Arriving in Aruba

The man on the Shore Excursions Desk had told us it was usually a rough crossing when approaching Cartagena but that the stretch from Cartagena to Aruba was normally OK.

As we set off from Cartagena, the captain's sea state forecast mentioned waves of 2 metres.  As that was what we had on the inward voyage we wondered if the man on the desk was right.

Well, he was and the 24-hour crossing was smooth.  The wind was still gale force and we seemed to be running dead against it, so it was extremely breezy, even in the sheltered deck areas.

That said the wind is a beautiful temperature as it caresses the skin and the only thing to worry about is the strength of the sun's rays on your skin because the wind can lull you into thinking that you aren't burning when you might be.

We could see the port in the distance and there was clearly one ship already docked, one of the Aida set of German cruise ships.

More tourists arriving

Our final approach seemed to take for ever as the ship's pilot inched the 126,000 tons of vessel towards the quayside in the very strong wind.  As good luck had it, the wind was blowing in an offshore direction, but the docking area has a particular additional hazard - a sand bar or reef running parallel to the quayside, providing a fairly narrow channel to work within.

For ages after we seemed to have finally moored against the quay, the ship's stern and bow thrusters were working hard to keep the ship alongside the dock while many a rope was put in pace to secure it to its moorings.

Oh, look - a Starbuck's we don't have to go to!

Made it!

We had visions of the time when we were on the Queen Mary 2 docked in Zeebrugge in very strong winds when some of the mooring lines snapped, he bow broke free and wedged the stern against the quayside.  At the dame time the gangway had fallen into 30 feet of water but fortunately nobody had been on it at that moment.  No such problems this time round.