4th February

12 03.520 N
68 51.216 W

Weather; sunny, wind n/a, waves n/a

MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY MARIE, WHERE DID THOSE YEARS GO?

Well this has been the slowest day we've had since arriving in Curacao. There were no outstanding jobs to do so we took it very easy today. The wind was still blowing up to 20 knots around the harbor - good for the windsurfers who were out in force yet again but not so good for sitting in the cockpit without getting wind burn.
Gerry tried to make himself look busy by greasing the windlass but that was only a 5 minute job. He then spent a good deal of the day on the computer checking out the countries further down the track that we hope to stop at to see what their current regulations are for stopping. The good news for us was that Ecuador has opened its borders to crews of less than 10, for a fee of course and with some testing on arrival but no quarantine unless you show a positive test, of course all that could change again in a heartbeat so we will keep checking as we get closer to the time we plan to get there. I spent a good part of the morning uploading photos to the gallery, all under the one heading as I couldn't be bothered to try and sort them out into any sort of order that made sense - sorry but at least they are there ! For the remainder of the day I fossicked in Gerry's family tree, loosing myself down rabbit holes looking at what are basically twigs on the tree and really not getting any further forward as I was getting confused with 3 generations of males with the same given names. To add to the confusion they had all been married at least 3 times each - that's some blended family! The good thing is that it passes the day quickly.
We had put our names down for the cheap (NAf 20 - that's Netherlands Antilles' Guilders) sailors dinner at The Pier restaurant where we had diner yesterday. As it was a mass dinner we had to be at the restaurant between 5 and 6 pm ready for a 6.30 service. We dinghied across and arrived at 5.40 to find the place quite full, good job that we had been warned to book! There were obvious groups or cliques of sailors from all over the world who obviously knew each other, we were like outcasts, not that it bothered us too much being as unsociable as we can be! The dinner was a good deal, chicken with some sort of garlicky sauce, an assortment of vegetables and potato chunks which had been spiced plus the inevitable fries - these seem to be the Dutch national dish and I have to say they do make the best fries ever. Gerry and I ate and ran, we could overhear a few of the conversations going on around us and to be honest we couldn't be bothered to join in as we've "been there and done that" and there were some very obvious know it all's holding court and giving everyone the benefit of their experience. We headed back out to the boat for a session of the TV series we've been watching, just a little disappointed not to have found some interesting fellow sailors to spend the evening with. Apart from the meal the other good thing we appreciated was that it is quite relaxed here as far as mask wearing, signing in and temperature recording goes, whilst you are still encouraged to socially distance it seems to be that there is a more reasonable expectation that people will do the right thing. It appears to be only inMcDonalds, the grocery store and government buildings that masks are compulsory and we have yet to see Covid posters and rules plastered all over the place. Which reminds me to tell you that in the gallery you will see a round poster from Grenada Ministry of Health telling you to keep social distance of 6ft and to "stand on this spot" - they were obviously meant to be put at intervals on the ground but I took the photo because this poster was on the wall at head height! - I so wanted to see someone standing on that spot, it tickled me at the time.
Well that was it for the day, you can't expect exciting things every day!