We’re slowing down to the Caribbean speed limit. We are still trying to get internet into our apartment, with no luck. We were told 4 weeks ago it would take 2-3 weeks and we’ve heard nothing. We don’t get any responses from their email help system. sigh It’s very very annoying to have to go over to the golf club to get some wifi. Not sure how much longer I can remain sane without my daily internet dose!
We’ve been snorkeling all over the island. The one fish we’ve really missed is the Queen Triggerfish. It’s a beautiful looking fish, and I really miss seeing it. Going to have to go to Aruba for a weekend to see if they are still over there. Pretty sure it’s not much of a food fish, so maybe the lionfish has decimated the population. Pam reminded me if the program we used to use called Land and Sea picture fix, and it does amazingly quick fixes for our undersea pictures. Here is an example with a turtle out in Westpunt at Playa Grandi.
Our renovations are moving along quite nicely. The outside patio has been re-tiled, and they will be moving the doors on Monday, so that will be great. There will be a little re-tiling inside, and some painting to do as well. The picture here is a couple of days old – I didn’t bring the right camera to get the most current images, but I’ll post one in a couple days. The electrician has moved lights, and switches and installed a ceiling fan, so that work is almost all done as well. We might have the workmen gone by next weekend. That might be too optimistic, but hey, optimism is easy in the sunshine.
Our “stuff” including the car, has been delayed several times, and the new date for delivery is September 10. We’re hoping the renovations will be done by then!
Just a short note. We’ve taken Bailey to several places around the island, some loved her, some threw her out!
We went to a what was billed as a community market in the town of Barber. It is on Sunday, in the morning. It supposed to have plants, and crafts and fresh vegetables, and some stalls that sell food. Well, it’s not that. It’s basically a gathering of the town, with about 20ish booths. 17 sell food. One sells plants, one sells “crafts” and one sells a couple kinds of vegetables.
We were surprised to see kids screaming in fear of Bailey. Their mother was not impressed and tried to get the kids to appreciate a friendly dog, without much success. Every time Bailey turned her head, the kids ran screaming. An older woman confronted us and angrily demanded we get out. Dogs are not welcome here she angrily chastised us.
We take her with us to our daily WIFI ritual at the golf course, and she’s a star there. Everyone fawns over her, putting ice cubes in her water dish. The staff adore her, know her name, come over and pet her as soon as they see her. She just loves the attention.
She also loves to go in the ocean. She would always try to get in the Fraser River back in Vancouver, but only a few spots were actually good for her to enter. The cleanliness of the water is not that great on the Fraser sometimes, with al the industrial work. But here – Blue Bay is a great spot for her. The water is always gorgeous and blue. On the 11th of August we took her for a snorkel! Here’s a short movie to show what we mean!
We have been here a month now, and if there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s slow down. North American standards just don’t cut it here. You want quick service? You won’t get it here. There is a certain sociability factor involved that just won’t work in big city America.
For instance, a fellow we hired to do some work, did it quite promptly. We were told this was most unusual and don’t get used it. And they are right. No one else on the island has delivered like this fellow. But, when it came time to pay the man, it was most unusual. I literally had to chase after him to get him to take the money. We left emails, had phone calls with him, and finally we agreed to meet early on Wednesday. By six pm I was wondering if we had another no-show. But at 6:15 he calls and says he’ll be right over.
He arrives in minutes; hand shakes and greetings all around. We chat a little. I say to Pam, give the man his money will you? He laughs and says, there is no hurry, I wanted to talk to you about…. Suddenly I recall my Dad’s oft-told tale of purchasing a carpet in Egypt and how it was an all day affair. So we talk some more.
I offer him a drink, some water, a beer? He thanks me profusely and says a glass of water will be nice and a beer will be great. Great, which did you want then – the beer or the water? Oh first the water, then a beer would be nice. So we have a glass of water. I learn about his family. How he moved to Holland from Curacao as a young boy, but came home as a man because he missed the island. I learn he’s building his own home. That he has done all the electrical work, the masonry work, the kitchen installation. His sister lives nearby, and his uncles are just around the corner.
Then we have a beer. I learn he hates to do tile work, that his friend does amazing tile work. We should come by and see his new home, not finished, but half done. He talks about the various places to get tile on the island, and discusses their prices, their work habits.
I try to pay the man again. He says, well I need to get some paperwork, so we can do this professionally. I’m thinking oh no, I’ve got this bundle of cash, and he’s going to come back tomorrow with paperwork!
