CAPTAIN SLOG STAR DATE 71.13

Well dinner last night was a little disappointing. Eclipse has been ploughing through increasingly rough seas. I have taken a couple of videos just to show her taking the waves full on. It has been very difficult to walk in a straight line, I'm wondering whether alcohol would cure this or make it worse? Regardless, I am not supposed to have any with my Methotrexate.

With a bit of a fluttery tum, I decided to get ready for dinner and pick up a port and brandy, for medicinal purposes, you understand. Mum was told by a travel agent once that it was a great cure for mal de mer and I have tried and tested it several times and can confirm it's efficacy.

Having had lunch, I wasn't very hungry, so I had toyed with the idea of missing dinner completely as I don't eat very often in the evenings at home. I thought I should show my face though, so I turned up.

There were just the two from Oregon Phil and Sandie and the English family from France. They apparently know each other from a previous cruise. I felt a little excluded at times because of this but not too bad. The American family were eating a la posh that night. I can't see the point of paying out yet more money when the food is good enough in the free dining.

I had mozzerella and tomatoes, followed by an Italian bean soup and I was full! When the lamb shank came, which had clearly been working out before its untimely death -it was massive  - I couldn't really eat much and even passed on the pud too.

Back in my cabin, I packed my rucksack for my Aruba excursion, hung out my room service card for breakfast and went to bed. It was so rough I nearly fell out a couple of times, so had to move further into the middle!

The alarm seemed to go off almost straightaway but it was 6.45 so I got up, breakfast was ordered for 7 to 7.15. When it came poor Haraldo could barely carry it, the reason being, I think I had misunderstood the menu. When it said 'bacon' how many, I put 2, thinking  two rashers, same with the sausage. What it really meant was, how many big fat American bellies do you want to fill with bacon and sausage. I had two large oval plates positively overhanging with food. Oops! Oh, plus cereal, grapefruit juice, toast and coffee. Poor Haraldo is now nursing a serious hernia!

Anyhow, on with my day.....

I went horse riding with 9 other brave souls, some of whom had never ridden at all. I knew from that, that we were unlikely to go very fast. Aruba is 9 x 17 miles and we drove in a 4x4 just about as far away as we could, right into the National Park.

Aruba is a volcanic island, there are huge chunks of what looks like basalt and great lumps of petrified coral overlaying it, so the volcanic activity lifted the coral out of the sea to form the island. It is about 20 miles from the coast of Venezuela and is swept by the Trade Winds, so there is always a breeze here.

We all signed our obligatory waivers, if we die, we die, and climbed aboard our steeds.

My boy was called Barney, a nice little black pointed dun, no malice and a bit of a nose to tailer. Think I got spoiled at Rancho Las Cascadas! 

There was quite a lot of climbing up and down rocky paths but the coastline was very dramatic. Great big waves exploding against the rocks and then seething ashore like shaken up Coke. Took a few videos to show the power of the water.

When I got back to the ship I decided to book another trip as we were not leaving until 9.30 tonight. I decided on the Best of Aruba tour, so just had time for a shower and to put some more juice into the camera and off I went again.

I found 5 minutes for a quick tour of the tat shops in the cruise terminal and found a few likely candidates. Then it was onto a coach for a tour of the island's highlights. There were some real porkers on this trip. God, how do they get so fat? I grabbed a seat by the window, only to have a porker with a broken foot, plonk down next to me. He proceeded to drop off to sleep whilst the driver cum guide was introducing the tour. 

So off we set. The Americans are very childlike on these trips with their 'Wows' and 'Jeeze's'. From experience most of them would be unable to point out their current  position on a map. Anyway, I appeared to be the fittest on board, despite the RA.

The first place we stopped was a cactus garden with some huge rocks. There was a viewpoint up loads of rock steps where you could see 75% of the island. The guy in front of me lost his baseball cap in the wind, it's probably on a Venezuelan head by now!

Down the bottom once more I met the most beautiful turquoise gecko. Luckily I managed to get a photo of him but I will have to look him up on Google to find out what he is. I bought one of the local beers, apparently one of the top ten in the world. Went down well, anyway.

Back on the bus, there was a visit to the coast where we saw the remains of a natural rock bridge, a bit like the arch in Lulworth Cove, but a lot smaller - and flatter, since it collapsed in 2005! There is another smaller one but that has a great big crack across it, so the coach company will have to start trying to come up with another destination soon.

Next stop was the Aloe Vera factory, originally the island's main industry but now overtaken by the oil refinery up the coast. I found it quite interesting as 
I'm a long time advocate of the stuff. So I came out with some after sun cream and some hand cream.

We stopped along the way to view the coast but it wasn't as dramatic as the horse ride, so I wasn't that impressed but there were many Wows and Jeeze's from the punters in the back. Then it was, yawn, a disused lighthouse  - we were scraping the bottom of the barrel here! A 15 minute stop, why? You couldn't even get into it.

I did find the guide interesting though. He stopped and picked a cashew fruit, how odd is that? It looks like a yellow bell pepper with a leathery cashew shaped nut stuck on the top. Apparently the fruit is used to make a home medicine with Aloe Vera and cinnamon for diabetes. Bet there were a few on the coach that would have liked the recipe!

He also explained the education system, all children receiving free education, then college and university all paid for. If students go abroad to university, they get a full scholarship, the only thing is, they have to return to Aruba and work there in their chosen field for at least six months  - or pay it all back. Apparently most people do return. They also have to learn four languages - Jeeze!

The island is also 99.9% employed. For the remaining 0.1%  there is a welfare system which provides them with money whilst the government find them a job. The catch is that they must take the job and then pay back all the welfare money paid to them whilst unemployed! 

David Cameron are you listening?

Once off the coach, I had developed a bad headache and had to abandon my plans for a Tat search deeper into Oranjestaad. Instead I opted for a very cheesey little number in one of the terminal shops - $5 well spent I feel.

Bit undecided about dinner tonight as, again, I'm not hungry. Had no lunch but still not peckish, I'll decide a bit later.