We were awakened by the sound and feel of the ship's thrusters positioning us in the second (best, closest) berth in Orangestad, Aruba. It's funny...despite all the noise in our cabin on the Noordam, we never once heard the ship coming into port. I think that the fact that our cabin was mid-ship there, instead of aft as it is on the Emerald, made all the difference.
Once awake, we quickly went to the dining room for breakfast. I had forgotten, until today, that last year, the entire month of December, stollen was offered along with the trays of pastries at breakfast. I asked, and yes, there was stollen! I'll have one slice each morning until the end of December, which is when it historically has disappeared again. With a round of marzipan in each slice, this is pretty amazing stuff.
I had already packed most of our beach stuff last night, so we just had to add ice and beverages for the cooler. We took care of that and then headed off the ship.
The day was sunny and HOT! Our first stop was a couple of blocks from the ship where we knew there to be reliably fast, free wifi. It's at its best first thing in the morning before there are a lot of users accessing it, and so that's why it was our first stop instead of our last. We were able to check the webcams back home for the first time since Monday to make sure the furnace was still running. We also saw that there was a good layer of snow on the ground. Tee-hee-hee!
As usual, because the wifi was fast, we stayed longer than we had intended. I was able to get a free Vonage call out to mom, who has been under the weather (Mom, I hope you're feeling better by the time you read this!). In case I haven't yet mentioned it, the free Vonage app is offering free phone calls back to the US for a limited time. It's been more reliable for us than Skype, and, of course, even cheaper than already cheap Skype.
It was after 10am before we finally crossed the street to the Arubus bus station and got on a #10 bus. We're smarter this time, and had exact change, $4.60 for both of us, to hand to the driver who seemed truly thrilled that he didn't have to 1.) answer the question of how much it cost; and 2.) make change in a combination of US and Aruban currency. As we were boarding the bus, three of the casino workers from the ship were right behind us, and one of them asked me about my iPhone case (I had the orange life jacket on it). We sat together and I told him about it and showed him the underwater videos from Bonaire. Everyone who sees what this case can do is amazed, as I continue to be too.
We disembarked the bus at Eagle Beach, and because we didn't arrive until just before 10:30am and because it is the Christmas holiday, we had a hard time finding a palapa for shade. We eventually did, in the furthest row from the water. It was windy, so we had to weight the tarp down with our bags, shoes and the floats, but we were finally set up and I headed into the water.
I floated longer than I had anticipated, but got so absorbed in listening to my audiobook that, before I knew it, the wind had pushed me way, way out and down the beach. I was nearly in the boat traffic, so I had to quickly start paddling for shore. When that wasn't working, I had to get out of the float and swim back to shore, and, pushing the float, was a bit worn out by the time I got back to the beach.
After a short rest, I figured all that wind had to be good for flying my kite, and so I got it out and did that. It's the same Konvertible Kite that I've had for years, and that has been all over the world with me.
We had decided early on to walk back to the ship today, just for the exercise. Now that we've done that once, I'm guessing it's something we'll usually do. We left the beach just before 2:30pm and again it took about an hour of walking to reach the cruise ship pier. We passed it and returned to the free wifi. It had slowed considerably, but was still decent, so we used it until about 4pm, when we reboarded the ship.
A pool and/or hot tub would have felt nice, but tonight was Breeza Marina night in Skywalkers. We hadn't been up there yet this cruise, but decided tonight was the night. By the time we had cleaned up and had washed out our beach gear, it was 5pm and we stopped into Skywalkers long enough to have a drink and some of that yummy herbed goat cheese and bruschetta. We didn't dawdle, but were at the dining room when it opened at 5:30pm. We don't usually like to rush quite like that, but "that" family arrives between 6:15 and 6:30pm, and we seem to do best to by finishing up our entrees and ordering dessert about the time they arrive. Tonight we had the added incentive of wanting to watch sailaway at 7pm from the Promenade Deck. In fact, we left the dining room, just briefly, to watch sunset about 6:20pm and then immediately returned for dessert. We're lucky...nothing throws Sutti. He's been around long enough to just roll with whatever we do.
Sailaway after dark is always beautiful. There is no island that doesn't look even better after dark, with the lights reflecting in the water, and tonight we saw a fair amount of Christmas decorations at the resorts along the water. We then went immediately to our first production show of this cruise, our favorite "I Got the Music". Cruise Critic friend Lynda sat next to me and before the performance began showed me a Google Blogger app that she is using to compose blog posts. I will have to check that out...maybe it would be even easier than sending emails.
By then, it was only 8pm, but we were tired and, besides, arrival in Bonaire tomorrow is early, at 7am. We picked up popcorn and fuzzy waters and returned to our cabin. After finishing these posts, we have in mind to watch a movie in the cabin and be asleep early. Maybe (please) I'll be snorkeling at Klein Bonaire shortly after 8am tomorrow morning!
Photos 1 to 3: our day on Eagle Beach
Photos 4 and 5: Gerry's latest creations for the Elite lounge in Skywalkers
