Aruba was a fantastic, well earned stopover before we commenced on the rest of our Caribbean Sea crossing to Panama.
A very windy place to be, we had 25 knot winds blowing on us most of the week and we needed to wait a little longer than anticipated for a better weather window,
But more about Aruba. We found ourselves arriving in the middle of the night, so we ran up and down the coastline until daybreak and then eventually; after a bit of a mishap in the marina (we went on the wrong side of the stick, and went aground for a few minutes and thankfully got ourselves off the bottom without too much sweat), found ourselves tied up at the cement dock for Customs and Immigration. I perhaps should give a bit more of a description to this cement dock, so that Joel feels his efforts are noted. As I mentioned this is a windy place, and so we needed to pull up beside a cement dock with large black tires, with a 25knot cross breeze. No easy feat, and we had no idea if anyone would be there to take our lines. Thankfully a few workers from the cargo area were there to throw a line to, and Joel cautiously brought us in. Phew, no scrapes or bumps or bruises. A few black marks from the tyres, but nothing subsantial. Bad news was, we had to do the exact same thing again to check out!!
As in any new place, we dinghy in to the nearest dock and see what amenties we can use whilst there. Thankfully Aruba is a little mecca of shops and had a real cosmopolitan feel to it. I had a few afternoons to myself to amble the open shopping mall and the exclusive designer mall, with labels I did and did not recognise (and now that I'm a poorly sailor - didn't dare go near!) An afternoon of laundry, starbucks coffee and a few beach walks and things were looking pretty peachy in Aruba! We even got takeaway Chinese - yes, via dinghy one night.
The only problem was the flies (they found our boat to be a haven) and the wind, which brought with it dust!