The last couple of days have been sun and sand. We’ve gone to the beach, done some snorkeling, had dinner and basically taken it easy. As Mike likes to say, “we’re on vacation!”

Wednesday was kind of cool. Pam and I swam out to the turtle grass near Boca Catalina and saw a couple of turtles (naturally!) but while swimming a little further south we saw a stingray. Now that’s something we’ve never seen in Aruban waters! That was quite cool. Our pictures didn’t turn out that well, but I’ve put a little movie here so you can see him.

On Tuesday we saw another giant “bait ball” – a large school of fish with about a billion fish in it. There were several ceros running herd on it, moving it north. Pelicans swooped in for a tasty morsel every now and then, and you had to be careful to get out of their way. Mike nailed a couple of shots of a wily seagull catching a ride, then a snack from the pelican!

We took another drive up to the California Lighthouse to snap some sunset shots, but it was spectacularly lame! So we took a couple panoramas and called it a night. I like this one of the lighthouse with a big billowing cloud. And of course Pam likes the silhouette one of the palm trees. Maybe we need to have a vote??

Some of the local guys hanging around the pool at Caribbean Palm Village don’t even wear a suit! (Some of the guys wearing speedos you wish they had bought boogie shorts instead but…) Here is one of Pam’s favorite locals.

It’s been interesting on this side of the resort. The pool has been less crowded, I guess because it’s a bit smaller. But it’s also been a bit louder, since this is the side where the daily games are played. Still been nice, but I kinda miss “our side” of the place!