Anna's Adventures: Cruising to South America, heading to Aruba

On Jan. 10 we pulled into Aruba for the day. Linda and I were excited about going sailing and snorkeling along the coastline.

A view of the ship from the ship that we would go sailing on.

As we left the ship and walked along the dock this sign greets everyone using the port to come to Aruba. I thought it was kinda neat. Everyone there seemed to be happy and rum punches flowed freely.

Robert, our skipper for our sailing/snorkeling day. I hate to admit that Linda and I were both extremely disappointed over this, especially in the way it was advertised for us. Our sailboat was a trimaran that was severely overloaded with passengers wanting a day on the water. Not only was it overloaded it was a sailboat in name only. As the mainsail was raised it was ragged and torn, with a rip that a competent sailor would never let go unrepaired.

So our sail turned into a powerboat ride, with a raised mainsail being beat to death. It was an hour to the reef where we were supposed to snorkel. The reef was really just some rocks off of a beach in about 12 feet of water. There were lots of sea urchins and some fish, but no coral or very little coral or beautiful colors to see. We had about 30 minutes to play over these rocks before the anchor line was pulled up and we moved to another site; a wreck from the forties that loomed up from deep water. Again we had about 20 minutes over the wreck.

There was a lot of current over the wreck and someone who wasn't a strong swimmer was immediately swept out of the area. I had taken my own snorkel and fins with me and was very comfortable that I could handle the current or any other problems that might occur. But a lot of the passengers weren't strong swimmers or comfortable in the water. They didn't stay in the water long. Linda didn't go in at all. The crew on the sailboat was less than helpful and I found myself lending a hand to other people as they tried to re-board the swim ladder and balancing people or supporting ladders to help. I was last one out of the water. I was not pleased and I told the cruise ship that in a survey. This was the only complaint I had about the whole cruise.