I don’t want to be maudlin here, but I’ve really missed Max. I’ve been poking around the blog lately, and realized we visited an awful lot of parks around Surrey. So over the last few days, I’ve been going for long walks in the parks that Max and I spent so much time in. On Sunday, Pam and I checked out Sunnyside Acres Urban Forest, a relatively flat park where we used to jog a lot.
Yesterday, while Pam worked, I visited Tynehead fish hatchery, a park that has lots of squirrels. They are bold little guys, crisscrossing the paths. I kinda chuckled, thinking Max would of been chasing them into the trees in a hurry!
And today I went for a walk around Hawthorne park, in North Surrey. Max used to really love this park. It has big ponds full of ducks, and he’d give them a good chase! He’d go charging down to the water, and slam on the brakes just before the water, trying not to get his feet wet. Funny guy…
Well today I saw a duck I’ve never seen before! It’s apparently called a Muscovy duck, and it’s a strange looking bird. It’s not native to Canada, so I have no idea how or why it’s here. I’ve put in a short movie here, so you can see how it moves – almost like a turkey, really, it’s head bobbling back and forth.
Hope you all are well and enjoying spring in your neck of the woods.
We’ve had some crazy weather lately. Typical for Vancouver mind you – lots of sunshine, and lots of rain. We’ve been cutting the grass weekly since February mind you, so the spring has been pretty mild. Our tulips have sprung up and have given us a pretty good show. It’s funny, I dug up all the tulips last year, and mixed all the colors together. Then I randomly grabbed bulbs and replanted them. And it didn’t work out too well! Somehow, all the orange ones got back together!
I’m a little surprised with the Akebono cherry tree we planted a couple years ago. It was pretty showy last year, with lots of pink blossoms. But this year, it just seems to be going straight to green leaves, skipping the blossom stage all together. I guess I need to give it better fertilizer.
We had planted about fifty daffodils, but only about a dozen came up. I’m thinking the squirrels must have had a feed on them. It’s a mystery to me, that’s for sure. Our garden should be chock FULL of daffodils – we have purchased well over two hundred bulbs since we’ve moved in here, and yet only a dozen bloomed. I better call Sherlock Holmes!
Here’s a picture of Max, relaxing on the rug in the family room. He’s getting old, kinda wobbly on his feet. He’s had more bad days than good lately. He’s very unsteady on his feet, and can barely walk up and down the stairs. Mike calls him a cat – always asleep! Once a month or so he’ll toss a ball, but when we throw it to him again, he sits down. A long walk for him is three houses down the block!
After a difficult three-stage series of flights home from Aruba, we arrived in Seattle to no snow! I think this is the first time in six trips that we’ve done that. Seems every year, we’d take a trip around Christmas, and come home to snow. Not so this year. We grabbed the car, crossed the border and picked up Max, the wonder dog. Usually he’s a bit annoyed with us, and gives a good barking to, to let us know. This year, he was pretty eager to see us, and gave us only a bark or two of greeting while the gate was closed, and then came running over. It was a nice reunion.
Christmas was quiet, as Pam worked the 24th, 25th, and 26th. While there, she picked up the new strain of flu going around, that the head of the BC Centre for Disease Control says makes “You feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.” And trust me, she is not kidding. A couple days after Pam picked it up, I got nailed, and we’ve been struggling to just sit up since!
For basically a week, we struggled to do anything other than lay down and sleep, getting up to be sick, or let Max out. Today is the first day I’ve been able to actually sit up for longer than twenty minutes without getting dizzy and nauseous. Another couple of days, and we should be back to normal, whatever that might be for us!
Hope you all are having a healthier start to the New Year! Best wishes to you all!
(I’ve got a couple other things to post about our trip to Aruba, so hopefully I’ll get to them sooner, rather than later.)
Well, it’s the last day, and we’re feeling a little melancholy. The last few nights, we’ve been playing in the Glitz Casino, here at La Cabana. It’s a fun casino, giving us lots of play for our money. In fact, we have won most nights, although one night we lost a little. With all the free drinks they serve, it’s been a pretty amazing deal! It has meant we get up a little later than usual, mind you. Overall, we’ve enjoyed La Cabana, but the one really big negative has been the doors to the rooms. They are very heavy, and slam quite loudly. With the hallways being all tile, and the bedrooms right by the hall, it’s created some loud noisy echoing BANGS!
We spent a lazy day snorkeling around our favorite places, taking a last long look around, saying good bye to our fishy friends. There is a longish rocky shelf, under which a large porcupine fish resides. I’ve posted pictures of him hiding before. Today I dove down and grabbed onto the shelf, holding myself under for a long look around. Imagine my surprise when I found there were TWO big green moray eels under that shelf! If you take a close look at the picture I have posted here of the porcupine fish, you can seen the mouth of one of the green morays peeking out from in front of the porcupine’s head.
