After St. Kitts we spent a day at sea. Too nice to be inside the cabin, or even on the balcony, working on photos. So I tried the laptop in a recliner on the top deck near the pools. Too bright, even in the shady spots. So I tried reading some books I had stashed on my iPad. Too bright, even in the shady spots. So I lay in the sun, drank beer, and did some people watching. I had hoped for birds, flying fish, porpoises, whales etc. but saw little wildlife.
Then came Aruba. "Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 and became a separate, autonomous member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands." (According to the CIA World Factbook ) Aruban citizens carry passports from the Netherlands and often pursue their post-secondary education there. The locals tend to fluent in Dutch, English, Spanish, and the local patois. Aruba was a long day in port for us, 0800-2200. We had a leisurely morning (including a stop by the local Starbucks to use their WiFi hotspot to check email etc.), then joined a Toyota 4x4 Adventure Tour of the island. We had stops at the major attractions (including the place where the Natural Bridge used to be before it fell down a few years ago), had a lot of bumpy off-roading along the way, and finished off with a swim at a lovely beach. The northern windward side of the island is quite rugged with a few spots where surfing is feasible; the southern leeward side is pretty much all beaches right out of somebody's fantasy of what tropical beaches should be like. Some are busily being transformed into Miami Beach replicas; I guess you do what you gotta do when you depend on tourism. A few few shots from our day on the island: http://photos.stanhalpin.com/p628617890 stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
