January 21 - 23, 2005

The 21st was a nice easy day. We woke up, had breakfast and then put the dingy over the side of the boat before showering. Then I called Slow Poke on the radio. They are the same Slow Poke that we met after we first started cruising and from when I was running the Cruisheimers net on Wednesdays. I went in to Sari Fundy's to catch the supermarket shuttle, where I ran in to Terry from Slow Poke. We talked about where we have been, and about people we know. It was an interesting chat. Astonishingly, the grocery store had fresh milk. It looks like their shipments have slid slightly. So, instead of doing a small shopping, I did my regular weekly shopping. Then I returned home, put away the groceries and did nothing else the rest of the day, except close and open hatches due to rain. The 22nd was both a good day and a bad day. After breakfast, we headed into town to clear in. We figured we would be smart this time, and go to immigration first. It was relatively cool so we wanted to take advantage of that. We noticed some differences in Williamsted. The walking bridge to Otra Banda has gates on it now. I also think that there is a guard stationed on the bridge now. We also had to walk to the main gate of the cruise ship terminal and show ID to the gate guards to gain access to the Immigration office. Then, the gate guard provided us with an authorization slip that had to be signed by Immigration and returned to them when we leave! When we got to the immigration office, the door was open, even though Immigration wasn't supposed to open for another hour! We didn't realize this until we got there though. Fortunately, there was an immigration officer there who was happy to check us in, thankfully. We did apologize for coming to early though. Next we headed back to customs to clear there. As usual that was an easy task and the customs official was friendly and efficient. Having finished our check in process, we went in search of an Internet cafe to check email and do a few other things before heading for the traditional stop at Baskin Robins and McDonalds. At the Baskin Robins, the same woman served us ice cream that has served us ice cream every time we have been in Curacao. It turns out that she has been working there for the past 14 years. We remembered that there was a hardware store downtown, so we paid a visit there as well. In order to catch the bus back to Caracasbai, we split up at that point. I went to the pharmacy and then to the fabric store where I met up with Mike who had been at the hardware store. We checked the selection of Sunbrella they have (they have burgundy!) And then went to the bus stop to wait for the bus. After we got back to the boat, we called Topaz and Slow Poke and invited them over for drinks. We had a great time catching up on almost 5 years of history with Slow Poke, and almost a year with Topaz! On January 23, we didn't do much. After breakfast, we sat down and answered email. We spent the rest of the day lounging, watching TV and napping. At 5:00 we went over to Slow Poke for cocktails and had another great evening with them