We moved Living The Dream to the Renaissance Marina this morning (Thursday). They wanted Joel to pull into a slip with maybe 6 inches clearance on each side with wind and current action. The marina manager is standing on the dock with a walkie talkie speaking to Joel on his radio and he says “you want me to put this boat in there?” Fortunately they also had an opening on the end of a dock. Easy to pull in but little protection if a hurricane decides to come to town. Their recommendation for a hurricane, go behind the airport and anchor. Nice. Joel is not totally happy. However, this is very different than Curacao where ongoing construction leaves a coating of dirt on LTD, the marina is in the middle of nowhere, and they don't even offer a green pool like Tortola. The pool here is not green. It is actually very nice.

The facilities at the hotel across the street are nice and we can use them. However, I leave tomorrow. We are docked right in the middle of downtown. We walked around and the jewelry stores are empty because there is no cruise ship in town today. We just looked into the jewelry stores for fun and the merchants look very bored. Other than that, other vendors are selling (offering for sale) a lot of stuff “for the basement” as Joel puts it. Somebody must buy all this junk or they wouldn’t sell it.

We can get free wifi at a restaurant at the end of the dock but we can’t pick up the signal on the boat. Coincidentally they also make Pina Coladas. Our friendly bartender/photographer tops off our drinks with the extra from his blender whenever another customer gets a drink. Too bad it is not busier. It may not be happy hour but for us it's happy hour. Good thing we still don't have a car. I may have to sit here until my battery runs out or I fall off the stool.
Not much else to report so this will be the final posting for this trip unless something dramatic happens tonight or tomorrow morning.

Update: I forgot to actually push the post button for the above posting. I am home now. The marina is really great for Joel. We met other "live aboards" so Joel has lots of people to be with. He can also ride his bike to get around the island. It is interesting that everyone was aware of us when we were anchored off the beach. There is also a lot of gossip about other boats and their owners, who is with who, this one has a girlfriend, etc. No secrets at the marina.

We checked out the private island which is owned by the Renaissance resorts where we are docked and they have flamingos who don't mind the human company running around. They are real and not plastic lawn ornaments. Their necks are long and their heads go upside down in the water when they eat. Naturally, we wondered if they were tasty. (Probably taste like frogs legs.) We thought one could be good for a few meals but we might have trouble sneaking him off the island, and I was leaving later that day anyway. Drumsticks don't look too meaty.

All in all it was a great trip for me. Joel solved a mystery with his anemometer (wind meter) at the last minute and he was able to avoid a dreaded trip up the mast to check connectiions there. Raymarine will now call him back because he doesn't need them to.

Regards,

Steve & Joel

Kiteboarding today was not as successful as yesterday. We used a bigger kite. Yesterday’s kite was a “teaser,” smaller and easier to control but not powerful enough to haul me out of the water. I’ve been teased. I was able to body drag by successfully controlling today’s kite but I had too many crashes and stalls, where the kite loses it’s power and drops from the sky. Once the kite has stalled, there is no coming out of it. Worse, if it twists on the way down then your line are hopelessly twisted. No relaunch, go back to the beach and straighten things out. My vest kept coming open and the body drag put a strain on my ribs but they held without breaking. My chest is just sore.

No more Arubian kiteboarding for me this trip but I know what to work on when I get home to the land of surf. A prospective customer came up to me after my lesson. They were trying to sell him a 5 hour package. He may have been discouraged after I told him I’d been at it for 2.5 years. Better for them if I don't hang out in the kiteboarding booth.

Joel took a lesson after me and made great progress. Just a few more years and he’ll have it down pat. He can take more lessons after I leave. Joel stays another two weeks after I’m gone. He was grateful for my "tie your shorts on tight" advice. There was a young lady wearing a bikini taking a lesson after Joel. I hope she brought a spare. We didn't stay for the show, we had to get back to the boat for lunch. They could probably make more selling movies than lessons.

Not much else to report. Our new anchorge is a little too sheltered for me to sleep well but the breeze coming into my cabin through the hatch above my bed is great.

Found free wifi on the beach and Skype on the iPhone is amazing.

We're probably moving the marina tomorrow, Thursday.

Regards,

Steve & Joel

I thought Aruba would be a nice spot to hone my kiteboarding skills so I looked up the Aruba Kite Surfing School before I left home. As luck would have it, the school is located a short walk down the beach from where we anchored. We had moved further down the beach and around the corner because it was too rough for Joel to sleep comfortably. Me, on the other hand, am at my best in a horizontal position when we’re rocking so I slept like a baby until he pulled up the anchor this morning.

Kitesurfing conditions could not be better. Wind was offshore (a no-no) but they keep a rescue boat close by and since you don’t pay until after the lesson you are guaranteed a rescue if you blow out to sea. Plus, if you blow away, they lose a kite and all their gear so I felt very safe. Since we are on the leeward side of the island as indicated by the offshore winds there are virtually no waves or surf to deal with and a long shallow area. Naturally the water is warm although we did see a sting ray but they’re only dangerous if you run over them.

It turns out that I have been doing everything wrong. I could have guessed as much from my track record. On top of that, lessons are cheaper than at home. Andress started me on a training kite and refined my technique. He likes to work with tourists in the crash zone but we only had near misses. Those slow walking tourists should to learn to look up and watch out. I know for a few of them a walk on the beach will never again be relaxing

Believe it or not I still had issues controlling the kite but I did end up staying up for short trips and I’m really good at re-launching. I have another lesson scheduled for tomorrow morning and I look forward to spectacular success. Joel scheduled a lesson after me tomorrow. I’m looking forward to that too.

