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.

Willemstad... Curacao

Curacao is the largest of the islands in the Netherlands Antilles and lies off the coast of Venezuela between Aruba and Bonaire. The national bird is the Oriole

We anchored in Spaanse water which is a large natural harbour with only a small channel entering the sea. The plus side of this is that we do not role like we did in Bonaire and it is very protected. The down side to such a harbour is that it does not flush as the tide is only 300mm and as a result we don’t swim or enter that water as it is not clean. It is very fresh at the moment due to all the heavy rainfall and this added with all the nutrients in the water is a haven for all those nasties that wish to grow on the bottom of the boat. In Bonaire the water was so clean we could easily see the bottom in ten meters and when we left gave the bottom of the boat a wipe down with a sponge. After one week here we can see the growth already.

We took a bus into Willemstad the capital, where the main shipping harbour is. The entrance between the port and sea forms a lovely waterfront.

 The entrance was defended through the ages and the forts at the entrance thatvwere expanded to accommodate



the expanding town. Today they have been modernised and contain parliament, hotels and shops. Along the front you find some beautiful old buildings

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that really show the Dutch architecture. These building are absolutely beautiful with their gables and their stucco artwork.




 Many of the old building that had been neglected over time are now being restored to their former beauty and the whole down town area has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are of course some old survivors that just go on till they too get their facelift. But they do have character


To cross the river you can walk across the Queen Emma Bridge. Built in 1888 it is the world’s oldest floating bridge and also the world’s longest swinging bridge. It hinges on the one side and swings open when there is shipping traffic, which takes around two minutes.

 Just a little further up from the entrance is a newer bridge that has been built to take traffic across the canal that is 57meters tall to allow large tankers through that take crude oil to the refinery high up in the harbour.
The harbour itself is the seventh largest in the world. It is a pity though that there seems to be a lot of oil spilt in the harbour and all the sides are coated with a gooey layer as well as any of the boats that are in there.

Guess what time we were in town? Yes it was very accurate! 

New Year

Well its a new year and the rain is falling and the wind is blowing... pretty much as expected according to the grib files. Well last night was something else. Leading up to midnight the explosions boomed on and the colours fell from the sky. Noisy and beautiful. Now there seems to be no restrictions on fireworks here, so the more money you spend the more you can light up the sky. Well we have seen in a few new years with firework displays but nothing absolutely nothing coulds compare with midnight here.... The sky erupted. You had to talk very loudly to someone next to you. Being in the middle of Spaanse Waters we had a good view. We were surrounded by some of the most spectacular displays we have ever seen. 360 Degrees of glowing sky. It went on for ages. For the first 30 min it was truly a jaw dropping expierence. At 1am it had toned down a little ...just a little and by 1.30 we finally gave up to go sleep. At four the rain arrived and the last of the die hards fell silent so we could have a quiet lie in. Hope that you all had a good time too.

Bonaire to Curacao

Well we left Bonaire at about 08:15 on Thursday after a night of rolling around the bunk as there was a fair amount of swell rolling into the bay. The wind was 15 kn in the lee of the island and as we got further away it picked up to 25 kn from the E - NE and as we were headed west we had a great romp accross. The passage was a total of 37nm which we covered in under six hours. We were running goose winged at 6.5-8 knots and surfing down the waves at 9+ knots. What a great sail.. Midway we came accross some flamingoes headed for Bonaire. The beautiful pinky orange against the deep blue waves was stunning. Our camera was not on deck and so we just sat and enjoyed the sight. We could  not troll a lure as after 6 - 7 knots there is not too much around with the speed to catch the lure. Wahoo with their great speed would get it, but at that speed and ours plus their 20 - 30 kg weight we would just loose our gear.
Spanish Waters is a lovely natural harbour that affords one a very protected anchourage. The entrance however is very narrow and winds all the way in but is very pretty. Once we were anchored the couple on the dutch boat Zeezot came over and offered us a ride into Willemstat to clear Customs and Immigration. What a lovely couple... we keep meeting all these wonderful people out here cruising. Juust passed them was a little yacht that seemed familiar. We got out the binoculars to see that it was the yacht Monica that we had met with up the Guadiana river (on the border of Spain and Portugal) at Alcoutim. She is if I remember only 28 feet and Paul her owner sailed down the coast of Africa then crossed over the Atlantic to Brazil and has slowly headed along the coast to here.We will have a lot of catching up to do.