10 December Passage to Aruba

On Sunday morning we took the bus in to Willemstad to clear out ready to go to Aruba. We love the ease of the process here although it is a long walk from Customs in the main town to the Immigration office who are on the other side of the channel and under the high road bridge. David is still suffering pain in his leg from sciatica which began when we were in Bonaire. There are no charges.

In the afternoon we left Spanish Water and sailed 18nm up the coast to Santa Cruz bay to overnight. I'd read the holding was good in the bay so when I went for a swim to check the anchor I expected to find it dug deep in. No. The seabed appears to be thin patches of sand in dead coral rubble and only the tip of our Rocna was in sand. A bit like holding on with your fingernails. Fortunately the wind was light and if we had dragged we'd have had to go 200m to get deeper than 10m and then there was only open sea behind us.

There was no wind overnight and when we woke pre dawn we were in the same spot. The trip to Aruba was now only 50nm, an easy day trip in downwind conditions.

Arriving in Aruba port control directed us to clear in in Bacadera harbour, not the usual cruise ship dock, because they had divers in the water there. Bacadera is south of Oranjestad and an easier concrete dock to come alongside. We walked across the car park to Customs and Immigration to complete the formalities with two Customs officers coming back to Jackster to step aboard.

All done we cast off and proceeded to Varadero, or airport anchorage, which was already busy with twenty boats from the Suzie Too OCC rally. The wind was howling a light 24 knots as we dropped the hook in the late afternoon.