We spend a couple of days in Klein Curaçao in a Chillaxing mode as my nephew would say, which means chilling out and relaxing!!
Klein Curacao is a small island, 12 nautical miles from the Main island. It is almost inhabited with a couple of houses only for the locals to host one restaurant for day trippers, probably with a big turnaround before COVID times.
The rhythm of the island seems to repeats every day. In the morning couple boats arrived full of tourist anxious to walk in the white sand, snorkel and relax on the beach. At lunch time they get back to their boats for BBQ another hour or so for the last walk and around 3 to 4pm they get back on-board and leave the island. Some fishing boats also come but more irregular. Some big nice catamarans, that have sails as decoration because they don’t even sail back when they have the wind on favour. A very frown upon practice by Happy Days Captain!
As we were not yet officially entered into Curaçao we just snorkel during the day and went to the beach for a walk after everyone else was gone.
The next challenge was, how were we going to know when were we allowed to enter? there was no radio or mobile signal in Klein Curacao. So we decided we would stay for 3 nights and then go back to Curaçao, there was not really another way of communication than to approach the main island again. On the second day a Coast Guard helicopter was doing a fly over the island so we tried to contact them by radio and asked if they could check for us if our papers had been processed. Their reply was that they needed to finish their flight over the island and then they would check for us. It didn’t take long for them to call us back and let us know that we were allowed to come in.
The next morning we got ready and sailed to Curacao, again. It is so much better with the wind, we took less than half of the time and before midday we were doing our entrance in Spanish Waters. It is a very narrow channel, very shallow at places, so full watch from the bow was required!!! When the weather is rough boats are not allowed to enter because it gets very dangerous.
We crossed some of the fancy resorts on the side, completely empty. Not a lot of tourist these days.
We arrived to the anchorage where normally up to 400 boats stay during the hurricane season, but this year the number of boats just reached probably close to 100.
From there on we started a “treasure hunt” to get all the papers done and registered our entrance in the country. The first challenge was to get some money in the local currency. We had to walk more than 2km in the 35 deg sun to reach the closest ATM only to find out that it did not take VISA cards. We only have VISA cards, so what next? A fancy little supermarket inside a resort looked a perfect place to maybe try and buy something and get some local cash. I was incredible surprise to know that they don’t received euros, Curacao is part of Holland and they don’t receive euros, only US dollars and we had no US dollars. Big problem there. To walk to the customs office in town would take us 3 hours, it is 11 km away. With a nice weather it is probably feasible but with the heat, it was not an option. At the end, I finished asking to the cashier if we could borrow 5 Guilders and promised to come back the next day to pay. We only needed 3 to buy two bus tickets to town. She started laughing, she could not get it how we could have no money. At the end she talked to another cashier and they called the manager who finally authorised us to buy something and get the change in local currency. Great!!
That was only the first step, then we had to find the bus stop, wait for an hour because apparently it goes only every hour and we missed it by 5 min. Once in town we arrived to the Customs office, the building is under renovations an one big sign said “closed”. No other info is available online or in the building. But we managed to talk to the guard on a neighbour building who explain to us the customs office was operating on another building just accross a small bridge.
Another 15min walk in the blazing sun to the customs office seemed nothing compared to an extra 45min walk to find the immigration office. The address in google maps is not clear. The indications from the customs office “across the bridge”, could mean anything. The fact is that you have to go up and down several streets thru different neighbourhoods and walk by the side of a road that brings you to something that looks like an industrial port. Even when we got to the entrance I was not convinced we were in the right place. We arrived past 5pm I was sure they would be closed and we would have to come back. Lastly it looked nothing like an immigration office but it was and it was open. We found the treasure!
Passports stamped!!! Yupi !! We were officially in Curacao on September 10, 2020. Cheers to that! My birthday is in two days, what a perfect timing, Captain!
Not really sure how long we stay here but we have some repairs, celebrations and discoveries to make, that will keep us busy!
Happy Days 