But no he has it in his car. Off he goes and he’s back in minutes. He asks for a pen, signs the paperwork in front of us with a flourish and proudly presents it to us. You see, he says, I have signed it here, and we can be professional about this. So we give him the cash. He counts the bundle several times, crisply snapping each bill to ensure none have stuck together.
He shows us how to use WhatsApp to deliver directions to your current location. It’s an extraordianrily helpful function of WhatsApp, which we already know how to do. He shows us how to use an appliance. We discuss coming over to see how nice his tile work is, since we are thinking of having some tile work done ourselves.
Finally we seem to have run out of things to discuss and the meeting concludes. After he has left we look at the clock and it half past eight! A little over two hours to pay a bill.
We stopped at Playa Lagun, up in Westpunt today, but there were so many people there, we couldn’t even find a place to park. And trust me, in Curacao, you can park anywhere! But it was so jammed we headed to a new beach called Playa Forti. We’ve eaten in the restaurant overlooking the bay, but have never snorkeled in it. There is a rather high cliff, where lots of people jump off into the ocean below. That’s maybe one reason we’ve never snorkeled there.
But… it was AMAZING! There is a nice sturdy set of stairs to get you down to the water’s edge, and it was quite easy to get into the ocean. It was beautifully warm, and crystal clear. Visibility seemed for miles.
Funny story about the cliff divers – locals jump off like crazy, some doing impressive back flips and the like. Well, a Dutch couple were going to jump in, a fellow with his girlfriend, being photographed from the bottom by another gal. The lady jumped in, and it was a bit of a belly flop and she kinda let out a moan of pain. The boyfriend looked over the edge, and that’s as far as he got! He completeley chickened out!
We actually saw some creatures we’ve never seen before! The brown garden eel keeps himself half hidden in the sand, waving in the water to catch plankton. Whenever a diver or snorkeler comes close, they retreat into the sand, leaving just their eyes poking out. We’ve never seen them before, and it was really quite majestic to see them waving in the current.
We saw a flounder – nothing new there – but this one was a tiny three inches long, and he was butting heads with a crab! He would ram the crab with his head, and the crab would stir up some sand. Then the flounder would pounce on the morsels that the crab stirred up.
Then there was a seahorse! This is only the second time we have ever seen one, the other time was in Aruba. We always look for them attached to coral, but this guy was heading across the sandy bottom. They are quite small, only about 2 or 3 inches and easily buffeted by the current. Cute little guy!
We saw a fish building a nest. He would take chunks of coral in his mouth, and place it on quite a significant little pile of coral. When I dove down to see what he was up to, he dove under the big pile of coral. Normally this fish would leave when a diver approaches, but obviously he was nest building and prepared to defend his home.
A great snorkel for sure – a beach we’d definitely come back to anyday!
We have been doing all those things one needs to do when they have moved into a new apartment. Namely renovations, including expanding the size of our suite by stealing space from our patio. Our patio is 18 feet x 12 feet, and we’re going to convert about half of that to inside space.
We decided that we wanted a second air conditioner added, so that any guests will have air conditioning – quite important at night. Makes sleeping so much easier. During the day, you live outside, eating, drinking, playing. It’s always warm, sunny, and breezy.
Construction on the new doors should start next week. We had an architect (Henk Bolivar) come in and examine the place, and he suggested that we don’t install an additional set of doors, but move the current set out to the new location.
Adding the new airco is a complicated process, with the compressors stored in a room near the front of the apartment building, while the control unit needs a place to discharge water. In order to add an additional unit into the apartment, we would have to go through another apartment – something that they could reject outright of course – and that could potentially add months to the process. Instead we have devised a plan to add the unit through the new construction! The result is that the entire renovation will solve all the problems, and look completely seamless and built in, rather than some jury-rigged add-on.
Henk, the architect, was one of the nicest fellows I’ve ever met. Jovial, forthright and funny, he couldn’t be a better fellow to work with. He kept saying, “Look, as an architect, we want things to be perfect as possible for the owner.” The idea we had had to add the second set of doors he described as a nightmare, and something we would not like. We were very pleased and surprised when he said just do it the right way first. Don’t settle for something – get what you want, and have it done right by professionals!
Everyone we have met on this island have just been great people. When they discover we are here to live, rather than just winter here, they are so excited! Welcome welcome welcome has been their response!