I only ingested small quantities of sea water and after the lesson Joel and I rewarded ourselves with an overpriced pina colada, daquiri, and some french fries. There is a beach bar with free internet so here I sit.

We’re staying at anchor here for at least another day so we don’t have to rent a car. Sign up as a follower so you don’t miss tomorrow’s update, including kitesurfing photos.

Regards,

Steve & Joel

Welcome to Aruba

Internet was not working at the Curacao Marina Monday morning. Typical. We filed our water tanks, settled our account with the marina, and set sail. We had good winds behind us, so directly behind us we had to tack to reach maximum speed and keep our sails full. We were buzzed by a low flying coast guard plane which turned around and headed back toward Curacao after he buzzed us.

Sailing was very comfortable. Nice winds, pleasant temperature, sailing along with the swells. Due to our position from tacking, we passed Aruba on the north side then circled around to our intended anchorage on the south side, just past the end of the island, where the hotels are. We arrived just after dark.

Out of nowhere, a small coast guard vessel spotlighted us and pulled along side. They asked permission to board (I’m sure if you say no they won’t just go away) so we lowered the main sail and three men came aboard in full uniforms with weapons. They were very inquisitive, even a little nosy. They asked if we had checked in, which we had not. We told them we had just arrived and planned to check in first thing in the morning, so we wouldn’t have to navigate into a strange port at night. They thought it would be a good idea for us to check in now. Right now. We were surprised that immigration and customs would be open at 9:00pm but they wanted to provide special service just for us. To help us along, they would stay on board with us. They inspected all of our documents, which were in order, and having a curious nature they asked if they could look around. I would call the look-see more of an inspection. They looked so closely, I suspected they might want to buy Living The Dream.

They asked if we had any guns, drugs or anything else we’d like to declare. They were not interested in Juice Plus, Fish Oil, Low Dose Aspirin or Probiotics. We were sorry to disappoint them. We didn’t mention our duty-free toilets which were still in boxes. The toilet boxes might as well have been filed with cocaine because they attracted no attention. I suggest if you ever do want to smuggle cocaine, stash it in toilet boxes on the deck, nobody will want to look in there.

We pulled into a dock intended for freighters so it was a challenge to tie up protect LTD. A van was waiting for us. We were only asked to fill out some standard immigration forms, they took our passports, then took Joel away for some customs formalities, returned him and our passports and “the yellow flag is down, you are free to go.” I didn’t see any yellow flag. At least they saved us the trouble of checking in Tuesday morning.


We sailed a little ways down the beach and found a nice quiet spot between two party bars (two different bars blaring music do not cancel each other out) and set anchor. After a light dinner we retired for the evening. Cool breezes, gentle rocking motion, no rain on my feet.

If you’ve read this far, Please note that you can follow my blog privately. If you are following privately, don’t be shy and email me so at least I know if I have an interested audience. The blog is intended to let more people “in” so pass it on to people with nothing to do.

Back in Curacao

We're back in Curacao to move Living The Dream to Aruba. As you know, Curacao has been internet hell for me. True to its reputation, internet was not working last night at the marina where Joel ended up leaving LTD. Not unusual, but we learned our iPhones are unable to
connect to the network here either. Since my plane out of Miami was delayed (lightning closed the ramps) Joel was unable to get my emails so he wasted 90 minutes at the Curacao airport waiting for me. The good news was I was able to get onto an unsecured wifi network at the airport and Skype Laurie that I had arrived.

I'm only down here for 6 nights and traveling with one bag so I asked Joel if I could bring anything down for him. He bought new toilets for LTD so he shipped one to me in Florida and the toilet was my second piece of luggage. Flying toilets are not as unusual as you might think. My check in agent said it was her second one in three weeks. Next time you are in a stinky airplane bathroom, consider that the cleanest toilet may be in the cargo hold, although difficult to access during flight. American now charges $20 for the first suitcase, and $30 for the second suitcase/toilet but I was able to buy a $90 upgrade which included two free bags so my first class upgrade really only cost me $40. While waiting to go through customs in Curacao it occurred to me that there may be a duty on the toilet (no pun intended) but I was able to sweet talk the customs agent who whizzed me through so I didn't clog the line.

We just got invited to a party tonight at A22 by Case, who runs the marina and was wondering who I was sitting outside his office (closed Sunday) obviously using his internet. Not sure if we'll be in the mood for the party, although we did get in nap time this afternoon. I can nap whether we're sailing or on the dock. Joel has the generator running so the A/C is on. We should have electric on the dock at the marina in Aruba. And hopefully internet. We have water on the dock
here but Joel misplaced his key so we have no water on the dock. Short showers.

So for tomorrow, we set sail for Aruba as early as possible. Joel has to settle some business with Case before we leave. Case says he'll be in around 8:00am tomorrow, depending on how things go tonight. Sad to say, but it's in our best interest for him to strike out.

We did some provisioning today. Imca's green monster is back. We found frozen White Castles in a grocery store but forgot to bring our own bags so we had to buy some bags. Inca also sold Joel some honeycomb board and epoxy for a remodeling project Joel will work on
after I leave.

Our goal is to try to kiteboard in Aruba. There is a kiteboading school and we should have plenty of wind without Florida lightning. I'll report back on that later. We cleared out with Customs and
immigation today so we're ready to set sail as soon as Case sobers up. We expect to sail for 12 hours.

I would include a picture but I left my card reader on the boat. Again.

Regards,

Steve & Joel