April 1, 2007 - Curacao

The other morning we woke up to the sound of hammering. The guy on the boat behind us, Blue Marlin, was erecting vertical poles on the floating dock next to their boat. That afternoon on our way into town to clear out, we dinghied past their boat and met Anameka, who invited us over for a drink. After returning from town, we showed up with a bottle of wine and ended up hanging out with them until 11pm, which these days for us is a really late night out.

Over a wonderful Indonesian meal made by Timo, we learned that in the middle of the Atlantic, Timo promised to build Anameka a garden. If you've been to Holland, you know how much the Dutch love their gardens. So he is building her a floating garden here on Spaanse Water. As of today, the poles have been augmented by a roof structure, over which they plan to stretch a fabric roof. The container garden surrounds a table and chairs, and is lit at night by a hurricane lamp in the center of the table and hanging lanterns from the roof supports. It is a magical blooming oasis. And just about the most romantic thing I've ever known someone to do.

We fueled up today, for the first time since we took on a few gallons in St. Maarten back in December. The fuel cost much less than it did in Bermuda. The fiscally smart thing to do would have been to stop somewhere along the Venezuelan coast to fill up because the fuel is dirt cheap there - like $0.12 a gallon. But there are risks associated with cruising the Venezuelan coast that we weren't willing to face. So for less than $300 we filled our tanks here in Curacao, a much better deal than the more than $500 we spent in Bermuda back in November.

We're heading to Aruba tonight. Aruba requires boats to tie up to the cruise ship dock to clear into the country. The mileage is such that unless we left before dawn we wouldn't arrive in daylight. Because we don't want to have to approach the dock at night, we're going to do an overnight passage so that we arrive early tomorrow morning.