Despite going to bed the night before in windy, wet and stormy weather, during the night it got better. In the morning it was still quite miserable but nowhere near as bad as last night. Once we’d had breakfast the wind had eased to a steady 12-15kts and the rain was next to nothing, so we made a dash for Willemstad.
We upped anchor at 11am and soon found ourselves at the only lock we had to deal with today, Volker ak Sluizen. The lock master spoke perfect English (as they all do) and instructed us to hang around a little bit, then wait for the bridge to open, whereupon we could enter as another yacht was leaving. This left us with the unusual situation of being in the lock before all the commercial traffic, i.e. barge coming in. It was like being in a box canyon with no escape with a block of flats (a big barge) coming towards us at a rate of knots. However, all went ok and suffice to say we survived!
Willemstad
Shortly after the lock we arrived in Willemstad, which is a beautiful little town with a quaint quayside and a traditional windmill at the end which we literally moored underneath.
There is a good supermarket just 150m from the quayside and fuel is available at the harbour entrance.
There are lots of good restaurants here, one of which we sampled on Saturday night.
On a sunny Saturday, Willemstad is a bit like Cowes, very popular! We are currently rafted 2 out but they could easily get another couple of boats on the outside of us. With lots of restaurants and bars it could also be a tad noisy, but this just adds to the atmosphere.
It’s a strange world
So here we are, still in Willemstad, and we have managed to pick up a local wifi from a restaurant. As I have a directional wifi antenna I wanted to know which restaurant it was from. So I search on Google for the wifi name and Willemstad, in this case “Pumke Willemstad”, and sure enough I get a hit. I go to their home page and there is a picture of the quay and the restaurant see here.
All of a sudden I notice that the Goose is in front of the restaurant. Wow I think, that’s clever they must have a live feed to the web. However, I notice that the positioning of the Goose is not quite right as we are not on that part of the quay. Further I notice that there is no wind generator so unless we’ve been robbed during the night this picture must have been taken in 2009, the one and only time we have ever been here before. How amazing is that!
Cost 25€ per night inc electricity. No wifi here apart from in the restaurants. (see above).
There is laundry facilities but you have to walk to the marina itself, which is only about 5 mins away.
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