Today – Sunday – we spent some time in the water, and some time doing a little exploring. We headed north to the California Lighthouse, but stopped for a swim at Malmok beach. The water was good and clear today, and we saw a number of fish we had not seen in the Caymans.
The water seems a tad cooler to me, than last year in the Caymans – not that it is difficult to get in or anything – it’s still warm enough to walk right in, but I do think it’s cooler. Some of the fish seem bigger too. The ubiquitous Sergeant Major seems to be fatter here! 
Maybe more tourists feed them! hah
After about 90 minutes in the water, we headed to the California Lighthouse for a beer and a rest. The view from here is pretty good. Aruba is not as flat as the Caymans, but it’s not like it has towering peaks, either!
After our rest, we headed back into the ocean at Arashi beach. It was a little rocky getting in, but man, was it worth it! We saw some Carribbean reef squid – very cool looking beasties that travel in schools of 20 or more. Big eyes and kinda alien looking. 
We also saw what we initially thought was a sea snake of some sort, but turned out to be a type of eel.
The coolest thing tho, was seeing some French Angelfish! In the Caymans, we bought a photo by a local favorite diver/photographer of the French Angelfish, but we never actually saw it in the water. 
Here in Aruba, we’ve seen at least a half dozen already.
For dinner, we headed to the Amazonia Churrascaria (steakhouse). It was quite an experience. There are no 
menus – they start you off with a big salad bar, and some pumpkin soup. Then they give you a little wooden peg, painted red and green. Put the green side up, and you’re going to get meat! They bring around meat, meat and more meat skewered on swords – if you want some, he cuts you off some. There was steak, and porterhouse, and filet, beef roasts, pork roasts, chicken, sausages, lamb…. you name it, it was there! Quite an experience!
Then we came home and lounged in the swimming pool and hot tub for a while. We ended the evening listening to some karaoke in the pool bar. It was lots of fun, with some real talent there… Simon Cowell better get his butt down to Aruba!
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hey guys – thanks for the comments! We have some pics of the complex and we’ll get them online in tomorrow’s post for sure.
We had a nice snorkel today at Caracasbaii. The wreck that is so close to the shore usually provides some fun stuff to see, but today was all about the side show. If you head to the right, toward the new building sites, there is a lot of very nice coral, in quite shallow waters. Today we saw so many eels, it was unreal. But the big show stopper today was an octopus. He was in about three feet of water, so we got to spend quite a bit of time with him.
He was one of the bigger octopus that we have seen, and he was totally unconcerned with us. Usually when you get close to an octopus they try to make themselves look big, and they go all white. This guy, not so much. I could get within two inches of him, and no reaction.
