Category Archives: Aruba

Visits to the island of Aruba

Aruba, Vacations

Diving a wreck

Leave a comment

The wreck Around the wreckToday, Thursday, December 11, we woke up to a beautifully calm day, and the ocean was glassy smooth. So we headed north to a wreck that is easy to swim to from shore.

It was really quite something. Literally, MILLIONS of fish hang around the ship, inside and out.

The water depth is 6-8 feet so the viewing is fantastic. We saw tons of the usual suspects, plus some gorgeous French Angels. There was a huge trumpetfish. Man, what a big guy he was.

Queen triggerfishBut the real treat was the trigger fish. I love that fish – had a really cool experience with one in the Caymans, but this was the first one I’ve seen here, I think. He was a great looking fish, but he didn’t like to be photographed. It’s not a bad pic of him, but wish I could have gotten a beauty of him!

Pam divingWe did see a barracuda, but it was a smaller one, only about 2 feet. We also saw a couple of cool scorpionfish. They look just like a rock, so it’s really tricky to see them in the water.

ScorpionfishFor dinner, we headed out to an Argentine steakhouse called the El Gaucho. We’d heard good things about this place, and it took us a while to find it. As we were about to give up, we stumbled upon it. It was busy, as we were told it would be. We had a small wait, but they are associated with a small club, Garufa’s, across the street, so you can go have a drink, listen to the entertainment, and they’ll buzz you when your table is ready. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE – skip Garufa’s! haha That night’s entertainment was karaoke, and I take back any nice things I’ve ever said about karaoke. My ears are still bleeding.

Honeycomb cowfishThe meal, however, more than made up for it. It’s a beautiful restaurant inside. The tables are large, with leather/cow-hide seats. They serve you on wooden chargers. The waiter, a local Aruban, was funny, friendly and efficient. The food was unbelievably good. Our friend Jorge insisted that Argentine beef was better than Alberta beef, and guess what? He’s 100% correct! Easily the best steak I’ve ever had. Pete felt the same thing.

Lotsa fishFor desert, I had the tiramisu, and it was the best desert on the island. The meal was so fantastic I had to have a nice port and a Cuban cigar to finish it off in style.  The port was really nice, but the threat of divorce stopped me from the cigar! haha

Another fantastic day in paradise!

Barjack and a cuda Y-Knot Fishing
Aruba, Vacations

Wind in Aruba?

1 Comment

Windy day in AubaWhile we were researching Aruba before we arrived, many people commented on the Trade Winds. Most said it was nice to have the breeze of the trade winds to keep you cool on the hot days on the beach. One guy said, “let me tell you something – they are tradeWINDS – not Trade Breezes – it’s windy there!”

Fish at Baby BeachGuess who is right? Trust me, it’s WINDY here. Very windy. How windy is it? If Boeing had their factory here, they wouldn’t need a wind tunnel!

It sure makes for some tough swimming! The surf is quite high, and you need to be a reasonable swimmer to be tooling around in the water. So – of course – we were out there again!

Dog whispererThe water was so “tossed up” that it was tough to get good photos. We tried to get in at Arashi Beach, but it was too choppy, and so sandy, we decided to head back out to Baby Beach and hope for better conditions. It was nicer, and we were able to get in the water for an hour or so, but it was too much like work! hah

Attitude adjustmentWe headed back into town and had lunch at Senor Frogs. It’s a chain restaurant, that is all over the Caribbean and Mexico. I remember going to the Frogs in Mazatlan 30 years ago – so they’ve been around!

Simon Bolivar There is really nice bronze statue of Simon Bolivar, the great liberator. Not sure why he’s important to Aruba, since their National Independence was fought and won in just the last decade. But Aruba has many nationalities here, and lots of South American peoples are here. In fact, the friendliest people we’ve met here have been from South America!

We had dinner at the French Steakhouse. It was a nice dinner, with live piano music. He played some Christmas songs, but you know, it’s just not like Christmas when it’s 85 degrees, you’re sitting around in shorts and t-shirts and women are walking by in very small bikinis!

Mike at Senor FrogsWe finished the night with some gambling in the Alhambra Casino. The casinos here are smaller than in Vegas, and smaller than most in Vancouver too. A couple hundred slots, a dozen table games, and a sports book, and that’s about it. They allow smoking, which is fairly standard, but lots of men are puffing on big Cuban cigars, so man, the air is thick!

Aruba, Vacations

Monday in Aruba

1 Comment

Yellowtail damselfishToday we did some things we’d done before, so Mike could see the island. We took a spin down to Baby Beach, near the oil refinery. The weather was sunny and windy. (Big surprise!) lol

Black durgonThe fish viewing was great! We saw a ton of things, and a few scary ones! There were at least 3 big, badass barracuda. One was definitely full grown, at least 4 feet. The other was a slightly smaller one at about 3 feet and a third one was about that size as well.

