Paardenbaai

First dock of the cruise today in Aruba. We docked around 7am this morning, sadly we didn’t actually see us arrive. We were actually up but had a couple of Firbeck Trophies bits and bobs to attend to, such as giving Adele the password to the laptop so she could actually work for us.

Once up and out we went for breakfast at the buffet, we are going to try the restaurant - maybe tomorrow if we are up in time. Weather today has been a very warm 29 degrees with sunshine and cloud. We were told storms were forecast for later. We disembarked the ship and had a wander round the local town of Oranjestad. Whilst we could remember bits from out last visit, there were lots of bits we had forgotten about. I think they have suffered like lots of places have, many of the shops had closed and there were less bars than we remember. But it was still a lovely place, we walked down to the harbour and around the shops. The really nice shopping centre was still there, they fetch people in to it by boat from the local hotel. We saw lots of Iguanas and s couple of very large birds but we weren’t sure what they were, we thought heron st first but then settled on pelican ! Who knows, we’re rubbish at that stuff.

We spent the latter part of the afternoon on board, finally deciding where we’re going to eat on my birthday and we also booked the beach hut for Thursday. Had a little sit in the atrium with an ice cream before heading to the open deck to see us sail-away. Captain Paddy McGuire was quite right when he forecast storms this morning, it went very black and it threw it down, we were treated to a lightening display and quite a few tremendously loud claps of thunder. However, not long after we left it cleared up and the sea was as calm as ever. All enjoyed with a group of people outside on the open deck but we were under cover!!

As we headed back to the room, the roast beef brisket and Yorkshire pudding caught our eye in the buffet. We had fully intended eating in the restaurant tonight but neither of us were feeling on top form. My cold is still lingering and Sharon’s is coming out, so we ate in the buffet, went down to the cabin and had an early night.

Next stop Curaçao 🇨🇼 tomorrow !!Read more