Sailing the Southern Caribbean

Today’s post is a little different. Instead of me droning on for an hour, for you slow readers, or twenty-eight seconds, for those realizing they got the wrong site, I would like to present you with a cinematic master piece. A MONTAGE!!!

But before you cringe let me also say that it has music, and dolphins jumping, and oceans, and an amazing car race with scantly clad women….OK the last part is a lie.

It’s a video re-cap of our sailing journey across the southern Caribbean from Grenada to Colombia, over 1000 nautical miles, 7 months, and 2 sailboats later.

So go pop some pop-corn, sit back and relax!

Sailing The Southern Caribbean from Hop & Jaunt on Vimeo.

It’s also on YouTube if you have a preference.

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Baby Sitting A Whale

John giving Sully a belly rub

Today is John’s 27th birthday.  We celebrated by getting up at 3 am to go babysit the rescued pilot whale baby.  Sully is a 3 year old baby boy whale that was found a few months ago beached on a popular beach resort.  When they found him he was very sick and weak, but now after a group of volunteers have been nursing him back to health he is a friendly 10ft long giant baby.  They made a sort of pen for him in the water.  Every morning at 6am George, an American dolphin trainer from the local dolphin academy, comes by on his boat and takes Sully “for a walk”.  Sully follows the little boat going full speed out for three miles and back for his daily excercise.  Sully can choose to swim free any time during these excursions but always follows George back for his belly scrub and hearty breakfast.  The local group is working with sailors and the Coast Guard to locate a pod of whales that Sully may join.

Sully the baby pilot whale

Pilot Whales are like giant dolphins, very social and incredibly intelligent.  But they need their groups in order to hunt, which is why Sully is waiting for a pod to swim along with.
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Willemstad – A Picturesque Tour

We’ve been in Curacao for over a month now. I know we should have posted a new blog by now but we have been super busy between exploring this island and the normal boat work to keep afloat! In these past few weeks we’ve also been able to meet so many new and interesting people that we may actually have a “social” life going for the first time in 5 months. There have been some major changes that have been taking place to our trip itinerary (we’ll go into that in detail later) and a minor set-back: I dropped our camera into the ocean! The plus side is that my Mom is a photographer, and while she went back to the States to visit my grandpa she left a Nokia D-70 onboard which we “borrowed” for the day. So sit back and enjoy our photo-tour of Willemstad, a world heritage site and capital of Curacao.

The Colorful Buildings Of Willemstad

Travelpod Image

Map of Willemstad

A brief history of Curacao and Willemstad. Willemstad was founded by the Dutch West India Company in the 17th century. By this time the indigenous people of the islands, the Arawak Amerindians had been exported as workers by the Spaniards who first discovered the island in the late 15th century. While Curacao did not have many of the natural resources that attracted early settlement, such as gold, it’s natural harbors would in turn allow the inhabitants an edge in maritime trading through the Caribbean and Americas. These martime activities not only included commerce but a healthy dose of piracy as well! Sadly what made the island the most prosperous was that it became the center of the slave trade of the Atlantic. By 1863 the Dutch abolished slavery and to this day there are plantation homes and slave huts all over the island.

Now that we got our little history lesson let’s get back to our tour!
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Sailing into Curacao

July 9th

Spanish Waters

As “Land Ahoy!” echoed through Quercus, our sailboat, a flock of neon pink flamingos flew past us headed back to Bonaire. We had sailed out of Kralendjik, Bonaire, earlier that morning and after another quick down wind sail we were rounding the southern tip of Curacao. The wind was 20-25kts with the waves around 5-7ft and we were under full genoa and main. Our destination in Curacao was Spanish Waters, one of the most protected natural harbors in the Caribbean. A perfect hurricane hole outside of the main hurricane paths. Curacao actually has two such natural harbors, and ever since Columbus’s scout “discovered” Curacao there has been a political tug-of-war between the Spanish and Dutch over the island. In the 1800s Dutch finally gained total control and it has remained a Dutch island for the past two hundred years.

The entrance to Spanish Waters is a very narrow channel no wider than 50-75ft at the most. It is extremely difficult to be certain exactly where the entrance is just by eyeballing it from the rolling ocean for the first time. As we neared the marked spot on our charts Mom and I went forward as look outs and John and Captain manned the helm and sails. Just as we were approaching this critical point in our trip I spied a Coast Guard cutter steaming full speed at us from our rear. While we had to contend with a stiff breeze and choppy seas this ship’s wake was twice as large as the waves in the ocean, some 9-11ft! As it continued toward us at that reckless speed I could see that it would cause wet and rough trouble for us.
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