Christmas in Curaçao, New Year in Aruba.

 Wednesday 11^th January, Banedup Island, Holland Keys, Comarca de Guna Yala, Panama.

Having been in the Dutch Caribbean since arriving in Statia last May (Statia-Sint Maarten-Curaçao-Aruba) Gráinne has finally escaped to Panama only to find herself anchored at the Holland Keys! Even though we're still technically in the Caribbean we have clearly arrived in Central America. After months of busy civilisation we're in a quiet anchorage among barely inhabited islands (a handful of local families, or maybe just one big family, who are running a couple of extremely low-key tourist businesses) with only the sound of the surf breaking on the reef and a couple of unusual bird-calls to break the peaceful silence. The Comarca de Guna Yala is an autonomously governed region of Panama belonging to the Guna Indian people who maintain an insular and fairly traditional lifestyle despite their forays into the world of tourism.

But more of that later, first let's continue the updating. Last time on Karl and Kara Go Sailing we had just arrived back in Curaçao and were working up the courage to visit Gráinne for the first time in nearly six months. We picked up our hire car, drove to the boat yard and......there she was, all safe and sound and waiting patiently for us. A bit dusty, a bit stale but no furry friends or other nasty surprises. And so we set to work.

Karl gets to work exfoliating Gráinne's bum.

The biggest project was installing the new radar. This was also the project that most made Karl feel like a seven year old boy on Christmas morning. There was mast-climbing involved as a bonus. We had to pull the old wiring down through the mast, drop the old radar down, haul the new radar up and then run the new wiring through the mast. So Karl was stationed at the top of the mast enjoying the view and the breeze and I was stationed, sweating, in the bilge. We had needed a new plate to adapt the new radar to the old radar mounting. Back in June Karl did some measurements, created his first technical drawing since College (quite proud of it too) and sent it to his brother-in-law in Sydney who made up a plate that we collected on our way through and that thankfully didn't set off any airport alarms while nestled suspiciously in my rucksack. And it fitted perfectly! Thanks Michael. And at the end of the day the new radar worked! Yay. We were exceedingly pleased with ourselves.

Me in the bilge.

Karl watches me preparing to haul up the new radar.

It's up!

Radar by Karl.

And it works!!!

Other than that there was the usual list of cleaning, sewing, putting the headsail back up, antifouling, stainless shining, planning the trip for the year ahead and locating the best supermarket for a big stock-up. We stayed in a hostel in town because poor Gráinne was just not habitable while we were working and it was one of those stays that just kept getting extended and extended a couple of days at a time. My hero moment (Karl's comes later) was after failing miserably on multiple occasions (including bringing one back from Australia) to buy the correct prop for our outboard and having exhausted the care factor of the local Mercury dealer (who didn't seem surprised that the prop he ordered for us back in June hadn't arrived yet) I just randomly noticed a Tohatsu prop sitting on a top shelf at the chandlery and commented to Karl that that should fit our engine. And it did. Bonus points to me.

The disaster zone that is Gráinne while being worked on.

Spousal abuse - Karl upgrades me from the world's tiniest paintbrush to the world's second tiniest paintbrush to paint Gráinne's substantial bum.

But in the middle of all the work we did take some time to watch the important World Cup matches and to indulge in some Christmas stuff (having finally conceded that we would still be in Curaçao for Christmas). As staunch Argentina supporters I think that final took more out of us than the whole sailing trip so far.

Gráinne all Christmassed up.

The after party of the annual Santa Run. Those Santas know how to party.

Taking in the World Cup.

Christmas Eve lunch at the beach.

Christmas Day Karl pose.

Then just after Christmas we were finally ready to set sail again all the way to Aruba, a trip of one whole night. 

Heading out of Willemstad.

An evening departure from Curaçao.

Aruba is also Dutch. It became very wealthy off the back of an oil refinery in the 1930s and after that closed it turned its attention very seriously to attracting as many tourists as possible and it does seem to have succeeded. The northwest of the island has loads of huge resorts and there were two or three cruise ships (that's up to 10,000 people!) in town every day while we were there. 

Lighthouse tourism.

Beach tourism.

Cruise ship tourism.

What the rest of Aruba looks like - cactus, cactus and more cactus.

Charlie's Bar down in the south of the island beside the old oil refinery. An Aruba institution it first became popular with military servicemen stationed to protect the refinery during WWII.

Tourists aside it was a very pleasant place to spend a few days although the town does feel like a giant cruise ship terminal/shopping centre. We had a lovely (quiet) local beach, a nice bike path for morning runs and a flat anchorage. What more could you want. And Aruba approaches the celebration of New Years with a vengence. The theme appears to be making maximum possible noise with a combination of firecrackers and engines with inadequate mufflers.

New Year Aruba style. Lots of suped up bikes and noisy firecrackers (the red debris on the road is the remains of fired crackers) going day and night for several days. This was still early on New Year's Eve.

The supermarket meet freezer on New Years Eve afternoon.

A nice quiet New Year's Day on our local beach.

I don't know what it is with Dutch islands and their runways but we had a great view from Gráinne's deck of the planes on approach to Aruba airport. It made Karl very happy.

And then finally, finally, finally we were ready to properly start the rest of our trip. Our first real sail since arriving in Curaçao last June: Aruba to Panama. Things didn't start well. Coming into the customs dock to check out our midshipline (the only way we have of docking unassisted) snapped (@#$%!!!) leaving us in a precarious position between the dock and a nasty shoal. Two lovely customs officers came to the rescue and took our lines, phew. Another thing to worry about every time we come into dock. 

At the evil customs dock.

One failed midshipline.

The rest of the trip was a mixed bag as always, lovely to be back at sea but of course stuff broke. First up the shackle for the lines that control the spinnaker pole broke again, just like on the way from Sint Maarten to Curaçao. On the bright side it broke in daylight on a day when we were going to have to gybe (and move the pole from one side to the other) anyway so it was barely any extra work. Then Rover (our self-steering) broke! Noooooo!! Not Rover!!! A bolt sheared and bits that should have been held together came apart. But three-legged Rover, God bless him, kept on going anyway. Still, had to be fixed. Karl's hero moment. He put on his climbing harness, I tied him to the boat as well as keeping a firm grip on his harness and he leant out the back to lash together the bits that should be together. Again, luckily, this happened on a day when the seas were relatively flatter so we didn't need to wait for our opportunity. And the rest of the trip was great. A nice downwind sail, mostly 25 knots of wind and a favourable current had us flying along at an average of 7 knots (with occasional surfing up to 10 knots!). The swell was steep and got up to a solid 4m on some days - great for downwind but would not like to be heading into it. We had beautiful moonlit nights and a particularly pretty moonrise one evening while we were eating dinner in the cockpit. We were at sea for January 6^th (last day of Christmas/Nollaig na mBan/Women's Christmas) so had to make do with wolfing down the last of the Christmas cake instead of having the full roast. And then the Universe decided to be kind and, contrary to the forecast, we had wind all the way here on the last night arriving under sail at the perfect time in the morning to be able to see and dodge the coral reefs around the islands.

Back to enjoying sunsets at sea.

A concentrated attack on Gráinne by shipping during one of my night watches.

Anchored off Banedup island in the Holland Keys.

And now we'll do a little exploring of Panama before heading through the canal.