Tag Archives: porcupine

Final Friday in Aruba

December 21, 2012 Maurice Leave a comment

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.

Curacao, Vacations

Caracasbaii and Royal Sea Aquarium

October 25, 2011 Maurice 6 Comments

Today we headed just south of our hotel and snorkeled at Caracasbaii. Pam and I have snorkeled here before, and it’s kind of cool. There is a submerged tugboat, and it’s a very close to shore. You can park within five feet of the beach, and just walk right into the water. It’s a nice sandy entry, very level. The ocean was calm and warm, and really clear – the visibility was astonishing! As soon as our faces hit the water, we saw a flying gurnard, only the second one I’ve ever seen in the wild. Quite a cool sight!

The wreck is not very deep and it is covered with coral, Christmas tree worms, and fish! We saw a couple of moray eels hiding near the top, close enough you could reach down and touch him. The Hull is filled with lots of schooling fish.

We saw all the usual suspects, parrot fish, chubbs, sergeant majors, trumpetfish, filefish, wrasses, morays… And being so shallow you can can really see everything up close! It’s really a great place to snorkel. I’d say it is on a par with the Royal Sea Aquarium, but for different reasons.

The bluehead wrasse is a quick, darting fish, that is difficult to photograph. Seems every time you point the camera at him he darts quickly away. I’ve included this photo because somehow I managed to nail him! Shocking!

We saw several morays, but this gold colored fellow was only about 3 feet from the surface of the water. He kept his eye on us, and would retreat into his little cave if we got too close with the camera.

Another fish we have trouble getting a picture of is this red colored guy. I’m not sure what is name is, but he’s very shy, and usually hides under rock, shelves or pieces of wreck. He only came out into “the light” because he was chasing another fish and I happened to be there with the camera turned on.

I have purchased an underwater housing for the camera this year and I’m quite disappointed with it. It bulky, cumbersome and heavy. It’s awkward to use the zoom button, and every operation requires both hands. It’s impossible to dive down, and use one hand to take a picture, so I’m not getting the shots I want. I would not recommend you get this housing if you’re a snorkeler. It’s also impossible to use any of the special feature buttons, like macro mode. And turning on the film mode, is hit or miss at best.

For the afternoon swim we headed back to the Royal Sea Aquarium. It was just terrific again. The highlight was seeing the largest green moray eel I’ve ever seen! Mike said he was big as a house, but I think he exaggerated, he was as big as a small apartment! The pictures we took of him do not do him justice, but I’ve added a movie at the end of the post… pretty impressive beasty.

We saw another queen angel, and she was very large too! We’ve seen some impressive examples of this fish so far, but this beauty is the best so far.

We spotted a porcupine fish, another shy fish. They hide in small caves, under ledges, or wherever they think you can’t see them. It’s difficult to get a good shot, because you always have to dive down to get the shot, and as I mentioned, this housing has made those shots even more problematic for me. But here is a funny one of him – it looks like we’ve photoshopped some white teeth on to him, but no, this is really the shot!

Enjoy the movie!

Aruba, Curacao, Vacations

Saturday move to Aruba

May 31, 2009 Maurice 4 Comments

We said good-bye to Curacao and returned to Aruba on Saturday; the short flight was nice and quick. We grabbed the rental car and were checked into Caribbean Palm Village by two. It’s nice to be back in Aruba. It’s smaller and cozier, and both of us commented on how we feel comfortable here.

We quickly got our stuff together for a dip in the ocean. We chose a site just north of the wreck, with a nice sandy entry to the water. There was a Pelican catamaran there, so we figured that it was a snorkeling trip. At first, we wondered if we’d picked the wrong spot – then blammo! Did we see some happening stuff!

As we went around to the right, there appeared to be a cave. I said to Pam, I just know there is a cave there, but I don’t have the guts to swim into it. Down near the bottom, I saw a movement, that looked like a large log, and turned out to be a large porcupine fish! He’s a shy guy, and when I snapped a picture of him the flash went off, and it startled him. Later on, we found him again, shyly hiding in a small hole in the rocks. I have a small movie of him, that I need to edit a bit, but I’ll get it up tonight or tomorrow. He’s a cute guy.

We saw another chain moray and stalked him for a while. I’ve got a cool movie of him slinking around, too. He didn’t seem to really care that I was stalking him, and he spent as much time staring back at me as I did staring at him!

We hadn’t really seen any hermit crabs, but we’ve seen a couple in the last couple of days. Here’s one who has taken over a conch shell. When I approached, he seemed to get very agitated and tried move off.

We had dinner at Sole Mare, an Italian place five minutes from the Caribbean Palm Village. It was magnificent. Wonderful food, wonderful service. I had the veal pizzaiola, and it was simply fantastic. So tender, the sauce was piquant without being spicy, and came with steamed vegetables. Pam had lemon chicken and it was great as well. The coffee they served was the best I’ve had anywhere in the Caribbean.

Truly a memorable meal.