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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Hop & Jaunt’s Top Ten of 2009

Happy New Years from the Crew at Hop & Jaunt Travelouges!  We’re excited about the new adventures and travels that lay ahead in 2010.  But before we jaunt into the last year of the decade, lets hop back and take a look at some of our favorite experiences from the past year.   Its Hop & Jaunt’s Top Ten Favorite Adventures of 2009.

10.)  Beach Bumming at Roger’s Bar on Hog Island, Grenada

Roger's Beach Bar - Hog Island, Grenada

Roger’s Bar on Hog Island was our first Caribbean experience after joining Alyson’s parents on Quercus.  Roger’s ramshackle beach shack not only had the appearance of being thrown together with driftwood, bamboo and palm leaves, but it literally was put together with nothing more than driftwood, bamboo and palm leaves.  Many afternoon ’sundowners’ turned into late night ‘howl at the moon’ sessions underneath the glow of the single 12 Volt powered light bulb.  Live reggae music, sand between your toes and always a cold beer set the perfect mood for mingling and socializing with the  locals and sailors from around the world.  To read more click here.

9.)  Baby Sitting a Whale in Curacao

Giving baby Sully a tummy rub.

While boat sitting in Curacao we decided to try a little baby sitting as well.  We volunteered to watch after a 10 foot baby pilot whale that was being nursed back to health.  Sully the pilot whale was beached by his family after becoming too ill to keep up with the rest of his pod.  Efforts by local marine biologist and volunteers helped to restore the baby whale back to full health.  We spent a few nights lying by Sully’s pen keeping him company as he vied for our attention by requesting several belly rubs.  It was an experience we will always remember.  Unfortunately efforts to integrate Sully back into the wild have failed, and there are talks that he will be moved to a tank in Sea World, San Diego.  For more click here.

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Wrapping Up Chapter One

We have now been in Curacao for over three months and the time has come to move on. The situation with us, however, is very different now than it was when we entered the island. My parents, Michael and Donna, have decided to return to the States where they will pursue a whole new adventure and life on the mainland. The reason we are even in Curacao right now is due to their one comment over ten months ago. “If you are looking at having an adventure or going off sailing, why don’t you come with us for a while and see if you really like this life style.” The rest, as they say, is history. We sailed and lived aboard their 36’ steel sailboat, Quercus, for over five months and have sailed across the Caribbean together. John and I not only had a blast but we were able to learn a lot in a short time that other wise would have taken us years and far more painful mistakes to get. Thank you Mom and Dad. P.S. My Mom is a photographer and she took some amazing photos from our trip and also from around the Caribbean, go check out her site at djkphotos.

My parents left roughly a month ago and since then John and I have been onboard alone. Quercus has been sold to a nice young Australian couple. They could not get to the boat for a month and so we agreed to watch over her and take care of her while we lived here. It has worked out great, not only did we have a nice safe place to stay but we got to truly experience what living on a boat on your own is like. We were expecting this period to be rather quiet and maybe we would even get a lot of personal projects done, such as updating this blog more! But as it turned out this month has been the busiest we’ve had in some time. We started our design “business” and have bartered free windsurfing lessons for some graphic design work. (p.s. From now on just click on photos in blog to view larger or for slideshow!)

Curacao Windsurf Diploma

I also designed a website for an amazing luxury yacht, named Astahaya. If you ever want to ACTUALLY sip on a cocktail while watching the sunset in paradise on a boat this is the way to do it. John worked on setting up and teaching a couple of close friends how to use and manage a blog. When we were not doing “office” work we (and I mean mostly John) also stumbled upon a thriving business, cleaning bottoms….boat bottoms that is. The water in Spanish Waters is like a warm lake, it is not the prettiest waters in the world. In these warm waters thing grow incredibly fast. A sailboat, in order to operate efficiently, needs to have a clean hull and prop. While we had no scuba gear, during this trip we have discovered that John is a good free-diver. So off he went diving under boats with nothing but a mask and a scraper.

One of the most pleasant aspects of these past months in Curacao is that we have met a ton of amazing people and have become close friends with many. Due to the people we have met we have also been able to take part in and enjoy a lot of new experiences. Here’s a short re-cap of the past few weeks.

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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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Designers of Curacao

Island Tour of Curacao

 

The Fort atvSpanish Water

Hello, Hop&Jaunt fans! As you dedicated readers are well aware, Alyson and I are currently in Curacao (pronounced Curacao). Though we have been here for quite some time, we have been extremely busy. Over the past few weeks, we have had few spare dates available on our social calendar. Our growing network of friends and acquaintances have kept us well entertained and occupied. This has left us with plenty more stories to tell, but unfortunately less and less time to write to you. But to quote Steve Martin…”Hey! What do you think I do? Write letters all day?”

Being anchored in Curacao for so long has definitely been great! If you saw the photos from our last blog post, you can see that the scenery here is very much different from our excursions through Venezuela’s outlying islands. Big colorful buildings, outdoor cafes, and hundreds of restaurants and shops make living here long term much more convenient. Although, without a car of our own, maneuvering about the island requires long periods of waiting at various bus stops. And while we haven’t had any major Jaunts in a while, Hopping from bus to bus has helped keep us true to our name.

As we’ve probably written before, the boat is anchored in a protected little bay known as Spanish Waters. It is located on the southwest side of the island. Basically, it is very much like a large salt water lake with only one narrow channel that leads out to the sea. Large, rocky hills covered with green shrubbery and cactus surround the bay on all sides, and of course interspersed along the landscape sit several water front homes. The anchorages here have been filling up steadily over the past few weeks with transiting sailboats and motor trawlers. Sailors on their voyages west to Central America stop here to wait out the hurricane season and look for decent weather windows before continuing on to Aruba, Columbia or Panama. Naturally, this is our reason for remaining here, as well.

Being in this holding pattern has its benefits. We’ve been able to see much more of the island and meet more of the people; however, with Spanish Waters being remotely located on the southwestern side it can sometimes be difficult to maneuver about. Most businesses, restaurants, bars, cafes, theaters, and public services are located in downtown Wilemstad, which is about a 30 minute bus ride away. Other attractions, beaches and points of interest can be spread across the island and tucked away in hard to reach places. To visit just one beach or plantation house in the north by bus could literally be an all day event. Fortunately for us…we have the time…and friends with cars.
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Windsurfing In Curacao

Island Surf

Guess what we did Tuesday morning? We went windsurfing! There is a little windsurf shop on the water here in Spanish Waters and for the past few months we have been sitting on our cockpit watching them zoom by. As you may or may not know already, John and I have started in earnest our graphic design business. While in Curacao we have had time to think about what direction we wanted to head, and being our own boss while doing what we loved seemed an unbeatable option. While on this course we got in contact with Hilde, the manager of Windsurf Curacao, and ended up trading design for lessons.

Windsurf Curacao

With the design heading for the printers we arranged for a lesson at 10am this morning. The shop was just opening up when we pulled onto the beach with our dingy. Windsurf Curacao is situated on the western coast of Spanish Waters. It had a definite surf-islandly atmosphere with driftwood benches and chairs, surfboards propped up by the water, and the obvious fact that is was indeed a surf spot on the islands.

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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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