Waterfront Buildings

We left Aruba and traveled throughout the night to reach Caracao. Pronounced (Cay Oh See Ah Oh).

The seas started out a bit rough but subsided to what was comfortable. No lightning so all was well. We arived at Spanish Waters. A natural harbour where we would share and anchor with about 300 other boaters. Believe it or not we had a secluded spot. The bugs were crazy however. We had to break out the mosquito netting for Ernie.

We arrived on a Friday and Friday evening there was a happy hour for cruisers at one of the local restaurants. We were fortunate enough to meet Robert a local resident that would give us his wife's car.

Caracao pronounced ( Care ah say oh) is the largest of the ABC Islands. It is 60 km from tthe Venezuelan border. It is 65 km long and is 11 km at its widest spot. The lanscape is very barren because of the low rainfall. However since the rain from Hurrican Tomas (the one that kept us in Colombia) it has had more rain than any other year to date. Everything is lush and green.

There are 150,000 people that live on the island, and like Aruba they all speak many languages. Which just totaly amazes me.

The economy is very diversified with the oil industry being their largest employer. The take Venezuelan oil and refine it.

Coral reefs surround the island which adds greatly to the tourist attraction.

The next day we headed out with geocache lats/longs. These caches would give us both history and views not normally seen by visitors to the island.

Our first stop was the hiking area that would take us to the salt ponds where we hoped to see flamingos. When we arrived a local (I forgot his name on the boat and will fill it in this blank when I next have internet) with his two dogs took us for a hike that was not known to anyone but the locals. It gave us terrific views. Unfortunately due to all the rain we could not get near the sight of the flamingos. Ken did however find the geocache and we continued on. Our new friend was a wisdom of local knowledge both political and historical.

We happened to anchor just below a historical site. The building that kept slaves whom were sick after their crossing from Africa.

We learnt that the Spaniards and the Portugese were quite aware of the value of slaves and brought boat loads to help in the production of the salt pans. At one point 24,000 slaves in 7 years were brought in to be used or sold to neighbouring islands. Due to the lack of documentation there is still not a lot know to the full extent of the slave trade.

We continued our way to downtown. The city of Willemstad is the capital with a population of 140,000. Only 10,000 live elsewhere on the island. The architecture is a joyous tropical adaption of 17th century Dutch, painted in storybook colours. It is a delight to look at.

The floating market is a picturesque string of visiting Colombian and Venezuelan boats selling their fruit and vegetables from the mainland.

We headed towards the floating bridge to our surprise we became involved in a passing parade.

A Santa Clause Parade of types. I will try to explain it to best as we were told.

2 weeks prior to Dec 06 which is Sint Niccolas Day. In the Netherlands it was said that that Sintaklaus left by steamship from Spain 2 weeks prior with his helper Black Pete. Santa goes around at night and checks his book for the good boys and girls. He will leave candy and presents for the good ones butttttttttttttttttttttttt! the bad ones get bagged up and taken back to Spain with Black Pete. We were told by the family explaining this to us that 7 yr old boys are very scared of St Pete. For the 2 weeks these traveling duos visit the schools and can be seen all around.

The children trying to show how good they have been by singing traditional songs and leaving wooden shoes filled with hay and carrots for the horse or donkey that Santa and Pete use nightly. In return Pete fills the shoes nightly with Candy or gifts.

We were told that once kids or adults get older the gifts become more of a gag gift for fun. It was a fun thing to witness and a festival continued on the street with singing and kids dressed up as Pete's.

Weather kept us longer in Caracao than expected but we have been in Bonaire for awhile and I will write about here in the following weeks. The weather has not been good with high winds and very steep waves. We hope to have a weather window by Mon/Tues and continue going East. Like all that are going the other way have said you are doing it the hard way. Oh well.

The Black Petes cover themselves with make up to make themselves as black as they are. We were told they are black because they go down the chimneys before Sint Niccolas. Also Sint Niccolas is not fat he fits down the chimney without any problems.