Tag Archives: pelican

Lazy days

Goats on a cliffThe last couple of days have been sun and sand. We’ve gone to the beach, done some snorkeling, had dinner and basically taken it easy. As Mike likes to say, “we’re on vacation!”

A trupial

Wednesday was kind of cool. Pam and I swam out to the turtle grass near Boca Catalina and saw a couple of turtles (naturally!) but while swimming a little further south we saw a stingray. Now that’s something we’ve never seen in Aruban waters! That was quite cool. Our pictures didn’t turn out that well, but I’ve put a little movie here so you can see him.

Pelican and friend Thief!

On Tuesday we saw another giant “bait ball” – a large school of fish with about a billion fish in it. There were several ceros running herd on it, moving it north. Pelicans swooped in for a tasty morsel every now and then, and you had to be careful to get out of their way. Mike nailed a couple of shots of a wily seagull catching a ride, then a snack from the pelican!

We took another drive up to the California Lighthouse to snap some sunset shots, but it was spectacularly lame! So we took a couple panoramas and called it a night. I like this one of the lighthouse with a big billowing cloud. And of course Pam likes the silhouette one of the palm trees. Maybe we need to have a vote??

A palapa panorama A cool panorama Local wildlife

Some of the local guys hanging around the pool at Caribbean Palm Village don’t even wear a suit! (Some of the guys wearing speedos you wish they had bought boogie shorts instead but…) Here is one of Pam’s favorite locals.

It’s been interesting on this side of the resort. The pool has been less crowded, I guess because it’s a bit smaller. But it’s also been a bit louder, since this is the side where the daily games are played. Still been nice, but I kinda miss “our side” of the place!

Couple of bird movies

TroupialHere are a couple of brief bird movies… the first is of the troupial – it’s a wonderfully colored bird, that has a distinctive voice… it’s too bad this bird is busy munching on a piece of bread, because it is really quite a nice song that he has. It is a type of oriole, and you see them pretty much all over the island. This was taken at Boca Catalina, and four of them were flitting from one divi divi tree to the next.

PelicanThis second movie is of a pelican. Now, just how close do you think you can get to a pelican? The answer is pretty darned close! Check out how close Pam gets before he takes off!

This was taken while we were in the ocean just off of Boca Catalina beach.

Swimming about

Pirate shipWe had a relaxing day today. A short little swim at the beach where we encountered the large bait ball a few days ago. The pelicans were still there, maybe even more! The bait ball was still there, but seemed smaller than before, maybe my imagination.

Blue striped gruntWe swam further north that we had the other day, and encountered a really cool environment. It was quite a bit different than anything we’d seen on Aruba. It seemed more rugged, less spoiled. I think it’s because there is really no easy beach access. We had to swim quite a ways to get to it from our entry point.

Parrotfish We saw some neat fish here. There was another HUGE school of Caribbean reef squid, probably the largest we’ve seen yet. I think we’ve seen more squid this trip than all the others combined.

There was a strange pink/red parrotfish which we can’t find in our books. She had blue lips, and blue markings over a mostly pink body. She was not shy and was completely unconcerned about us diving around her trying to get a good photo. I’m sure it’s not a mature fish yet, so she’s going to be even more colorful when full grown.

Needlefish There was a huge school of needlefish, which seemed to be taking the place of the palomettos of the other day. That is, they circled the bait ball, keeping it tight together, while diving in for a snack whenever they wanted. These fish swim within a couple of inches of the top of the ocean, hardly ever going deeper than a foot. Cool looking fish, and there were some quite large ones here too.

Striped gruntThere were lots of schools of grunts, and snapper just drifting on the waves. We saw a couple of big barjacks, and Pam saw a couple larger fish, perhaps a Cero. They move so fast it’s almost impossible to get a picture unless you have your camera on, and pointed in their direction.

LobsterThere were lots and lots of lobster. Must have been a party, because we could have fed half of Aruba with all the lobster there! Seemed every rock that had a shelf under it had a couple lobster hiding under it.

Here is a short movie of the pelicans diving into the bait ball. The seagulls land on their heads, and sometimes reach inside the pelican’s pouch, looking for tidbits! It’s pretty funny to see, actually.