Saturday 8th August
Enjoyed an afternoon in Aruba (a Dutch holding until recently) in the Dutch Antillies. It’s a small very dry island with virtual cactus desert inland and beaches around the outskirts. Thus, we chose not to take a tour but just wandered around the city. It was a mecca for anyone wanting up market brands in cloths, accessories, jewelry, perfume etc.. Since we don’t want to have to pay excess on our return flight from Sydney to Brisbane, as we had to on the way down, we have kept our shopping to the bare minimum and basically only buying essentials, or consumables. We are allowed to bring two bottles of wine on board from each port to drink in our cabin. Back to Aruba – most of the older buildings are typically Dutch in appearance. It was very hot once you left the foreshore so we cooled down with a couple of ice cold Heinekens at the Renaissance pier after tramping around town, before returning to the ship. We were meant to sail at 7pm but one of the sideways thrust engines had an electrical problem so we were delayed. We finally left port around 10.30