Happy Easter to everybody! It's our fourth Easter since we left Poland - this time we have a little bit more time for celebration as we do not have to work (we did the other times). We wish you beautiful, peaceful and full of joy holidays and promise to write more very soon :)
March 11, 2010
Today we have a movie for you about the sculpture of Polish composer Frederic Chopin created by Jolanta Pawlak. Guess who was live modeling for her this time... :)))
March 1, 2010
I guess now we can reveal what kept us busy for last few days:) I don’t think here only of the video presented today...
This evening, March 1, in eighteenth-century "Fortchuch" at the entrance to the bay Annabaai in the center of Willemstad Curacao . In the meantime we’ve learned many things about it, we know more about the local art and artists.
On Curacao the preparations for the great jubilee lasted for many weeks. This evening we have the culmination - the walls of the historic church will be full of Mazurkas, Polonaises, etudes and scherzos. All will be combined with Chopin's letters, read in English by two narrators. On piano we’ll have Maestro Harold Martin and the introduction - in Polish - will be presented by Polish artist Jolanta Pawlak, living and creating in Curacao for 10 years.
We’ll have more about this great event soon. We are very excited about the upcoming concert. On this occasion also, instead of February 28 we decided to celebrate the birthday of Patricia 1 March, as this year there is no February 29 :)) For the last two weeks we were in the same age ;) By the way, imagine that Patricia on m/v Vreeland (remember last week video?) was also born on 29 February – funny, isn’t it? :)
There was much less fun to discover the rust on our yacht ... It turned out to be a result of a tiny leak in our window…
So I had to cut out the old piece and make a new one in its place.
Well, we live on a yacht, in a very "aggressive" environment. YouYou is constantly exposed to corrosion, especially because of the salt in sea water. The same water is also the reason of the various "situations" associated with electrolysis which takes place between the different metals used on the yacht. Add to this never tired barnacles, stubbornly seeking space for their house with a family on the immersed part of our boat and at the bottom of our dinghy. Shellfish accompanied by green algae are particularly active near the water line. Fortunately, as it's hot too, and a jump overboard into the pleasantly warm sea brings real relief. Regular treatments with plastic spatula in hand, allow us to keep the hull in good condition. But it is not easy...
It didn’t go so easy to change the window in the head, either… Mainly because we had no sufficient energy to run the welders. Ray of the German yacht Elsa made the first approach. He arrived in the dinghy with the generator and welder.
Unfortunately, our electrodes were too thick. I announced on VHF radio that we are looking for thinner ones. Salvation came from the French yacht anchoring close. Despite the changes in the electrodes, the generator was not able to do the welding. The same situation occurred with a little larger generator which we borrowed from Timo. Our Honda also did not make it ... We ended up with just placing a new element in the proper position in the right place.
Yesterday another friend sailed to us with his big boat, which normally supplies fresh water to anchoring yachts.
Jo brought a huge generator and a bigger welding machine. The whole job took an hour.
It’s just a pleasure to look at his job!
I remembered the repairs of s/y Czarny Diament, which we did with the captain Jurek Radomski in Montenegro
And talking about steel, you must have steel nerves to take a movie as presented below. Well, I was sleeping when this happened ;) Patricia invited the whole flock of fruit bats
for the evening feast.
Some time ago we heard from other sailors about bats searching at night for bananas. A few days later, we noticed that "something" eat little bit of our bananas hanging in a hammock inside our YouYou, and we also heard the whirr of the wings while sleeping ... The next evening, we made ourselves a horror show ;) We put an open banana on our aft cabin and comfortable sit in the cockpit, with hot coffee mugs in hands. After a few seconds the first guests came. Soon it’s companions appeared as well. One after another, bit after bit, they were eating the fruit... But what Patricia filmed the next night, was surprising even for me! Have a look:)
February 21, 2010
We will not publish the movie from carnival – after reviewing video footage we found out that everything looked better – live... Fortunatelly, we have long expected video about starting giant engine of an old wooden fishing boat - m/v Vreeland
- with Patricia and Wiebe on board.
The movie you can watch below or in our Video section.
Recently Janusz visited us with his friend - Tomek -
conqueror of windsurfers and kayaks,
and privately, a mathematics teacher in New York
Christina flew to Curacao to warm up in Caribbean sun. It was really a very pleasant evening!
Today we met again with the same team, lead by our friend Timo, we dived on the nearby reef. And it was not an ordinary diving! Our hero Timo released a large crab of fishing veins tangled on a reef. Later Timo told us it was not the first time when he rescued an animal trapped in human waste. Although we didn’t have too much sun, the underwater world was beautiful as always!
February 14, 2010
The highlight of last days was definitely the carnival in Curacao . In fact, the carnival began in January but now we are experiencing it’s peak of excitements while watching the street parades :) A few days ago there was a children's parade which unfortunately we could not attend. But yesterday and today we had more luck. Of course, we took the camera and Patricia’s recorder and went by public transport to the northern part of the island, to Barber. This time the bus route was shortened because the main roads were closed to traffic.
Already on our way from Willemstad
We spent several hours jumping to the rhythm of Tumba. Powerful sound systems were installed on the platforms on truck trailers.
In addition to DJ’s standing behind the tons of amplifiers and speakers, there were some platforms with live musicians too.
All of them put all the heart to squeeze all the juices from amplifiers and huge speakers facing directly the following group of dancers. A procession of dozens of trucks slowly was moving along the entire width of the street accompanied with crowds jumping on it’s both sides.
Everybody gathered together to celebrate the carnival. The nationality, wealth status, colour of the skin or religion – don’t matter. This is a special time when all borders are disappearing and joy, dance, music and shared fun are what only count.
Fortunately for the dancers but for the grief of photographers, there was not to much sun this day and the sky was grey with rainy clouds.
I decided to skip photography and did a few short movies which we will put together on YouTube soon.
The highlight of the evening was a visit to a Polish priest, Marian Cieciwa, who for many years have been taking care of the local church.
We got there thanks to Jolanta Pawlak and her parents, whom we accompanied on the street fiesta. Father Marian invited us to a barbecue in the garden of the presbytery.
We met there more Polish people and really have forgotten that we are so far from home. Thanks for the invitation!
As we are talking about Polish, few day ago we met a sailor Janusz.
His boat, s/v Wereda
is lying in Curacao Marina. We spent a very nice afternoon,
an evening,
and the conversations lasted till the morning. Janusz is a wonderfull person and has a very nice website - have a look on www.wereda.com
Coming back to carnival, today we started in the early morning. In this way we could watch the preparations for the upcoming Main Parade.
\
Before we found ourselves in the centre of events, we also met another Polish priest, Jan Typa. He is taking care of beautiful church on the hill overlooking the area of Santa Maria Willemstad
To keep us going we eat Lumpia’s - one of culinary specials of the island even they do not come from here but from distant China and Indonesia
Goes very well with cold beer :)
In our new gallery we share some pictures from today! Hope you will like them but remember, carnival on Curacao is different to Rio ’s - here there is much less nudity and sexuality but more fun and joy for everybody :)
And again this year my birthday was exactly on February 14. Thanks to everybody for lovely wishes!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)