Category Archives: Vacations

Back at Caracasbaii

November 29, 2012 Maurice 5 Comments

Thursday we returned to Caracasbaii – we had intended on swimming at the Seaquarium, but the wind was a bit high and because the snorkeling site is in the open ocean, often the waves are just too pushy! The water at Caracasbaii was very warm, very calm, and extremely clear! I’m not sure we’ve ever seen it so clear.

We snorkeled around the wreck as usual, and saw plenty of fish, but a short trek towards the new condo development was a new experience for us. And it sure was a lot of fun! The water is fairly shallow and we got to see some fun fish. One of Pam’s favorite fish is the spotted drum. Usually when we see them, they are hiding under rocks, so we never manage to get a clear shot of them. But this time, one fellow was just drifting along, swimming his song. Here is a movie Pam took of this black and white beauty.

We saw a couple of moray eels – a chain and a golden. We haven’t seen as many eels this time. Usually we spot lots of them, but maybe we were too busy looking at other fish to spot them. I think this is the first chain moray we’ve seen.

Another cool fish we’ve seen a lot of, is the scrawled filefish. It’s a very long fish, usually over two feet, but very flat, much like a flounder. It can change color from a deep green, to a bright blue, to light white. It’s very cool, and always catches your eye because of the length.

This last movie is of a lionfish. We haven’t seen any of them, until today, so that’s a good sign. This voracious predator looks lovely, but is totally deadly to the fish in the Caribbean. Pam took this hovering over the wreck. At the end of the movie, the lionfish suddenly darts forward – the speed of this fish is so deceptive. You simply don’t think it can zip along that fast, yet, when it needs to go, it can go!

The last picture is of a spindly little spider crab. They are about a foot across, but look as a delicate as a feather. Usually they scramble around the rocks, near sea urchins, looking for protection I imagine. This guy was hanging around one of the big pilons in the middle of the bay. Kind of a strange looking beast, eh? See the tiny little blue claws? Not much for eating!

Curacao, Vacations

Royal Sea Aquarium

November 29, 2012 Maurice 2 Comments

Wednesday we swam at the Royal Sea Aquarium. This is really a remarkable site, and we’ve always snorkeled here every time we come. The sea was a bit rough, but the water was so clear! It was a lot of fun. The place has amazingly huge coral formations, and just tons of fish.

The one fish that always stands out for me is the black durgon. We saw some coloration on them today that was just remarkable. I have a brief movie, that is far too jerky, and I apologize for that, but it’s worth it just to see the amazing color on this fish! (Remember: you can always put the movies in full screen mode, and see them in full 1080p HD mode.) The deep orange face, the bright blue and black body and the white striping — just wow. Love it.

We saw a blue fish with black highlights that we rarely see, and yet there were tons of them here today. We think they are creole wrasse, and this is the juvenile phase. (NOTE: this is a blue chromis, actually, not a wrasse.)

Not a lot to say about this great snorkel site, since I’ve talked about it lots of times before. I’ll just let you watch a couple movies and you can see what I mean. It’s pretty darn phenomenal. Of all the places we’ve snorkeled, this is top two… I can’t decide if Smith’s Reef on the Turks and Caicos beats this. One thing the Sea Aquarium hasn’t given us is turtles. If we saw a turtle or two, there would be no debate!

This next movie is of a school of surgeonfish, blue tangs and several black durgons join in the fun. I’ve posted lots of movies of these fish, but they are so cool. They just fill your vision with shades of blue and purple. Very relaxing to watch them cruise through the area!

We walked around downtown Willemsted in the afternoon. It was crowded with shoppers from the two cruise ships in the harbor. It’s a protected World Heritage Site, due to the unique architecture of the building lining the streets. But it’s also lots of fun. Lots of little shops, a big local craft market, restaurants of every flavor, street entertainment – just lots to do and see. There is even a floating market of boats from Venezuela which dock right by the downtown area. They sell everything from fresh fish to handicrafts.

Curacao, Vacations

Cas Abao on Tuesday

November 28, 2012 Maurice 2 Comments

We decided to head up towards Westpunt today, at the north end of the island. We’d been to Cas Abao the last time we were here and very much enjoyed it. It’s a nice drive through some interesting country, but you need to be on the lookout for hazards on the road. Check out the picture to the right to see what I mean!

There is a six guilder (about $3.50) per car fee to enter the beach and park your car. There is a further five guilder ($3) fee for a lounge chair, which you don’t have to pay, if you just want to plunk down on the beautiful white sand. The water is super warm, and super easy to get into. But the snorkeling is not as good as it used to be. Lots of the coral has collapsed and the stuff close in for snorkelers is good, but not as great as it was.

