23rd January, 2020 covering 14th January, 2020 onwards – from a bar in Manzanillo, Mexico!
Another sea day, but we were accompanied on this leg by some masked boobies and a young brown booby (so I am informed) as well as some flying fish, so I was busy trying to capture them with the camera. A good many of the photos were of patches of sea as they are not that easy to photograph (they will keep moving). A selection though were not too bad……
15th January, 2020
We docked early in the port of Willemstad, the capital of the largest island of the Netherlands Antilles, Curacao. For the curious, the Netherlands Antilles is made up of St Maarten, St Eustasius, Saba, Bonaire, Aruba and Curacao. Aruba became a separate state in 1986 and on 10/10/10 the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, with Curacao became an independent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands along with St Maarten. The less-populated other islands have been given city status within the Netherlands.
Curacao itself is usually a pleasant 27degrees with about 22 inches of rain a year and derives much of its income from some of the largest oil refineries in the western hemisphere and tourism. It is also home, of course, to the famous orange liqueur, Blue Curacao. It is about 172 square miles with a population of about 162,000. I regret I am not sure how that stacks up against that universal measure of very small countries, the Isle of Wight nor against the measure of slightly larger countries, Wales. One for you all to look up on Google!
Val and I decided that we would just explore Willemstad and a very pleasant experience it was too. We disembarked to the usual array of stalls and souvenir sellers, but got a good view of the Arcadia from the shoreline. It seems huge, but is actually barely half the size of some of the bigger liners.
Willemstad is very neat and tidy for the most part and seems well-organised and prosperous. The most striking aspect of it is that it feels that a bit of Holland has discovered the wreckage of a ship carrying the entire catalogue of the Dulux paint range which they have applied to every wall they can lay their paintbrushes on. The photos speak for themselves…
Some of the buildings date back to the 17th Century and there is a good collection of old and new. One feature is the Queen Emma pontoon bridge also known as the Swinging Old Lady, built in 1888, which can detach from one end and then swing open to allow boats through. There is an engine in one end to effect the manoeuvre. There are also two ferries that run continuously in case the bridge is open for any length of time.
We wandered through the streets, had a look at the walls of the Water Fort and soaked up the ambience in what was quite hot and humid weather, though with a welcome breeze to cool things off a bit before getting a drink in a café whilst catching up with the Wi-Fi on the phones.
And that was about that. We headed back to the ship, had lunch and some table tennis and I then ventured out again on my fruitless task of posting the blog (see earlier mention). By this time, an American cruise ship had moored behind us and large numbers of largely large Americans streamed into town. My goodness, I thought some of our fellow passengers could lose a pound or two, but these guys were streets ahead of us. I do not think I have ever seen bigger people. It was almost impressive. You have to wonder where it will all end……
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