Although Mal has sailed all his life, it has been in the bays of Victoria, the Whitsundays, and along the Queensland Coast. My sailing experience is fairly limited. Most of our sailing trips in the Caribbean have been short distances, the longest of which was a two day sail, so a continuous sail of three days was a first for both of us. It was an introduction to the very long distances that we will cover between islands when sailing the Pacific. I did not enjoy it and am very unsure of how I will cope sailing the Pacific. Mal coped, as he does, but he was very weary when we arrived in Aruba at 10am on the fourth day of leaving St Thomas.
When arriving at all of the islands during our Caribbean experience, we have always had a sailing guide, which gave us information on the entry procedures at each port. However, we did not have a sailing guide for the group of islands known as the ABC’s, (Aruba is the A). We assumed that entry procedures would be the same as most other islands. We were wrong! Just as we were about to anchor, a customs vessel approached us asking permission to come aboard. Of course the answer is “Yes”, one would hardly say “No”!! Two young officers wearing all their gear including guns and large dirty black boots boarded our lovely white fibreglass catamaran. They sat down in the cockpit and asked for our papers and passports and also requested permission to inspect our vessel which was a quick walk through the salon and both hulls. We were advised that the entry procedure is to call the harbour on the VHF requesting permission to enter and anchor, and asking for instructions. We didn’t do this. We were instructed to call the harbour on VHF in their presence, at which time the Harbour authorities instructed us to motor further down the coast to another port, tie up at the jetty and proceed to the Customs and Immigration Offices to apply for entry. Another officer boarded Hasta La Vista. We proceeded to the other port with three officers aboard and the customs vessel, with the remaining two officers, following us. On tying up at the jetty on arrival, we were handed over to a customs officer and escorted to their office block. Quite a daunting experience especially when we were both very tired.
Needless to say that on finally anchoring at approximately 2pm that afternoon, we sat back exhausted and looked in horror at the black footprints all over our rear decks and cockpit area. The jetty, where we tied up, had large dirty black tyres as fenders, so not only were our decks marked but so was the port hull where the tyres had left their imprint. Lunch and a deck and cockpit scrub was the order of the afternoon, and then an early night for both of us.
Aruba is one of a group of three islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaḉao (known as the A, B C’s as previously mentioned) located in the Caribbean Chain close to the top of South America. Aruba is only 24km from Venezuela. Colonised first by the Spanish, then by the Dutch and populated by thousands of African slaves, the ABC’s have blended those cultures and picked up influences of many more. Each of the islands are very different. Aruba offers great beaches and resorts. Bonaire has pristine reefs for divers and Curaḉao mixes rich history with local urban culture and rural escapes. Today, tourists lured by the warm, dry weather and the deep blue water bring wealth to the islands.
We found Aruba to be very metropolitan, even more so than St Thomas and St Bart’s, previously described in our blog as being the islands which catered most for tourist shopping. Exclusive French and Dutch chain stores as well as expensive boutiques filled the many shopping malls in the small town of Oranjestad, the capital of Aruba, catering for visitors from cruise ships docking for the day or the many tourists holidaying on the island. For us, each day of our stay was spent on shore, the highlight of which was enjoying a restaurant lunch and soaking up the atmosphere.
Oranjestad, the capital of ArubaAfter spending four full days discovering the delights of Aruba and enjoying being on land again, we hauled anchor on Sunday 11 April 2010, to sail to Cartegna, Columbia.
