Sunday, August 13, 1995 - Curaco

While Roy slept, I took a little walk around. Went up a high hill and had a great view of the area. Then I walked to an ATM. Was happy to discover it not only accessed U.S. banks, it even offered me a choice of U.S. dollars or Dutch guilders. The ATM in Aruba only gave me Aruban florins. After breakfast, we rode the 11:30 bus to Spanish Water, which is a large bay. Unfortunately, we found ourselves on the wrong side of it. We could see a lot of large sailboats anchored out, but where we were there were only small, shallow-draft boats. Roy didn't feel like walking, so he sat on a bench in the shade while I tried to walk to the yacht club and marina to get information. The road didn't follow the perimeter of the bay but went out into the country. I walked about three miles and didn't find either the yacht club or the marina, although I could see the water and sailboats. I came to some sort of beach club and talked with a Dutch girl, but she had no idea where the yacht club or marina were. I would have kept going, but my stomach started yelling that if I didn't put some food in it right away, it would tell my teeth to bite a big chunk out of my arm, so I turned around and headed back towards Roy and the bus stop. I was almost there when I saw the bus coming, so I flagged it down and got on. There sat Roy. He had eaten a delicious but expensive bowl of fish soup at a little restaurant, so his tummy was happy. We got back to Punda at five past two and immediately headed to McDonald's. It was closed for siesta! First time I ever heard of a McDonald's taking a siesta. The one in Aruba didn't. Went to the boat and ate some lunch. After three, we walked to Baskin-Robbins. Roy ate two scoops of ice cream and a scoop of sherbet, and I had a super luscious banana split with three scoops of ice cream, strawberry and pineapple toppings, whipped cream, nuts, and maraschino cherries. Haven't had anything like that in years. It was delicious! So now my poor tummy is happy again. We spent the rest of the evening Royaking around the Schottegat, which is the name of this huge commercial harbor. I think it's at least as large as San Francisco Bay. It took us several hours to explore one little corner of it. It's very active, too; freighters, tankers, container ships, and automobile carriers from all over the world keep going in and out. Also barges. We saw a Dutch naval vessel, a lot of small boats, and even some nice sailboats. Saw a large old sailboat from St. Thomas that had once been a beautiful, expensive boat but is now sinking. It still has thousands of dollars' worth of equipment on it that no one seems to be interested in salvaging. There were also some rusting old ships and barges.