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Published: February 14th 2014
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Days 9-11 – The “ABC” Islands
Its hard to believe that it was one week ago today that we set sail from Ft. Lauderdale and here we are tied up to the dock in Kralendijk, Bonaire. This is the third island in the famous “ABC” islands which originally part of the Dutch overseas empire.
Our visit to the islands started with Oranjestad, Aruba on Wednesday; Willemstad, Curacao on Thursday and Kralendijk, Bonaire today. The islands are close enough to each other and the Venezuelan coast that in reality it really doesn’t take all night to get from one to another. It takes only 15 to 20 minutes to fly between Aruba and Curacao, a fact that one of our tour guides pointed out.
Since our arrival in Aruba wasn’t scheduled until 1:00 p.m. it gave us an opportunity to take in a number of lectures and demonstrations before we docked. I attended two very interesting cooking demos and finally learned how to make a better omelet: 1/ don’t use milk - use only water to thin the egg mixture out because milk doesn’t combine well with egg; & 2/ don’t add any
salt until the mixture has cooked otherwise you will end up with rubbery eggs.
We also had the opportunity to hear a lecture by the guest “Enrichment” speaker Dr. Helena Aves, who is a geologist. She is presenting a series of lectures dealing with the geology of the areas we are visiting. Dr. Aves has been a consultant who has worked primarily with the petroleum and mining industries.
Having been to Oranjestad before we opted not to take any of the organized tours but instead simply left the ship and walked to the main commercial district and looked around. We were sharing the port with two other cruise ships that day so the streets were full of tourists and the merchants were quite happy, especially those owning jewelry stores.
Departure from Aruba wasn’t until 11:30 p.m., so passengers had the opportunity to stay on shore until quite late.
On Thursday our stop was Willemstad, where we once again shared the docks with two other cruise ships. In our case the docking berth was near the oil refinery, which allowed our vessel to refill her bunkers with fuel.
In this port we ventured off on a short-guided tour of the island which included a stop at the Curacao Museum to learn about the early history of the native inhabitants and the colonization period. Then it was off to the naturally formed Hato caves where escaped slaves hid themselves from their plantation owners. The final stop was at the Chobololo distillery where they produce liqueur – Curacao naturally, in many colours (as well as a few other flavoured liqueurs)
Our tour guide also explained that the economic vitality of Curacao depended on tourism, the refining of oil and their ship repair facilities.
As we drove around we encountered a flock of flamingos feeding in a salt pond near the road. The guide told us that the birds frequently fly in from Bonaire, 3 hours flying time for them, to feed and then fly back to Bonaire to nest.
The tour also took us over the Queen Juliana Bridge, which was right off the stern of the Maasdam so we had the rare opportunity of actually looking down on the vessel from above.
The tour bus dropped off anyone who was interested in staying in the downtown area before walking back to the ship. I elected to do just that and explored a bit of the historic parts of the city core.
A unique feature of the city is that they have a floating bridge for pedestrians, which they can swing to one shore whenever large vessels, like the Maasdam, head into the inner harbor area. While I was down in the area the bridge was in the process of being swung back into position after one of the other cruise ships had exited the channel.
We experienced another late departure and it is always interesting watching a city transform itself as the lights come on.
Our last stop for the “ABC” islands was here in Kralendijk, Bonaire. The sky looked threatening early this morning when we sailed in but that cleared off. The winds have come up once again so I suspect that it will be a bit rough out on the open sea once we clear the harbour this evening.
We once again elected to take an overview driving
tour of the island where we saw large stretches of the coast, famous for their snorkeling and scuba driving areas and the rustic landscape.
On this tour we were taken to an elevated lookout point that provided us an excellent view of the coast back towards where the ship was docked. The tour included a stop for photos at the Salt Pans and at the white slave huts/shelters which were originally constructed for the slaves forced to work in the original Salt ponds.
In addition we were once again treated to a stop at a distillery which produces a liqueur from cactus.
So we are off to sea this evening for another full day on the briny deep with our next destination being Trinidad.
Brooke & Mike
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Gill & Roger
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So Interesting.
I've been looking up all your ports of call and travelling around with Google Earth. My history and geography have always been abysmal but rapidly improving. Keep going!