We saw something rather unique. This is a sea creature of some sort, we’re not sure what. He was crawling along the sand, rather slowly. It could be a small conch, but it’s an awfully dark color for a conch, so I don’t think so. I’ve done some little bit of poking around the internet, and it seems to be like a murex shell, but again – not really sure that’s what it is.
The Queen Angelfish is not that big, maybe ten inches would be a good sized one. They are a bright yellow and blue, and are active swimmers.
It’s always fun chasing them around trying to get a shot. Here are a couple of ones we took today that I thought showed them in a neat light.
We’ve decided to try a restaurant called The Queen’s for our last dinner here. It’s got really great reviews on Tripadvisor, and they serve Keshi Yena, a dish I really love that is a local Aruban specialty. Should be a fun night.
Thursday dawned with a wonderfully calm ocean, and perfect, beautiful blue skies. It’s going to be tough heading back to the normally cloudy Vancouver! We’ve been pretty lucky, weather wise this month away. Most days have been pretty darn good. Two or three were spoiled by rain, but overall, we really can’t complain about the warmth, the blue skies and the calm oceans. Pam took another great macro shot, this one features one of the locals, sunning himself on the rocks above the hot tub at La Cabana.
We took to the ocean around noon. And it was really great. Super clear water, and amazingly calm. Check out this self portrait! It’s how we’ve faced the world for basically three or four hours every day for the last month. Is it any wonder the fish are nervous when I peek under a rock at them?
We saw an amazingly huge barracuda today. Usually they don’t want to hang around snorkelers, and casually swim away when you try to approach. This one wandered off when we tried to get close, then came back a few minutes later. I swam after him to get a shot, and he slowed, turned and stopped. He remained stationary for a good ten minutes or more. We were taking pictures, filming him and a group of snorkelers from one of the ships started coming around. We said, “Hey, check out this big barracuda” – I’m always amazed how people miss seeing these fish that are so large! I said to one woman, “See the barracuda?” She looked at me, “Who me?” she says. I said, “Yes, look!” and pointed. Well, she looked, shrieked “HOLY SH**!!” and started swimming away as fast as she could move!
We saw quite a few turtles again, starting at the turtle grass just off of Boca Catalina. As we swam north to Arashi Beach, we spotted our friend the hawksbill. He’s a great looking turtle, and let me approach him closer than he has in the past. I guess he’s starting to recognize me! haha
I like this shot Pam took of a grouper next to some coral. They are a shy fish, usually trying to hide from the camera. Pam used to like to eat grouper, but she won’t anymore. She thinks they are too cute to eat!
Aruban waters have an awful lot of French Angels, and Pam is always distracted by them! They are larger than a lot of the fish, and are easily spotted. As you swim along, your eye is just naturally drawn to them. Here is a brief movie of three of them swimming along together.
Here’s a picture of another lionfish. They are such nice fish to look at, but such a pain! I wish there was some way we could do more as snorkelers to eliminate them when we find them. There has to be something we can do, other than take pictures of them! Some restaurants are starting to serve them, just not enough. With very few natural predators in Caribbean water , they are starting to decimate local fish populations.
One last day tomorrow in Aruba, then it’s the long flight home.
This trip has certainly been highlighted by the number of turtles we have seen! It’s been a rare day we haven’t seen several turtles. Tuesday and Wednesday were no exception with another half dozen or so sightings each day. The turtle grass we’ve recently discovered off of Boca Catalina had another four or five. Big ones and little ones, greens and hawksbills. It’s amazing how big some of them can get! The greens are usually between 250 and 450 pounds, and a couple we’ve seen have been on the high side.
While swimming toward Malmok Beach, there is a small reef. One green turtle was tucked under a chunk of coral, in fairly shallow water. When we started taking pictures, he started to swim around, quite unconcerned with us. He went for a long, lazy swim, towards Malmok, then circled back toward Boca Catalina in a big circle. The amazing thing was, there was no one in the ocean with us! Eventually we swam by a Dutch family of four, who had never seen a turtle. They were delighted when Pam told them we were following a turtle. The turtle took us on another big circle of both beaches. Eventually, other snorkelers joined in, and it was quite funny to see the turtle leading a pack of his own!
At Arashi Beach we came across a hawksbill in really shallow water too. I was swimming between two rocks whose peaks actually go above the water line, and coming toward me was this hawksbill! He took a gander at my ugly mug and turned and swam away! We followed him for a time, but he swam straight out to sea in almost a straight line. He wasn’t interested in leading the snorkelers on a conga line.
