Night time visitors

We have occasionally had bats fly around the cockpit and in the early evening they can be seen catching insect in the darkening sky. There are many bats around here and the fruit  bat is always out to find an easy meal. (There’s also the vampire bat, but that is found on the mainland of South America. They can be a problem as they are known to carry rabies.) Now bats are cute little fellows and sadly dying out in many parts of the world. Here they seem happy and brave enough to search through the boat for food. Our fruit is store in a container to keep them out, but last night we left a banana in the galley. With the hatch closed and netting on the open ports it is a mystery how on earth it got in, but when I got up to close ports at 4am because of a rainstorm there it was cruising around the boat. After chasing it to the front cabin we managed to get some photos of it.

 

Ongoing friendships

We make many friends and a lot of the time you never expect to see them again unless they go the same way as you and your paths cross. We first met Paul up the Guardiana River at Alcoutim on the border of
Spain

and Portugal almost 18 months ago. When we arrived in Spaanse Water we thought we recognised his boat anchored about 50m away. Sandy remembered the name and with the aid of binoculars we saw that she was Monica. When Paul was in his cockpit, we called to him (This only confused him more us knowing his name and him not able to recall where he had seen us and our boat).


Well we have spent some good times together since sharing in his adventures and company. Paul sails single handed on his 28ft long yacht and has travelled from Portugal to the Canaries, explored the African coast, continued onto Brazil, around the top of South America through some the more dangerous waters of Venezuela and on to here.

Today we said goodbye again as he headed on west to haul out his boat to paint the bottom. From here he plans to head to Cuba and eventually over the Atlantic again to the UK or there about, but still the lure of the Guardiana lingers and should we return to Portugal someday- who knows -we may meet up the river again.

Old and Colourful

On the bus route into town we pass many of these small houses. According to one of the locals they were houses built by the slaves when they were released.Curacao was one of the major slave markets and the Dutch were the last to oulaw slavery as late as 1863.

Yole racing in Le Marin; Martinique

 Well sitting thinking of all the yachts that visit the Caribbean one tends to overlook what boats have been built here and sailed around the islands. The Scottish apparently were involved with the boating industry ... if you can call it that... on some of the islands and I guess who ever else arrived here would soon have felt the need for a boat, either as transport or for fishing.

 

 

These boats are brightly coloured and seen on many of the beaches usually with a pile of nets nearby. In many of the islands we saw the local folk out sailing or fishing in these delightful boats.

The best place we came across the more serious racing was in Le Marin in Martinique.

Yole racing around the islands comes to a head with the main regatta where pride is everything and a colourful boat the rest. The boat has lovely lines with a deep bow. The rudder is a large sweep/paddle at the back with up to three guys ready to row the boat around or keep it on course.

 The crew hang out on poles the get moved from side to side.... talk about hard work. The masts as the next photo shows is cut out of the forest and trimmed and joined up for the occasion.

The people arrive on the shore and the bands are playing as the crews for each team ready the boat.

The start is off the beach and quite spectacular.

Capsizing is not an option as the boat fills to the gunnels and the crew all get on the rescue boat and leave a few on board to bail out the boat. This then gets towed backwards to the shore as the bow is too deep and would not steer well going the other way around. In the end the winner’s are hero’s and the losers will have to wait another year to make amends.

The floating Market... Curacao

The floating market is where the Venezuela boats tie up to sell their produce that they bring across. It’s 26 miles from here to mainland Venezuela and these boats cross over then stay here until their fruit is sold. It did seem as though some boats were a little more permanent and supplied by a second boat. The council have built stalls along the front where they can pack their fruit and veg with the boat tied up just behind it. As their stuff has not been refrigerated and of good quality we prefer to buy fruit and veg here when we can, as the supermarkets refrigerate theirs and it goes off very quickly.