It is still a great dive site, and further out the coral is magnificent. But that’s at a depth of about twenty five feet. So, it’s great to look at, not so great for pictures. If you are a diver, it would be an awesome place. One of the cool sites we saw was this sharptail eel, out hunting. But he had a crowd hanging around him, a black barjack, a Spanish hogfish, a yellowtail snapper, a peacock flounder and sometimes a goat fish! It was quite the sight to see. I’ve uploaded a movie of it… it’s pretty deep at this spot, so not super clear.

I’ve also uploaded a brief movie just for Mike… it’s a meeting of all his buddies, probably wondering when he’s supposed to get here! Enjoy dude!

For dinner we went to El Forno’s, a brick oven pizza joint that also serves pasta, chicken, ribs and some great salads. I’d come here twice with Mike last time we were here, and one time was very nice, and one time was less than stellar. Well tonight was fantastic. We started with the El Forno salad which was a blend of greens served with a warm grilled chicken with pine nuts, bacon and fresh mozzarella cheese. It was to die for… absolutely super. We split a brick oven pizza – again – super good. I had a couple of profiteroles for desert and they were terrific too. The service was spot on as well. Friendly, efficient and attentive.

Curacao, Vacations

Monday at Caracasbaii

November 26, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

Sunday was a strange day. We had a nice long sleep and woke about half past nine. We had a nice cup of coffee, a leisurely breakfast, then got our stuff together for a swim. By the time we got to the car, there were a few drops of rain. By the time we got to Caracasbaii, visibility was about ten feet! The monsoon was on! And it kept up pretty much all day. There was a brief respite about one, but it quickly came down again. So the first day was a big write off.

Monday morning we got to Caracasbaii early and had a wonderful swim. The water was warm and delightful. Sometimes after a bad rain, the water is cloudy but it was crystal clear. We’ve been in this bay before so we know what to expect, and basically got what we expected! The one fish that really stood out for us was a trumpetfish. We’ve seen lots of trumpetfish, all over the Caribbean. But this guy was the King of Trumpetfish! He was sooo big we called him The Beast!

There are a couple of wrecks here, now teeming with corral, and surrounded by lots of fish, small to large. From the mighty tiny Juvenile tang, in yellow with a band of his future blue color rimming his body, to the porkfish with his bright yellow and black banding, to flounder skittering along the ocean floor, to larger needlefish, houndfish and trumpetfish, this site has it all.

If you look at the big picture of the beach, I’ve added a big black arrow to indicate where the wrecks are located. They are very close to shore, and you can easily reach down and touch them, but NO TOUCHING! I think one used to be a tug, but maybe not. There are a number of other parts to the ships, like the anchor chain, the motor etc strewn across the area. It’s a great first dive, with lots to see, in an easily accessible beach, within a ten minute drive of our hotel.

We had a nice lunch at “Papa’s” a beach side restaurant, where there was a local family celebrating their anniversary. There was live music, speeches, dancing and song. It was really great. The food was outstanding, too.

Like always, we have a gallery set up of all the pictures from the trip. I don’t reference all the pictures in each story, so take a look at the Curacao 2012 gallery to see all the pictures.

This is a short movie of some fish around the wrecks. It gives you an idea of the variety of life around it. Hope you like it.

Curacao, Vacations

We made it

November 25, 2012 Maurice 2 Comments

Just a quick post this Saturday morning. We had a good trip down. The flight from Seattle to Miami was delayed over an hour because the plane didn’t arrive from its previous destination because of winds, but they aided us in our flight! We arrived in Miami just a little late, but no worries for us since we had a four hour layover anyway.

The landing sequence into Miami is very impressive. The plane arcs over the ocean and you get long sweeping views of miles of coastline spotted with soaring towers and wonderful little islands with lovely homes. Sailboats dot the waters, and speedboats leave long wake trails as they speed along the coastline. Large fishing boats, and immense tankers lumber along. And wide highways carry cars and trucks across arching bridges. Quite the impressive sight!
When we landed, Miami airport is very nice. Wonderful shops, great restaurants and lots of art line every corridor. I’ve put up one photo of a plane, with a wheelchair for the pilot! Cute!

The flight to Curacao was short, under three hours and uneventful. There was a long line at the car rental though and we didn’t get here to the resort until nearly 5:30. So a long travel day to start the vacation. We went to dinner at the little rib shack that we’ve been to before. It was nice.

We slept a long time! Nearly 13 hours, so we’re about to get in the ocean for the first time. Talk later!

