18 October 2017; Oranjestad, Aruba.

We knew it was going to be a windy day and we were not disappointed. There was a very strong wind blowing and during our stay it reached gusts of between 35 and 40 knots. That is Gale Force, except there was no storm. It was just very windy, a sort of Turbo Trade Wind blowing. On top of that we did not have the most ideal dock. The two big boys, Adventure of the Seas and the Caribbean Princess where at the regular cruise terminal, which makes sense because then you direct the largest flow of visitors over the shortest distance to downtown; and the Zenith that had an overnight stay was in the side dock, which is too short for the Nieuw Amsterdam. The Freewinds, the cruise ship of the Scientology Church, was in the next side dock and thus we had to content ourselves with being at the old container terminal. Aruba has now a new container terminal, close to the airport and the old one is currently used for the cruise ship overflow. They have big plans to develop this dock as another large cruise ship dock but that has not happened yet. Thus the bollards and mooring arrangements are still laid out as for cargo ships. Not for apartment buildings that catch an awful lot of wind……. As we had today.

The Caribbean P on A, Adventure o/t S on B, Fairwinds on C, Zenith on D and Nieuw A. on E. This chartlet shows the new street car / tram line they have going now for a few years. When they finish the new terminal it will no doubt be extended. (Diagram courtesy Aruba.com / Mr. Allen Morrison)

At the other docks we have extra bollards, more inland which can take lines exactly perpendicular to the average direction of the wind but not here, so things were not ideal. Also we had bunkering today so for most of the day a large bunker barge/ship docked alongside us. The idea of blowing of the dock with a barrel of oil alongside you and then to be blown onto the reef on the other side of the harbor is something not to be contemplated so the Captain had ordered a tugboat on standby in case the wind would pick up even more. The harbor of Oranjestad, officially called Paarden Baai (Bay of Horses) is protected by a reef which runs along the whole length of the port. Great for breaking any strong swell coming in, not so great if you blow off the dock and otherwise could have drifted to sea safely.

Spaghetti Junction with the ropes of the Zenith and the Nieuw Amsterdam sharing bollards. We would have loved to have had some more bollards inland, there where the two people are standing or even beyond.

The name Paarden Baai dates from the Spanish and Dutch Colonial days when this corner of the island, the most sheltered from the ocean swells, was the landing point where horses were brought ashore for use on the islands. A practice long time gone but the name stayed. As far as I can figure out, the Zenith docked at the location where this original landing spot once was.  All the docks including the new container terminal and the airport are all at the south side of the island taking whatever shelter there is from the prevailing winds and from the leeside the island offers protection against the swell. Same at Curacao and same at Bonaire, the other two larger Dutch islands just to the east of Aruba.

The large empty space of the former cargo docks. Plans are in motion to extend the dock where now water is seen and then build another cruise terminal on this location,

Although Aruba is nominally still part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands its focus is much more towards the USA where the majority of the tourists are coming from and to Venezuela were the oil is coming from that was originally brought to Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao by The Royal Dutch Shell tankers from lake Maracaibo. The Shell tankers are long gone, the oil is still coming but the refineries are less prominent than they used to be and the main focus is now on tourism. And with over 11000 guests coming from the cruise ships they did not have much to complain about to day.

Because the refinery is so close by this is an ideal location to load fuel for the ship and the chief engineer’s fuel bill today went well over a $100,000. Still it was cheaper than the $433,000 the captain had to pay to get his ship through the Panama Canal. We had today a fairly long stay, departure was a 20.00 hrs. and once the last tired shopper was back on board we set sail for our last port of call, Ft. Lauderdale. We will have two days at sea and the first day is expected to be windy and rainy, with some dense showers coming over.