Curaçao Diaries
Date: 02.01.2023
Author: Nicolai
Position: Curacao
Nautical Position: 12°06,5 N 068°55,9 W
Etmal: 6218
Ship: Pelican of London
Dear family and friends,
today we arrived in Curacao, an island just a tiny little bit bigger than the ones we visited the past week close to Venezuela. Why do we actually want to go there? Because some water pump of ours is broken and the spare piece was brought by a new crew member of the Regina Maris. So the reason of going to Curaçao and meeting the Regina Maris was that 47 people on Pelican had to use two toilets. To clarify: The permanent/ professional crew consisting of 10 people and 37 other crew members are using two toilets. Lucky us, the linesman, mooring teams and bowman could do all their work right after breakfast. Even though you can find a scratch on the portside hull by the fore deck, I must agree they did their job in driving into port and securing the Pelican very well.
Ready for Shore-Leave
My first impression was the amazing architecture with its stunning, colourful houses everywhere. I was very much looking forward to getting to know the culture. I did notice I was not the only one since the clean-ship, tidying our cabins and packing all stuff was done in a shorter time than we have ever managed to do so we could get ashore as fast as possible. Well, that turned out as false thoughts. After having done everything we waited to get cleared in. Two hours of waiting done, some officers for immigration paid a visit in which we had to line up by crew number to get our passports checked. It was funny to hear how they pronounced some of our names.
After Lunch we got the O.K. for leaving our beloved Pelican. Full of joy we hurried into town and got to know some culture just like I wanted. The shore-leave was so much fun, I can clearly say I liked it a lot. My favourite moment was when we got some tourist-inhabitants-mix to sing happy birthday for Sophie all together. Again, a very happy birthday to you, Sophie!
Regina Friends
Back on the ship, where nothing is ever happening, Robert, our cook, had made us a delicious chili con carne, which we ate with pleasure. Spontaneously, some of our Regina friends came by and ate our food. It was a lot of fun. We talked about the Atlantic crossing and how theirs was just a bit shorter that the ours, the Mid-atlantic-ball and all such stuff and enjoyed the evening. We danced in the rain until socking wet, hung out in hammocks and showed our strength in arm wrestling. Many of our Regina friends took a shower on our ship because they didn’t have any water. Funnily, our water is empty now too. But no worries, we completely understand. The evening brought a lot of tiredness, so I finally went to bed at some late time.
Although we really want to get to Panama and start our Costa Rica time, the mood onboard is good. I mean why wouldn’t it? We are in the Caribbean, green islands all around, we found an acceptable priced supermarket and most important, it’s warm and sunny where we are.
Greetings from Curaçao to all our loved ones!
Personal greetings:
Theo: An alle zu Hause: Frohes neues Jahr und liebe Grüße!
Sophie: Grüße an Larissa, Laura und Anne. Hab‘ euch lieb ihr Süßen ❤️
Franzi: Ich vermiss die Infektionsgemeinde !!!
