Spaansche Water, which everybody calls Spanish Water, is an incredible natural harbor. From seaward there's just a little indent by a beach, a narrow tidal river that doesn't look particularly promising as it stretches back through low limestone cliffs and desert scrub...until it opens out into a huge bay shaped sort of like a squashed cloverleaf. There are at least four marina complexes in the various lobes of the bay; other stretches of shore are lined with pretty, expensive-looking houses, some with boats at little docks out front a la Florida. The yacht anchorage is in the northeast baylet, between the fisherman's dock and Sarifundy's, the yachtie marina and center of all activity. The anchorage is filled with cruising boats of every type from every place in the world, and US flagged boats are in the minority.
Unlike in Bonaire (also part of the Netherlands Antilles), Curacao does not make it easy on the visiting cruiser to satisfy the legal formalities. Spanish Water is some distance from the capital city, Willemstadt, where the Customs and Immigration offices are. We arrived midafternoon Friday, on Saturday the offices were open only a few hours in the middle of the day and we missed the bus, on Sunday there are no buses, but we finally were able to get to town and check in on Monday. (Then, we told the officials we were leaving on Tuesday, so they simultaneously checked us in and out so we wouldn't need to return. We wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of observing the formalities if we weren't going next to a place with a reputation of requiring all the papers from the previous port to be in perfect order.) Even with the bus to take us to Willemstadt, it wasn't easy. Customs was an obvious building on the "river" (Willemstadt is built around a bay with a narrow entrance similar to Spanish Water) but finding Immigration was an adventure. First, we had to cross the river. This is normally done on a historic and unique pontoon bridge, but it was open for river traffic at the time, so we got into the crush of pedestrians crowding onto the free ferryboat which serves as an alternate "bridge" when the pontoon bridge is open. Then we wandered through the cruise ship terminal area, which was at the time completely closed up as no ships were there, until we found the tiny, unmarked office.
We spent the rest of the day exploring Willemstadt, which is a lovely little city despite the large number of businesses catering to the cruise-ship tourist trade. The buildings are tall and narrow and painted in bright pastels, and the roads are more like alleyways, brick-paved and barely wide enough for small cars. The old fort which lined the waterfront has been converted to shops and restaurants, but the vaulted archways have been preserved. We ate lunch at a tiny cafe tucked into a little cobblestoned plaza among t-shirt shops, and listened to the people around us speaking in about twenty different languages.
We were waiting for Kajsa, who was waiting for parts, but all systems were go Wednesday morning and we headed out into fairly boisterous winds and seas. Patrick and Teresa were still getting ready, but we figure they left within an hour or two after we did. Kajsa doesn't have an SSB transmitter, so we will be out of touch until we arrive, and we expect to make the trip faster than they will. Depending on whether we stop on the Colombian coast, and on the weather conditions, it will either be a three or four-night trip for us.