The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

The first day of the cruise we just sailed and sat around. The second day we stopped in Aruba. All of the islands we visited were really small. I would say all of them are essentially comparable to the size of Manhattan or Staten Island. None of them even approach the size of Long Island. Anyway, we stopped at Aruba first and did some stuff. Aruba is one of the wealthiest Caribbean islands because it has an oil refinery there that brings in money. Of all the islands we visited, Aruba is the most self sufficient, and though they make a lot of money on tourism, they also have other significant revenues.

Anyway, first we went snorkeling in Aruba. It was really great. First we went to one spot and saw some coral and fish and took some pictures with an underwater camera. I don't have those shots yet because we have to get the film developed instead of just uploading it.

Here's Kathy and me about to go snorkeling in Aruba.


They scooped us up from that one spot and then took us out into the ocean a little farther to a sunken ship. It was a big 415 foot boat that sunk because of some type of WWII activity. It was ridiculously cool to snorkel there. You come up on this ship and all of a sudden there's this enormous thing there. Also there's coral all over it and fish all over the place around and in the ship. Very cool. Again no pictures yet, but here's Kathy and I after we snorkeled. Yeah, I've been working out.


Immediately after they dropped us off at the boat we went to book a snorkeling trip for the next day because we liked it so much. Then we both took showers and left the boat to walk around Oranjestad, Aruba. There is a ton of shopping and most of it is situated in these outdoor malls. It's all very nice looking. Here's some of the mall.


We ate lunch in a place called Mambo Jambo, and it looks like this. It's the second floor place with the yellow balcony.


I had a great drink called a Bushwacker that had kahlua, Bailey's, rum, amaretto, and ice cream and it tasted like a chocolate milkshake. I'm gonna try to make one tonight in the smoothie maker. Kathy had some sort of fruit or berry frozen drink


We walked around for a while more to the different shops. There is a cool store called Del Sol where everything they have there changes color in the sun. We bought t-shirts for our nieces and nephews and such. I don't think we bought anything else there, but it was fun to walk around all the shops.

Here's me in front of some more shops


Eventually we went back to the ship for dinner and the day in Aruba was done. Here's a couple other pictures from Aruba.



The boat actually stayed in Aruba until 1am, as opposed to 5:30pm in all the other places we went to, so a lot of people stayed off the boat and went to a night club or something like that. There was this one club right off the boat called Carlos and Charlie's that a bunch of folks went to and apparently that was a good time. I certainly heard the music at that place from our balcony, so I know it was pumping.

Anyway, we went to sleep and woke up the next day in...