Day 5 - Port Willemstad, Curaçao
Ship made port at 8:00. Curaçao is also part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. I had time to run through the Buffet to pick up some cheeses and meats to use as a charcuterie board later tonight.
We did the Ultimate Island, Beach & Turtle Snorkle with Lunch excursion. It left port at 8:20 on one of those tour buses. The tour took us to the west side of the island to West Point beach and Lagun fisherman village. We snorkled with leatherback and loggerhead Turtles. I also spotted a White Sea snake. They obviously feed the turtles. There was someone banging the wooden pier with a mallet to attract the turtles. But we did get to see the turtles! There was also jellyfish there.They were not too harmful but be aware. Again, also lots of schooling fish.
We drove to the Shete Baka National Park to see an underground cavern. There are limestone bluffs above the cavern with spectacular views to Curaçao rugged north coast. The inlets in the park are protected turtle breeding areas.
The tour then took us to Knip, one of Curaçao’s most beautiful beaches. The tour provided a picnic lunch of chicken wraps, pringles and coconut cookies. We spent two hours there relaxing and taking quick dips in the water. There were lots of influencers there posing and taking pictures. Quite fun to watch them make faces and model.
At the end of our time there, we returned to the bus and found out that our bus had broke down and we had to wait for a new bus. It ended up taking longer than expected since the new bus had to drive in from Willaimstat and there was a political parade going on that blocked many of the streets. 50 minutes later our bus arrived and we were able to contiue out tour.
Next on the tour was the salt flats to view the flamingos. However, due to the political traffic we ran into a complete stoppage in the road. The bus actually did a three point turn in the middle of the road to turn us around for an alternate route. Since we were running late the bus took us straight back to the port. The ship was scheduled to leave port at 5:30 and we needed to be back on the ship by 5:00.
Sandy and I had signed up for a wine dinner with wines from Caymus winery. It started at 6:30 and ended at 9:30. We enjoyed 5 different Caymus wines throughout the dinner. The wines were excellent, the food was moderately ok. It was a small dinner with 10 other people. The sommelier described each wine before each course and the chef introduced the food for each course. The women sitting next to us were from Banff Canada and Alberta. Great conversations and possible plans to meet up in Canada with our camper. The wine was “unlimited “ so we had a couple refillls and took wine back to our room.
We enjoyed a nice last glass of wine with some meat and cheese on our deck before we went to bed. Tomorrow is a day at sea with no excursions, so we can sleep in!
