Wednesday and Thursday

December 13, 2012 Maurice 1 Comment

The weather has been quite windy the last couple of days, so snorkeling has been less than stellar. The water has had pretty big waves, and the visibility has not been great. It’s kind of disappointing for Mike, with his abbreviated vacation as it is, the not so great conditions are almost not fair!

Wednesday was rainy to start, and we never really got going to do anything. We spent a while in the water at Malmok Beach, but it was pretty cloudy for most pictures. We ate dinner in, so it was a pretty quiet day. We wandered around the Paseo Harencia, the local mall that’s open late for tourists, but surprise! We didn’t buy anything – no watches, no jewelry, no masks! Amazing.

Thursday we decided to check out the museum housed in Fort Zoutman in downtown Oranjestad. It’s a smallish museum, but quite interesting. They have displays of early Aruban life, when the Arawark Indians lived here. They follow it up with the Spanish conquest and elimination of the native population, through the slave cultures of both the Spanish and Dutch. There are displays of early tools, fishing implements, and music instruments. It’s a nice way to pass an hour or two.
We decided to try Mangel Halto again, the tricky snorkel site, but it was very rough. So, on down to Baby Beach, and it was just as rough. On the way back, we took Mike the “back” route through to Casabari rock, sometimes called Aruba’s Stonehenge. It seems to have been some sort of meeting place, perhaps a religious site. It’s origins are really unknown, but it’s very old.

We snorkeled a bit more at Malmok Beach, but the water clarity was not great great. We did see a turtle, but basically it was just a swim in the ocean!

For dinner, we went back to Barney’s for their All You Can Eat Rib dinner. We were here a few days ago, and the hostess, bartender, and waitresses all welcomed us back! It was nice to be recognized. Service was again impeccable. And the first serving of ribs was impressive and large! It was served with vegetables, coleslaw, and fries. None of us could order any more ribs! The one plate was enough.

As we were leaving, the hostess (and partner to the bartender/owner) came over and shook our hand, and said, “Thanks very much for coming back. I hope everything was good.” A very nice touch.

Aruba, Vacations

On the Wall

December 11, 2012 Maurice 2 Comments

Today (Tuesday) the three of us went over to Boca Catalina, and swam south, towards Oranjestad, and the area we call the Wall, rather than north towards the Lighthouse, and Malmok Beach like we usually do. It’s a rather long swim to the Wall, but it was a different swim. We saw a turtle within five minutes of hitting the water, so it seemed a good sign.

There was lots to see, of course, the most unusual being the flying gurnard. It looks like a sand diver, but it has “wings” which it spreads when it wants to take off in a hurry. There were quite a lot of them in this one particular area. It was fun diving down trying to get them to spread their wings so we could get a shot.

We saw an eel, a type we hadn’t seen before. He was rather small, only about a foot, but he had perfectly shaped yellow polka dots on him. We were not able to identify it with our fish bible! I’ve talked of the Wall before, so I won’t bore you with talking of the bait ball, and it’s amazing contortions. There seemed to be a lot more birds today. I guess word is getting out that lunch is plentiful!

There were a number of porcupine fish. We never get tired of checking this guy out. He’s like a balloon under the water, with a big smile. I watched him by these rocks, and he kept his eye on me. The waves kind of push you around a little, and because he’s so buoyant he gets sloshed about too. As he was watching me, a wave washed in, and it made him crack his head on the rock! First time I’ve ever seen a fish get bonked!

Another interesting fish we got a shot of was the black margate. He’s a pretty shy fish, and we rarely get a decent shot of him, but today he seemed to be more interested in checking us out. Not a bad shot of him…

Aruba, Vacations

Everywhere Monday

December 10, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

Monday we got started late, since some guy from Vancouver slept late… real late. Pam decided to have a suntan day laying by the pool, so Mike and I headed to Mangel Halto. It’s a pretty tricky snorkel, since it’s basically in the open ocean. You want to do it when the current is nice and calm. Well today was not that day! We arrived to the beach to find it very rough so we decided to give Baby Beach a go.

We jumped in but the current was really bad here too! We spent maybe twenty minutes in the water and decided to head north again. Mike has never snorkeled “the wall” before, and it’s a spot Pam doesn’t really like to go, so we jumped in. It was really terrific.

