Departure

Tomorrow’s the day, we’re finally off. We’re heading for Aruba. The past week has been a flurry of Facebook posts back and forth about when the various countries would open up. In the end we decided on Aruba. There we’re allowed to do our quarantine on our own boat, and the days we spend getting there count towards it. Provisions are arranged and everything is well organised. After that the boat goes on the hard. The marina has been emailing us over the last few days to keep us up to date on the options, and yesterday the long-awaited word came that the sea border would open today, 14 May.

Why not Curaçao? There were local people working hard to make things as easy as possible for sailors, but unfortunately the government wasn’t playing ball. It came down to a mandatory quarantine in a government-designated hotel at 125 euros per person per night, three meals included, mind you. After that you get put on a plane home. Until today it was completely unclear what would happen to the boat in the meantime, so nobody was keen. A lot of sailors also simply want to stay aboard during the hurricane season months. So despite all the efforts of Marc from the Curaçao marina and Victor from the OCC, we’re going to Aruba.

We’ve had a nice week here in the marina. Right from the start we were in touch with Truus and Klaas from the Eternity, whom we knew from the Facebook group. They quickly showed us the ropes. It turned out there was a Thai lady on a boat further along who, until yesterday, cooked two dishes every day. The menu was posted in the morning on a WhatsApp group, for example:

Hello everyone😊 don’t forget to place your order for tonight. Here’s a reminder of today’s menus.

Menu 1 : SATAY CHICKEN €7 Menu 2 : BEEF WITH FRESH BASIL€7 Dessert : Fruit tartlet €3 🧁

please order your meal before 3 pm

thank you!😇🇨🇷🌶

A few times we enjoyed a delicious meal delivered right to the boat. How’s that for luxury!

Truus and Klaas left for a resort just before we arrived, and have shipped their boat to IJmuiden on a freighter. Another Dutchman in the marina, Dick, we’d already spotted sailing in the distance along the way. When he came tearing past in his dinghy in Mustique, which isn’t allowed because of the turtles, he got a telling-off from Kees. So, somewhat sheepishly, I went up to him, apologised on Kees’s behalf and invited him over for dinner. What a fun evening we had. We finally made the effort to fire up the barbecue for lamb chops and satay with delicious Surinamese peanut sauce. Possibly drank a bit too much, but oh well.

On Monday 11 May the rules were relaxed a bit, so we could walk a little further. Yesterday we first walked to a big hypermarket 2 km from here, and in the afternoon I walked another 3 km into town and back. Lovely to be moving again. I did walk through a very poor neighbourhood, which didn’t always feel comfortable.

And so today, the green light from Aruba. Water tanks filled, provisions and above all two weeks’ worth of wine stocked up, cleared out, and tomorrow we leave. On to Aruba, about 520 nm, and we expect to arrive on Monday. You can of course follow us on our tracker again. When we’ll be able to fly home isn’t clear yet, but so much is changing so fast that we don’t expect that to take too long either.

See you soon!