastel shades and topped with red tile roofs. There is a Venezulean floating market that sells fresh, and great tasting, fruit and veggies.

On Monday and Thursday the cruisers meet for happy hour at Sera Fundi marina and resturant to catch up and discuss our cruising plans. Many sailors leave their boats here and return home for a few months.The rainfall is sparce and the landscape has many cacti and aloe vera plants.Fran started water color art classes and is getting pretty good at it. On Tuesday mornings, she plays tennis. We enjoy going dowtown to see the latest movies.

In July, Polly and Steve, our good friends from Miami visited us. They had an interesting visit. They helped us prepare for Hurricane Emily. We set out a second anchor, took off the headsail, tied down everything that could fly and sat around waiting: - actually playing dice games and having our own hurricane party. "Her" track was further south then normal. We didn't know when she would turn north. Some boats tied up in the mangroves, others fled for the coast of Venezula 80 miles south. Finally, at mid-night, she past 100 miles north of us as a catagory 4. We should have got lots of wind, rain and wind reversals, but thankfully got only calm. The next day we undid all our prep-work. Besides hurricane preps, we took Polly and Steve downtown Willemstad ,as well as snorkeling. We really enjoyed having them aboard.

Presently, we are preparing for our departure. Once again waiting for a weather window with light wind and low seas to head east, which is the normal current and wind direction of the trades. We plan to go back to Los Roques before we return to Pto La Cruz, mainland Ve. There we will do some inland touring before heading north to St. John in the Virgin Islands in November.
We will keep you updated.

Be well, Fran and Dave
s/v Sorrento
Curacao, NA
PS to everyone, Pls. no forwards to this e-m add. only to taylorfran@hotmail.com, thanks!
New web-page www.prospectlearning.com/sorrento.html