The small picture is of Oranjestad, Aruba. (Sorry it is small) I still have trouble with the scanning. Sometimes the pictures are big sometimes not. I need help in that area. The other picture is of my granddaughter, Heather (Darrell's daughter). She came to see me yesterday. We had lunch and a nice visit. She was surprised to see what is going on with the house. The last time Heather was here was for the "Christmas Eve Party" during the December blizzard. I told Heather I have a blog now and gave her my blog address. She has "My space" and showed me a picture of her boyfriend. He goes to college and will be graduating in two years. Heather is taking classes too and she also works for Best Buy in Puyallup.

On with the diary. Today is my oldest son, David's birthday. 50 years old today.

Ok, next page from my diary---

Thursday, February 15, 2001---

4:20am. We are now 44 nautical miles from Aruba. The temperature is 78 degrees. How incredible. I have to keep reminding myself that it is February. The report now says strong gale. Waves 13 to 20 ft. I am going back to bed for awhile.

6am. The ship has been rocking for hours now. It will seem strange when it stops. I slept good. I like the rocking when you are in bed.

The sea is starting to calm down. The report now says "Fresh Gale". The waves are only 4 to 8 ft. now. We are 17 miles from Oranjestad, Aruba. We have traveled 1,725 Nautical miles from Miami.

The Capital of Aruba is Oranjestad. It is one of the Netherland Antilles. We are about 20 miles from Venezuela. Aruba is 19.6 miles long and 6 miles wide at its widest point. It is approximately 74 square miles. Approximately 80,000 people live on this small island with 17,000 of those living in Oranjestad. The official language is Dutch.

8am. We haved docked at Oranjestad now. We went to breakfast. We sat next to a couple from Michigan. They had been married for two years and wanted to go on a cruise for their anniversary. It was their first cruise too. She said she was seasick all day yesterday. She said she laid in bed all day and couldn't move. She said she felt like she was going to die. She said she took some pills but it didn't do any good. She said she will never take another cruise. Too bad. It must feel like morning sickness when you are pregnant.

After breakfast, Clayton and I walked off the ship. All the shops are right close to the pier. We took the free shuttle and rode around town twice. There is a very beautiful casino there and a lot of people got off the shuttle there. Since we are only 20 miles from Venezuela, people fly to Aruba to gamble because gambling is not allowed in Venezuela.

Aruba is a very beautiful island. The streets are just beautiful greenery, flowers, palm trees everywhere. I was talking to a tourist guide and he said this is a very safe island. I think he had Jamacia in mind but did not say so. Because apparently Jamaica is not. Also he said they never have hurricanes because the island is out of the hurricane zone. Even though the streets are clean, they are very narrow. I couldn't believe all the cars. At 10am, it looks like rush-hour traffic.

We will be docked until 12:30am. We have traveled 1,742 Nautical miles since leaving Miami. There is a strong breeze but it feels good since the temperature is 77 degrees. One thing I will say about these islands is that they do not give you good hair days. There is always some kind of breeze. I suppose otherwise the island would get too hot. The tourist guide says the temperature stays between 75 and 85 degrees all year. The high today was 82.

Tomorrow will be our last port. We will be arriving in Willemstad, Curacao at 8am. Donna,Laif, Diane, Frank, Clayton and I are all signed up for the "Sunset Catamaran Cruise". It scares me a little because a couple of people I talked to call it the Rum Party Boat. You are supposed to be able to drink all the Rum you want. Donna says they have non-alcholic drinks too. The people I talked to said the tour was noisy and wild. I guess I will have to be brave and go since the rest of my family is.

We had dinner and went to the show. We saw the show they had to cancel. We missed the one with the Piano Entertainer which was given at 11pm on the same night we were in the gale.