Aruba, Vacations

Some more about Aruba

January 17, 2012 Maurice 3 Comments

I’m writing this from home. We have arrived back to some nice snow and ice. Quite a change from the constant 85 degrees, sunny, palm tree-lined existence we’ve come to know and love for the last month! The last couple of days in Aruba we tried to get in as much swimming in the ocean as we could.

I’ve prepared some pictures of the last couple of days, and uploaded them to the Aruba 2011 gallery. I’ll reference some of them here, but there are others I’ve not posted in a message. As we pulled up to the parking area of Boca Catalina, we saw a rather unique parking job! So if you come to Aruba, make sure you know which way your car should point when you park!

One of the really odd things we saw was a gold colored barjack. The barjack is quite a fish – they are hunters, and come cruising through the ocean usually in packs of three or more. You see the smaller fish heading one way in a hurry, and usually if you look toward the region the fish are running from, you’ll see a crew of barjacks! There are a cool steel blue color with a black trim. So this gold colored one was really quite unique.

One of the funny things about snorkeling is that you get a “crew.” One theory is that the bubbles created by your fins, interest the fish and so they tag along with you. Another is that so many of the tour boats encourage their snorkelers to feed the fish that the fish think any snorkeler is going to feed them, and they are tagging along in case you decide to start feeding them. Whatever the reason, it’s hilarious to see the fish swimming along with you. And some of them can be quite large. The chub is one of the larger fish that joins your posse, but a lot of them are the Sgt. Major. The picture here was taken by Mike.

People seemed to like the bird movie, so how about this picture of a pair of birds? The pelican is coming in for a “dive bomb” while the smaller gull seems to be eyeing Mike suspiciously. While you are snorkeling, you can really get quite close to the birds sitting on the rocks in the water. They don’t seem to care too much about you until you get within a foot or two.

I really like the fish called a coney. It’s a really cool color, and very shy. They sometimes can be seen swimming with other fish, or even with another coney. They do not like to be around swimmers, and will rapidly move away if they spot you. I dove down and surprised a coney, and managed to snap this picture before he realized I was there.

I took this picture of Pam on our last night in Aruba. We decided that we’d go up to the California lighthouse and watch the sun set on our holiday. There was hardly a cloud in sky, so the pics of the sunset are not worth posting, but this one sure is!

We had a really nice time in Aruba. It was tough leaving that beautiful weather, wonderful water and nice people. We’ve come to really know the people at the Caribbean Palm Village, and that familiarity has really added to the special feeling we get in Aruba. We have come home to a considerable snow fall and cold weather, so we miss Aruba even more!

Aruba, Vacations

Finally!

January 12, 2012 Maurice 3 Comments

Today we headed south to Mangel Halto, a place we’ve only been once before. You walk down a ramp into a grove of mangrove trees. Birds chirp all around you, and there are a couple of openings through the dense mangroves that allow you to walk along sandy, shallow water until you hit the open ocean.

The water is shallow for quite a ways, then you hit the
coral. And what a coral forest it is! It’s a wonderful spot, filled with every kind of coral you can imagine, and it goes on for miles! It’s really quite a remarkable swim. The only downside is that the current is tremendously strong, and you must constantly swim against it.

The visibility was very good, and there were lots of fish to see, but it was just so much work to stay in place! Constantly battling the current really tired us out quickly, so we were not able to stay out there very long. We saw some cool stuff, but man, I’m not sure I’d come back here unless it was dead calm!

We came home for a quick bite to eat, then Mike and I headed over to one of our favorite, go-to locations, Malmok beach. Pam was too tuckered out from the swim at Mangel Halto. She’s been doing really great with swimming, and walking. Her physio coach is going to be impressed with her improvement! Even some of the ladies around the time share have commented on how much her walking has improved.

The ocean at Malmok was really clear, with great visibility. We saw some cool stuff, then we finally hit the jackpot! Yup, we got to swim with a turtle! First swim with a turtle this month! Mike had never been in the wild with a turtle before so it was pretty special.

He wasn’t a really big one, but hey, it’s the biggest one Mike’s seen! He cruised straight out into the open ocean, and we followed. After a while, we realized we were probably a kilometre or two off shore! It was indeed a tough swim back, especially after all the effort we’d expended in Mangel Halto earlier in the day. But it was worth it!

There is something special about swimming with a turtle. They move through the water with real ease, flicking one front paddle or the other. If you get too close, or he feels threatened, he kicks it into overdrive with both paddles flashing, and he can leave you far behind in a hurry!

We saw some palometas, a pretty cool looking fish, which we have seen many times. But these ones were so big! They were easily thirty per cent larger than any we’ve seen. The pic doesn’t really show how big there are, but you can see they have some orange color on their underside, which we’d never noticed on other palometas before.