After a very relaxing day it was nice to head ashore to our evening reservation at the aptly named, “It rains fishes” restaurant. Though their spelling might be questionable, their food wasn’t. My charter guests treated me to an unbelievable Christmas Dinner.
I enjoyed a fantastic Tuna sashimi for appetizer and a stunning tuna steak as my main course. The tuna was so fresh I swear the waitress went fishing after she took our order. I’m not quite sure what I ordered for dessert, owing to Harald ordering a generous 3 bottles of wine for us after our Margarita aperitif … so we got hammered … and while I don’t remember the dessert, I’m sure it was tasty. After dinner Margrete and Harald went back to the boat, while Torbjørn, Per Ove and I went bar hopping … between the 2 bars that were open. We succeeded in getting even more animated before we returned to the boat at 3 am. The next day we counted our blessings that we stuck to beer after dinner and didn’t delve into the spirit(s) World.
When we recovered the following morning, we sailed back to Klein Curacao and enjoyed a beautiful beach day. Well, some of us enjoyed it more than others. Torbjørn had a close encounter with a flying fish, of the in-your-face variety, so we had to stitch him up when got him back onboard, all bloodied and battle scarred. I have no doubt that he’ll be the butt end of flying-fish jokes for the rest of his life.
After missing out on breakfast on Christmas Day, we made up for it, before we sailed to Fuik Baai, to enjoy a last evening there.
It was a night where we chilled out and desperately tried to polish off the remaining booze. It was a bit of a shock when we looked into the cooler and realized that their charter would be over tomorrow and there was still so much that had been left undrunk. It was also a night of creative photography …
The light you see at the top of the mast is the moon.
The following morning, was spent cleaning the boat and getting ready for disembarking my fantastic first charter guests of this season. I was actually sad to see them go, because I had an excellent time and shared a very memorable Christmas with them. I already look forward to visiting them in Norway. Here are some more pictures taken while they were onboard.
And here is a little video I shot while feeding some dangerous piranhas.
The following shot will no doubt crack up all of us for years to come.
It is a picture of a Coast Guard vessel when we are moored off Bonaire. On the day Harald and I decided to explore the wonderful world of single malt whiskey, the Coast Guard decides to board us to: Practice a bit of White Rascism, treat Norwegians like criminals and tear my boat apart. If I hadn’t been in a stupendously good mood, I might have taken offence to them boarding with one hand on their guns, suggesting that Harald’s passport was fake and in general being bastards. I think they could tell that we had nothing to hide or fear and were too drunk to care, so in the end they just took pictures of our passports and left with big smiles on their faces.
Talking about their time onboard would not be complete without talking about the truly amazing steak dinner Harald made. It blew away every meal I had eaten the last year. Truly memorable.
When they disembarked I had exactly 24 hours to clean all the sheets, towels and linens and make the boat properly presentable, before my New Years Charter guests were due to arrive. This was the classic: so much to do, so little time.
At 3 pm the following day I was ready to welcome: Øivind, Sissel, Henrik, Andreas and Anne onboard … a family of 5. They were all onboard with their baggage train and supplies just in time for the sun to dip below the horizon. The only minus was that we didn’t have any bread or a dinner on board, so Øivind and Henrik went ashore in search of some take-out pizza and a loaf of bread to feed the hungry. They had made a few good calls in their provisioning, the key one being buying 2 cases of cold beer, so we were not left wanting while we waited for dinner.
The next morning Øivind and I shot ashore to check out of Curacao, buy some more food supplies and buy some spare parts. Basically I took advantage of them having a car and even invited Greg from the boat Merlin to enjoy the fact that we had a mode of transport we could load full of things we needed. Stops by Budget Marine and NAPA (after food shopping) ensured that the car was over-loaded when we rolled onto the dock.
Øivind returned the car while Greg and I ferried the supplies back to our respective boats. When Øivind returned we lifted anchor and motored over to Klein Curacao with the wind, waves and current on the nose. We arrived about 2 1/2 hours before sunset, giving them some time to enjoy the beautiful island.
The plan now is to lift anchor early tomorrow and shoot over to Bonaire to get a day there of “rest and recuperation” before we unleash ourselves on New Years.
A note to Harald: “Da hadde det vel vært godt med en kopp kaffe.”