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| Beautiful beach of Klein Curacao. Photo: adrenalena.se |
The best experience at the ABC-area was the Klein Curacao. Stopped there for a night and almost stayed there until further notice. I thought I died and went to heaven. I swam there to check it out, and it turned out that there was more to it than you saw from the sea. It was unbelievably beautiful. There was a beach, the water was amazing in clarity and colors, and the vegetation was hiding a secret.
It turned out there was this one man who lived there, seemingly with the only furniture of a hammock and a fridge. He treated us with cold beer and coke on ice, for free. After sailing for almost a year, mostly in the tropics, without a fridge cold beer becomes a luxury. You learn which sorts are drinkable when warm, you learn all the ways to somewhat chill a can (dumping it into the water is not a solution, as the water temperatures range up to 30+C and beyond). So that cold beer was out of this world.
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| Cold beer with a polar bear, in 30+C heat. Out of this world. Photo: Sergej Gratchev |
The man showed us swarms of eremite crabs, living in the bushes and in the sand, I have never seen anything like that - the ground was moving with small and large seashells. All of them were making small sounds, very surrealistic to hear this. As soon as someone approaches, they hide and keep quiet. But when they do not feel threatened, they start swarming again. If you through a piece of food on the ground, the swarm heads to there, covering the piece of food in several layers of crabs, everyone trying to get to it.
They guy gave us a ride back to the boat when the sunset came, and sent a few more ice-cold beers with us. Together with the heavenly beauty of the island, it was very heaven-like to meet some people that help you, treat you and are nice to you without wanting anything back.
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| Beach from the water. Photo: adrenalena.se |
We stayed on the anchor, as it would be safer to proceed in the morning. Waking up, we saw a huge coast guard ship beside us! I promptly told everyone to produce their passports and stay below. Whatever we did wrong, with clearing in or clearing out - we were going to answer for.
We watched the Navy on board gather and prepare, and had nothing else to do but wait until they come into the RIB, over to us and step on board. What would they do? Give us fines? Forbid entry? Seize the yacht? I made coffee and waited.
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| Photo: Sergej Gratchev |
But the Navy were not getting into the RIBs. Instead, they were jumping overboard! Seems that the hull needed some scrubbing, or could potentially need it, or could maybe be checked at least… so they were taking an opportunity for a morning swim! They were laughing and chattering, completely uninterested in our boat. I quickly lifted anchor and left, giving them a merry little wave.