The “B” in ABC stands for Bon Aire. You already know Bon Aire decided they had enough cruise ships, and didn’t need one more. The “C” is for Curacao. We did a self guided walking tour of Curacao. It’s a very attractive town, as Danita demonstrates.

Curacao has a unique and interesting bridge arrangement, including the Queen Emma pontoon bridge. It appears to block all ships, making the cute draw bridges useless. But it actually has a hidden and clever secret. I’ll put a photo-story on the website for those who are interested.

The first pic is of one of the clever draw bridges, the second is the Queen Emma bridge. Emma has no draw bridge capability, but ships have no trouble getting by. That third photo is not a “oops — bridge to nowhere”. The entire bridge disconnected from the road. The blue boxes have outboard motors that swing the bride up against the other shore. The fourth pic shows the bridge reconnecting with the road. The last pic reveals Emma’s secret. On the opposite side, one corner of the bridge is connected to a hinge. The other is on a wheel that allows the bridge to swing along the side of the river.

We did A for Aruba last of all. We took a tour to the other side of the island. Instead of seeing endless white sand beaches, we saw cave paintings circa 1500 and a very impressive cove.

Tomorrow we visit Half Moon Cay. This is a private island owned by the cruise line. It features miles of white sand beaches, chairs, and hamburgers on the grill. There’s a pretty good chance we won’t bother getting off the boat.

We aren’t really taking a 21 day cruise. We are taking a 10 day cruise followed by an 11 day cruise. We don’t have to pack up and change rooms, but there is a down side. Taken in turn, our schedule starting today is sea day, Half Moon Cay, Ft. Lauderdale, Half Moon Cay, and sea day. That’s 5 days in a row on the ship, with nothing more than live entertainment, movies, and a pool. We will have good food that we don’t have to cook and don’t have to clean up after. Life is hard.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.