Curacao and Aruba

The ship made it’s first port of call at Curacao about 11 am yesterday the first of two Caribbean islands of Dutch descent we visit, the other being Aruba. Willemstad where we docked, is a  very pretty City of 140000 people, unfortunately the economy is RS as we found on our first excursion to their beautiful beaches; not a pretty place. Why would someone want to go to see a beach when they live 5 minutes from the best beaches in the world. Our 45 min trip to what was one of 2 beaches we were to spend an hour at each, turned out to be absolutely chaotic. The road to the beach from the highway was riddled with potholes on an unsealed muddy road of about 3 kms.

The so called beach had lovely white sand full of rocks and pebbles that had to be negotiated to get to the crystal clear water around 28 degrees.The swim was beautiful and very enjoyable, but unfortunately the hour to be spent there was spoilt by some of the passengers ignoring the time factor and not returning to the bus on time. The hour stretched to 2 and when they were finally discovered most of the other passengers were so irate they just wanted to return to the ship without visiting the other beach. After some negotiating some did go to the other beach and others made there way back on another bus. Must say the island as we saw it has some of the most derelict housing and overgrown grass and trees you would see in a low poverty area, totally different to the City. We witnessed a magnificent sunset as a local dance troupe performed a fantastic display of dancing on the deck. 

The ship sailed to Aruba late at night for a very short cruise arriving at 8 am. We have been Oranjestad before many years ago, so decided not to partake in any excursions except wander the town amidst passengers from another cruise ship from the UK. The weather is almost identical to home at present about 28 degrees and quite humid. We sail at 5 tonight for Cartagena Columbia, where we arrive mid afternoon and spend the evening in port before sailing to the Panama Canal. So far the seas have been kind, quite a fresh breeze but we are both okay, the food is good and we are getting to know quite a few people on board and enjoying the cruise. Cocktail party tonight with Virtuoso.