BarracudaThe BIG one got annoyed at a school of tangs around it, and he gave chase to them – let me tell you, that was about the time I decided I needed a break! haha

Mike or Elvis?We had lunch at Charlie’s Bar again. It really is a crazy place – kinda nostalgic, kinda tacky, very friendly, and just lots of stuff to see. Every table has a RESERVED sign on it, so dang, you’re just so special the minute you walk in!

Caribbean reef squidPete and I got sunburned again. Apparently this sunscreen stuff is supposed to help with that, but being a tad thick, it’s taken me a while to warm up to the idea of it… Modern science! Who knew?

Pam and Maurice at Iguana Joes.We had dinner in the High Rise Hotel area, which was probably a mistake. It’s a very Americanized section, and the food is bland and boring. We tried Iguana Joe’s, which bills itself as the place with the best ribs on the island.

Ribs at Iguana JoesPeter and Pam thought the ribs were pretty good, but Mike thought they were the best ribs on the island, because it’s the only rib joint on the island! hah I had the mahi-mahi, but it was overcooked, the potatoes were gross, but the coleslaw was fantastic! Overall, give Iguana Joe’s a pass. It’s just not very good.

Aruban SunsetWe did have a pretty nice sunset tho! We’ve been trying to get some pictures of the sunsets, but we’ve done poorly. Finally Peter snagged a couple really nice ones.

Hope you enjoy!

Y-Knot Fishing Just diving in Barjack and a cuda First Sunset as locals
Aruba, Vacations

Sunday December 07

3 Comments

Coffee time!We picked up Mike Coffee time!from the airport on Saturday evening. He’s darned pale! haha Being new to the vacation thing, he wanted to watch a hockey game… (He’s confused – we’ll get him relaxed soon enough….)

So Sunday we had a leisurely breakfast by the pool. Then we decided to take him up north to the California Lighthouse and do a bit of snorkeling nearby. Note the size of those coffee cups! Pam felt they were a little too small, mind you!

Rain in ArubaWe stopped at the flea market to grab a t-shirt or two and some shorts for Mike…. Well – we kinda hit a bit of weather! Aruba typically gets 20 inches of rain a year – and we got about 10 inches in this downpour! Too funny – Mike’s first day on the island and we get rained on!

Pretty flower near the California LighthouseWe made it to the California Lighthouse, and the sun came out and it was lovely for the rest of the day. How about this flower? This was taken with the new camera’s “Super Macro” mode – not to be confused with “macro” mode…. Not sure of the name of the flower, but it was around the restaurant at the base of the Lighthouse.

Mike all wetThen we hit the beach. Some more yellowtailAnd did we pick a great spot! Some terrific fish to see and tons of stuff to see. Even the odd piece of coral! Mike is now hooked. He said, forget the shopping, let’s get right back to the ocean!

We had dinner in a nice beach side restaurant called Tulips. Pam and I had a local Aruban dish called Keshi Yena, a baked chicken dish with tomato sauce and cheese. It was sensational. The flavor was amazing. I’ll definitely be ordering that the next time I see it on the menu.

Aruba, Vacations

DePalm Island

1 Comment

DePalm islandI’m posting this late Saturday night, from our second condo. I’m going to talk about our trip to DePalm Island on Thursday. It has easily been the best snorkeling we’ve had on the island. Click on the pic to the left to get a panorama of the whole island.

Some touristsIt’s a cool deal – there is one price, and it’s for the whole day. They come and pick you up in an air conditioned bus, and take you to the southern part of the island. From there, it’s an easy five minute ferry ride to the island.

Pete on DePalmOnce on the island, there is a restaurant that serves an all you can eat buffet breakfast, with everything from french toast, eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, fruit, cereal, juices, yogurt – you name it, it’s there. That is available til 11 am. At 11:30 am lunch starts and again, a generous buffet lunch, that is served til 3:30. Again, all you can eat.

There is a bar that serves any mixed drink, rum, vodka, whiskey, pina colada, daquiris, beer, etc. This place also serves all you can eat burgers, hotdogs, chicken, fries etc. There are over 70 rides for the kids in the water park.

Blue parrotfish And then – there is the snorkeling! WOW – just spectacular. You can even swim out to a coral reef. DePalm Island tho, is famous for the Blue Parrotfish. And wow, what a great fish!

Blue parrotfishThe Blue Parrotfish is quite large, about as long as a person’s leg in some cases. They are extremely friendly, and very curious. They come around in schools of 5 or 6, and they will even let you “pet them.”
Feeding time!They want you to feed them and Pam and Pete did. They had tons of fish hanging around them and I tried to snap pic after pic! However, the Olympus sprung a leak and I was only able to get a few pics in before it died. Quite annoying – but now that Mike is here, we’ll head over again next week, so I’ll be able to put up some pics, since I have replaced the Olympus with the latest model.