We saw some interesting stuff in close to shore at Arashi Beach. There were lots of little guys that have been tough to photograph because they dart in and out of the coral so quickly.
But today, once again the ocean was very calm and we were able to remain stationary over a single point for a long time, so we were able to get some of the more elusive guys, like the brilliant blue speckled juvenile yellowtail damselfish.
In the ocean, we often see fish cleaning other fish. The long needlefish getting cleaned by a juvenile french angel is one we see quite a lot, but they will not let us approach close enough to get a clear shot. Today we were able to see a smallish blue tang getting cleaned by a tiny French Angel. He was barely bigger than your thumbnail! The movie is fairly brief, so give it a look. It’s quite interesting.
Pam got a great shot of the mutton snapper. It even shows the blue streaks near his eyes.
We spent some time in the Glitz casino here at La Cabana. It’s a small intimate casino, with slots, almost all penny slots. There are a few gaming tables, that were quite busy. The drinks are free, and I’ve never been in a casino where the girls are so attentive! Not even Vegas keeps your glass as full as these gals! We had some pretty good success on Tuesday, so we didn’t mind going again on Wednesday.
Today was another calm, lovely day in Aruba. We slept in again, and got to the ocean around noonish. We checked to see if the green moray was in his home, and he was, but he didn’t come out at all, hiding under his shelf of rock.
We decided to go and see if we could see some more of the flying gurnards, and instead we saw the first of many turtles. That’s right, we saw an amazing six turtles today! It was absolutely unbelievable. We saw two really enormous turtles, one with a strange shell, with a ridge down the middle, and a concave shell, sloping away from the central ridge.
We did see lots of flying gurnards too, but this is easily the biggest we’ve ever seen. It had to be twice the size of the ones we saw yesterday. I’d say his wingspan was well over two feet. He was located a lot further south too, way down by the bait ball. The movie shows him under the fish first, then coming out from under (you’ll love this Karen!)
Another cool thing we saw was a strange bird hanging out with the pelicans along ridge overlooking Hadicurari. Not sure what the name is, but he was totally unconcerned about us. Maybe a cormorant? I dunno. The closer we got, the less it bothered him! The pelicans all hopped away, but he just stood there, kind of daring us to do something. So I splashed him with water! That finally got him to move.
While swimming along the wall, we saw lots of great fish of course. Pam got a great shot of the Night Sergeant, a fish who hangs around rocks, and like to get pushed around by crashing waves. He’s hard to get a shot of, because the water is usually so turbulent. But today was pretty calm, and she nailed him. Here is a video of a spotted moray eel, climbing up the wall. The video came out pretty nicely, so we decided to include it here.
We went to dinner at JH Yees, billed as an Asian fusion restaurant. It combined Japanese sushi and tempura with Chinese Szechuan and Mandarin dishes. The restaurant is on the second floor of a group of building close to the high rise hotels. It has a nice interior, highlighted with replicas of the Chinese warriors discovered in a tomb. There was a modern twist with unique architectural highlights, private rooms separated with curtains, and outdoor area and a unique central courtyard. Service was very nice, attentive and prompt, provided by Chiko, our Philippino waiter.
We started with Peking Dumplings ($6.25) for four plump juicy dumplings with a spicy pork filling. We split two mains, Orange Chicken ($19.95) and Szechuan Beef ($20.95). The white chicken chunks were deep fried, with a nice orange sauce, and served with fresh orange slices. Pam liked the flavour, but thought the chicken was a little dry. The beef was served with fresh vegetables, and was tasty. Singapore Noodles ($17.95) rounded out the dinner. They were very nice, tasty with lots of pork, shrimp and vegetables in a spicy sauce. I liked it a lot, but it could have had a few more noodles! With two Balashi, a Coke and 15% service charge, the total was $87.65. It was about on a par for what we’ve paid for Chinese food in other Aruban spots, but the ambiance was very very nice. I’d go there again.
I don’t want to be maudlin here, but I’ve really missed Max. I’ve been poking around the blog lately, and realized we visited an awful lot of parks around Surrey. So over the last few days, I’ve been going for long walks in the parks that Max and I spent so much time in. 
On Sunday, Pam and I checked out Sunnyside Acres Urban Forest, a relatively flat park where we used to jog a lot.
And today I went for a walk around Hawthorne park, in North Surrey. Max used to really love this park. It has big ponds full of ducks, and he’d give them a good chase! He’d go charging down to the water, and slam on the brakes just before the water, trying not to get his feet wet. Funny guy…
Well today I saw a duck I’ve never seen before! It’s apparently called a Muscovy duck, and it’s a strange looking bird. It’s not native to Canada, so I have no idea how or why it’s here. I’ve put in a short movie here, so you can see how it moves – almost like a turkey, really, it’s head bobbling back and forth.
