This time around we will finish off our visit to the smallest nation ever to qualify for the FIFA World Cup Finals. We shall begin with some statistics about the island nation prior to visiting its maritime museum.

Smallest nation, meaning what? I am quite sure it refers to population rather than land mass. Let’s take a look. As I have discovered with all the Caribbean islands, pinning down an exact population seems a tad challenging.

The best number I can find is as of 1st January 2025, when it showed as 156,115, although other sources suggest it could be as high as 185,000. However we look at it, it is reasonably densely populated, with around 352 people for each of its 444 square kilometres.

Willemstad is the capital of this autonomous state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and claims to be home to around 90% of the island’s residents. It is pretty level overall, with no significant hills or mountains, and measures roughly 64km long, north-west to south-east, with a widest point-to-point of about 16km.

Interestingly, although Curaçao is part of the Netherlands, which in turn is part of the European Union and, indeed, residents of the island hold both Dutch and EU citizenship, it is not part of the Schengen Area and free movement is not permitted between autonomous regions and the main EU land mass.

On a more positive note, it is not subject to EU laws. Talk about seemingly having your cake and eating it.

By the way, the previous smallest nation to compete in the World Cup Finals was Iceland, with a mammoth population of around 400,000. It’s not long now to wait and see how they get on. Shall we all wish them luck? We all like a plucky underdog, after all.

The other three teams in its group are Germany, Ecuador and Ivory Coast. Underestimate them at your peril.

Harbour Views and a Golden Lion

It was a joy to walk around the harbour area, by the way — the fourth largest natural one in the world, according to our trolley train tour anyway — with gentle waters lapping against the quayside and seawalls. I do not believe there are any more pleasing vistas on the planet, all helped by a healthy dose of sunshine.

The three harbours ahead of Curaçao in the harbour ratings are… well, I found a list containing the top ten and, I am sorry to report, there was no mention of either Curaçao or Willemstad. The order did actually throw me a fair old bit.

1) Cork, Ireland
2) Halifax, Canada
3) Falmouth, England
4) Mahon, Minorca
5) Milford Haven, Wales
6) Sydney Harbour, Australia
7) Poole, England
8) Otago, New Zealand
9) Trincomalee, Sri Lanka
10) Valletta, Malta

The aforementioned ten are actually listed as natural ports and not harbours. Notwithstanding the above, I did find the access to Willemstad most impressive. Until looking up these statistics, I always thought that Sydney Harbour was the largest harbour, natural or otherwise, in the world. How wrong was I.

Sticking with a nautical theme — hard to escape when wandering around an old seafaring town — we stumbled across a sight that would warm the cockles of any sea-loving adventurous heart.

The tall ship Gulden Leeuw (English: Golden Lion) is a three-mast topsail schooner first built in 1937 and most recently refitted in 2009. I can’t think of anything else that gets my heart rate up like an impressive sailing ship lying at anchor.

When I was a young lad, over half a century ago now, many I knew of my own age would crew these incredibly graceful giants of the sea. I never really hankered after doing it myself but did relish listening to their stories on returning to land.

Now, though, how I wish I had done this. Alas, it is too late, my eyes making crewing a bit challenging. I do, however, still hold onto a dream of cruising on a sailing ship, out in the open ocean, with only rippling waves, cooling breezes and ceilings of stars as company.

Crewing is now only left to my imagination but, one day, who knows, I might be a passenger. The ship, Dutch in origin, sails the world offering amazing experiences to mainly young people, although it does, from time to time, offer cruising adventures for the ordinary person. You never know what is round the corner.

I do like a postscript and, upon my return to Queen Victoria later that evening, I realised I could spend much of my time cruising in the Golden Lion — it is the name of the pub on the ship.

Exploring Curaçao’s Maritime Museum

The sailing ship could not have been better positioned, acting as a real live sign for the nearby maritime museum. Nothing, save a castle or cannon, gives me any more joy than a maritime museum.

After all, we now live in the county that gave us Horatio Nelson and George Vancouver, plus an inexhaustible supply of fishermen and lifeboatmen. Norfolk’s longest boundary is with the sea and everything that lies beyond. Man has always been inquisitive about what lies over the horizon — that line where sky meets sea and adventure begins.

The museum was spread over three floors and offered extremely good value at only $10.00 each to get in. It charts the history of maritime navigation in these waters from a time before Christopher Columbus set sail from the Old World through to the modern mining and drilling of oil, abundant in the seas surrounding the island.

We took our time taking in all the displays, where Jane read me all the information signboards, interspersed with excellent interactive video and audio exhibits.

