Curacao – a slice of Amsterdam in the Caribbean…

Quote of the day: “I think I’ll stay on the ship today and read my book. Once you’ve seen one Caribbean island you’ve seen them all.”

Today completed the ABC island hop (Antigua, Barbados, Curacao). This was my favorite of the three by far. It’s small enough to get around the main town centre on foot, while being large enough to be interesting.

All the buildings are painted different pastel colours. The story goes that a Governor of the island, way back, complained that all the white buildings in town were giving him migraines, so he ordered that they be painted different colours to prevent this. Then after his death, it was discovered that he held shares in the local paint company… Hmmm. The fashion, however, caught on and has continued until today. It certainly gives the town a cheerful appearance.

I spent quite a while wandering around the shops, but not a lot were open being a Sunday. I was amazed though to see so many women from the ship in the jewelry stores. Surely they’ve done them to death by now?

Last night I managed to pick up a ticket for a tour that had been sold out for weeks. Lucky once again… so I did the semi-submarine thingy out on the coral reef, and got to see some of the tropical fish close up. Even though the boat doesn’t dive down, you sit below the surface, and it feels like you’re much deeper than you are. Very enjoyable, heaps of fish, but the reef was looking a bit sad.

The boat set off from one of the resort hotels. Now that was a lovely spot, where I could quite happily have stayed for a week or so. Just a shame that it’s such a long way to come back again…migration is very tempting though!