January 18, 2005 -- To Go or Not To Go

On January 18, we decided to go to Curacao. The wind is light, and the seas are down, so this looks like a good time to do it. We considered leaving tomorrow. We headed in to town. We checked weather and it looked good to go. So, we went to DINA (Immigration). The place was packed and they weren't giving out numbers. We asked the woman at reception to check on our application for extension. She went in to the offices, and came back several minutes later. She called the security guard in to her area and had a discussion with him. The next thing we know, we have a number and are being instructed to go to the waiting room, and wait. We finally spoke with Jean Jendar, who went in search of our paperwork. Unfortunately it hasn't shown up yet! So we asked him what to do if we wanted to leave. He said to give him a call and he would clear the way for us. So, knowing we could check out, we headed out to do the rest of our shore side chores. At Telestar, only one charger had been fixed. The other wouldn't be ready until after 3:00. We returned to the boat to check the repaired charger. We wired it up and started the generator. It worked until the repaired part burned up! It wasn't strong enough. I called Telestar and had them not do anything to the other charger. We went back in, checked the weather, picked up the charger, dropped off 2 fedex envelopes and address labels off to XJ, and returned to the boat. Next we started getting things ready to move. We gave up on the notion of leaving tomorrow, so after we had the inside basically ready, we stopped for the day. At 5:40 PM, we headed to the Paddock to meet Johan and Aswin for drinks, followed by dinner at the Taj-Mahal restaurant. We ran into Remy, who we have not seen in several months. We spent some time catching up with him. At 6:25, I found a phone, and called Johan and Aswin. We got our wires crossed! They were waiting for us at Taj Mahal. We headed over there, and had a fun evening with them