All in all, it was a great day. Tons of things to see and do. Nice food, lots of it, and nice beach chairs, palapas, drinks…
Stoplight parrotfishSeldom does something so hyped, so talked about, so advertised, live up to it’s reputation. But DePalm Island delivered. It’s the coolest thing we’ve done so far! It’s definitely worth a repeat visit.

Aruba, Vacations

Wednesday

1 Comment

The exterior of Charlie's BarSorry, but I’m posting this on Saturday! We’ve been busy doing the tourist thing – shopping, laying on the beach, swimming, eating….

But Tuesday night there was a big tropical downpour, and it lasted almost 20 minutes! Man – talk about a deluge! It made the ocean kinda cloudy and the snorkeling wasn’t great, so we made the tour around the island again, catching Charlie’s Bar.

Sign in Charlie'sIt’s quite a place – it’s in the refinery town of San Nicolas and it’s worth the drive to experience the place. People from all over leave, or send, memorabilia and it’s quite the pile of stuff in there. Inside Charlie'sYou could spend three days just checking it out.

Charlie's bartenders.Unfortunately, we forgot our money, and we’d ordered and ate lunch and couldn’t pay so Charlie put us to work behind the bar for a couple hours.

We snorkelled Baby Beach again, but it was fairly cloudy from all the storm stirring things up.

——

Cool fishYes Mike arrives today (Saturday) – we change condos, moving close to the beach this morning. Yes the camera we bought on the internet arrived the morning we left. Some pics on the site are from the new one. My Olympus died – got some water in it and that’s that. So – I bought the new model here, and we’ll have some pics from it up tomorrow – it’s a 10.1 megapixel camera, and can be underwater to 100 feet, versus only 10 feet from my other one.

I’ll have more to post today – Thursday we were on De Palm Island and it’s great – I’ll save the details for later.

OH – BTW – if you click the GALLERIES link on the top menu, you can select the Aruba gallery to see all the pics i’ve uploaded. Most I’ve put into posts, but some I didn’t. It’s a cool slideshow anyway…. (you can even make it full screen to view them in the slideshow.)

Aruba, Vacations

If it's Tuesday, it must be Baby Beach

4 Comments

San Nicolas refineryYesterday we had explored the north side of the island, with the California Lighthouse. Today, (Tuesday) we took in the South End of the island, with the small town of San Nicolas which has an oil refinery. I was under the impression the refinery had stopped producing in 1985, but it sure looked busy!
Gecko
The south coast sure takes a beating from the waves, and because of the volcanic nature of the island, the waves sculpt the earth with the constant pounding. There are rock formations, created that are almost works of art! There are a number of “bridges” around where the ocean has worn away the lower sections. One for which Aruba is/was famous for has collapsed.

Molting geckoThe undulating topography of Aruba is in stark contrast to the flatness of the Caymans. One could even say there is a mountain on this island! There are a number of cliffs where the views down into the crashing surf are quite amazing.

Baby BeachAfter chasing geckos and looking for places to shoot the surf, we took a dip in Baby Beach.

It’s a very busy beach, the most crowded I’ve ever seen down here! And it’s little wonder – there is a naturally protected bay, with beautiful white sand that is quite shallow. It is sandy for quite a while. As you get closer to where the ocean enters the bay, suddenly TONS of fish fill your space!

Lotsa fish - Blue tangs etcThe ocean rushes into the bay at the point, and comes over some very shallow areas. The fish just sort of hang around the rushing water, and drift with the waves. The bad thing, is that the speed of the water stirs up the sand, and it creates a “haze” in the water that makes it tough to get a good clear shot.

FishWe did see some cool fish – trumpetfish, houndfish, stoplight parrotfish, tons of stuff. We even saw a little trunkfish, but he took off before I could get his pic. There were a couple of houndfish, and either a needlefish or a ballyhoo.

My water baby...I’d read quite a bit about Baby Beach, and people complained it was too crowded, too this or too that – take it from me – what Baby Beach is, is a place to go for a cool swim, to see some cool fish, and to be with people. If you’re looking for a quiet place to get away, then this is not the beach to be!

Buccaneer RestaurantWe made our way back downtown and had dinner in an ultra cool restaurant called the Buccanneer. It’s made to resemble a sunken galleon in one dining room, with aquariums lining the walls. There are all sorts of cool memorabilia along the walls, too.

The other dining room is dominated by 7500 gallon tank with 3 large sea turtles! I want to swim with one of those suckers! They also had a couple of barracuda closed off from the main inhabitants of the big tank.

Definitely a nice finish to the day!

Y-Knot Fishing Barjack and a cuda