Thanks to Columbus and the contract he signed with Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon — the then Spanish monarchs and future in-laws of our very own King Henry VIII — backed by the corrupt Pope at the time, Alexander VI, in exchange for his fair share of the valuables brought back from the New World, all of these islands and territories ended up as Spanish dominions.

It was clear to other predatory nations elsewhere in Europe that the Iberians were spreading themselves too thin, including the Dutch, who moved for Curaçao, among others, and cleared out the nests of pirates and privateers based here. The Spaniards were always banging on about how Francis Drake was nothing more than a pirate for stealing their stolen gold and jewels. Really! Takes one to know one is all I can say.

By the way, I forgot to mention: dear old Xander was a Spaniard but claims he carried out due diligence in appointing Christopher Columbus to the court in Madrid. Well, there’s the thing!
Just a word for another of the Pope’s habits at the time — nepotism. Whilst it wasn’t actually Alexander who appointed six of his nephews, Italian nipoti, to the role of Cardinal (that honour went to Sixtus IV), he certainly didn’t mind continuing the tradition that had been started around twenty years earlier.

There, you can have that one for nothing. Every time you hear a reference to nepotism, you know where it all started. It never ceases to amaze me how this corrupt institution continued to function into modern times. I love the link to Henry VIII, who blunted their power by starting his own Anglican Church.

This port played a major part in the sweet smell of success that was sugar. Along with many other island wharfs around the Caribbean, ships were queuing up to load hogsheads of the white stuff for the long journeys back to Europe — in this case, the Netherlands.
Like with all these colonial possessions, we must remember that the wealth was founded on the backs and shoulders of the African slaves who filled the ships coming in the other direction.

As the nineteenth century progressed, it became apparent that sugar cane was becoming more expensive to produce. Slavery was coming to its end, sugar beet production was ramping up in northern Europe, and techniques to extract the sweet elixir from this basic root vegetable were improving all the time. Result: sugar beet won, sugar cane lost.

The hole created by this loss got the colonies searching around for new exports. Many crops hit the spot, but none more so than spices. As mentioned before in these pages, it was the eastern islands around Indonesia and Malaysia that were the traditional locations for growing many spices, but the Caribbean had many advantages — prime among them the distance from Europe, closer than the traditional spice islands.

It wasn’t long before engineers around the world were building on an industrial invention that was to alter the direction of the twentieth century: the internal combustion engine. It was now time to feed the iron horses rather than the biological horses, so Royal Dutch Shell moved in for a piece of the action.

Rich reserves of oil were found in them thar waters and a new boomtime began for Curaçao. The Americans moved in and the rest, as they say, is history.

As we came closer to the twenty-first century, Curaçao found itself at the crossroads of trade between South and North America. One commodity that doesn’t feature on the signboards at the museum is drugs, primarily cocaine and cannabis.

Having listened to talks from a retired British diplomat who was involved with the war on drugs in the region until relatively recently, we discovered that many Caribbean islands are at the centre of narcotics smuggling into the US, Canada and Europe. Quite frightening really.
You have to remember we were here only days after the US had changed the regime in Venezuela, only about 30 miles to the south, so there was probably an unofficial moratorium on the transportation of drugs. The Americans had their eyes on the ball at this time.

Still, whatever was going on in the warehouses and back alleys of Willemstad, I think I speak for both of us when I say we felt very safe indeed.

One story to tell you before we go is the tragedy that visited Sint Anna Bay on 15th September 1778. The Dutch warship, a frigate named Alphen, blew up without warning with the loss of all hands on board.

The explosion, thought to have been caused by a spark that set off the ship’s powder magazine, split the craft in two before it sank. When I say all hands on board, many body parts did not go down with their ship, as they were scattered around the port and its environs and turned up almost daily for weeks on end.

One poor chap was found atop a roof some time later and was only identified thanks to a tool of his trade that he was still clutching. It was the ship’s cook, and he had not let go of his ladle.

I also have to report that some of the Alphen’s company were ashore when catastrophe struck, including one officer who should have been back on board at the time of the explosion. He decided to tarry a while when his valet announced some fresh coffee was on the go — a prime example of the health benefits of coffee, I think.

The museum, for obvious reasons, has given over a lot of space to telling the tale of that fateful day. One of its prime exhibits is the incredible bronze cannon that was unearthed during the renewal of the Kleine Werf Quay.

It is even complete with two cast dolphins that were hoisting loops and was discovered around eight metres below the surface. It is truly remarkable, and even to this day marine archaeologists are still finding artefacts from the ship.

It now serves as a permanent reminder and tribute to those who lost their lives, going about their everyday business nearly 250 years ago. Another place that is well worth a visit.
Next time we shall go backwards in the alphabet, C to A, and visit Aruba.