Curacau ( the Island not the booze )

Of course there's supposed to be a little squiggly thing under the second c but my 'friend' only speaks English , or the American version of that particular language......never mind. The booze , or to put it nicely the liqueur , comes from here too.
Of historical interest ......we were here in 1975,probably around Augustish ,when on our honeymoon 'cruise' from New Zealand to Italy. The cruise ship was docked just to left of this big boy , before the bridge .This time it was in September (2012) for time orientation after the that little trip into the future /present. We stayed about 2 months this time,mainly because it was a pleasant place and also we'd caught up with a few friends so were having a some nice little 'socials' and even found time to install our solar panel to help the old wind generator supply us with electricity. Add to that a very fancy resort with a great beach just round the corner from the anchorage and an American embassy where we could apply for (and did ) (and got ) another 5 year visa.

These are our friends  that we caught up with. A delightful bunch of 'kids'. They thought we were weird calling them kids but they were all younger than ours !

From the left...'er indoors..Dianna and Jerry ,Netherlanders who skipper and hostess cruise boats in Dutch St Maarten in the sailing season.......Bob....Heather ( Yank ) who is the wife of the English lad we went to the cricket with in Dominica. He was back in the USA getting his green card/citizenship whatever. Lucky bastard. Just after this Heather got an offer from UNICEF to get back to her old job "saving the world " instead sailing round it. So she is now based in Bankok looking out for kids all over SE Asia. On the right of the pic is Peter (pronounced Paiter in Clog ) and his lady Florence from France (Flo from France is less confusing ). They met when they were both working in ........you guessed it..........Singapore . Oh and barely visible is Arvid . Jerry's mate from Holland.

 

Anyway, Willemstad ,the big smoke on Curacao , is very Dutch......but still a whole lot Caribbean. 

 

Looks good in the day.

And at night

That's a full moon up there.

 

Cosmopolitan

 

Giving a damaged tree back its............dignity

The bridge is famous , the big attraction really. It's a line of pontoons on a hinge, basically. The whole thing is swung round by the pontoon on the end which has a motor.

 

That's the basic idea. Real one on the right.

 

You've got beaches here there and everywhere . You've got a fairly scrubby landscape but things like Flamingos are about

 

And there's always a guitar player to annoy.

 

 

And then you realize .....it's all a dream.

 

We set sail for the Island of Aruba at 1535 on the 17th of October 2012 and got there at 0800 on the 18th. We looked around for a couple of days.......bars, restaurants an' everything.

Anchor weighed at 2230 on 20th Oct 2012. Destination Santa Marta...COLOMBIA