I’ve already talked about the amazing bait ball and the enormous number of fish that make it up, so I won’t belabor that point. Suffice to say, it’s a remarkable thing! We got a couple decent shots of some big barjacks and ceros that kind of patrol up and down the edges. There were lots of coronet fish too. And a good sized barracuda. I messed with the image of the barracuda a bit, kind of making a “painterly” effect – not sure that’s effective, but it’s different anyway.

We stayed in water quite a long time. There was lots to see, and it never gets old watching the movement of the big bait ball. There are three large ceros that lead a big group of big barjacks up and down the outside of the fish which is really quite neat to see. I’ve never seen a cero that large before. Now we’ve seen big barjacks, bigger than here, but I don’t think I’ve seen such a large grouping of barjacks this size before!

For dinner we continued the hunt for good ribs. We headed over to Iguana Joe’s. It’s in the highrise hotel area, so a little more touristy. The service is quick…. it’s a high traffic area so they try to get you in and out in a hurry. We all had ribs. Mike and Pam had the “original ribs” and I had the dry rub ribs. The ribs were very meaty, and tender. They liked the sauce a lot. You had your choice of sides – all nice, but nothing spectacular. It was a decent meal. But I just had the impression you could have the same experience just about anywhere, not just on Aruba. But, it was nice to sit outside in the warm weather and watch all the people go by.

Aruba, Vacations

Weekend blues

December 9, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

Mike was supposed to arrive on Saturday, but he got delayed in LA and consequently missed his connecting flight to Aruba. He had to spend the night in Virginia, then make his way to New York, then to Aruba. He managed to finally arrive on Sunday late in the day, about 2:30 pm. But at least he’s here!

We got his stuff to the condo, fed him a sandwich and a beer, then we all changed, and headed right over to Boca Catalina. As we got into the water and swam for a bit, I mentioned that the other day, we’d spotted a turtle right around where we were. No sooner had I finished saying that, Mike said, hey look a turtle! It was the smaller green turtle, and we followed him for a while, until two women started tailing him. One reached out and made a grab for him, and he showed us how fast a turtle can go in the water!

We spotted a lot of lobster today – enough for dinner! (No no, we didn’t take the lobster for dinner!) They like to hang out under rocks during the day, so it’s tough to get decent shots of them. I think this one turned out ok.

Later on, we saw another turtle, the little hawksbill, but he took off like a shot. Not sure what spooked him, but man, when those little guys want to go, they can just fly! It’s amazing how fast they can go.

We saw lots of eels, a couple of octopus, lots of French Angels, some porcupine fish, a lionfish… it was a pretty full spectrum of fish. Saw pretty much everything you can see in these waters except maybe the barracuda.

For dinner, we tried a new place quite close to our condo called Barney’s. It’s a rib joint, but we got there too late! The ribs were sold out. I had what was called Ron’s Favorite, which was shrimp in a garlic sauce, served with stir fried vegetables, and au gratin potatoes. It was very nice, although I could have done with a bit less garlic. Pam had the Dutch combo, two skewers of chicken, served with salad, coleslaw and fries, with a peanut sauce. It was very good too, and an amazing deal at $11.50. Mike had the beeftips served in a mushroom gravy with Dutch potatoes and veggies. I don’t think he thought it was great, but he enjoyed it.

We all had appetizers – Pam the rib soup, Mike the leek soup, I had firecracker shrimp – all were very good. BUT – we ate WAY too much food. Certainly did NOT need the appetizers. The service was very nice. They had a piano player, so it was a pretty nice place for dinner. No problem recommending this place at all. In fact we are heading back there Thursday night for the all you can eat ribs special!

Not a bad first day in Aruba for Mike.

Aruba, Vacations

Friday fun

December 7, 2012 Maurice 3 Comments

The wind was still strong today, so we were a little worried about what the viewing would be like. We went back to our favorite hang out, Boca Catalina. We saw a couple large iguanas sunning themselves and managed to get one to pose for a picture. We had a pretty easy entry to the water; the waves were a bit high, but no bother!

The visibility was really good, not cloudy at all. We saw lots of fun stuff. One of the coolest fish today was the coronet fish. He’s a big long fish, with a kind of whippy tail. Sort of looks like a trumpetfish, but the tail is different. He can change from light green to brilliant blue.

There were just tons of eels today. Not sure why, but seemed there was one under every rock! For the last several years, there has been this rather large porcupine fish under this ledge at Malmok Beach. We had not seen him this year – until today! It was good to see him back in his hiding spot. We were worried that the lionfish had forced him out of his home.

