Sunday, September 6, 2009

Getting ready for Peru.

We are now all set to go. Peru here we come! Thanks to Stephanie who sent us her backpack and let’s hope that we have everything in these two little bags to survive on the Inca trail for two months!
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In Curacao we didn’t spend much time visiting, although Willemstad is quite a pretty town, but concentrate in getting the boat and ourselves ready to haul out the boat and get everything we need for our trip to Peru. We still took some time to walk around the nice streets of Willemstad with its colorful buildings. And after months of starvation I was quite please to find not only a McDonald but also a Burger King in the neighborhood! My fat level is now back to normal.

After close to a year of loyal services Chocobo is now taking a well deserved rest of two months at the Curacao Marine Services boatyard. Parking a boat, which is our house, for an extended period of time, is not as straight forward as it may sound. For instance, for the past few weeks we’ve been eating everything we had in the freezer without replacing it since we will not leave the refrigerator running while we are away. It may look small but this freezer can take a LOT of food believe me. Also we had to pickle our precious watermaker and we had to clean everything, walls and counters, to ensure no mold grows anywhere while the temperature in the boat reaches over 45°C (115°F) with 85% humidity when sitting in the yard! For the water system we were concerned that leaving the water stale for two months would make our pipes an ideal Petri dish for all sorts of bacteria. To alleviate that problem while in Grenada we bought a few big bottles of Black Jack rum from the Clack’s Court distillery. This rum is not just extremely cheap but is made of 70% alcohol! This thing is simply undrinkable but would do just fine to be poured in our water tank and flushed through all the pipes. With such an alcohol level it will still be efficient when diluted with the water. Trust me, we tasted the thing and nothing will survive in our water system!