We’re becoming more and more comfortable here. Believe it or not, Bailey has made the transition easier. People are just completely charmed by her. A lot of Curacaon dogs are guard dogs, and are not friendly. Bailey of course, is a charmer. All the staff all ready know her name. When they see me without her, they wonder where she is, is she sick? They bring her a bucket of water with ice cubes in it! And she loves the attention they lavish on her.
There is an off leash beach here on the resort and we’ve jumped in the ocean a couple of times with her. She’s great with it, but a bigger wave spooks her and she gets out of the water. She always wants to drink from the ocean! The first time she did, it was a big mouthful that made her start coughing. She still takes a taste, but much smaller now. Her favorite activity is chasing the geckos – not much luck for her there tho. There are a number of cats on the resort and she tries to give chase, but they don’t run.
She prefers to lay outside in the sun rather than inside in the air conditioning. We were worried she wouldn’t like the constant heat (every day is around 33-35 C) but she loves it. The other big thing with her are the birds – there are so many large birds here. She literally stops in her tracks to follow the flight of a pelican or heron or flamingo.
Here is a brief movie of a pair of green moray eels – I realize we’ve uploaded a couple of moray videos already, but this one is quite cool. They are both sizable morays, with a slightly different color. I wonder if one might be female and the other male? I don’t know, but one was quite a bit bigger than the other – not so much longer, as it was thicker than the other. And watch how wide his mouth gets when he scarfs down that fish!
Just a small post to let you know we’re still around. Been a busy week – we are making some changes to our apartment – installing a new set of doors to expand the square footage of the apartment. Gives us another room, which we’ll use as our dining room. We’re also adding a second air conditioner so that when company comes, the living room will have an airco unit to keep them cool. We found a very cool furniture store that makes custom modern Euro-style furniture. We ordered a sofa that converts into a very comfortable bed. It will take a couple months to arrive.
We’ve been getting in the ocean almost every day. Playa Porto Mari has always been one of our favorite places on the island. It has gone through some renovations, and it’s looking sharp. We had a terrific snorkel there on Thursday and saw just tons of stuff. Finally saw a black durgon – the first trigger fish we’ve seen in a long, long time.
Another surprise to us has been how many green moray eels we’ve seen. They have been out free swimming, rather than hiding. Usually they are a nocturnal type, spending days hiding under rocks and shelves. We saw a little southern stingray, about two feet across. Quite fun!
We are having lots of fun on the island, getting used to how things work here. Laid back is definitely an attitude, as well as a way of life. Still, things can happen very quickly too. We bought an all-in-one washer/dryer, and they had it delivered in about two hours! Installation was complete the next day. Is that unusual? Well, the next day at our beach bar, someone came up to me and said, “I heard you got your washer/dryer installed already!” So there you go – not only was it exceptional, it was the talk of the island! haha
The snorkeling has been quite amazing. Some days the water is so glassy calm, it’s like laying on a bed. Yesterday, was a bit rougher, and visibility was a bit murky, but still quite clear. I’ve uploaded a movie about turtles at Playa Grandi to YouTube. It was compiled with a new app called ShotCut… it’s a Windows Movie Maker alternative, since Microsoft decided to drop Movie Maker from Windows 10. Not bad for a first stab I think – it’s four clips in the one movie.
The apartment building we are in is going to be having fibre optic cable installed for internet, but there is a slight delay because the conduit for the cabling is too small! They had hoped to have it ready for August, but it will be delayed a bit while new conduit is installed. it’s a big job, but they think it will be ready in just a couple months. So, we have to take our computers to the beach for wifi access. So, I’m not doing long blog posts, but short twitter updates. You can access my twitter feed at https://twitter.com/CuracaoCanuck
We’ve been snorkeling all over the island. The one fish we’ve really missed is the Queen Triggerfish. It’s a beautiful looking fish, and I really miss seeing it. Going to have to go to Aruba for a weekend to see if they are still over there. Pretty sure it’s not much of a food fish, so maybe the lionfish has decimated the population. Pam reminded me if the program we used to use called Land and Sea picture fix, and it does amazingly quick fixes for our undersea pictures. Here is an example with a turtle out in Westpunt at Playa Grandi.
Our renovations are moving along quite nicely. The outside patio has been re-tiled, and they will be moving the doors on Monday, so that will be great. There will be a little re-tiling inside, and some painting to do as well. The picture here is a couple of days old – I didn’t bring the right camera to get the most current images, but I’ll post one in a couple days. The electrician has moved lights, and switches and installed a ceiling fan, so that work is almost all done as well. We might have the workmen gone by next weekend. That might be too optimistic, but hey, optimism is easy in the sunshine.