We even got to get a pretty decent shot of a soapfish. This fish is extremely shy, and always slips under a rock the second he sees a snorkeler. If you try and take his picture, he scoots away… we’ve got tons of shots of the back of him! But today we managed to get him in the open and snap a decent one.
We went over to the Palm Beach mall and strolled around to see what’s new. One of our favorite restaurants, the Casa Tua Mediterranee, is located here, but it has closed! That’s too bad – it was a great place to eat. Pam found a friend here at the mall… they had a little dance together.

Sunset was nice. We parked on Eagle Beach and watched it go down. Just as the sun was disappearing a sailboat drifted by… a pretty cool ending to a pretty darn nice day! I’ve included a picture of our pool and hot tub, and stuck an arrow on it, locating our apartment. We’ve stayed in this one before – it’s a great location – ground floor, with a little patio, steps to the pool and hot tub!

Aruba, Vacations

Snorkeling the wall

December 6, 2012 Maurice 2 Comments

Yesterday was a bit windy, so Pam didn’t want to head in the ocean. I decided to try the wall, a section of beach where there is very little easy access to ocean. It’s guarded by an army of pelicans, which can be quite vicious, you know!

I was rewarded with a spectacular display by the fish! I don’t even know what to call it. I’ll just let his movie say it all. (ADDING THIS NEXT DAY – I should mention that this group of fish went on and on, for well over a kilometer. We’ve seen bait balls like this before, just never this big!)

I’m also adding this brief movie from yesterday that Pam took of a stoplight parrotfish munching on some coral. It’s a fairly large fish, in the two foot range. If you have your sound on, you can even hear him crunching the coral.

Aruba, Vacations

Baby Beach

December 5, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

Today we headed to the south part of the island to check out Baby Beach. We basically have to drive the whole length of the island to get there, so it’s a nice way to see it all. There is some road construction going on, so there are a couple of detours. They added signs to make finding Baby Beach very easy. It used to be quite a challenge, but now anyone can find it. And it was quite crowded! Big Mama’s little food hut is now a very large restaurant, with big wooden chairs and tables – no longer the cheap folding lawn chairs stuck around a mobile kitchen.

They have added some buoys and markers to warn people about different water depths, and riptides. Well, today they did not need any of them. The water was calmer than I’ve ever seen it there. We could easily exit the bay, and get into the open ocean. Usually you have to swim like a maniac to get through the channel, but today the ocean had hardly a ripple. It was really amazing to see how many black durgons were out there! WOW. Literally hundreds of them out there! There was also a very pretty Queen Triggerfish swimming with them. (The black durgon is a type of triggerfish.)

Baby Beach is really three swimming sites in one. The “Baby” part is a beautiful white sandy bay, with water barely waist deep. There are no rocks on the bottom, so it’s just terrific if you want to wander around the warm water, splashing and having fun. It’s very popular with families, since kids can easily have a great time in the shallow water and soft sand.

The second part is the channel, where tons of fish like to hang out. It’s where 99% of the snorkelers go. And with good reason. You get to see most everything the Aruban waters have to offer, from large barracuda to the smaller damselfish.

Then there is the northern portion of the bay with enormous coral formations and larger fish. For some reason, most snorkelers never head over there. It’s my favorite part though! The coral is just enormous, as big as the formations at the Seaquarium on Curacao. Baby Beach was quite crowded, but just Pam and I and one other snorkeler was on this side.

Pam has taken lots of videos of lots of kinds of fish. I’m going to include a couple in this post, so you can see various fish we’ve posted pictures of, actually swimming! This one is of a couple of foureye butterflyfish. Normally, they swim in pairs, but often there will be more, with a young one. This video is cool since it shows a pair, joined by a little tiny guy.

These two shots are of the same fish, called the yellowtail damselfish. The blue one is the female, and the primarily yellow one is the courting male.

The Spanish hogfish is a favorite of Pam. The split colors are nice to look at, and no two hogfish have the same split in colors. This one has quite a dark yellow; some are much brighter in color.

To reach Baby Beach, you have to cross a section of scrub land – wild desert, with huge cactus. And several roads traverse this way and that, on which you need a four wheel drive. There is a lot of animal life, if you have sharp eyes. On the way out, we saw a “herd” of the famous wild donkeys. It’s not often you get to spot them!