Friday 3rd December
Today is “catch up on lost sleep day”.

Daisy alongside at the Renaissance Marina Aruba, it's good to be back...

We arrived at Aruba late afternoon yesterday, following a double fly by, by the coast guard, who then called us on the vhf to get our information.  Customs and immigration at Barcadera was easy, Curacao had already faxed them our information ahead.  There was also room for us to come alongside this trip, last time we were here we had to raft up against one of the Venezuelan fishing boats. It was only 4:30 so we still had plenty of daylight.  I called the marina to let them know we were coming in and make sure they still had a slip for us.  We were both very tired after only a couple of hour’s sleep, followed by a very long day, and were looking forward to a few hours rest before having to go and pick up Edi.  Unfortunately when we arrived at the marina they had mistaken us for a cat, and the T-Dock allocated to us was too shallow for Daisy, so we had to come stern to on the dock, in 18 knots of wind and current, it was not an easy maneuver.  Fortunately we had plenty of help from our neighboring boats, and Sanders the friendly marina manager, but it still took us about 45 minutes to get Daisy into the slip and safely anchored at the bow.
As per usual for us, there was no time to rest, it was getting dark and we still had to get the dinghy down, put the passarel out, and empty everything out of the lazarette to make enough room for Bob to get in and re-wire the electrics so we could plug into shore power.  All this took us until 9:45pm by which time we were about ready to drop.  Bob just had time for a quick shower, before leaving for the airport to collect Edi, who was arriving at 10:45.  I stayed behind to clean Ed’s bathroom, make up the bed, and get dinner.  Wow it had been another really long day!
Edi and Bob arrived back about 11:30.
It’s now 9:45am on Friday, and both Bob and Edi are still sleeping, Bob has a lot of lost sleep to catch up on.  The sky is gray and its pouring with rain, but we are planning a quiet day resting, I think we have deserved it after the last two and a half weeks.
We spent the morning (what was left of it after an 11;30 brunch) adjusting the lines, it was hot sweaty work, the sun was finally out after a rainy start. Edi was sweating up a storm, and still suffering from the after effects of his cold.
We did manage a very lazy afternoon, playing games on the Wii, taking a nap and messing around with the Internet, which, YEAHHHHHHHH we get here…