Day 13 Curacao

Out of the rack at 7 a.m. today as we have an 8:15 excursion aboard a tour bus. As we have never been to Curacao before we decided to go with a tour group in the morning and then do our own thing in the afternoon. This would give us a taste of the Island & it’s history and give us time to geocache and see the downtown core with it’s interesting waterway and public markets. First thing I noticed coming into port this morning... I have never seen so many oil tankers in my life!

View from our ship!

Our tour group met on the pier and we were quickly loaded on a small bus and on our way. Our guide pointed out the various buildings of significant interest as we travelled through the Otrobanda side (west) of Willemstad and then wound our way up to the Queen Juliana Bridge. This spans the St.Annabaai waterway that provides access to the deep sea port. We had great views of the downtown core as well as the huge refinery and port on the inland side. Once over the bridge we descended down into the Punda side (East) of Willemstad. Google it and you’ll understand:-)

Great architecture and colors!

 We then headed further east to views of the second port that ships use. They have a huge industrial operation here with a deep sea drilling platform in for service. You could also see the mining operation on the hill in behind.

We wound around various parts of the Island and then returned to the ship. Very educational for us. We grabbed some lunch and had a short rest before heading back into town. We explored various shops and managed to grab a couple caches along the way. Our most exciting moment came when we started to cross the Queen Emma pontoon bridge. There are three ways to cross over to Punda from the Otrobanda side, the foot bridge, small ferries and the large bridge. It is all run very efficiently and when the swing pontoon bridge is opened for marine traffic, the ferries kick in to provide easy crossing.

We just stepped on the bridge when the bell rang signaling that it is about to open! We noticed the locals running so away we went. We just made it and had a good laugh. We wandered the streets and checked out the floating market with it’s various fruits and vegetables from Venezuala. We then settled on a canal side restaurant to watch the ships come & go. It was amazing as huge container ships passed right by our table.

Ship action in Curacao.

Back aboard ship we prepped for dinner and joined our new found friends in the Strauss dining room. We arranged to meet and go to the main show together. The show featured a group of 4 singers called the “The Unexpected Boys” that sort of emulated “The Jersey Boys” with songs of that era. It was excellent.

We took in the 50‘s & 60‘s show but for some reason we decided to try some mini golf :-) This did not work out as we were shut down by the staff due to the smoke blowing in the area. It was very windy and probably not the best idea in the first place. We did have some great laughs though.

We got notice of a huge storm effecting flights on the east coast so the cruise line is opening up free telephone and internet for guests to check flights etc... ours look ok though... not sure if that’s good or bad ;-)  Off to bed as we have a cruise day tomorrow and a noon lunch with the Continuous Cruiser group.