Some delightful local artistic color on the island of Curacao.

Curacao 

We arrived in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, on Saturday, March 28. We had signed up for an excursion tour of the island and we were soon off in our bus to take the tour. First reaction: disappointment. Not only were the plastic windows of the bus scratched up so that it was difficult to see the sights, but the island was clearly extremely arid and particularly so due to the lack of rain (almost none over the past year). We were taken to bat caves and a museum, something most of us really didn't care about and at long last found ourselves dropped in downtown Willemstad, a Dutch city, with a colorful waterfront made to look somewhat like Amsterdam. The afternoon was spent walking around the town which included an outside view of the oldest Synagogue in the western hemisphere (even older than that at Newport, RI). Unfortunately, since it was Saturday, we couldn't go inside. Willemstad has loads of tourist shops selling the usual watches, jewels, liquor, and T shirts. There is a pontoon bridge over to the ship's side with about a 20 minute walk past more shops to return to the ship. 
The waterfront in Willemstad, Netherlands Antilles, is a colorful replica of buildings in Amsterdam.
Leaving Curacao in the evening, our ship sailed past the downtown area in the photo above. Calypso music was playing and people were waving. It was without a doubt our most dramatic departure.

Aruba 

After backtracking west a few nautical miles, we found ourselves the next morning docked at Aruba, a former Netherlands Antilles island. Our tour on Aruba took us through the hotel row on the western shore of the island. It was immediately obvious that although Aruba is also arid and fairly plain, its hotel area is much more lush than anything we saw on Curacao. But along with the hotels comes Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Hut, and such. Our excursion at Aruba was an underwater one. We took a trip out to a glass bottom boat and toured a reef in which a sunken German freighter still lies. The freighter was scuttled by the German sailors in 1940. The view, through the gorgeous clear waters of the Caribbean, was astonishing. Surrounding the rather large vessel lying on the floor of the sea, are thousands of beautiful tropical fish and large areas of coral. 

Since it was Sunday morning, the shopping at Oranjestad, Aruba was fairly limited. Many stores are closed and the few that were open closed at either 1 or 2 p.m., making it difficult to spend much time perusing the wares. And so it was back to the ship for the afternoon. 

On To St. Thomas 

Monday, March 30 was spent sailing from Aruba to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. And on Tuesday, March 31, we arrived in St. Thomas, an island we had been on before only as a landing site on the way to St. Croix, a few years back. Carole, Joann, and I decided to walk from the ship into the town of Charlotte Amalie, about a 10 minute walk. We walked along the shore line, looking out at the incredibly light blue bay. There were seaplanes, sailboats everywhere, and a spectacular view of a line of cruise ships at the pier behind us. 
Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, VI, looks almost like a Greek island from the vantage point of the cruise ship.On the ship we heard lots of talk of "duty-free shopping." Charlotte Amalie is the mecca of duty-free shopping.

The story concludes on page 7.

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