Day 10 - Curacao

Today was another port day – Curacao, but we did not dock until 1 pm so had a leisurely morning to enjoy. We were up early, as usual, and I hit the gym while Andrew hung out on the balcony. The rest of the morning we spent on the balcony reading, and Andrew even had time for a late-morning nap! After lunch, we packed up our snorkel gear and disembarked in Curacao. Curacao is a beautiful port – the buildings are all painted pinks, greens, blues and yellows. It’s very Dutch Colonial. It also played an unfortunate role in the slave trade industry. Enslaved Africans were brought here after capture and spent up to two years learning skills that would increase their value in the US market. Sad.

I would like to show you all the beautiful pictures that I took, but the only one I have is of Andrew snorkeling (which I’ll talk about later). Here’s a tip for anyone planning to rent a car and drive around Curacao on their own – for all intents and purposes they don’t have any street signs so it impossible to tell where the heck you are at any given time. Also, the map they gave us was more of an “artists interpretation” – not to scale, only showing about 10% of the streets, and not of any use, really. We keep a running list when we travel of things we need to do or bring on the next trip. We’ve added to the list “get maps of any cities we’re renting a car in”. I have to say that I did enjoy the driving part, although we had no idea where we were going most of the time. The drivers in Curacao move quickly and are prone to lane jockeying – two of my favorite driving behaviors! Andrew was less thrilled than I as we zipped around the city at random with the camera securely in the trunk of the car with our snorkel gear.

We did finally manage to find The Dive Bus, where we had reserved fins for snorkeling. The owners were a lovely couple and their dog which we fell in love with immediately, of course! They gave us very clear directions to the beach (“Walk across the street; it’s right there. Enter the water from the beach.”). We did have to risk life and limb to cross the aforementioned street (see the bit above about Curacao drivers), but we managed to make it on a dead run.

The snorkeling was fine, but not the best we’ve seen. Although there were lots of fish to look at (Andrew even saw some squid), the water was fairly cloudy. I only stayed in about 20 minutes – I’m not a good snorkeler, I get motion sick bobbing around on the top of the water (which is the reason I love to scuba) so I got out and sat on the beach to “spot” for Andrew. He stayed in another hour, at least. He could bob around out in the ocean forever! While I was on the beach I saw what looked like a “patch” of rain coming in toward shore (it was raining off and on all day). I quickly realized that it was not rain but small fish jumping out of the water. Shortly behind was a school of large tuna, each jumping several feet out of the water, trying to catch the small fish. It was really amazing to watch !

We managed to find our way back to the port just as it was getting dark. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to drive around and see the rest of the city because we were nervous about getting completely lost in the dark with no map and no clue! So, we didn’t get to do any shopping, or take any photos of this cute little port with its doll-like houses. You’ll just have to close your eyes and imagine.