Date: 31.03-10.04.2025
Route: Pointe a Pitre-Willemstadt
Miles/hours: 619Mm/109h
Guadeloupe
Gran Cafe Plantation
The Gran Cafe Plantation is actually a banana plantation. It was established in the 18th century as a coffee, cocoa and vanilla plantation. In addition, there was a sugar cane factory. It is a family business. In order to make good use of the 40ha field, they started planting bananas. Production turned out to be profitable.
A visit to the farm costs €12 per person. Everyone gets a banana, and then you can try banana and coffee mousse. During the tasting, the gentleman tells the history of the plantation and banana production – unfortunately, everything in French. Then the whole tour gets into a trailer with benches connected to a tractor. We go on a tour of the plantation. On the way, we stop and the guide talks again about banana production (again in French). The whole trip lasts about 2 hours. At the end, Tomek buys a huge bunch of green bananas.
The Mid-Lent Festival (Mi-Carême)
The Mid-Lent Festival is a traditional carnival holiday originating from France. It is celebrated on the day falling in the middle of Lent, which means, according to Christian tradition, on the twentieth day of the forty days of fasting preceding Easter. It is a practice dating back to the Middle Ages, cultivated in the Antilles, in many communes of metropolitan France – where the term carnival has sometimes been adopted – and also in the former French colonies in New France, especially in Quebec and Acadia. This year it fell on March 27.
Tour of Grande-Terre
Grande Terre is the other half of Guadeloupe (the eastern part) is a coral island with a limestone base, flat with many beautiful beaches with golden sand and blue water. The roads lead through beautiful green tropical forests. Generally, if someone does not intend to lie on the beach, a half-day tour of the eastern part of the island will be enough.
Route from Guadeloupe to Curacao
We set sail in the early afternoon. The marinero who unties our mooring lines from the buoy also pulls the yacht out of the mooring and helps turn between the jetties – an excellent thruster.
We set off towards Curacao. We have over 500 NM to sail, and the forecast is for wind 20-25 kn, a consistent current but not too strong and an easterly wind. This results in a broadstay. A fairy tale. We share night watches for about 6 hours. The autopilot works perfectly. The ubiquitous sargassum makes fishing impossible :-(. Later it turns out that sargassum is not only in the water but also on the keel, the rudder and the propeller. Unfortunately, the clinging plants slow down the yacht. There are big waves, so our house is tossed around a bit, but not enough to make it impossible to do anything. Finally we have a moment of respite and catch up on the work that is a waste of time on land.
Curacao
Klein Curacao
We decide to spend the night at Klein Curacao (it is an alternative to swimming back and forth in front of Willemstadt at night) – unless it is absolutely necessary, we do not sail at night. We drop anchor at Klein Curacao after sunset (the anchor catches the second time), we check it out, have dinner and go to bed.
In the morning Tomek dives and checks if there are any sargassum left on the rudder and propeller. It turns out that we are standing on the edge of the reef, and there are plenty of fish under Pluskata. The water is clear, the sand is white – beautiful. A turtle swims to us during breakfast, and a red bird flies by to say goodbye.
Willemstadt Pontoon Bridge
When approaching the bridge, you should call Fort Nassau on VHF channel 12 and ask for the bridge to be opened. You have to say where you want to sail to, and if you want to go to the marina, they ask if you have a reservation. We wait for one more ship and the bridge opens. It moves a bit so that we fit and returns to its place. While the bridge is opening, the entrance gates to the bridge are closed on both sides, but the people on the bridge remain.
Check in
First, a trip to Immigration (on the other side of the canal and the large bridge), a total of an hour’s walk. There is a shortcut through the ferry port, but it is closed. The lady at the check-in counter counts the number of people (there are 2 so it is easy). We get a receipt and stamps in our passports. This time no one asks for an eCard, although we have one. When we leave, we notice 4 men walking confidently to the ferry port. We follow them – maybe they know the hole in the fence? It turns out that at the end of the road there is a gate that lets one person through at a time, if someone has a pilot (they did :-)). This way we saved about 15 minutes of travel.
By the way, we crossed to the other side by ferry (if the bridge is open for more than 15 minutes, the connection to the other side is by ferry (a large ship was just leaving). Customs is already in its building, but there is a note on the door saying it is closed and if you want something, call and give me the phone number. We give up – we will come on Monday.
Curacao Marine Zone
A nice marina with friendly service, 24 places in the water (only a few for residents) and a huge area for yachts on land. People leave their boats here, and next year they come, launch their boat, sail, and when their vacation is over, they take them out again.There is also a large “shipyard” area, where there is always something going on on the yachts – repairs, painting, etc. Every Friday there is a barbecue – here you have to report the number of people at the reception, and the staff prepares the food, the lady notes how much each person took and at the end you pay in cash.
