Well, we’re on the move again. Pam and I left Vancouver on Friday, and flew to Chicago. It was on an Airbus, a great plane, that’d I take over just about any Boeing. The seats are wider, there is more leg room, and the flight crew was really terrific. The flight was uneventful, but landing in Chicago we discovered rain and fog had delayed our connecting flight to New Jersey’s Newark Airport.
Chicago’s airport, at least the United terminal, is a tired worn out old boat. There are simply not enough seats for people waiting for their flights, and the place look really drab. However, we each got a great salad from a restaurant called Mediterranean Tampenade. Nice fresh food, terrific fresh crab, tasty chicken salad – really nice food. Could be the best airport food we’ve ever had.
The delay in Chicago wasn’t a big deal, but we got stuck in a little Boeing plane, with narrow seats, no legroom and because the flight was jammed, no place to put our carry on but under our seat. Luckily it’s a short flight, and we managed to make it quite quickly, in well under two hours.
Newark is a nicer airport, roomy with comfortable seats, but it does not have free wifi, and no way will I pay eight bucks for the couple of hours we were there. Our flight into Bonaire was delayed for over an hour. Then we boarded the plane, and two people who had checked baggage did not board the plane, so there was a further delay waiting for their luggage to be removed. We left one hour and forty five minutes late, arriving in Bonaire just 20 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave for Curacao. Which meant we’d miss it, since we had to pick up our baggage and go through security again! sigh…
So while I tried to find our baggage, Pam went to the DAE checkin and got them to hold the plane until we came. They told us we had to come now, or miss it – so we left our luggage in Bonaire, but DAE told us they’d send it on to Curacao. So here I am in Curacao without luggage again!
We tried a new way to get a rental car – a process complicated by the fact they aren’t allowed on the airport grounds to disperse cars or pick up clients. It went surprisingly well, and we saved over 100 bucks for the rental. It’s a nice enough car, complete with all insurances. Our luggage showed up at 11:30 am, so we were able to grab it from the airport. Ah well… the joys of travel!
While walking back from parking our car at the Royal Sea Aquarium, we saw a smaller spotted eagle ray, right from the bridge! Have only seen one of those before, and that really briefly with Mike.
So even though we were pretty tired we went and got our suits on and jumped in! We just puddled around, enjoying being back in the ocean, with all our scaly friends. First day pictures are rather poor, so not much to show you. I will say though that the breakwater has really developed! Just tons of interesting things to see and lots of coral growth. It’s definitely looking good!
I’ve included a brief movie of the eagle ray – give it a few seconds and he approaches very closely to where we’re standing. We didn’t see him when we got into the water, but one of the staff here said that the ray has become a resident here, so we’re hoping to catch him in the water on another swim.
Oh – our room is pretty terrific – it’s on the third floor and looks right out over the dolphin pool! We’ll have a picture or two of that over the next few days I’m sure!
(I’m posting this and heading to bed – so if the movie is not there – patience, as I was going to bed, it said there was 10 more minutes to go…)
