Barney’s | Snorkeling the ABC Islands

The weather has been quite windy the last couple of days, so snorkeling has been less than stellar. The water has had pretty big waves, and the visibility has not been great. It’s kind of disappointing for Mike, with his abbreviated vacation as it is, the not so great conditions are almost not fair!

Wednesday was rainy to start, and we never really got going to do anything. We spent a while in the water at Malmok Beach, but it was pretty cloudy for most pictures. We ate dinner in, so it was a pretty quiet day. We wandered around the Paseo Harencia, the local mall that’s open late for tourists, but surprise! We didn’t buy anything – no watches, no jewelry, no masks! Amazing.

Thursday we decided to check out the museum housed in Fort Zoutman in downtown Oranjestad. It’s a smallish museum, but quite interesting. They have displays of early Aruban life, when the Arawark Indians lived here. They follow it up with the Spanish conquest and elimination of the native population, through the slave cultures of both the Spanish and Dutch. There are displays of early tools, fishing implements, and music instruments. It’s a nice way to pass an hour or two.
We decided to try Mangel Halto again, the tricky snorkel site, but it was very rough. So, on down to Baby Beach, and it was just as rough. On the way back, we took Mike the “back” route through to Casabari rock, sometimes called Aruba’s Stonehenge. It seems to have been some sort of meeting place, perhaps a religious site. It’s origins are really unknown, but it’s very old.

We snorkeled a bit more at Malmok Beach, but the water clarity was not great great. We did see a turtle, but basically it was just a swim in the ocean!

For dinner, we went back to Barney’s for their All You Can Eat Rib dinner. We were here a few days ago, and the hostess, bartender, and waitresses all welcomed us back! It was nice to be recognized. Service was again impeccable. And the first serving of ribs was impressive and large! It was served with vegetables, coleslaw, and fries. None of us could order any more ribs! The one plate was enough.

As we were leaving, the hostess (and partner to the bartender/owner) came over and shook our hand, and said, “Thanks very much for coming back. I hope everything was good.” A very nice touch.

Maurice has done most of the posting and I wanted to come on and gab a bit. 🙂 I wanted to say a big thank you to Peter and Mike for coming with us to Aruba this year and for helping us make memories. We had a fun time and I was so happy that they both decided to join us.

Next year’s winter holiday is already in the works and we know we are going to be going to Oyster Bay Beach Resort in Sint Maarten, in the Caribbean. Could I go to the Caribbean every year for winter? NO PROBLEM! Sign me up. I love it. We have so much fun snorkeling and exploring. 2007 we had a holiday with Maggie and Tim, 2008 we had a holiday with Peter and Mike, and 2009. Maggie and Tim are joining us. We are already in planning mode and will be bookmarking a lot of St. Martin sites so we will be informed before we go. One thing we do know, the snorkeling will be swell as our resort appears to sit right on a coal reef.

http://www.oysterbaybeachresort.com/

Max did really well at Romp Around, where Anna Maria and Brian took great care of our boy. They said he is welcome back anytime, so that’s great. Anna Maria knows the chow temperament so that helped. 🙂 When we first went to pick Max up he was barking and when I talked to him his tail went a mile a minute and he was good with me, but Maurice got a barking reception. Max was showing him he felt M was responsible for leaving him, however that was short lived and they were soon best buds again. 🙂 He settled down in the back seat and we got home Sunday afternoon from our trip.

I have to be honest and say it was not GREAT to be back as you’ve seen we arrived to snow and cold cold weather. Here in LA LA land we don’t expect that. As M said, we didn’t sign up for this! I am back on holidays again but will putter around the house and stay warm. The roads seem to be clearer tonight as a plow came through and cleared the roads here in our cul de sac.. this morning there were cars having a hell of a time trying to get out, and guys were out trying to shovel the roadways, not just their driveways, to help
people get out. The snow on the roads was about 1.5 feet in been ruts and only trucks and 4×4’s seems to be able to get out, a van was spinning and stuck in front of our house for a bit but he got going before we had to help lol Anyways the first thing I started doing was looking for some last minute cheap airfares OUT OF HERE so we could escape this winter freeze… us who had been in 29C + now enduring this -6 lol quite a shock to our nicely tanned hides.