Saturday 14th Mar 2020
Step off at Willemstad and enjoy your visit to the capital of former Dutch colony Curacao. The four quarters of the celebrated city are separated by St. Anna Bay, the biggest harbour in the Caribbean.
Visit Punda, the largest and oldest quarter, for its beautiful 17th and 18th century Dutch-style architecture, and for the ‘floating’ market, where vendors arrive each morning by boat from Venezuela.
Today back on track berthed on the island of Curacao.
Another fantastic Caribbean island, beautiful blue seas, sunshine and palm trees. Our berth is just close to the centre of town with it’s pastel-multi-coloured buildings and the floating bridge.
Our choice is for an easy day so no rush to go ashore. This morning a full crew safety drill holding everything up for an hour or so, we were entertained by the crew practising the crocodile line walk, presumably for when visibility is reduced, just looks amusing.
After a bit of an unexpected shower it’s just a leisurely stroll into town for a look around.
Quite a few lizards wandering about the town along with the tourists and one spectacular Iguana hanging around outside the casino.
Back on board the scuttlebutt continues rife, of course it’s all about the covid-19 virus and what’s going to happen in Port Everglades/Fort Lauderdale. There hasn’t been much else for the attention of the shipboard gossipmongers, and you don’t even have to go to the centre of news on board, the launderette. This of course hasn’t stopped the ongoing enjoyment of the cruisers who party on eating and drinking, the real world seems almost other worldly in our little virus free cocoon of Queen Victoria.
The semi-official latest from the Captain is for us to proceed to Port Everglades to discharge passengers whose end port is there but no new passengers or crew will be allowed to board. Somewhat irrelevant to most from Europe who cant fly into the USA anyway. Many questions left unanswered mainly due to the rapidly changing situation.
The worldwide situation on cruising seems to be that pretty much all cruise lines are cancelling all their cruises for an unknown period, cruise ships seem to be a natural breeding ground for viruses in a normal situation and with coronavirus being so infectious it seems to make sense.
Soon after 5.50pm we sailed for Port Everglades, a distance of 1156 nautical miles.
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